Art and socks

Wednesday, January 31st., 59, Rue de Grenelle, Paris.

Paul Durand-Ruel

I went to see the historic Durand Ruel collection at 35 Rue de Rome. The furniture of the flat was startlingly different in quality and taste from the pictures. All the furniture might have been bought at the Bonne Marche. The table in the dining room was covered in the chequered cloth so prevalent in small French households. In this room was a still-life of Monet. The doors however were beautifully painted panels. Aged and young domestics moved about. There was a peculiar close smell - no, not peculiar, because it permeates thousands of Paris homes.

From the front windows was seen a fine view of St. Lazaire station, with whiffs of steam transpiring from the vast edifice. The visitors while I was there included two Englishmen; one very well dressed though his socks were behind the times and he had rouged his nostrils; some Americans and four doll-like Japanese. Certainly the chief languages spoken were American and Japanese. 

The Grand Salon of Paul Durand-Ruel's flat

The 'great' Renoir (the man and woman in the H box of a theatre) hung in the study. It was rather thrilling to see this illustrious work for the first time, as it were, in the flesh. There were Monets of all periods and the latest period was not the best. A magnificent Cezanne landscape and a few other Cezannes; Manet, Degas, Sisley, Boudin - all notable. A collection very limited in scope but fully worthy of its reputation. Only it wants hanging. It simply hasn't a chance where it is. The place is far too small, and the contrast between the furniture and the pictures altogether too disconcerting. Still the collection exists and it is proof that a man can possess marvellous taste in fine art, while remaining quite insensitive in an applied art.

Later I looked in on a painter in Montmartre and learned to my astonishment that it was precisely he who had painted Durand Ruel's doors. 70 doors had been ordered. He went on to tell me a few 'inside' stories. For example the Renoir had been sold originally for 400 francs. Then Durand Ruel bought it, and now he has refused an offer of 125,000 francs. That is something to think about!

Courting

Tuesday, January 29th., St Simon's Avenue, London.

I had an appointment at the hospital to see my consultant this morning. Waterwork problems. All to do with my age. Nice chap. Very matter of fact and efficient. Doesn't waste words, for which I am thankful. Anyway, some small improvement seen from a blood test and no cause for immediate concern. Good news for me and I felt 'lighter' when I came out than when I went in. It is the prospect of any sort of surgery that disconcerts me so to be told that there is no need to worry at least for another six months is excellent.

Tonight sheets of rain and strong wind. I put on an overcoat and mackintosh to go to the corner of the street to the post. Several times lately I have noticed a couple that stand under a big tree at the corner, next to the pillar-box, shielded by the tree trunk from the lamplight. They stand motionless, with hands nearly meeting round each other's backs, tightly clasped. They were there tonight. The man was holding an umbrella over them. Can't see what sort of people they are. In the first place I don't like to intrude and in the second place the shade is so dark. There will be a story of course. It is an affecting scene which I may be able to work into a book one of these days.

Nights out

Monday, January 29th., St Simon's Avenue, London.

Two busy and contrasting evenings.

Yesterday I went with Vaughan to a political debate between G.B. Shaw and Hilaire Belloc at the Queen's Hall. Subject for debate: Connection between private property and servitude. The hall was crammed, and at concert prices. Not a seat unsold. Shaw was very pale with white hair, and straight. His wife beside him. Effect too conjugal for a man at work. Sidney and Beatrice Webb next to them. Effect also too conjugal here. Maurice Baring supporting Belloc, both very shabby. Maurice with loose brown boots and creased socks.

Shaw, Belloc and Chesterton

They spoke thus: Belloc 30 minutes; Shaw 30; Belloc 20; Shaw 20; Belloc 10; Shaw 10. Time was kept to three minutes. Belloc's first was pretty good. Shaw's first was a first class performance, couldn't have been better; the perfection of public speaking (not oratory); not a word wrong. But then afterwards the impression that it was a gladiatorial show or circus performance gained on one, and at the end was a sense of disappointment, as the affair degenerated into a mere rivalry in 'scoring'. Still, I have never seen Shaw emotional before as he was then. Curious trick of audience, as of all audiences, of applauding sentiments with which they were already familiar, and receiving anything relatively new in silence. Did anyone in the audience come out with a view different from that they took in? I doubt it.

