Sailing to America

Monday, October 7th., R.M.S. Lusitania, at sea from Liverpool.

I am on my way to the U.S.A. for a three month visit. My tour has been arranged by George Doran and I am travelling with Edward Knoblock, who is himself an American.

2nd. class crowd afar off. Much waiting and crying for them. None for us.
We left at 5.40, landing stage; then anchored in river to wait for tide.

First Class cabin

Immediately I got on this boat, I was struck by a new sense of my own importance. Seats at the purser's dining table had been reserved for me, & deckchairs also. The Chairman of Cunard had given orders that I was to be looked after, and Mr. Hoblyn, the Liverpool manager, came and showed Knoblock & me over the ship, & offered me another berth if I wanted it. I didn't. My berth is in the steadiest part of the ship. It is quite a small room, but with every convenience, except as I thought at first a writing table. I thought there might be a writing table, among all the trucs that fold up, but I hadn't yet discovered it. I have arranged to take my bath at 7 a.m. each day (if I am not ill). The ship is enormous. The sea is so far down below the promenade deck that it is like a mere incident, in another world. The lifts are continually ascending & descending. But no tea is served until after the boat departs.

The ship is simply magnificent. The only difference between it and a first-class grand hotel is that no first-class grand hotel is so spacious. The night weather is most beautiful. In the drawing-room (which is much larger than the Royalty Theatre) you cannot even feel the vibration of the screw. We had a very good dinner. It is like being in a restaurant where there is nothing to pay. You order whatever you like, and it comes, and the waiters are all English and very polite and quick. Gent at dining table: "I wonder how many souls we have on board?" Strong also on the indecency of the Russian ballets, which however he much admired.

Lusitania Writing Room

I have been to the writing-room and library (my books in it and people reading Hilda!). It is as large as the dining-room of the United Arts Club. When you have walked round the deck you have walked half a kilometre. I like my room because it is full of drawers and hooks and places for putting things away. I have now discovered that the top of the washstand makes a writing desk, and there is a beautiful electric light over the bed. 

There are in fact about 3,000 people on board altogether. 430 first-class passengers. The boat is quite full.

Lusitania charmed everyone who stepped aboard from the first moment. Cunard had gone to great length to make the passenger forget that they were at sea. At least while indoors, obviously. Glorifying European, and in particular British, design, Lucy was adorned with the finest woods, drawn from the oldest forests in England and France. Exquisitely wrought iron rails and bronze work was mixed with the finely carved oak and cedars to reproduce some of the most lavish decor styles, ranging from French Renaissance to English country. Lounges, smoking rooms, libraries, salons, private parlors and a beautiful palm court all treated the traveller to a cross section of European style, culture and atmosphere. Lavish accoutrements were to be found throughout the ship. In First Class, for example, all the bathroom fixtures were silver plated! First Class cabins aboard Lusitania sold for as much as $4,000 for a one-way trip in one of the Regal Suites. This at a time when the average man earned $20 a week! First Class passengers also enjoyed the use of an elevator as well as a covered promenade for outdoor walks in inclement weather. The First Class Dining Room was an elaborate space two decks high and topped by a huge ornate dome. Corinthian columns, potted palms and a menu to tempt even the most discriminating palate made the First Class Dining Room a favourite among its affluent occupants. Competing with the Dining Room in elegance was the First Class Lounge. Heavy oaks and carved plaster joined with an arcing stained-glass ceiling featuring skylights that filled the room with natural light by day while electric lights and chandeliers provided an intimate atmosphere at night. Similar to the Lounge was the First Class Smoking Room. This was an exclusive den of manhood, as was the ship's barbershop. The women had their own room, to be sure, the First Class Reading and Writing Room, a quiet and brightly lit room featuring tables and chairs where one could write a note on Lusitania stationary. 

http://lostliners.com/content/flagships/Lusitania/lucy.html

Additionally for October 7th., see 'George Sturt and me' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/george-sturt-and-me.html

George Sturt wrote to me today as follows:
"If you had read between the lines with any discernment, you'd have been blushingly disowning my implied flattery instead of attacking me with a bludgeon. You have my full permission to go to the Devil."

