Sailing boats

Saturday, August 7th., Royal York Hotel, Brighton.

Yacht Belem

On Thursday I saw two of the finest yachts afloat. Iolanda, which I have often admired at Cannes. The other yacht was the Duke of Westminster's Belem, lying in the Medina near to The Wanderer. A converted French merchantman. Fantastic luxury; but real taste. I got some ideas from it for The Wanderer. A lovely ship. Allen said the Duke had spent well over £100,000 on her, and that £35,000 would buy her; which probably meant £25,000. The wages bill must be £700 a month. She appears to be used for only about a week or so a year. This is a social crime.

Launched in 1896, the three masted barque Belem was originally a trader that crossed the Atlantic to Brazil and the Caribbean in order to bring back cocoa, sugar, rum and other products. In 1914 the Duke of Westminster bought her and transformed her into a private yacht

I think I should fancy more than any of these boats the Shenandoah, a three-masted schooner, with a big beam; she floated on the water like a duck and looked superb. When we went out in a launch to inspect the motor-launch that goes with The Wanderer, we went close by the Shenandoah and it was sickening to think she wasn't mine. I am planning to buy The Wanderer, which is an 88 ton ketch. Price £2,500, including a motor-launch and two dinghies. the price is subject to inventory and survey. I reckon she will cost £1,500 to put right below.

On a war footing

Thursday, August 6th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

We are at war. Two days ago the German armies crossed the Meuse into Belgium, and a British ultimatum demanding German withdrawal expired at 11 p.m. on the same day.

The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, had spent the five weeks since the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand trying to get the different countries to negotiate - Lloyd George described him as being like the weak chairman of tempestuous committee: 'calling out in an appealing but not compelling voice: "Order! Order".'

1 August: Grey proposed to Germany that Britain would stay neutral if Germany did not attack France. Kaiser Wilhelm wanted to agree, but when he tried to pause the invasion, his generals told him that he couldn't.

2 August: The Schlieffen Plan had a error. It planned for the German army, when it attacked France, to go through Belgium. The day after declaring war on Russia, therefore, the Germans asked permission for their army to pass through Belgium. The Belgians refused! So the next day, Germany invaded Belgium.

4 August: Britain was obliged (by the Treaty of Washington, 1839) to help Belgium in the event of an invasion. Therefore, Britain sent Germany an ultimatum demanding, by midnight, a German promise to withdraw from Belgium. The Germans were amazed: 'For a scrap of paper, Great Britain is going to make war?' asked Bethmann-Hollweg.

That night, crowds gathered in Parliament Square in London. As Big Ben struck 11 pm (midnight in Berlin) they sang God Save the King, and then ran home crying: 'War! War! War!' As Grey watched the crowds leave, he commented: 'The lights are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime'.

On arriving at Brightlingsea on Monday afternoon, I was told that petrol could not be got in the district; that it was fetching up to 10s. a tin at Clacton; and that Baggaley, the regular hirer of motor cars at B'sea had gone forth in an attempt to get petrol. At Clacton yesterday the price was 2s. 3d. or 2s. 4d. a gallon. I have 60 gallons in stock.

A great crowd of holiday-makers at Clacton in the showers yesterday. No difficulty about getting change for a £10 note in gold and silver. At the fish shop, slight increases of price in poultry and eggs. The man said there was no chance for him to make money (in response to a friendly jibe of Marguerite's). He said he expected to get no more fish after that day.

Yesterday we heard noise of explosions destroying inconvenient houses at Harwich. The sensations of Harwich people must be poignant. Nevertheless, the G.E.R. in yesterday evening's papers was advertising its Hook of Holland service (with restaurant cars etc.) exactly as usual, and I believe the boat left last night. We also heard thunder; and the children affirm that they distinctly heard the noise of firing - not explosions. (Report of action in North Sea in evening papers.) I saw one warship in the offing at Clacton; but an ordinary steamer coming to the pier, and a barge sailing northwards.

An officer came yesterday to complain of a fox-terrier (? ours) which flew at despatch-riders on motor-bicycles. He said it would be shot if found loose. These despatch-riders are the most picturesque feature of the war here. They rush through the villages at speeds estimated up to 50 miles an hour. I am willing to concede 40.

