How dreary to be somebody.
How public like a frog.
To tell your name the livelong day.
To an admiring bog.
Though James "vehemently disclaimed" (257) this idea with scorn, Loring was quite sure that she eventually wanted her diary to be made public. If this were true, it would make sense that James' writing reflects that she was consciously both the observer and the observed. She wrote about her own life with the knowledge that not only are her actions being noted by family members and society, but that if her diary is published, her thoughts and opinions - that she deemed as private enough to be penned in a diary - would be publicly observed as well. Her writing must have been influenced by her knowledge that she must monitor herself because, as a woman, how she appears to others was incredibly important. .
James must have come to consider the observer and the observed within her as the two pieces yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. Her own sense of being herself within her writing was replaced by a sense of being appreciated as herself by others. The diary usually is a private form of writing, yet many diarists do, in fact, address themselves to someone or something as though they are conscious that there is a chance that their thoughts are being read the moment pen is put to paper. The diarist's idea of the reader must therefore make a difference to the selection of specific thoughts, emotions and experiences and how they are translated onto the page. Interestingly, James addresses her reader as "Dear Inconnu," (129) a male form of the word innocuous, which may be a reflection of the dominant role played in her life by her father and brothers, as well as her "failure" to find a husband, who would have given her some social standing. Perhaps James' seemingly subdued collection of her "geyser of emotions" is due to the fact that she subconsciously believes that not just women, but men specifically will too be reading her thoughts.
