New things

Tuesday, March 4th., Cadogan Square, London.

Eric MacLagan

Feeling well and idle yesterday morning I went out for a walk and got into the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the galleries I met Eric MacLagan, Keeper of Sculpture, and he said: "You must come and see the finest Chinese sculpture in England." So I went with him into a closed gallery and saw it. 7th. Century (Tang). A Buddha. I said: "There is no Western Art." He entirely disagreed. He said that he thought Western painting much finer than Eastern, and the same for sculpture - but I forget his comparisons. He said we got into the way of comparing primitive Chinese with Renaissance and later European, and of course we didn't see in the latter what we saw in the former. To be honest I was more or less lost by his argument. He is an expert, and spoke to me as if I shared his expertise. Complimentary of course, but misguided.

Quantities of rotten pictures at South Kensington and many good ones. The place is close to my house and yet I hadn't been seriously into it for years. I went ostensibly to think about a story but thought very little.

I have been given a copy of a new magazine from America: The New Yorker. I like it. I particularly enjoyed an article on something called bibliotherapy and copy an extract here:

Bibliotherapy is a very broad term for the ancient practice of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect. The first use of the term is usually dated to a jaunty 1916 article in The Atlantic Monthly, “A Literary Clinic.” In it, the author describes stumbling upon a “bibliopathic institute” run by an acquaintance, Bagster, in the basement of his church, from where he dispenses reading recommendations with healing value. “Bibliotherapy is…a new science,” Bagster explains. “A book may be a stimulant or a sedative or an irritant or a soporific. The point is that it must do something to you, and you ought to know what it is. A book may be of the nature of a soothing syrup or it may be of the nature of a mustard plaster.” To a middle-aged client with “opinions partially ossified,” Bagster gives the following prescription: “You must read more novels. Not pleasant stories that make you forget yourself. They must be searching, drastic, stinging, relentless novels.” (George Bernard Shaw is at the top of the list.) Bagster is finally called away to deal with a patient who has “taken an overdose of war literature,” leaving the author to think about the books that “put new life into us and then set the life pulse strong but slow.”

I have never heard of bibliotherapy or Bagster, but I like the idea.