The Bach of fiction

Sunday, March 7th., Victoria Grove, London.

To my mind Turgenev is the master. Having conceived his story his method is to strip away every picturesque inessential, austerely turn aside from artfulness, and present it in the simplest, most straightforward form. That is why he can tell in 60,000 words a history which George Eliot or Thomas Hardy would only have hinted at in 200,000. He is the Bach of fiction, whose severity and simplicity are mistaken for lack of imagination and baldness. I used to think that Bach was a lofty creature without a heart, but I have been told by people who know that he is in fact as emotional as any composer who ever lived. I am now beginning to see as much for myself.

I have not touched my novel this week. The demands of Woman and my new bicycle have been too imperious to be ignored, but I am also digesting the Turgenev method and will endeavour to imitate it when I restart my writing. I may not succeed but the intention will be there. I feel now that I could do a remarkably good short story (5 or 6,000 words) so much has my ability improved as I have been writing the novel. When "In the Shadow" is in the shadow I will have a go at one and will contrive to make it ten times as good as "A Letter Home" which was a sentimental early effort. I am getting pretty weary of "In the Shadow" and am positively anxious to start something new.

The sun was shining from a clear sky today, and there was genuine warmth to be felt though the air temperature remained cold. That always seems strange to me. But I feel a little unsettled and dissatisfied which is, I think, to do with these signs of Spring springing. I have a feeling that this may be a significant year for me.

A big idea

Sunday, March 6th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Edmund Gosse

The Davrays dined with me last night at the Hippodrome, and afterwards we went to the Grand Cafe. He gave me sundry particulars about the French dinner to Edmund Gosse, and said that Gosse's speech was simply admirable and was continually interrupted, at every sentence, by applause. Schwob's speech in English was also very good he said.

It appears that Gosse received the offer of his appointment to the Librarianship of the House of Lords on the very morning of the banquet. Davray saw the letter offering the appointment, from Sir Henry Loundes Graham, and said it was extraordinarily flattering.

I had great ideas this last day or two of a chart of English Literature, chronological; divided in coloured sections showing different groups such as poetry- history, drama etc. .... and showing the 'contemporaneousness' of authors and works exactly. Thus the years from 'Summer is y-cumen in' down to Wells would be marked perpendicularly and the contemporaneousness shown horizontally. It would be possible to see at a glance what poetry, history, theology etc. was being produced at the date, say, of "Tom Jones"; and how "Tom Jones" stood with "Clarissa", or "Hamlet" with "The Broken Heart". And also the ages of the authors at the dates of their various works would be automatically perceptible.

Such a chart would be extremely useful. A month's work with nothing but Chambers "Encyclopedia of English Literature" and the "Dictionary of National Biography" would suffice for it. I would try to include all the authors dealt with in the former. I sem to see myself doing it, for fun, after an illness, or when I was thoroughly exhausted with creative work

Nice chaps

Friday, March 5th., Cadogan Square, London.

I have had an acutish liver attack for two days but it is over now.

I didn't get into bed this morning until 1.20 and was up at 7. I dined at Diana Cooper's last night. I have never been to her Gower Street house before. It is fine, a complete house. Next door is a converted block of flats and they have knocked a hole through the wall and added one of the flats to their own home. An ingenious scheme. Amazing what can be accomplished when one has pots of money. The house does look beautiful though, and I feel quite envious. One curious thing is that Duff Cooper doesn't smoke, therefore there were no cigars, which pained me. Not because I can't do without cigars, but because I disliked the argument which ensued. Yet Duff is a most delightful man. 

I am dining with the Duke of Marlborough on Thursday and I hope, and expect, that things will be better there. I have known him for twelve years but at the Other Club last Thursday we became more intimate and he requested me to dinner. He is of course the head of the Churchill family and the grand grand grandson of the greatest soldier in English history, to whom a greatful country presented Blenheim. Also he is a very nice ignorant chap, and an ardent Roman Catholic. That is about all I know of him.

Our new servants are now installed. But when I wanted a bath last night (1.10 a.m.) the water was cold. This annoys Fred even more than it does me. His views on women (or rather girls) are gradually being soured. Wells and Shaw are coming to lunch on Friday next. The top of the house has been painted and papered as part of our preparations to move out later this year. I wish to God that we could stay! We still have no idea where we will move to and the cost of the whole operation will be fantastic. Which means that the unrelenting round of work continues. I increasingly wonder if it is all worthwhile, but feel entirely trapped.

Tomorrow I am off to the first night of "The Lady of the Camellias" with Duff Tayler. It is at the Garrick and features Tallulah Bankhead.

Making up the numbers

Saturday, March 4th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Went to London Wednesday. Lunch and sleep at Marriott's. Then national 'Economy' meeting at Guildhall where I sat next but one to Barrie. McKenna spoke well but too slowly. Kitchener read badly a speech which had evidently been prepared for him. Balfour was pleasing. I found myself thinking that it was all so much theatricality. Everybody going through the motions, playing their part, feeling important, and it all amounted to what? Simply a show to put a stamp of joint purpose on policies which are already decided and in train. But it looked good in the papers yesterday! I don't know why I was there. To make up the numbers I suppose.

Some of the Labour people were funny. The representative of one branch of workers drank too much. Another slanged trade unions. Turner of the Shop Assistants was good. 