Then, this evening, to Covent Garden for the first English production of "Rosenkavalier". Began at 8.20 (20 minutes late) and finished at midnight, with many cuts. Then thirty minutes wait nearly for motor in procession of motors. I might have been quicker to walk. The thing was certainly not understood by stalls and grand circle. What its reception was in the amphitheatre and gallery I was too far off to judge. First act received quite coldly. Ovation as usual at the end, and an expolsive sort of shout when Thomas Beecham came to bow. All very conventional, done because it is the thing to do.

The beauty and symmetry of the book came out even more clearly than on reading it. An entirely false idea of this opera so far in England. Not sensual, nor perverse, nor depraved. It is simply the story of a young man providing a tragedy for an ageing woman by ceasing to love her, and an ecstatic joy for a young woman by beginning to love her. All the main theme is treated with gravity and beauty. The horse play, and the character of Ochs, and the eighteenth century colour is incidental. It seemed to me to be a work of the first order.

 

For posterity?

Thursday, January 28th., Victoria Grove, London.

I cannot conceive that any author should write, as the de Goncourts say they wrote, 'for posterity'.  An artist works only to satisfy himself, and for the applause and appreciation neither of his fellows alive nor his fellows yet unborn. To assume that what you write may be of significance in the future (never mind the present) is surely the height of arrogance. Even if you think it, it strikes me as a failure of taste to say it.

I would not care a bilberry for posterity. I should be my own justest judge, from whom there would be no appeal; and having satisfied him (whether he was right or wrong) I should be content - as an artist. As a man, I should be disgusted if I could not earn plenty of money and the praise of the discriminating. Of course I can say these things with equanimity at the age of thirty, but will I look back on these journal entries in thirty years time and say, "How naive he was"?

I have not been able to get down to any serious work since I finished my little book on journalism for women. Partly a sort of reaction. Partly because I am busy at Woman. Partly because of this place which is inadequate for my purpose. Soon I will be moving to my new home at Fulham Park Gardens where the atmosphere will be more conducive to creativity. During these recent weeks of indolence in the matter of creative work I can feel, with a sense of satisfaction, the tide of unexpressed sensation rising higher and higher; soon I know It will break the dam of inactive habit which circumstances and a somewhat weak purpose have erected, and pour forth over a thousand sheets. It grows and rises of itself and I watch it lazily.

Winter sport

Thursday, January 27th.,, Hotel Savoy, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Belluno, Italy.

I began to have vague ideas about work today, partly due no doubt to Aldous Huxley's remark that he always began to pine away after only a few days of complete holiday from work. The Huxleys have a place nearby, and are excellent companions. Of course I have had lengthy periods of doing no work in the past but my expenses are considerable and I must work to earn. Nearly sixty now and should be able to relax a bit but, having acquired a new 'wife' and child, and still supporting the old one, I see little prospect of respite. Can't complain. As I often remark, "the best is good enough for me", so I must earn to maintain the style of life to which I have become accustomed. Sometimes (in fact quite often) I think back though to simpler times and wonder if it is all worth the effort. In a way we become prisoners of our own narrative!

At 3 p.m. today we set off to see the finsh of the bob-sleigh match. Nothing much to see at the end of the 'Pista da Bob' except the ducal party standing and sitting on a rough platform of boards. This is the Duke of Genoa with his two sons, Dukes of Padua and Pistoia, who arrived yesterday, with certain ladies. Not sure if the latter are some species of duchess. Suspect not. They have a table in the corner of the restaurant, and are waited on by the Head Waiter. Later they came into the ballroom, the national anthem or something veing played at their entrance therein. The young dukes danced a bit, one of them with a hotel visitor. She seemed charmed. They seemed bored. The Duke of Genoa is very old, with a hatchet sharp face, and he seems to chew all his food, at great length, with his front teeth. Gives the appearance of a rat eating a piece of wood. But apparently a decent fellow. I don't quite know how all the old aristocratic forms fit into the Mussolini regime.

