This question, quite apart from the testimony that diaries give to a primitive method of recording words, makes them profoundly intriguing. The painstaking slowness of this lost method of recording thought known as handwriting often introduced a reflective, meditative tone to the prose. We possess fading photographs of authors seated immobile at their desks, pen poised over paper, thinking. Imagine thinking while seated at a computer. Even the few seconds it takes to download a program can set us groaning with impatience.
Thought threatens to interfere with our computing.
The fascination of diaries and journals, even more than old letters, lies in knowing that the writer actually thought before and while inking up the page. What he recorded were his thoughts about the events of a day, plans, loves, and sorrows. A given day, its events, its connection with past and future, were brooded over by the author. The random occurrences and deeds of a day are therefore worth pondering. This conviction was compatible with, perhaps even dependent on, the realization that their meaning was obscure to the diarist.