It is no attack upon these volumes to observe that the data they provide is rather low-keyed. But it is precisely because of the relatively quiet world the Diary portrays that another, perhaps equally important question is raised. It is the question of the Diary form - the peculiar aesthetic power which resides in the well-made journal. In this case, undistracted by the glitter of major historical events or novelistic renditions of personal crisis, the reader finds himself able to focus on the central experience of absorbing, entry by entry, the daily chronicle of a mans life.