Quotes from book
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks
Robertson Davies

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, published by Clarke, Irwin in 1947, is the first of the Samuel Marchbanks books by Canadian novelist and journalist Robertson Davies. The other two books in this series are The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks and Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack .

“Some people I know were telling me of a curious experience which they had recently; they put a collection of old and rejected household articles in their car and drove to a dump to dispose of them. While busy at the dump, they were accosted by a strange figure, a woman of tall and stately presence, wearing a paper crown and carrying a staff in her hand, who strode majestically through the avenues of ashes, tin cans, dishonoured wash-boilers and superannuated bathtubs, attended by a rabble of admiring children. This apparition hailed my friends in a strange, incoherent, but musical language, and her breath was richly perfumed with bay-rum, or it may have been lilac lotion; she was in fact as high as a kite and as mimsy as a borogrove. Having said her say, she strode off in queenly style, and she and her raffish crew were soon lost in the mazes of the dump… My theory is that this was Titania, the fairy queen, fallen upon evil days, but magnificent in ruin; or it may simply have been some rumdumb old bag with a sense of humour. In either case the matter is worth investigating.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

“Every man and woman is a mystery, built like those Chinese puzzles which consist of one box inside another, so that ten or twelve boxes have to be opened before the final solution is found.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)
Context: But I wonder if people do not attach too much importance to the first-name habit? Every man and woman is a mystery, built like those Chinese puzzles which consist of one box inside another, so that ten or twelve boxes have to be opened before the final solution is found. Not more than two or three people have ever penetrated beyond my outside box, and there are not many people whom I have explored further; if anyone imagines that being on first-name terms with somebody magically strips away all the boxes and reveals the inner treasure he still has a great deal to learn about human nature. There are people, of course, who consist only of one box, and that a cardboard carton, containing nothing at all.

“It seems to me that most of us get all the adventure we are capable of digesting.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)
Context: It seems to me that most of us get all the adventure we are capable of digesting. Personally, I have never had to fight a dozen pirates single-handed, and I have never jumped from a moving express-train onto the back of a horse, and I have never been discovered in the harem of the Grand Turk. I am glad of all these things. They are too rich for my digestion, and I do not long for them. I have all the close shaves and narrow squeaks in my life that my constitution will stand, and my daily struggles with bureaucrats, taxgatherers and uplifters are more exhausting than any encounters with mere buccaneers on the Spanish Main.

“I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)
Context: I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.

“As I plodded back and forth I reflected miserably upon my own political rootlessness, in a world where politics is so important. When I am with Tories I am a violent advocate of reform; when I am with reformers I hold forth on the value of tradition and stability. When I am with communists I become a royalist — almost a Jacobite; when I am with socialists I am an advocate of free trade, private enterprise and laissez-faire.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The presence of a person who has strong political convictions always sends me flying off in a contrary direction. Inevitably, in the world of today, this will bring me before a firing squad sooner or later. Maybe the fascists will shoot me, and maybe the proletariat, but political contrariness will be the end of me; I feel it in my bones.
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)