To keep a diary regularly day by day is a capital
training in methodical habits. Many, having made up their minds to keep a
diary. Begin writing with great zeal and fluency for a few days, as long as
they’ are carried on by the novelty of the idea: but after a time they get
tired of their self-imposed task and their industry begins to flange. When this
happens, the diary gradual becomes scantier and more irregular, until at last
weeks and months are allowed to pass without any entry being made.
The best way to avoid this “lame and impotent conclusion,”
is to fix a definite time every day for writing the diary, and not to allow
oneself to be diverted to anything else at the appointed time. It is also well
to restrain our inclination to write at great length at the commencement of the
diary, so that ‘.SE may be less likely to take a distaste to the work, and may
be the better able to keep our Irresolution of making regular entries every
day, In this way we shall give due importance in our chronicle to the
successive events of our life, and find our diary a source of pleasure and of
profit.
When we are writing letters, we often find our
ideas fail us, and are unable to think of anything not write about. In such a
strait as this, a reference to our diary, if it has well been kept, is sure to
suggest something that is likely to interest our friends, and we are saved from
the necessity of sending off a meager letter not worth the price of its
postage-stamp.
A diary is also of great use to a student, as it
enables him to take periodical retrospect’s of his work. Macaulay in his diary
kept a record of the books he read. If we follow the same excellent practice,
it will help us every now and then to look back and determine whether we have
been washing our time or not.
A diary should also make us more accurate than we
could otherwise be. It is surprising what unprecise statement men make
sometimes about their own past experience. A great safeguard against such
inaccuracy is to have an account of what we actually saw and did, clearly
recorded in black and white.
In all these ways the keeping of a diary may be
found to be profitable employment of one’s leisure. It is also likely to be a
source of pleasure to future years, when by its help we recall to mind some
half-forgotten episode of the past, and in imagination live over again the
happy days that are gone. The diaries of eminent men, besides giving pleasures
to their authors, are full of interest to the world generally. The lately
published journal of Walter Scott enables us more thoroughly to understand and
admire the character of the greatest of novelist. The diary of Pepys is not
only delightful reading for an idle hour, but also is of great value to the
historian from the flood of light it throws upon the day of Charles II.