Another quarrel with Marguerite. Once again she has instructed the maids that they must get up at 5.30 to start their work. Once again I have explained to her that my peace of mind, my work, my sleep, my general well-being are of primary importance. The management of the house must be organised to fit in with me, not the other way round. Marguerite knows this, she has admitted as much, and yet she persists in making changes which go against my wishes, and upset me. I don't want to get involved in the management of the house and the indoor servants; at the outset we agreed that she should do those things and I would look after the garden. But I will not be disturbed!

Theatricals

Thursday, March 3rd., George Street, London.

I reached home from Liverpool late on Tuesday night and was run off my brain-legs yesterday until 7 p.m. The play went most excellently in Liverpool, and the house was full, and I went before the curtain and so on. The mischief was that Tayler and I had to go out to supper afterwards to meet the whole company. This feast lasted until 2 a.m. I was most gratified by the attentions of some of the young lady cast members; I think it must have gotten about that I am restored to bachelorhood (or thereabouts).

On reaching Euston on Tuesday we found Herman Finck, the music hall composer, had come to meet us, so the least I could do was ask him to come with us to the flat. He stayed yarning, being a good yarner, until 12.20 a.m. By that time I was dead with fatigue, though diverted by the yarns. Finck has been a prolific composer for the last twenty years and must have pots of money I should think. Apparently he conducted the first phonograph record of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker". A few risque stories about the famous 'Palace Girls' when he was conducting at the Palace Theatre which we were in a mood to enjoy.

Yesterday I was determined to lunch quietly at home, which I did. But there was a Lyric Theatre meeting in the afternoon and in the evening I dined with Beaverbrook at Fulham. Couldn't get away from there because I had promised to deliver home in my brougham Helen Drury, B's sister, and Eleanor Smith, daughter of the Lord Chancellor. These young girls definitely refused to move until midnight, and I had to keep my end up. So bed at 1.15 for me. However I slept well which surprised me. 

Off to the theatre yet again tonight for a first night of a David Garrick opera. Not looking forward to it, but what can you do?

Astonished

Monday, March 2nd., R.M.S. Anselm, at sea.

I can positively say that we are at sea. I cannot say where at sea we are. Somewhere in or near the Irish Sea it seems. The coastline to starboard may be Wales! Expecting to be in the Mersey on Wednesday.

All sorts of problems before we left. Originally it was to have been a February 24th. departure but owing to quarantine delays in Brazil it was changed to the 28th. Then reports came that she had made up time, but they proved unfounded as she was again delayed by gales and 'bad coal' and hadn't reached Lisbon on the 27th. Eventually we left Oporto at 8.32 a.m. yesterday.

Just as I was sending off a Marconi to advise people back home of the situation, to my great astonishment, I received a Marconi. My first ever. I thought it might be that there had been an earthquake at Thorpe, or an armed rising in Burslem! But it was a message offering me £530 a week and expenses to go to Russia to interview Lenin and report generally on the beauties and defects of Soviet Government. I wirelessed back that I would go if the American newspaper syndicate making the offer would send with me a courier who knew Russia and who could attend to all formalities and despatching of cables etc. I am equivocal about going. A unique experience, but a month of my valuable time and the likelihood of discomfort.

This holiday in Portugal with Swinnerton has been excellent. He was quite right to say that I needed to get away from domestic anxieties. I have only had one indisposition which kept me in bed for nearly a full day. We have been out most nights, music mainly, and I have done ten watercolours. Swinnerton particularly liked one I did of the lighthouse south of Cape Raso.
 

It is a great change from the Portuguese coast to the Welsh coast. Yesterday wandering on deck with no overcoat in blazing sun. Today, sun but two overcoats. Well, "San Ferry Ann" as my Uncle Fred used to say.

Strange feelings

Monday, March 1st., Winter Palace Hotel, Menton.

I wrote 700 words this morning, and 700 this afternoon, of my new novel which I think I shall call "The Vanguard". Dorothy worked on her scenario of my short story "Death, Fire and Life", and so was not ready to go out until 12.22.  We sat in the garden of the hotel for a bit, and began to lunch fairly early. After a snooze we went out at 3 and walked down to the level ground, about six minutes, and then Dorothy did not want to walk any more, and we took a victoria and went about town shopping. I think that pregnancy is starting to make her lazy, and warned her that she will get fat if not careful. She laughed.

I have been reading more of Yeats's "Celtic Twilight". It is an engaging little book. Simple but elegantly written. I particularly like the way Yeats tells the reader, without frills or comment, what he has himself been told about supernatural experiences. Their matter-of-fact delivery makes them more credible. Yeats describes a couple of weird experiences of his own but shrinks from saying that he believes in 'faeries'; intimates that he may have fallen under some sort of enchanting influence. But I think he does believe. A part I was reading today about the feeling one can get in isolated places, especially woods, rang a bell with me. I have sometimes felt that sense of heightened awareness, a sort of anticipation that something strange is going to happen, even on one occasion in Bradwell Woods when I was a boy. I can remember that just in the act of taking one step I felt as if I had crossed some sort of line, things were quieter, I became wary, and wanted to look round as if I was being watched. Not scared exactly, but conscious that there was more around me than I had been aware of previously. This must have been forty odd years ago, and yet I can resurrect the feeling now, and the hair on my neck rises.

We have had an invitation to visit the Wells's for one of their 'weekends' but won't be back in England in time. Our intention is to leave here next Sunday and travel by easy stages to Paris, then on to Calais and home.