Struggles

Friday, February 15th., Hotel San Remo, Nice.

I am here for a few weeks of productive writing with Phillpotts, and to enjoy some better weather. Also I must take stock, and decide how best to proceed, in connection with Mme. Soulie. She came, unexpectedly, to see me off from the Gare de Lyon which I took to be more or less a declaration of commitment should I want to reciprocate. I like her very much and we seem to be suited sexually, which is a great thing. I think that if I offered to put her 'under my protection' as the French say then she would be willing, but perhaps I want more than that. Or perhaps I want nothing at all! I have written to her laying out something of my character, experience and prospects, but have left the future open for the present. This time away, though hard, will give me space to decide what will be for the best. I am approaching forty and have declared several times, and to several people, that I will marry before I am forty. Perhaps I will.

I read in the continental Daily Mail of the largest clashes yet between suffragettes and the police in London yesterday. The trouble started after a decision by what the movement calls 'its parliament', which has been set up in Caxton Hall, to present a resolution to its male counterpart in Westminster. The struggles between the women and the officers, many it seems on horseback, lasted for more than five hours and marked the most ferocious battle yet in women's war for the vote. As the women marched through the streets at dusk mounted police rode into the procession to break it up. The women were scattered and some had their clothes torn and bodies bruised, but they still fought to get to the House. Fifteen of them in fact reached the Strangers' Lobby where they tried to hold a meeting before being arrested. Apparently Miss Pankhurst and others will appear in court today. Needless to say the leader writer in the Mail borders on the apoplectic in condemning these women for so forgetting their place as to challenge the political order. The presence of mounted police ready to intervene suggests to me that the government had prior knowledge of the womens' intentions. In my opinion heavy-handed tactics are sure to backfire.

Feted

Saturday, February 14th., Cadogan Square, London.

I had a great time in the Potteries. Sundry hours with Wilcox Edge in the train! He is a very interesting old man, and the Potteries is too much obsessed by his failings. He tells me he was Mayor of Burslem thirty years ago. Imagine that! Though born in Burslem he lived mainly in Wolstanton and had a scheme for the 'annexation' of Wolstanton by Burslem. It came to nothing in the end and Wolstanton remained instead in the clutches of Newcastle. Seemed philosophical about it. A lifelong Liberal.

I went to Hanley and did nothing whatever except ornament the proceedings with my presence, and I was told about forty times how much I had 'honoured' the said proceedings with my 'presence'. Not at all as I expected. The Mayor wore his two-ton chain. I sat on his right. I saw all sorts of people who knew me and whom I didn't know, and whom I admirably pretended to know.  Disconcerting to be feted in a place one has persistently described as being indifferent, if not inimical, to worldly renown. I arrived at 2.30 and left at 6.39, breathing a sigh of relief, and dozed on the train.

But I got home without a headache and the next three days did vast quantities of my novel. yesterday I reposed, and had Robert Loraines to lunch, and a musical supper party. At this party Arnold Bax and Eugene Goossens sat down at the piano and improvised, without a preliminary word to each other, a Spanish tango which lasted a quarter of an hour, and to which Tania danced. It was full of new tunes, and there was never the slightest hitch, discord, or fumbling. How they do it I know not but in that line it was the most marvellous thing I ever heard. Bed at 1.45. Tania was, of course, much admired.

Today I am writing the preface to "Don Juan".

Cheered up

 Monday, February 13th., Cadogan Square, London.

To Lucas's restaurant where we entertained Marcel Achard and wife; Mimi and husband. Alfred Beit also came. The others gradually left but Achard stayed, at my request, and we talked there till nearly five o'clock. He is only a young chap but intelligent and excellent company. We then went into a Russian tea place, which was interesting. I have a disinclination to work, a chill in the head and more acute insomnia. yet quite well enough to go about. I am doing no work except articles. I don't know how long it will last. It has lasted about two weeks so far. The annoying thing is that everybody tells me how well I look!