Observing afresh

Tuesday, October 6th., Victoria Grove, Chelsea. 

At times, and in some fortunate aspects, London will look as quaint, picturesque and mediaeval, as any old-world continental city. But it must be regarded with a "fresh" eye, an eye unprejudiced by custom and associations. When I catch the town in such an aspect, I understand how the inhabitants of these old-world continental cities can be oblivious to the attractions which surround them, as they certainly are, and I suddenly see eye to eye with the appreciative foreigner in London.

Sheep in Green Park

This morning, as I walked through the Green Park in an October mist, it occurred to me that the sheep grazing there, and the soldiers practising flag-signals, would, if seen by me in an unfamiliar city, have constituted for me a memorable picture of pure quaintness. Then, walking in the Strand as the sun overpowered the fog, what mellow picturesque was there in the vista of churches, backed by the roofs of the Law Courts and further away a tower for all the world like the Beffroi at Bruges. Observed five hundred miles away, a scene less striking than this would be one to talk about and grow enthusiastic over, one to buy photographs of ... But it happens to be in London.

Expanding horizons

Saturday, October 5th., Les Sablons.

Curious example of wit in Wordsworth; I should imagine it to be rather rare: the description of the old pack of cards in the first book of "The Prelude"; pp. 17-18 of the temple Classics edition. I am now reading "The Prelude" with intense pleasure. I have abandoned several other books in order to read it. I have just read half of Proctor's "Primer of Astronomy", and now for the first time understand how not only the varying length of days, but the seasons, are caused by the plane of the equator not being the same as the plane of the ecliptic. Simple enough! Perhaps one day I may comprehend the precession of the equinoxes.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26556/26556-h/26556-h.htm

I had a headache for three days, but I did my daily portion of "The Sole Survivors" and finished the thing, which I have damned a hundred times, yesterday morning. This is the last play I will ever touch until I have a play produced.

On Tuesday I begin my novel.

Recently I have taken to long walks in the forest. On Wednesday I discovered the Malmontagne, with wide views of the forest. In nature it is large spaces, bleak, with simple outlines and little noticeable detail, that appeal to me most strongly. I am more 'sympathetic' to Dartmoor than to any other spot on earth. Next to that, the sea. Here, what chiefly appeals to me is the forest seen in the mass from a height, and the long smooth stretches of the Seine between St. Mammes and Montereau. With such things I class in my memory the panorama of the Appenines, spotted with hill-towns as seen from the first range behind San Remo.

On Thursday it rained nearly all day and I walked two hours in the rain. The horse chestnuts in the road are dropping their fruit like heavy ammunition, and people are gathering it for cattle food.

Lee Mathews wrote me yesterday that Professor Gilbert Murray, one of the reading committee of the Stage Society, was delighted with "Cupid and Commonsense". This gave me much pleasure. It now begins to look as if this play would really be produced.
See also 'French Excursion', September 24th., -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/friday-september-24th.html

Additionally for October 5th., see 'Headache' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/headache.html

To wake up at midnight, after an hours sleep, with a headache, slight but certainly indicative of the coming attack; to hear the clock strike, every note drilling a separate hole into your skull; to spend the rest of the night uneasily between sleeping and waking, always turning over the pillow, and tormented intermittently by idiotic nightmares, crowded with action, which fatigue the brain: this is a disturbed liver. Towards morning comes the hope, caused by the irregularity of the pain, that the headache will pass away on getting up. But it never does so.

