Guest post by Aleksandra Ferek, a first-year student at Swansea University, studying English Literature with Creative Writing. She joined us on a Swansea Employability Academy placement, and was tasked with looking through the private journals of Welsh industrialist and Liberal politician Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn (1814-1892).
When I was younger, I used to write diaries. I needed few notebooks a year; I was in such a period of my life that the journal was the only place where I could express myself, my feelings, and my views.
Now I’m no longer writing, but I remained deeply amazed at the whole idea of journaling. I love reading diaries and memories of famous people. Diaries are access to the author’s private thoughts; using those can get us into the human psyche. And sometimes, maybe even some spicy secrets.
Imagine that you are reaching for the diary of a young man – let’s say nineteen, twenty years old. Let’s add that you are interested in history, so you are looking for something that will allow you to get to know culture, customs, manners firsthand. The choice falls on Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn’s diaries. You rub your hands with excitement – you expect, after all, that you reach for a reading that will provide you with a solid dose of information not only about his life, his family but also maybe about some first love? Something that will allow you to get to know the everyday life of living in the eighteenth century.
Instead, you get a reliable, at times boring weather forecast. Instead of bragging about how much you know about life in the eighteenth century, you may at most boast that you know what the daily weather was in the 1800s.
At least that’s what Lewis’s first diaries look like. I was very surprised because we are both the same age, but our approach to journaling is very different. I read these diaries as part of a university project, and if it weren’t for that, I would surely have put them down. Instead, I wondered why, for a whole year, this man did not write a single note unrelated to nature. Didn’t he have a social life?
Reading later volumes brought me more interesting reflections. When he was young, Lewis seemed very focused on the present – using modern language one could say that the boy mastered the philosophy of mindfulness to perfection.
His daily life was about interacting with nature, studying the surrounding flora and fauna, maybe also reading. It was so extreme from my behaviour that it hardly occurred to me to understand that these were the days when Lewis was (or at least seemed) happiest. Reading later journals brightened my doubts. Adult Lewis already had a completely different style of writing – he wrote succinctly, sparingly, irregularly. Social life and work effectively prevented him from observing nature in depth. Of course, for the rest of his life, he dealt with nature, but it was no longer the same carefree, free way to spend time.
Reading and comparing these diaries was a surprisingly interesting experience for me. I noticed that when he was young Lewis was much more present – he wrote every day, regularly. Notes from adult years give a picture of a busy, busy man. I had the impression that Lewis had significantly distanced himself from himself.
As a result of growing up, he clashed with a very important part of himself, forgot about life for a moment.
If I were to draw any conclusions and lessons from reading Lewis’s diaries, I would say that this is an example of the harmfulness of what we consider to be adult life – responsibilities, seriousness, the necessary climbing of career paths. It is worth remembering, however, that as humans we are part of nature; separating ours from it will only undercut the quality of our lives. Children understand it very well – instinctively they strive to play outside, they are fascinated by nature. Of course, for us – people of the 21st century – it would not be easy to return completely to the roots. But in my opinion, it is worth even trying, even as part of an experiment, perhaps spending more time outside? Perhaps this is where the secret of a happy, successful life lies – in the balance between adulthood and the childish fascination of the world around us.
The papers of Lewis Llewelyn Dilwyn (Ref. LAC/26/D) are part of the Dillwyn Family Papers. A full catalogue can be found via the Archives Hub. The private journals have been transcribed by Richard Morris and are available online.
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