Author. He was an English author who wrote "The Journal of a Disappointed Man" in 1919, which was poignant excerpts from diaries he kept between 1903 and 1917. The book's preface was by author HG Wells. Born Bruce Frederick Cummings, the last of six children, he wrote using the penname of Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion, and his true identity was not known until after his death. He began to write diaries at age 13, and as a natural-born naturalist, he recorded the beauty of the countryside of Devon. He was described as an undersized, pale-faced child with huge brown melancholy eyes and a nervous and shy personality. Since his father and brothers had journalism careers, he followed that course. Starting in 1906, he had three excerpts from his diaries published in "The Zoologist." In 1910, he accepted a temporary job at the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. In January of 1912, he abandoned his journalism career for a position more suited to his interest at the British Museum of Natural History. He worked with birds and lice while there. He married Eleanor Benger, a fashion artist and distant cousin, on September 11, 1915, and a daughter was born in October 1916. After being rejected for medical reasons from the army during World War I, he learned of his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis with less than five years to live. Later, after his wife had a mental break, he learned that his wife knew of his diagnosis from his private physician before their marriage. This led to his most emotional writings. He resigned from British Museum on the grounds of his ill health in June of 1917. As his health declined, he was place in a nursing home for the last two years of his life. After cremation, his ashes were kept at Golders Green Crematorium, but in 1980 were buried with wife at St Mary's Church Cemetery at Old Basing in Hampshire. His widow did remarry in 1921, but the couple separated with her dying in 1978. His posthumous published books were "Enjoying Life and Other Literary Remains" in 1919 and finished days before his death, "A Last Diary" in 1920. "Death can do no more than kill you" is one of his quotes from "The Journal of a Disappointed Man."