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In the end, the writer's affection for the human got the better of his longing for the divine, and his decent and sincere commitment to a life of goodness was undone by his distrust of goody-goodness. Yet he never stopped trying: during the war he joined the Quakers in Pennsylvania, helping refugees. Later, returning to Hollywood, he lived for two years as a monk, escaping now and then to friends' houses as "a haven of peace after the tumults of monastic life." How "delightful religion used to be," he notes, "in the days when I wasn't doing anything particular about it!"
If the diaries make for somewhat melancholy reading in their second half, it's only because California, famously narcotic, began to sap his energy and sharpness. More and more of his entries dwindle into local gossip and silly worries about his boyfriends and his weight. He was always better suited to being a camera than a mirror. Yet even at his weakest, he earns our trust with his entirely human cries of "God, make me pure--but not just yet!"