I agree that Russia is the real enemy, and not Germany; and that a rapprochement between England and Germany is a certainty. But I doubt whether it is wise, in the actual conduct of affairs, to try to see so far ahead. I think that the belligerency of England is a mistake - for England. Yet if I had to choose, I believe my instinct would have forced me to make war.

Sir Edward Grey's outstanding mistake, in his big speech, was the assertion that the making of war would not much increase our suffering. It will enormously increase it.

It may be said, I suppose, that we might stand aside, husband our strength, and that, whatever happened in the course of this war, at the end of it intervene with effect to put things right, and to adjust them to our own point of view. If, in a crisis like this, we run away [Loud cheers.] from those obligations of honour and interest as regards the Belgian treaty, I doubt whether, whatever material force we might have at the end, it would be of very much value in face of the respect that we should have lost. And I do not believe, whether a great power stands outside this war or not, it is going to be in a position at the end of it to exert its superior strength. For us, with a powerful fleet, which we believe able to protect our commerce, to protect our shores, and to protect our interests, if we are engaged in war, we shall suffer but little more than we shall suffer even if we stand aside. We are going to suffer, I am afraid, terribly in this war, whether we are in it or whether we stand aside. Foreign trade is going to stop, not because the trade routes are closed, but because there is no trade at the other end. Continental nations engaged in war all their populations, all their energies, all their wealth, engaged in a desperate struggle they cannot carry on the trade with us that they are carrying on in times of peace, whether we are parties to the war or whether we are not. I do not believe for a moment that at the end of this war, even if we stood aside and remained aside, we should be in a position, a material position, to use our force decisively to undo what had happened in the course of the war, to prevent the whole of the west of Europe opposite to us -- if that had been the result of the war -- falling under the domination of a single power, and I am quite sure that our moral position would be such as -- [the rest of the sentence -- "to have lost us all respect." -- was lost in a loud outburst of cheering]. I can only say that I have put the question of Belgium somewhat hypothetically, because I am not yet sure of all the facts, but, if the facts turn out to be as they have reached us at present, it is quite clear that there is an obligation on this country to do its utmost to prevent the consequences to which those facts will lead if they are undisputed.... 

from Grey's speech to Parliament - August 3rd., 1914.

http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Sir_Edward_Grey's_Speech_Before_Parliament

The hope for us is in the honesty and efficiency of our administration. The fear for France springs from the fact that the majority of French politicians are notoriously rascals, out for plunder. The corruption of Russian administration is probably even worse. The seriousness of the average French private will atone for a lot, but it will not - for instance - create boots for him. The hope for France is that the German army, arrogant in its traditions etc., may be lower than its reputation.

After reading the diplomatic papers leading up to the rupture between England and Germany, this morning, one has to admit that Sir E. Grey did everything he could, once he had stated his position. The war is a mistake on our part, but other things leading to it were a mistake, and, these things approved or condoned, the war must be admitted to be inevitable. Judged by any current standard, Sir E. Grey is a man of high common sense. He has not yet grasped the movement of social evolution; but then very few people have. And you cannot properly or fairly try to govern a country on a plane of common sense too high above its own general plane.

Apart from Germany two countries are pre-eminently suffering at the beginning of the war _ France and Belgium. Both are quite innocent; Belgium touchingly so. I can imagine the Germans among them if they get the upper hand. The Germans are evidently quite ruthless and brutal and savage in war. This is logical; but a large part of their conduct is due to arrogant military tradition, which will one day be smashed. If Germany is smashed in this war, the man most imperilled will be the German Emperor. If she is not smashed the man most imperilled may be the Tsar.

I am told, convincingly, that a firm at Clacton is making an extra £50 a week out of bread, through increased charges for which there is no justification. It appears that the farmers all round have raised the price of butter 3d. a pound.

Miss Osborne and a girl friend came round yesterday afternoon to ask for linen or subscriptions for the local branch of the Red Cross Society. Mrs. Byng is ready to lend Thorpe Hall for a hospital. These young ladies have no orders or permissions yet from the War Office; but they wish to be in readiness. This instinct to do something on the part of idle young women or half-idle is satisfactory to behold.