Anyway at intervals a 'bob' swept round the corner and drew up past the winning post, where men sat at a table in the sharp frost writing down times and numbers in a book. The skiing practice of village boys on a neighbouring slope was much more amusing. Fortunately this spot was close to the Huxley's cottage. We were bidden ther for tea, and arrived before 4, and played make-believes with the two kids and Matthew's mother.

Sentimental journey

Friday, January 26th., St. Simon's Avenue, London.

Today, on a whim, I went to the Potteries. It hasn't changed much. Rather dirty. Large areas of desolation. People generally friendly, though a little impoverished in their appearance.

I got off the train at Longport station and walked up the road to the canal by the Duke of Bridgewater public house. Then along the canal to Middleport, as far as the canal bridge which I used for the opening scene in "Clayhanger". There was even a boat approaching the bridge as I reached it, though under power, not horse-drawn. A lot of the canal-side buildings are crumbling away, though Burgess and Leigh potbank seems to be in good condition. Lot of closed shops in Burslem, but the pubs seem to be well frequented. It was ever thus.

Walked up through the park to High Lane. I rather overdid the 'redness' of the park in my description of the place in "Anna of the Five Towns'. There is indeed a lot of terra cotta, but plenty of greenery as well. In fact the park has matured nicely. Helps of course that today was particularly fine. Sun shone all day and there was warmth in it. Almost spring-like. Along High Lane to Chell and then down Pittshill to Tunstall Park. In some ways I like Tunstall Park better because it is less formal. The lake in particular looked well today. Could easily have been out in the countryside somewhere.

Tunstall was busy and seems to be doing better commercially than Burslem. Why should that be I wonder? That bit further from Hanley? Then down the hill through Goldendale (which fails to live up to any aspect of its name) and back onto the canal at Harecastle. The water was less orange in colour than usual. All the recent rain must be diluting the outpouring from Brindley's tunnel. A remarkable number of water birds at Westport Lake where I paused for a rest - swans, geese, coots, grebe .... I suppose people must be feeding them and they congregate. And so back to Longport and home. 

An enjoyable stroll about. Most places I see bring back a memory of some sort; even some good ones! I read somewhere of the theory that we are tied by an invisible 'thread' to the place of our birth, or at least where we spent our formative years, and there may be something in it. I certainly enjoy a nostalgic visit now and then. Glad to be back home to civilisation though.

Desolated

Tuesday, January 25th., George Street, London.

Matheson Lang

A desolating night on Monday at the New Theatre to see Matheson Lang in Thurston's "The Wandering Jew". Terribly old-fashioned and ugly, but his acting was very good. Lang wanted to buy "Don Juan" but he insisted on doing his own scenery and producing. Also he would only pay me half my demanded terms. That clinched things! So I told Eric Pimnker to call it all off. It really is a delicate matter negotiating the sale of a new play; Hopefully Lang will think things through and make a better offer. If not, there is more clay still in the ground!

Yesterday we took Jean Godebski to the Aladdin panto at the Hippodrome. Goodish. I met Harry Preston there. In two minutes he had given me a cigar, invited me to a dinner and invited me to a boxing match. The man is a sort of whirlwind in human form and it is difficult not to be swept away by him.

I picked up Pauline Smith's "The Little Karoo" last evening and read the first story. It was good. Better than my introduction I think which I found to be a bit terse. It may be that as she is a sort of protege of mine I tried too hard not to sound 'paternal'. I was caught by the story as when I first read it. Simple. Affecting. Well done Pauline!

Idleness and dawdling

Wednesday, January 24th., Cadogan Sqaure, London.

I find that I am not yet out of the wood of my recent article on Balzac wherein I asserted that work did not kill people. Mr James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express, has emerged on a weekday with a most scandalous article about this. In calling the article scandalous I refer to its anti-work attitude, not to its personalities which are merely the product of Douglas's characteristic undisciplined didacticism, are innocuous and even touching. I have crossed swords with Douglas before. He it was who called for an immediate ban on "The Well of Loneliness" stating that "I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel. Poison kills the body but moral poison kills the soul." This was an act of stunt journalism, typical of the Sunday Express, which appalled many notable figures in the literary world, myself includud.

