English abroad

Saturday, March 23rd., Hotel Californie, Cannes.

I finished the first part of "The Regent" on Tuesday and wrote "Clay in the Hands of the Potter" for Youth's Companion (Boston) on Wednesday, and sent it off on Thursday. 

The Youth's Companion (1827–1929), known in later years as simply The Companion—For All the Family, was an American children's magazine that existed for over one hundred years until it finally merged with The American Boy in 1929. The Companion was published in Boston, Massachusetts by the Perry Mason Company (later renamed "Perry Mason & Co." after the founder died). From 1892 to 1915 it was based in the Youth's Companion Building, which is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Selwyns came over for lunch on Thursday. On Friday we went to Monte Carlo, and had lunch with them - Mary Moore, Charles Wyndham, and H. B. Harris (N. Y. theatrical manager) being of the party. At the Hermitage. Food not so startlingly good as rumour says. Beautiful view of the harbour and yachts  from the Selwyns' bedroom. Selwyn was still worrying me to write a play on "The Card". We went and came home by train.

Coming up to hotel in omnibus, an oldish sea-captainish sort of man said to a youngish red-haired woman that miners had refused the terms of the Minimum Wages Bill. "But of course they refuse everything!" said she scornfully. I must have a strike in my continental novel. It is very funny that all the English inhabitants of grand hotels should be furious because miners insist on a minimum of 5s. per day for men, and 2s. per day for boys.

Additionally for March 23rd., see 'Enchanted'

On Sunday Dr. Vallee took us to Nemours, a delicious old town with a castle, ramparts, moats, and the Loing; full of wonderful views. Mme. and I went to buy cakes and we all had tea on the pavement in front of an inn; while the landlady and another woman sat and sewed nearby. Seeking the garcon to pay the bill I got into a vast kitchen full of all kinds of curious domestics and copper pans. Passing along the street we saw a tailor, old, in black, white hair, and a strangely shaped head, standing at the door of his shop. Davray and I both exclaimed at once: "Balzacian". "Ursule Mironet" is laid in Nemours, and the extraordinary veracity of Balzac's descriptions strikes one everywhere. His descriptions were not exaggerated.