Faith re-established

Saturday, March 20th., George Street, London.

Yesterday morning, after careering in the park after play-ideas and catching them, I went to Neville Lewis's show and bought a small picture of a woman suckling a child for 15 guineas. Clifton, with whom I had a talk, told me of the times when Johns could be bought for 10 guineas - and damned few buyers. He said he had once sold a very large pastel of John's for 10 guineas to a woman and had never heard of it since.

Alfred Neville Lewis (1895 - 1972) was a South African artist. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and educated there and, later, at the Slade School of Art in London. His father was the Reverend A. J. S. Lewis, who on 4 October 1929, officially opened the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway. Neville married Theo Townshend a fellow student. He became a member of the New English Art Club in 1920. When his marriage broke up in 1922 his two sons Tom and David went to Cape Town where they were raised by their grandparents and his daughter Catherine stayed with his ex-wife. He served in World War I in France, Belgium, and Italy.

I heard yesterday that the first week's receipts of "Sacred and Profane Love" in New York were over 16,700 dollars. This easily bangs "Milestones" and all my other records. My royalties on that week exceed £350. My faith in the theatre as a means of artistic expression was of course instantly re-established. It would be. I think I have made a fatal error with the film rights. I sold them for £1,500, just half what I could have got.

For more on "Sacred and Profane Love" see 'Love in Liverpool'

Nagel and Ferguson in the film

There were 88 performances of "Sacred and Profane Love" at the Morosco Theatre, New York between February 23rd. and early May 1920. There were 4 acts and the settings were Mrs. Joicey's sitting-room on the first floor of her house in the Five Towns, the drawing room of Carlotta's flat in Bloomsbury, and the salon of a furnished flat in a dubious street of Paris. It starred Elsie Ferguson. It became a 1921 silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. This film was directed by William Desmond Taylor and also starred Elsie Ferguson with Conrad Nagel. It was based on The Book of Carlotta by Arnold Bennett . Writer/director Julia Crawford Ivers adapted the book and play to the screen while her son James Van Trees served as one of the film's cinematographers. All known copies of this film are lost.

Additionally for March 19th., see 'Military manoeuvres'

The Am. Column received the order to depart on Friday night at 10.30 - to leave on Saturday. The O.C. spent Saturday morning in trying to get the order rescinded, because the Weeley position is too far back for a battery at Frinton, especially with a R.A.M.C. and an A.S.C. in between. He failed. The actual departure, which we witnessed between 5.30 and 6.30 p.m. on Saturday, was a striking proof of the vast inferiority of horse and mule traction to motor traction.