Douglas says that people are killed by work. He talks of 'work addicts' who work 'right around the clock', their arteries hardened, their blood pressure high, their heart muscles enfeebled. I have not met one. Nor had I lunatics in mind when I made my assertion. Douglas claims that Dickens died of work. He did not. Dickens, of a very histrionic temperament, had a passion for exhibiting himself, which passion, together with his passion for money, led him to give incessant readings. He continued to give readings even when his health was such that he had to be followed about by a doctor. It was addiction to readings and a scramble for money that killed him. Dickens could have done his work easily enough if he had kept his energy for his work. He didn't. Trollope worked harder than Dickens, and work did not kill Trollope.

If authors die too soon, the reason is that they have not learnt how to live. Few authors know how to treat their bodies sensibly. Witness the number of them who wake uip exhausted and cannot even begin to work until the afternoon: sure proof of an idiotic way of life. Balzac for example. For myself I have not worked in the evening for over a quarter of a century. Nor would I. Some will say that they await inspiration and must work when it is upon them. I say they are self-excusers and fundamentally disorganised.

Douglas's article is scandalous because it is an apology for idleness and dawdling, the sins of an age which exults in cocktails and bed at 2 a.m., after a wanton waste of four to six hours of eternity; an age whose great schools and universities frown on work. Mr Julian Hall in a recently published book endorses H G Wells' phrase about 'the waste of seriousness' at our ancient universities. Hall says that youth is sceptical and that "the sceptic has no sense of certain activities having more claim on him than others." A rather profound remark! There is a difference between work and play, and the latter is relatively unimportant, though not,it seems, to Mr James Douglas.

About the word 'motivate'. I used it last week and have been vituperated for using it by classical scholars, authors, journalists and members of the learned professions. They throw doubt on its authenticity and condemn it as ugly. It is not uglier than irritate, descrate, palpitate, procrastinate, or ipecacuanha. As for authenticity, I contend that it is a good English word, that has been in constant use for sixty years at least, that there is no alternative verb, and that I propose to go on using it. I will not guarantee not to use it next week.

Social rounds

Sunday, January 23rd., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Gabrielle Dorziat

I have been ill for most of the week in London. Feeling better having been home for the weekend. I even forgot what I did for some of the time but it seems to have been an endless series of social engagements. I find it difficult to refuse invitations and yet rarely think that time spent in society has been worthwhile.

One evening I dined at the Carlton with Gabrielle Dorziat and Knoblock. She is a little worn physically but very intelligent, amusing and natural. I suppose she must be in her late thirties now. Definitely an attractive woman, and very stylish. She reminds me of Lena Ashwell who I have secretly lusted after for some time. Something about the eyes. I believe she was instrumental in popularising the designs of Coco Chanel. I understand that she is on her way to the USA to raise money for war refugees. We went on to a dreadful Scotch play at the Royalty; shouldn't have bothered.

On Wednesday I lunched with Doran and Messmore Kendall and Wells at the Savoy. HG held forth on the future of North and South America. There seems to be no topic on which he isn't both well-informed and opinionated.

Dorsi Keane

One evening (not sure which) I dined with J. R. Richmond at the Yacht Club. Marguerite had returned to Thorpe in order to go to the Colchester Hippodrome. We went on to "Il Trovatore" at the Shaftesbury. Very old-fashioned with a few good things. Horribly conventional plot and acting. I walked to the hotel in thick rain. Probably didn't help health-wise. 

On Thursday Doris Keane came to lunch. She is still playing on and off in Sheldon's "Romance". Apparently Sheldon is in love with her but the feeling isn't reciprocated. Another glamorous woman in her thirties. I wish I was feeling better so that I could appreciate them. I learnt a lot about her, and got some general ideas abouit how to write a play to suit her. By the by she is a great reader and likes my books.

On Friday, after a third sleepless night I lunched with Methuen at the Reform. By this time I didn't know if I was "punched, bored, or countersunk" as my father would have said. Still I was cheered that he told me "These Twain" had sold 13,350 in the first week. Some rotten reviews. Apart from anything else the book is too jolly true for some people. They say it lacks the ideal. Well it does, because life lacks the ideal. What they mean is that it refuses to be untruthful. Several of the best critics have noted this with satisfaction and laudation.

Rather gloomy

Sunday, January 22nd., Cadogan Square, London.