Life in wartime

Monday, October 4th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Mrs. Green today said that she had been talking to a young Sub. at Queen Alexandra's Hospital, Millbank, wounded in Dardanelles. He told her that one day they had to put up wire entanglements and there were no posts. A number of stiff corpses of Turks were lying about. They upended them and stuck them into the ground like posts, and fastened the wire to their heads. Mrs. Green said to us: "What will the youths of 19 be like afterwards, who have been through this kind of thing, and got used to it?"

I should say that in most respects, and to all appearance, they will be like others who have not been through it.

Started 6th. instalment of "The Lion's Share" today.

Owing to the war, Septimus has closed his studio and is working in Sheffield for the Vickers company, where he is supervising a group of women producing shells. He has left his family in the Potteries. He works 11 hours a day on the day shift, 13 on the night shift (from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m.). He writes that he is "... mightily sick of the whole business. I could put up with days but the man who started night work ought to be shot. The strain is too great. The living and working in false light & rotten atmosphere and sleeping while the sun shines is as fatal to the strongest constitutions as it would be to a flower. The work itself has its picturesque side. The interior lit up by large electric arc lights, & small individual bulbs on each lathe, the hum of the machinery, the noise of hammers & the anvil, the clink of shells, people going to and fro with trucks loaded with shells & someone active at each lathe, produces a wonderful effect seen through an open doorway from across the yard, on a dark night."

Additionally for October 4th., see 'Parisian views' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/parisian-views.html

I then came out and surveyed Paris from the front. I could distinguish most of the landmarks - Notre Dame, Pantheon, Invalides, Gare de Lyon, St. Sulpice, and Louvre. Never before had I had such a just idea of the immense size of the Louvre. I could also see the Opera, (that centre of Paris qui s'amuse) with its green roof (? copper). And it looked so small and square and ordinary. And I thought of the world-famed boulevards and resorts lying hidden round about there. And I thought: Is that all it is? For a moment it seemed impossible to me that, as a result of a series of complicated conventions merely, that collocation of stones, etc. (paving stones and building stones) could really be what it is - a synonym and symbol for all that is luxurious, frivolous, gay, viscious, and artistic. I thought: "Really, Paris is not Paris after all; it is only a collocation of stones." The idea, though obvious enough, was very striking for a minute or two.

Literary prizes

Thursday, October 3rd., Cadogan Square, London.

What is a literary prize? A literary prize is a sum of money - interest on capital donated by some person more earnest than knowledgeable about literature and the wholesomeness, purity, and dignity thereof - to the end that it shall be bestowed annually upon the author of the best book of the year in a particular department of letters. The annual book is chosen by a committee of 'experts' each of whom has different notions of excellence from the others. All of them are as sensitive as toy-dogs. All of them have theories concerning literature. All of them are sentimental and respectable, as the donor was sentimental and respectable. All of them object to the social structure being too rudely shaken. Their delicate susceptibilities have to be seriously considered. Hence no book with a really original anti-tradition bias has the least chance of winning the prize; no 'spiky' book has the least chance; and few such books even get themselves submitted to the solemn seances of the high-minded committee. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the prize goes to a shop-finished conventional work.

Original writers resent the institution of the literary prize - not because they don't like prizes; they do - but because they are well aware that a prize will never come their way. The original writers say that the institution does nothing, or less than nothing, for the advancement of literature, and that on the contrary it encourages the reactionaries of literature and their prim mediocrity. This is true.

But I am not antipathetic to the institution of literary prizes. In fact I once won one myself (perhaps that amazing fact has somewhat influenced my views - you never know!). The business of a literary prize is not in fact to shove literature forward, but to keep it steady. A legitimate business!

Additionally for October 3rd., see 'Anyone for tennis' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/anyone-for-tennis.html

Preparations for tennis with Gardiner and H.G.Wells in Square. Gardiner came shortly after 3 and Wells a little before the appointed time, 3.30. Both middle aged, grave, jocular, voluble. They changed their clothes up in my room. Our ages, A.G.G 63, H.G.W. 62, and me 61.

