An outlet to that geyser of emotions, sensations, speculations and reflections

American diarist Alice James wrote in her diary on May 31, 1889 at age 40:

“I think that if I get into the habit of writing a bit about what happens, or rather doesn’t happen, I may lose a little of the sense of loneliness and desolation which abides with me. …[I]t may bring relief as an outlet to that geyser of emotions, sensations, speculations and reflections which ferments perpetually within my poor old carcass for its sins; so here goes, my first Journal!”

From The Diary of Alice James, edited by Leon Edel

Previous journal excerpts:
C.S. Lewis
Ralph Waldo Emerson 
Virginia Woolf
Sir Walter Scott
Siegfried Sassoon