I read more of "Faust" and spent a lot of time in loose reflection - vaguely on a new play and on my next Evening Standard article.  I went for a walk right down over Chelsea Bridge and along Battersea Park Road, and home by Albert Bridge Road and King's Road. Then I filled up the time in writing to Phillpotts about Hardy's funeral. The more I think of it the more wrong it seems to me that Hardy's wish to be buried in his native Dorset was peremptorily set aside. Surely the disposal of our bodies after death is a matter where our wishes should be respected? I certainly hope mine will be. I want to go into Burslem Cemetery and will make my wish well known before I go! I don't think Hardy even believed in God, though he wouldn't say so directly. I wish now I had asked him when we met. This business of grand funerals is all about the established church attempting to demonstrate that it still has a valuable role to play. I give it another 50 years and it will have withered away.

Battersea Park Road

Battersea is a different world. I saw on a Sunday Express poster: "Hardy's last novel, by Sir Edmund Gosse". It seemed terribly absurd there. How many people in Battersea Bridge had heard of Hardy, or of Gosse, or could get up any interest whatever in a last novel though it were written by God himself? It is a gloomy, drab area with most repulsive tenements, a big technical institiute, an open gramophone shop (with a machine grinding out a tune and a song) and an open 'Fun Fair' sort of place (a shop with the front taken out) and a few small boys therein amusing themselves with penny-in-the-slot machines. One wonders whether gambling habits acquired at an early age become serious addictions later in life? I'm not going to say that gambling is a sin; I've done a bit myself from time to time. But it certainly blights the life of many in the working classes from what I read and see around me.

We dined this evening at Mrs. Patrick Campbell's across the Square.

Grey day

Sunday, January 20th., Cadogan Square, London.

Worst sort of day weather-wise. Grey, dismal, a steady sleet making any sort of venture into the outer world unpleasant. Regrettably I had to go over to Chessington on a family matter which could not be deferred. It was horrible. But the matter in question is being progressed towards a conclusion. I quite often find that people are overwhelmed by a problem and consequently make no progress with it. The secret is to break it down into parts and tackle one at a time.

I have been reading in a book called "Arnold Bennett of the Five Towns" which was sent to me by its author, one L.G. Johnson. I gather he is a Staffordshire man and claims to have 'grown up' with some of my characters. It is a good book. His appreciations and his animadversions are full of interest, significance - meat! The book is incomparably better than Darton's. Although Darton had evidently been to the Potteries to study the topography he failed to find in Burslem the equivalent of 'Duck Square. Yet this square indisputably exists under the name of Swan Square, just as Duck Bank is really Swan Bank. How he could have missed this passes understanding. He also failed to realise that 'Axe' is in fact Leek. 

Johnson clearly knows his Potteries and makes some insightful observations about, and criticisms of, my books. He considers that "These Twain" 'narrows down' the trilogy. Well he is right about that, but not in the way he thinks. It was intentional and deliberate, and part of the scheme as a whole. Compare the much more drastic narrowing down into domestic life at the end of "War and Peace". I cannot remember whether I read "War and Peace" before or after I planned "Hilda Lessways", which I consider to be quite inferior to "These Twain". I have received the most passionate testimonies to the authenticity and force of "These Twain". It was written from the heart and contains not a little personal experience. Frank Swinnerton calls it a 'tour de force'.

Mikado

Wednesday, January 29th., Victoria Grove, London.

At "The Mikado", now nearing the close of its fourth or fifth revival. It has been running at the Savoy since 1895. Rosina Brandram took the part of Katisha and Walter Passmore was Ko-Ko.  Half empty house; band apathetic and playing with eyes anywhere but on the music. Seated near the stage, I could realise what at the theatre one realises so seldom, that the actors are ordinary human beings acting a part for a livelihood. I could see beneath the maks the evolutions of the real person, his lassitudes, excitements, pleasures, wearinesses. Never before have I seen these things so plainly, this under-life. Yet the excellence of "The Mikado" is such that as the evening passed, the piece took hold of the players, and lifting them out of their monotony, did away with the ennui that discloses their humanity.

Rumours

Friday, January 19th., Royal Thames Yacht Club, London.

