Turkey - April 7th 1914

Diary Entry from 7th April 1914

Though Isabel was very widely travelled, she had to steel herself to become so. She never became entirely comfortable when leaving England - the place she considered home.

This extract documents Isabel’s thoughts as she journeys to Paris on her way to Constantinople in Turkey in 1914. She describes, almost poetically, her anxiousness upon waking and contemplating her journey earlier that morning. She feels a sense of foreboding towards her upcoming journey and ponders her attachment to even the simplest of things (chairs and tables) in life, with which she is comfortable.

Though a somewhat seasoned traveller, Isabel was in essence a home-body and was uncomfortable and slightly fearful of stepping outside of the world that she had grown accustomed to.

Transcript: "April 7. En route for Paris. This a.m my soul was in a horrible mess. The wind blew down the chimney, but not in at either side of the house. The morning papers said a gale was blowing. As I passed from side to side of the house I felt as though panic was suddenly taking possession of my soul. I knew that it was no use comforting myself by the apparent calms if that wind were coming down the chimney. I was filled with all sorts of different thoughts. The dread of my whole journey, the sudden, almost unimagined fondness for the chairs and tables of my little, hardly-loved world; a great sense of shame and despair at the long failure of certain human relationships there, at home, a strange occupation with the personality of hers."