On the day after the war, our nephews who are staying with us wanted a tent. They had one, beyond the pond. It cost one day's labour of a carpenter. This tent is used by everybody except me nearly all the time. The whole household seems to live in it. Today the boys are making wooden swords. Yesterday a village boy gave me a military salute.

Edith Johnston recounts how her father is laying in ammunition against the time when the populace will raid the countryside demanding provisions; he, being a farmer, is to be called on early in the proceedings, and he is determined to give out his stores evenly and not to the strongest. Each morning he summons all his men and explains to them the course of the war, so that they shall not be misled by rumours. Edith thinks that a war is necessary and advisable, as the population is too thick.

Austrians

Wednesday, August 5th., Salzburg.

Another 1,000 words of "Lord Raingo" yesterday afternoon, between 5.15 and 7.15, after a bad night.
Kommer joined us late at lunch in the Mirabell Garden, among the wasps.

The Mirabelle Palace was built by Prince Arbishop Wolf Dietrich in 1606 for his mistress, Salome Alt, and her children. The central axis of the garden is aligned on Hohensalzburg, the castle on the other side of the River Salzach. It has a central fountain, an outdoor theatre and a marvellous sculpture collection. Mirabelle has a key position in the town, near the river and between the old town and the commercial new town. It is also, as Jellicoe observed, draws upon the surrounding landscape. It is a beautiful place, always full of people and more redolent of the atmosphere of a Court Garden than most of old Europe's extant Hofgartens.

Cafe Corso

After dinner we went to the Cafe Corso, to hear the Hungarian musicians - Zigeuner Kapelle.





These Austrians are gayer than the English. They laugh easily and have pleasant faces and eyes, though grace is not always one of their qualities - except of manner. The men generally have a little thing like a small feather duster, brush up, at the back of their hats. Pants are more and more often embroidered. I saw two country well-off lads on Sunday with a string of silver coins round their waists. The bow-neckties are rather good - bright and with nice patterns, and small. Knapsack carrying, and also by girls, is very common, and pretty heavy knapsacks too. The passers-by are now much less dowdy than a month ago, and one sees that fashion binds after all the whole female sex of Western Europe together - when the money will run to it.

On Melville

Sunday, August 3rd., Rod Meadow, Trewoofe, Cornwall.

The present vogue of Herman Melville is mainly due to two English novelists, Frank Swinnerton and myself.

Frank Arthur Swinnerton (1884 – 1982) was an English novelist, critic, biographer and essayist. 

He was the author of more than 50 books, and as a publisher's editor helped other writers including Aldous Huxley and Lytton Strachey. His long life and career in publishing made him one of the last links with writers including H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy and Arnold Bennett born in the nineteenth century. See also, 'Russia and revivals' - March 9th., 

http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/russia-and-revivals.html

We both of us have great opportunities for publicity, and 8 or 10 years ago, in the Reform Club, we decided to convince the world that "Moby Dick" was the greatest of all sea novels. And we did! There is a lot more of Melville that you ought to read if you have not already read it. Some of the "Piazza Tales" are wonderful. And the novel "Pierre", though mad and very strange and over-strained, is really original and remarkable. Some of the still stranger books I have not yet read or tried to read. The trouble is that the esoteric books can only be obtained in the complete edition of the works. Happily I possess a complete edition, bought in 1926. I believe that the original editions of "Typee" and "Omoo" are much better than the current editions, which have been expurgated.

Melville was never completely ignored by intelligent readers during his decades of eclipse. In England, especially, Moby-Dick found numerous readers in the late nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth century, most notably among the Pre-Raphaelites and such writers as W.H. Hudson, Arnold Bennett and Virginia Woolf. It is safe to say that his general literary stock was far higher among English readers than among Americans during this period. Melville's centenary in 1919 brought numerous literary notices, and a weary and disillusioned post-war world was probably far more ready for his prose. In 1921 Raymond Weaver's biography, Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic, came out, sparking further interest. The following year the first real bibliography of Melville was issued by the English collector, publisher, editor and bibliographer Michael Sadleir. Sadleir deserves special remembrance by all Melvillians, for he was also the impetus behind the first complete collected edition of Melville's works, issued by Constable between 1922 and 1924. Through his efforts, all of Melville's prose and poetry was brought back into print, Billy Budd and many poems were published for the first time, and Melville was made generally accessible to readers.

http://hq.abaa.org/books/antiquarian/news_fly?code=52

Grumpy in Sussex

Wednesday, August 3rd., Royal Victoria Hotel, St. Leonards, East Sussex.