Lunch at Reform today. Informed positively that Nivelle was to include all British Army in his command. It was said that he said of Hague: "Il n'est pas assez souple. Il est trop orgueilleux." This statement absolutely contradicted by Press Bureau tonight. 

Aftermath of the Silvertown explosion

Tonight in Piccadilly an immense red flare in the sky, followed by a great explosion. Piccadilly rather excited. Mair was informed by telephone at 10.30 that chemical works at Blackwall exploded and set fire to South Metropolitan Gasworks. Apparently TNT is one of the things they make there. Seems almighty strange to me to have such a dangerous industrial facility in a heavily populated area. "Thousands of wounded  in hospital". We shall see if this is a fact.

Mair and Willie Weir and George Whale dined with me tonight at the Yacht Club. Very interesting. Mair said there was nothing in the alarm about a German invasion of Switzerland, and that it had been deliberately got up by the French authoroities (who said Foch was at Besancon and actually began to dig trenches) in order to get Swiss securities out of Switzerland and into France for the purpose of helping to regulate exchange.

Mair has promised to take me over London in an airship.

A most deplorable case

Friday, January 18th., Cadogan Square, London.

The Garrick Club

Emerging last night with Duff Tayler from Garrick. A very damp and chilly night. A lazy wind - it went right through you, not around. Stopped by a farly well dressed man of fifty or so.. A woman with him walked on. She was very soberly dressed. Too dark to see properly. Verbal exchange something like this (Duff left the talk to me):

Him - Excuse me speaking to you, but are you a member of the Garrick?
Me - I am.
Him - I hope you won't be offended by my speaking to you. Needless to say that if you are a member of the Garrick, then you are a gentleman. You won't be angry? You're looking very serious. 
Me - I'm a serious man.
Him - You're an author or something?
Me - No, I'm just a man.
Him - But all you Garrick fellows are celebrities of some sort ...? Now that lady there (indicating) is my wife. She is my wife. We're ina deauce of a hole. Really in a hole. I'm a gentleman. Public school man. My brother is a general in the army, that is to say he is really a brigadier-general. I must introduce you to my wife ....
Then various prefatory remarks, and me getting colder and colder, and Duff putting in a word or two now and then.
Him - Now if you could oblige me with a little - just until the bank opens tomorrow morning. Give me your name and I will leave the money for you in an envelope. I'm a gentleman. You can trust me ...? Otherwise my wife and I are in for night out.
Me - I'm afraid I can't do that.
He didn't seem to be very disappointed.

Strange how these people can hope for success in cadging, but I suppose it works occasionally or they would give up on it. He probably haunted the entrance to the Garrick all evening. Duff said that his object in wanting to introduce his wife to me was to get hold of my name. The man had a weather-worn face. Spoke quite well and was undoubtedly what is known as a gentleman. It was a hell of a nasty night though not actually raining at the time. The wife was waiting about 100 yards up the street. I could see she was dressed in brown. A most deplorable case

I know nothing better

Sunday, January 17th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Six hours uninterrupted sleep last night. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked at the clock. Oddly, because I am not used to it I suppose, I felt more tired than usual this morning until I had a good wash. But I had more real energy. Barber's yesterday at Frinton. My chauffeur, Read, recommended it to me. He said it was smart and clean, but lacked things. He was half right! 

No antiseptic arrangements as far as I could see. Room cold. Man doing shaving. No greeting from the barber. Dirty apron and coat hanging up on the wall. Array of mugs with sponges. Place looked clean but wasn't. Thick dust on gas shades and many cobwebs. Chair too high, a modern chair which required a footstool. I commented on the height. The barber said, ""It's not high enough for me as it is. I always have to stoop." I asked if business was good? "No, very short season". A nice mild man, tall, badly shaven, baggy worn knees. But decent. No energy. Parted my hair on the wrong side, and badly. Shoved his sleeve in my eye. Didn't show me the back of my head. Doubtful towels. Indiarubber sponge. Price 10d. Apart from that, all went well! Be careful what recommendations you take!

May be potential for an article. I might describe Paris barbers, and insist on the inferiority of English barbers, with general reference to slackness and efficiency. That sort of thing is calculated to cause a bit of a stir.

I finished the third act of "Don Juan"n Friday night after fairly huge labours. I have read a little in John Mitchell's "Jail Journal". It is a good browsing book. Much of the nalysis and self-description is tedious. It could be usefully cut down and made manageable.

