Reputations

Saturday, January 29th., Hotel Savoy, Cortina.

We have been here for four days now, and are settled after a poor start. I had arranged that we should have a suite of three rooms plus bathroom but due to telegraphic miscommunications we only have one room and no bathroom; we are promised an improvement when suitable rooms arise. Part of the problem is that the Duke of Genoa is presently staying here and wanted twelve rooms. He could not be refused it appears. Well, I suppose that is how things are, but not necessarily how they should be. We are comfortable enough, and saving some money.

On two occasions in my maturer life have I blushed. The first occasion was when, sitting in the stalls of a theatre, someone lightly touched my shoulder from the row behind, and, turning, I heard a remembered voice say: "You don't know me Mr. Bennett, but I know you." This was Ellen Terry. The second was when, in the coffee room of a club to which we both belonged, a stoutish man accosted me and said: "You won't recall me, I'm Henry James. May I join you upstairs later?" Yes, I did fairly blush - I suppose because I was flattered. Such is the mysterious influence of immense artistic prestige on my blood vessels. Artistic prestige has an influence not only on my blood vessels but on my critical faculty. It took me years to ascertain that Henry James's work was giving me little pleasure. I first had a glimpse of this distressing fact when "What Maisie Knew" began to appear serially - I could not get on with it. My fault of course. But when I was immovably bogged in the middle of "The Golden Bowl" and again in the middle of "The Ambassadors" I grew bolder with myself. I gave them up. Today I have no recollection whatever of any characters or any events in either novel.

I have come to think that James hadn't actually much to say, in a creative sense, that needed saying. I think that he knew a lot about the life of one sort of people, the sort who are what is called cultured, and who do themselves very well both physically and intellectually, and very little about life in general. I think that in the fastidiousness of his taste he rather repudiated life. Of course my eyes may have a blind-spot for the alleged supreme excellencies of Henry James. But, if so, the eyes of a vast number of other people no plainer than myself are similarly afflicted. I can only say that never shall I set out afresh into the arid desert of "The Golden Bowl".

I have had an idea for writing a series of souvenirs d'enfance. There is nothing about souvenirs d'enfance in Louis Aragon's "Paysans de Paris", but this book is certainly stimulating me into a fresh creativeness. I must say that, though it is uneven, I should like to write a book like that - I mean about London. Only of course England would never tolerate the belle franchise of this French book. And perhaps I don't know enough about London to do it justice. In that respect it might be that my book on 'London Life' would be as circumscribed as are James'

Alice Hallagarten Franchetti

While Dorothy was dressing I went out for a walk. I wanted to be alone to think about a short story and two articles and my dimly projected souvenirs, but I came across Baroness Franchetti, acquaintance of the Huxleys. She would walk with me. And when I said I must turn she said she also must turn back. Then she took my photograph twice in the middle of the road, blazing sunshine, screwing up eyes, etc. I don't think I have ever been photographed in the street before. I don't like being photographed at all, not being of a photogenic appearance. However she did tell me one interesting thing. She knew Ibsen. She said she spent a whole season in the same hotel with him and his family somewhere. She sat at the next table to the Ibsens. They - father, mother, and boy - never spoke a word during the whole time. Ibsen (said Mdme. Franchetti) would talk freely to Madame Franchetti afterwards. He told her that he wrote all his work four times. Also, that he wrote "The Doll's House" in the open air, in tremendous sunshine, at Sorrento. He loved the greatest possible heat to work in. Ibsen is another whose reputation, in my view, exceeds his actual worth.

Jaded

Thursday, February 24th., Hotel Bristol, Paris.

We walked along the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. Lovely shops. Beautifully arranged. Marvellously arranged. This fact strikes me more and more. You may wander afar off to see old quaint quarters of Paris; but they are not more artistic than these modern shops in the middle of the much-despised modern shopping Anglo-American quarter. Well, we went into Hermes, and were very well served by a young man, and we bought a hand-bag for Dorothy, price 1,000 francs. Dorothy didn't want me to pay so much; or at least she protested that I was over-indulgent. But the bag really affected my feelings, and she would certainly have been disappointed in me had I not bought it for her.

I read in Paul Morand's "Rien que la Terre". This book does not seem to me to be anything remarkable - at best you might call it remarkably bright, variegated journalism. This is the last of the six French books which I bought in Paris on the day we left for Cortina. I have now read or sampled them all. The best is certainly Aragon's "Paysan de Paris". I gave it to the Aldous Huxleys. De Castellane's "Comment j'ai Decouvert l'Amerique" is very interesting and alive for the most part, and contains a few rather profound things. But on the whole I haven't read anything really startling since we left England.

I begin to doubt whether I am in fact very fond of reading. I always look forward to reading. But the realisation is rarely satisfactory. I soon tire of it. I don't know what to make of this state of affairs. Books have been the only consistent love of my life. I think it must be a temporary problem, probably resulting from the pressure to read so as to construct my weekly column for the Standard. I need to give myself a holiday from 'professional' reading and get back to reading for pleasure. I have an idea to make a list of my twenty favourite books (which won't be easy to do) and then to re-read them. That will do the trick.

It has been a beautiful day. Blue sky. No wind. Distictly warm in the sun. We were able to apricate in the hotel grounds. Lovely word that - I picked it up from the Manchester Guardian earlier this week. I do like to add new words to my vocabulary, and to use them. To be honest I have a tendency to overuse them until the novelty wears off.