Literary egos

Thursday, October 2nd., Cadogan Square, London.

Osbert Sitwell lunched with me yesterday at Reform Club. By arrangement Swinnerton joined us. Before lunch Siegfried Sassoon came up and said: "Can I lunch at your table today?" (In pursuance of my reproaches that he would keep by himself in the club) I said: "Certainly. You must. Osbert is coming. Sort of silly feud between him and Osbert which Edith Sitwell told me about some time ago. S.S. drew back but I made him come. A little occasional acerbity in S.S.'s tone at times, but it was quite all right. At the end I made S.S. see Osbert out of the club.

See also 'Lunch with Mad Jack', June 9th., -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/lunch-with-mad-jack.html

These petty feuds in the verse world are quite amusing. Osbert is always planning some literary practical joke against someone. Siegfried had stopped speaking to Osbert because (he says) Osbert would never leave him alone. And he stopped speaking to Edith because she wouldn't prevent Osbert doing his tricks. "But what can I do?" said Edith. In revenge Sacheverell Sitwell swore he would never speak to Siegfried again. It appears also that either Siegfried won't speak to Robert Graves or vice-versa. All very odd, and rather childish.

Osbert Sitwell is a satirist of an unusual kind. he is not a contributor to Punch and he is not likely to be. He accepts nothing without the strictest and most hostile examination. he is a fundamental objector, with the bellicose, haughty and ruthless spirit of a Renaissance prince. His artistic existence is a crusade. He can be at once bitter and courtly. He will hand you the poisoned chalice, watch you fall in agony, contemplate your corpse with a bland smile, and go out calmly for a constitutional! He is that sort of man.

Osbert, Edith and Sacheverell Sitwell

The Sitwells (Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell), from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were three siblings who formed an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930. This was marked by some well-publicised events, the most prominent of which was probably Edith's Façade with music by William Walton, with its public debut in 1923. All three Sitwells wrote; for a while their circle was considered by some to rival Bloomsbury, though others dismissed them as attention-seekers rather than serious artists.

Additionally for October 2nd., see 'Visions' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/sunday-october-2nd.html

Yesterday I had a goodish large notion for the Hilda book - of portraying the droves of the whole sex, instead of whole masculine droves. I think I can do something with this, showing the multitudinous activities of the whole sex, the point of view of the whole sex, against a mere background of masculinity. I had a sudden vision of it. It has never been done.

Incurables

Tuesday, October 1st., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Hospital for Incurables, West Hill.

The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability (RHN) was established in July 1854 at a meeting held at the Mansion House, chaired by the Lord Mayor of London. The hospital's founder, Andrew Reed, had a record as a practical philanthropist, having previously set up four other charities, and Charles Dickens, the celebrated author, was one of the first high profile figures to show his support by helping Reed raise funds for it. The RHN was originally known as the Hospital for Incurables. It was based in a converted workhouse in Carshalton, Surrey, but as demand for its services grew, larger premises were required, and in 1857 it moved to a more spacious house in Putney. Just a few years later, even more space was needed and so in 1863 the hospital relocated to its permanent home, Melrose Hall on West Hill, in Putney. Melrose Hall came with 24 acres of land on which, until the 1960s, the hospital ran a working farm, supplying fresh produce for patients’ meals. The Hall also had extensive gardens, parts of which had been landscaped by Lancelot “Capability” Brown. Although much of the land has now been developed, the RHN's patients, residents, relatives and employees still benefit from using the hospital's large landscaped gardens.

What must be the feelings of the patient as he drives into the entrance to this hospital, and sees the big sign: "Hospital for Incurables"?

Additionally for October 1st., see 'Waiting with style' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/waiting-with-style.html

As he carried the plate out with the change on it, he held it the least bit in the world at arm's length, exposing it with scorn to the inspection of the chasseur as he passed him. It was a fine, subtle, gesture, and pleased me as much as it annoyed me.