Lastly, Conrad's "Chance" came today and I have already read 150 pp. This is a discouraging book for a writer, because he damn well knows he can't write as well as this. The episode of the arrival of the news of de Barral's bankruptcy at his house in Hove, where his daughter and her superb friend of a governess are living is simply sublime. I know nothing better than this, and precious little as good.

Balcony breakfast

Saturday, January 16th., Menton

I wrote 2,500 words of "A Great Man" today, but it's difficult to work hard at a novel and appreciate a new environment at the same time. I am here with Phillpotts collaborating on the writing of a play. Perhaps we should have stayed in England where there would be few external distractions. 

Yesterday I woke up just before dawn, and there was a red streak of light along the horizon, and the sea smoke colour, and the lamps and the riding lights of the vessels just beginning to be ghostly. On either side the hills with their bare rocky tops. Later I took my tea and croissant out on the balcony in the 8.30 am sun, wrapped in my largest overcoat. It was tremendous after the bed breakfasts of a Paris flat.

I breakfasted on the balcony again today, in dressing gown and overcoat, and all day I have had the atmosphere, perfectly wonderful, and the magnificent views from the balcony. Beyond a walk to the centre of town and the bandstand I made no excursion.

Before dinner Eden and I discussed and settled certain outstanding preliminary points in our play. It only took about half an hour. I expect to begin the actual writing on Tuesday, and the actual detailed constructive thinking on Monday.

Indisposition

Monday, January 15th., Cadogan Square, London.

AB is temporarily indisposed.

Thinking things out

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

I walked to the Leicester Galleries and on the way thought of a great idea for a modernised version of "Faust". I mean I thought it out in detail - the original idea came to me yesterday. 

Where do ideas come from I wonder? Clearly there is some sort of unconscious 'thinking' going on which we only become aware of when it emerges into our mind. What are the implications of this? I increasingly feel that a lot (probably most) of what we do is not by conscious intent, but is a sort of sophisticated learned behaviour. As an analogy, when I play tennis I am not 'thinking' about each shot; my body does it all automatically. Occasionally I may play a very good shot and think "That was clever", but I can't help concluding that the apparent decision to play the shot is an illusion which follows rather than precedes it. Every day when I am writing it is apparent to me that I have little idea what I am going to write until it appears on the paper. And the same is true of conversation.

Anyhow, today I ordered a literal translation of Goethe's "Faust".

Odalisque, Henri Matisse, 1928

At Leicester Galleries a show of drawings and lithographs by Matisse. Compared to the price of his paintings the drawings were very low priced. I bought one drawing for 25 guineas and two lithographs. Also a show of paintings by John Armstrong, which are causing some stir. I wasn't quite startled by their excellence. I had a talk with Armstrong, who was looking quite spick and span in relatively new clothes. Presumably acquired for the occasion. He said, in reply to my questions, that he had been chiefly influenced by Carpaccio (a Venetian painting of which he had never seen the original) and Signorelli. Also Picasso.

He may be a Jew himself

Saturday, January 13th., Cadogan Square, London.

"Jew Suss" by Lion Feuchtwanger, a German author previously unknown to me, is a good historical novel dealing with the political and social life of a German state in the eighteenth century. It will interest people who usually cannot bring themselves to read historical novels, for the reasons that it deals with the whole life of the State, that it is not sentimentalised, that it is outspoken in all matters, and that it has throughout genuine and admirably sustained imaginative power.

In fact, this book is remarkable, full of food for vigorous minds. The picture drawn of existence in in a civilised counrty less than 200 years ago is terrible. Such a combination of intrigue, corruption, tyranny, injustice, ignorance, cruelty, uncleanliness and fornication that I have seldom, if ever, come across before. The hero is a Jew (or reputed Jew), a great refined rascal, debauchee and grinder of the faces of the poor. But he is a sympathetic fellow, and his execution by hanging amid circumstances of fantastic terror will move the heart of the staunchest upholder of morality. The author treats the Jewish community with extraordinary insight and fairness; he may be a Jew himself.