I was cheered up considerably this week when I discovered that my work has become of interest in academia. This both surprised and delighted me. It turns out that a Doctor Hudson, of Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, has published a paper in the journal Geoforum entitled

"Arnold Bennett, Geography and Architecture: A Literary Synthesis". I have read it, several times, and it is good. Dr. Hudson describes himself as a literary geographer and it seems that, unbeknown to me, some geographers are using books like mine as a source for research. Hudson says that my writings are "a particularly rich source". Wonderful! Essentially he argues that geography must take account, if it is to have value, not only of places per se, but of how people experience them. He says that "no other literary artist domonstrates a better understanding of the nature of geography". He also notes the considerable changes, economic social and technological, that have taken place during my literary career, and finds that I have shown in my writing a deep understanding of them. This is all extremely gratifying!

On the domestic front, we have decided not to go ahead with the idea to build a house on land at Aldwick. In fact I have sold it for £1,400 free of agents commission; this means a profit of £300 in less than a year. I also expect to make a good profit on a Modigliani picture which I bought ten years ago for £50. I certainly had quite a sound instinct for Modiglianis and ought to have trusted it more, for I could have bought two at the time instead of one, equally good, at the same price each. I hope and expect to get at least £1000 for this one.

But we are no nearer deciding what to do when the lease runs out here, and I foresee strife ahead.

 

Arnold Bennett, Geography and Architecture: A Literary Synthesis, Geoforum, 119. February, 2021, pp. 94-101.

War news

Friday, February 12th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

I think that the war is now drawing to a close and I should be rather surprised if it didn't end this year. The whole thing has been a sheer madness in my opinion.  But when you see the newspapers more occupied with the social and political news of the war and not the military news of the war you may bet a great change has come over the scene. And not before time because the food situation here is grave. In Germany and Austria it is, I understand, appalling. The recent strikes in Germany and Austria were very real and alarming, and all this is to the good. The only potential problem I see is that if social unrest gets completely out of hand then there may occur something similar to what has happened in Russia. It depends on whether or not there are sufficiently charismatic agitators to lead a revolution.

As I see it, it would be sufficient for us for Austria to cave in. If Austria did then Germany would have to. As Austria is easily the weaker of the two, the most interesting thing is what is happening in Austria, and yet people seem always more interested in what is happening in Germany. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link and Austria is the weakest link. I don't count Turkey and Bulgaria. 

The U.S.A. have now 400,000 men in France, and the number is increasing all the time. Up to the present however the U.S.A. haven't displayed much talent for turning men into an coherent fighting machine. They are not conceited and they admit this. So far, they are far inferior to us in this respect. I have this on good authority because I see a great many people of all sorts who are in a position to know the facts and who talk freely to me.

Russian news is scarce and much of it is censored. An English manufacturer in Russia who has escaped told a friend of mine, who told me, that he was tried for his life by his own workmen, and got off by a majority of two.Also that he himself saw people being burned alive in barrels of kerosene in the Nevsky Prospect, the principal street of Petrograd, and that nobody seemed to be particularly upset by it. Except those being incinerated of course! Hugh Walpole has spent most of the war in Petrograd and has the most astounding stories to tell of robbery and violence and so on. Some interesting material for his use when this is all over.

I have just now finished "The Pretty Lady" but it doesn't leave me much freer as I am always worried with articles and oddments for this tedious war

On form

Thursday, February 1th., Fulham Park Gardens, London.

I have struck a good seam of form. In the last month I have finished my serial and have written two short stories, one of 4,000 words and one of 5,000. They are pretty good I think. The serial is 'sensational' of course but there is money to be earned from sensational serials and I cannot afford to spurn any opportunity to earn. If I continued to write psychological treatises like "A Man from the North" I might earn some sort of reputation but I would most definitely not earn a livelihood. And in any case I have today read through as much as is done of the draft of "Anna Tellwright". It is not sensational. It is, I think, good. Perhaps even very good. I am drawn to finish it.

At the moment, in between work, I am in the act of discovering W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet, whose prose, to my mind, is just about equal to anything going round. I have been fascinated by "The Celtic Twilight", a little volume of essays about fairies and spirits. I wrote to Frank to recommend it to him only to find that he bought it when it came out and has admired it for six years now. He might have told me! I intend to get Yeats' complete works. It dawns upon me that he is one of the men of the century, so aloof, so spiritual, and with a style which is the last word of simplicity and natural refinement.