We arrived here last Thursday, from Easton Glebe. On Friday I spent time on Winchelsea beach, lying on the pebbles and reading H. M. Tomlinson's "Gallions Reach", which is not good. The rest of the family arrived later in bits. Great trouble over the tent - Too flimsy. I went off and read more Tomlinson. Dorothy has been working on a scenario of "Lord Raingo".



Went to see the "Metropolis" film at the Elite Theatre. Sickening sentimentality. Many good effects, spectacular, spoilt by over-insistence. A footling story. No understanding of psychology of either employers or workmen. "Adapted by Channing Pollock." Good God! What captions. Enough to make you give up the ghost. The theatre was very nearly empty.

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist epic science-fiction film directed by Fritz Lang. The film was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou, and starred Brigitte Helm, Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel and Rudolf Klein-Rogge. A silent film, it was produced in the Babelsberg Studios by UFA. Metropolis is regarded as a pioneer work of science fiction movies, being the first feature length movie of the genre. Made in Germany during the Weimar Period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city's ruler, and Maria, whose background is not fully explained in the film, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classist nature of their city. Metropolis was filmed in 1925, at a cost of approximately five million Reichsmarks. Thus, it was the most expensive film ever released up to that point. The film was met with a mixed response upon its initial release, with many critics praising its technical achievements and allegorical social metaphors with some deriding its "simplistic and naïve" presentation. Channing Pollock's chop job on the original Metropolis removed entire characters, trashing Von Harbou's complex pattern of interlocking relationships and themes. Channing's simplified story is about a mad inventor who almost destroys Metropolis with a demonic robot. Neither the inventor nor any of the other characters make the slightest bit of sense. Audiences remember some sensational visuals, an inspired performance (the magical, electric Brigitte Helm) and a sappy ending of capital-labour reconciliation.

Sightseeing from Salzburg

Sunday, August 2nd., Salzburg.

On Friday I was still suffering so much from the effects of neuralgia that I could do no work. Shopped in the afternoon, and went to see a German film in the evening; it was very bad, as bad as the weather. Yesterday also I was suffering, and so I decided to go out for the day.

Through Hallein to Golling, a large village full of medium hotels. Lunch at the Alte Post, whose proprietor, Steinach, told me that the hotel had been in the hands of his family for 111 years. Began lunch with the largest trout I have ever seen - caught two hours earlier. Golling and other villages near have a character of their own. The gables of the houses face the street; wide eaves, sometimes a balcony under the eaves with a tiled roof of its own. brightly painted window frames and shutters, and plenty of flowers on the sills. Plenty of visitors. At the Alte Post were four rooms fairly full of lunchers; we lunched on the terrasse.

After lunch took a two-horse carriage to see the waterfalls. The car couldn't go, because the bridge over the Salzach is forbidden to cars. About 10 minutes drive, and then about 50 minutes to climb steps and things in order to see the three waterfalls, one above another. The waterfalls were fully up to descriptions thereof and really most impressive. I have never seen anything to beat this drive for grandeur of scenery. At Werfel we stopped at 4 p.m. for coffee at an outwardly unassuming hotel and had superb coffee and cakes, very well served by a smart, slim, sparkling waitress. Within I saw the kitchen and a chef in a chef's white cap making pastry. It was strange to see this perfection in a village lost in the mountains.

On the way home, between Hallern and Salzburg, we came upon a motor accident, collision; the road was unnecessarily blocked for a long time during palavers between the respective owners and drivers and the gendarme. The chief words repeated 1,000 times, were "mein lieber herr". Everybody nervously excited but very polite and restrained.

