A bit upset

Tuesday, October 31st., Fulham Park Gardens, London.


Mr. and Mrs. Phillpotts and I walked down into Torquay. Mild, with flowers blooming everywhere. It seemed to me to be a place of retired military officers, rich and stiff dowagers, and spoiled overfed dogs led about by servant maids. Phillpotts said that for its size, it was the second richest place in England, and I can believe it. Tunbridge Wells is first. There were scarcely any poor. Nearly every house stood in its own garden. There were very few children as the inhabitants were mainly retired and old. Also, but few young men. I felt quite a youth again! If a young man above the tradesman's class grew up in Torquay, he could not stay there, because there was nothing for him to do. The whole town consisted of rich households and the people who fed them and waited on them.

I left Torquay in the afternoon for London. At Exeter I heard of the British defeat in the Transvaal. It was at a place called Nicholson's Nek (sic), somewhere near Ladysmith. Strange effect as if I personally had been defeated, a real emotional response, and yet I can see no sense in this war with the Boers at all. Why are we fighting the Boers? I have no idea. Cynically I presume that there are financial interests at stake and that soldiers on both sides are being sacrificed for the enrichment of persons in positions of power/influence in the colony. Same applies in India and elsewhere. What is the point of this Imperial project? Beats me. And yet I felt diminished by the news.

I must say that I am glad to be back home. I have written belatedly to May Beardmore at Porthill to congratulate her on her 21st birthday. Now I will settle back down to my work, and writing and playing music with Dr. Farrar. Speaking of work, I am consumed with a fever just now to chuck up women's journalism utterly, and go in for fiction and criticism only. No doubt the spell with Phillpotts, who is doing very well for himself, has had its effect. I could do it if I had the pluck of a louse; but having got used to a comparatively expensive way of living I haven't the courage to make the necessary sacrifice. Nevertheless I swear that I will get out of that damned office inside two years or shoot myself. I always keep my oaths!

New beginnings

Wednesday, February 16th., Fulham Park Gardens, London.

The preoccupation of removing to a new house is now almost over, after three days of incessant manual work, arranging books, clothes, furniture, and pictures. A householder for the first time I found myself yesterday wandering without aim through the house, staring at finished rooms, and especially at the terracotta effects of my new study, with a vague satisfaction. But stronger, more insistent than this satisfaction, is the feeling of graver and complicated responsibilities, and a sort of anxiety for the future.
And I wonder, at the age of 30, whether the great game is worth the candle?
I return with regretful fancy to the time when, with lighter cares and the highest hopes that ignorance could induce, I lived in Raphael Street, and in Cowley Street, on about 15s. a week.

See also January 27th. - "A Practical Philosopher".

Last night I set to work on a long criticism of George Moore.

As I opened the front door this morning to leave for the office, the postman put a parcel in my hand. It was from John Lane, and it contained the first copy of my first book, "A Man from the North". I untied it hastily, and after glancing at the cover, gave it to Tertia to read. Tonight I looked through the tale, picking out my favourite bits. The style seemed better than I had hoped for.

A Man from the North was Arnold Bennett's first novel - published in 1898. Fleeing a drab and 

dead-end existence, Richard Larch moves south from Bursley to London, intent upon pursuing a career as a writer. Great things are expected of him by those he has left behind, but will he fulfil their expectations and publish a novel, or be consumed by all the metropolis has to offer? 

He is also looking for companionship and love, but finds his high hopes dashed when life in the capital is fraught with difficulties, and a glittering career proves to be more elusive than anticipated. Melancholic and starkly realistic.

<http://archive.org/details/amanfromnorth01benngoog>

A practical philosopher

Friday, January 27th., Fulham Park Gardens, London.

A few nights ago - we had been to the Empire, Sharpe, Mother, Sep and I - there was a gale. In the usual midnight altercation at Piccadilly Circus for the inside seats of omnibuses we had suffered defeat; we sat on the inclement top of the vehicle, a disconsolate row of four, cowering behind the waterproof aprons (which were not waterproof), and exchanging fragments of pessimistic philosophy.

Piccadilly Circus

We knew we were taking cold; at first we were annoyed, but with increasing numbness came resignation. We grew calm enough to take an interest in the imperturbable driver, who nonchalantly and with perfect technique steered his dogged horses through the tortuous mazes of traffic, never speaking, never stirring, only answering like an automaton to the conductor's bell.

Fifty-thousand horses were required to keep Victorian London's public transport running. According to one writer of the time, these horses ate their way through a quarter of a million acres of foodstuff per year, and deposited 1000 tonnes of dung on the roads every day. The disposal of large quantities of horse droppings was a major problem. Dung could make the roads hazardous and unpleasant when wet. Crossing sweepers made meagre earnings clearing a path for pedestrians to cross and dung carts collected and deposited droppings on vast dung heaps in the poorer parts of town each day. To keep a single bus or tram on the road for 12 hours each day a team of 12 horses was required, each one harnessed for 3 to 4 hours and travelling about 15 miles. The horses needed to be fed, watered, stabled and groomed, and tended by blacksmiths and vets. Caring for the horses represented up to 55% of operating costs and was even greater if feed prices rose (such as following a poor harvest). The LGOC spent about £20,000 each year on horseshoes alone.

<http://www.ltmcollection.org/resources/index>

Some drivers will gossip, but this one had apparently his own preoccupations. We could see only his hat, some grey hairs, his rotund cape, and his enormous gloved hands, and perhaps we began to wonder what sort of man he was. For mile after mile he drove forward in a Trappist silence till we were verging upon Putney, and the rain-washed thoroughfares reflected only the gas lights and the forbidding facades of the houses. Then at last, he suddenly joined the conversation.
"I've been out in worse," he said. "Yes, we gets used to it. But we gets so that we has to live out of doors. If I got a indoor job I should die. I have to go out for a walk afore I can eat my breakfast."
                                       
A pause, and then:

"I've driven these roads for eight-and-twenty year, and the only pal I've found is Cod Liver Oil. From September to March I takes it, and I never has rheumatism and I never has colds nor nothing o' that sort. I give it to my children ever since they was born, and now I'm blest if they don't cry for it."
He finished; he had imparted his wisdom, delivered his message, and with the fine instinct denied to so many literary artists, he knew when to be silent. We asked him to stop, and he did so without a word. "Good night," we said; but he had done with speech for that evening, and gave us no reply. We alighted. The bus rolled away into the mirror-like vista of the street.