Tomorrow I am going down to Torquay for a weekend with Phillpotts and expect to have some jolly good jaws beside the whiskey bottle. He is a man who really can't argue. I can't argue myself, but I can argue him off his legs; yet he is always in the right ultimately. He is like Sharpe in that he feels, and what he feels he absolutely relies on, knowing that arguments are merely the refuge of the clever.

Phillpotts has a new play at the Court called "For the Love of Pim". It was very well done indeed, simple, direct and strong; and damn well acted too. In the main piece at the Court was our adored Miriam Clements, as regally lovely as ever, and just as bad an actress. She was playing the sister of Louis X1V and the role suited her appearance to perfection.

Much exhausted

 Wednesday, February 9th., George Street, London.

I arrived here from Monte last night, three and a half hours late, after one and a half days in trains and a steamer. Much exhausted this morning. I had quite enough worries and harassments on coming home, but the worst by far of all this morning is the news that my agent J.B. Pinker died suddenly in New York last night. Apart from the fact that he was a very old friend of mine, he had the whole of my affairs in his hands. There is no other really good agent in England. The difference between a good and a bad agent might mean the difference of thousands a year to me.

In spite of extreme tiredness I am off to Eastbourne this afternoon to see my play "The Love Match" which is, I hear, in difficulty. I am not surprised, and would prefer to leave it to its fate, but I have promised to go, and go I will. Kyrle Bellow, (or is it Bellew) has the lead role. I don't know much about her but she claims to have acted in films in the U.S.A. I have had a sore throat for a fortnight, and today I am really taking it in hand, sprays etc. In this connection my caretaker here, Mr. Tayler, is a marvel. He looks after me with the most touching solicitude, even coming to my bedroom last thing at night to see that I am 'tucked up' rightly. It is one of the astonishingest examples of personal devotion I have ever known. I think he may have been a batman in the war. I am taking him with me to Eastbourne!

The background bother is of course to do with the separation from Marguerite. Marie Belloc Lowndes, on behalf of Marguerite, is trying to arrange some sort of reconciliation. When I get back, and am somewhat restored, I will write to her and give a full account as it is evident that she has been taken in by hearing only one side of the story. But mainly I will tell her that she is wasting her time. There is no going back for me; it is not in my nature. Someone else asks me about the future of the Anglo-French Poetry Society. I thought only Marguerite cared about it. Well, it seems that the Committee has resigned en masse in protest at M.'s insistence that Legros be included. It will all break up now, without my guidance and cultural weight behind it. But in any case it could not long have survived the acute boringness of the performances!

Too busy

Wednesday, February 9th., Yacht Club, London.

Came to London today. First good, clear frost of the winter. Very sharp. I am suffering from lumbago but otherwise in good form. I am so busy, mainly with war work, that it is difficult even to find time to reply to letters from friends. I have signed a contract to dramatise "Sacred and Profane Love" for Doris Keane, a really fine American actress. I won't start it until Easter time, and don't expect to take very long, but it should be lucrative if successful. And "These Twain" is a great success both here and in America. It has sold better than any of my previous novels, in spite of critical doubts. Those people I know who have read it tell me it is the best description of real marriage they have ever come across.

Lunch at the Reform. Pinker came. Methuen joined us about alleged coming 'revolution' in price of novels. It seems that of the Council of the Publishers' Association who had suggested it, only four published novels at all, and none published novels on any scale. So they obviously know what they are talking about! Characteristic. We told him that the scheme of different prices would never work, and coached him as to what he should say at the grand meeting on Monday.

Then to W.A.R.C. offices. Difficulty with Lord X. as to my having put name of Queen Alexandra on posters for concert. Typical. I flatly disagreed with him, which I don't think he is used to or expected. And I showed him that I was in fact logically right, and in a spirit of recociliatrion drafted a letter for him to write to the Queen. It is his sort who give the aristocracy a bad name.