After dinner Kommer came along to the hotel with Rosamund Pinchot and two German journalists. He introduced Rosamund. A day or two ago he had told me the astounding story of how Reinhardt had seen this society girl on the tender, going to America, and had instantly said: "Here is the girl who can play the nun" ("The Miracle"), and had ultimately engaged her, though she had no experience whatever of the stage, nor any longing to go on the stage.

In 1923, Rosamond Pinchot was a 19-year-old with lots of opportunities in life. Tall and golden-haired, she lived in a townhouse on East 81st Street and attended exclusive Miss Chapin’s School. Then, on a ship, she had a fateful encounter. She was returning to New York from a trip to Europe with her mother when theatre bigwig Max Reinhardt spotted her. Reinhardt wanted her as the lead in a play he would be directing on Broadway, The Miracle, about a nun who leaves her convent. With no dramatic experience, she accepted the offer, skipping her official debut into society in favour of the stage. Later that year, the play opened at the Century Theatre on Central Park West. Rosamond blew everyone away. Dubbed the “loveliest woman in America,” Rosamond became an It Girl of the 1920s and the toast of Hollywood. She played the part for three years and took roles in other productions, until 1926, when she quit acting to do “serious” work. She tried her hand at a variety of things: She studied history in college, sold real estate, then returned to the stage several times and made her only film appearance in 1935′s The Three Musketeers. She also got married in 1928 to the grandson of a former Massachusetts governor and had two sons. The marriage didn’t last—and her separation from her husband in 1936 “deeply affected” her. Rosamond made her last theatrical appearance in 1937. The next year, at age 33, she committed suicide by poisoning herself with carbon monoxide in her garage on her estate in Long Island. A note was left behind, but the contents were never divulged.

http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/the-tragedy-of-the-loveliest-woman-in-america/

I finished "The Kellys and the O'Kellys" yesterday morning: Trollope's second novel, written at the age of 34. This novel is consistently excellent, and Algar Thorold's introduction to it is absurdly trifling and inadequate. The characterisation is admirable, strong, true, and sober.

With friends

Thursday, August 1st., Les Sablons, Fontainebleau.

Marriott and I rode to Nemours yesterday through the forest. A magnificent lunch on the terrace of the "Ecu de France", one of those provincial French inns with a personnel apparently very numerous, including one or two wenches of neat and agreeable manners. Then our wives arrived, and we climbed to the roof of the donjon and tasted and savoured the famous view of town and country from the top, the country running right up to the town as Hardy describes it at "Casterbridge".

See also, 'Enchanted' - March 23rd., http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/enchanted.html

Then we got separated, and Marguerite and I went to look at canals and buy cakes, and we had glimpses of the Marriotts now and then across the square, going into a church or something. Lastly we had tea (our own) at the Ecu, and the women went back to the station, and Marriott and I rode home through Episy and Ecuelles, one of the most beautiful pieces of simple highway scenery that I know. And not a motor car! Then we came into Moret, and to the Paris-Marseilles Route Nationale, and were immediately enveloped in the dust and fumes of cars.

See also, 'Bicycling in France' - August 26th., http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/monday-august-26th.html

At night Marriott was talking of the greed of certain famous painters. He said that at a pension table d'hote on the continent, when the fish came round, F--- would help himself to two whole soles, of course quite regardless of the rest of the company. Similar tales of B--- who must be an inconceivable boor. When the round did not begin with B---, and he saw the dish travelling from person to person, he would cry out aloud his fears that not sufficient would be left for himself. On the other hand, when the waiters began with him, he would take so much that the waiters, perceiving his greed, would next time begin so as to serve him last. Marriott has also told (and Mrs. M. too) numerous almost incredible stories of B---'s tyranny over his wife - under the guise of being utterly devoted to her. That is to say, he passes his life in forbidding her to do, to eat, to enjoy things that he considers dangerous for her. The attitude has become a mania; it springs of course from a purely selfish fear of losing her. Without knowing B--- I have acquired quite a violent distaste for him: and each fresh tale that I hear of his monstrous egoism gives me a sort of morbid pleasure. I thought I might use him up as the husband of the stay-at-home sister in "The Old Wives' Tale".