I myself hesitated to begin the book, because I have been too often deceived and let down by historical novels, whose authors as  a rule do not fully know their subjects. Feuchtwanger must have immersed himself in his period with the thoroughness and impartiality of an historical student. It is a rare combination to find someone who knows an historical period and can write convincingly about it. When very well done historical novels are hard to beat because of the total immersion of the reader in an 'alien' world. For myself I find it hard to revert to normal life when engrossed by such a work.

"Jew Suss" is a splendid story, but it is also a complete picture of a complex social organism from top to bottom. It entertains, it enthralls, and simultaneously it teaches; it enlarges the field of knowledge. To the ordinary reader it brings home, far better than any history could do, the realities of the eighteenth century, and enables him - nay, compels him - by partly unconscious comparison with the realities of today, to perceive the strange rapidity of the evolution of mankind.

 

Fiendishly human

Friday, January 12th., St. Simon's Avenue, Putney, London.

I am in transit from Paris to my new home in Essex. I feel that I have often been in transit and feel ready to settle. I hope this next move will prove to be, if not permanent, at least lengthy.

When from here in London I look back at Paris,. I always see the streets which lie on the steep slope between the Rue de Chateaudun and the exterior boulevard where Montmartre begins. Streets such as the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, the Rue des Martyrs, the Rue Fontaine and the Rue d'Aumale, one of the most truly Parisian streets in Paris. Though I have lived in various quarters of Paris, on both banks of the Seine, it is to these streets that my memory ever returns. And though I have lived for many years in London, no London street makes the same friendly and intimate appeal to me as these simple middle-class streets of little shops and flats over the shops, with little restaurants and cafes, and little theatres here and there at the corner.

The morning life of these streets delighted me, with the hatless women and girls shopping, and the tradesmen - and, above all, the tradeswomen - polite and firm at their counters, and the vast omnibuses scrambling up or thundering down, and the placid customers in the little cafes. The waiters in the restaurants and cafes were human; they are inhuman in London. The concierges of both sexes were fiends, but they were human fiends. There was everywhere a strange mixture of French industry (which is tremendous) and French nonchalance (which is charmingly awful). Virtue and wickedness were equally apparent and equally candid. Hypocrisy alone was absent. I could find more intellectual honesty within a mile of the Rue d'Aumale than in the whole of England. And more than anything whatever I prize intellectual honesty.

Seeing crudely

Monday, January 11th., Victoria Grove, London.

Corner of King's Road and Edith Grove

The novelist of contemporary manners needs to be saturated with a sense of the picturesque in modern things. Walking down Edith Grove this afternoon, I observed the vague mysterious beauty of the vista of houses and bare trees melting imperceptibly into a distance of grey fog. And then, in King's Road, the figures of tradesmen at shop doors, of children romping or stealing along mournfully, of men and women each totally different from every other, and all serious, wrapt up in their own thoughts and ends - these seemed curiously strange and novel and wonderful. Every scene, even the commonest, is wonderful if only one can detach oneself, casting off all memory of use and custom, and behold it (as it were) for the first time; in its right authentic colours; without making comparisons. The novelist should cherish and burnish this faculty of seeing crudely, simply, artlessly, ignorantly; of seeing like a baby or a lunatic, who lives each moment by itself and tarnishes the present by no remembrance of the past.

Regrettably it seems to me that it is impossible to achieve this state of 'innocence', though I have read that some Eastern mystics are able to focus on the moment to the exclusion of all else. But that is of course an internal focus, and not much use to the novelist. Every waking moment (and no doubt our dreams as well) is filtered through the screen of our memory and experience. I am nearly thirty now and realise that as I age so will my ability to 'see crudely' diminish. Only imagination remains as a resource and the novelist must seek to inhabit the mind of his characters, seeing the world through their eyes rather than his own. Is this possible? I am in doubt.

Death by coffee?

Wednesday, January 10th., Cadogan Square, London

Balzac is one of the most romantic figures in the history of fiction. To me possibly the most romantic of all. I should say that no novelist was ever so dominated by the demon of creative work as Balzac. It is generally believed that he died, at age 50, of work. But I doubt if work ever killed anybody. Balzac's death was due rather to his insane methods of work, and to excessive coffee. When other people went to bed, Balzac went to work. He worked all night and drank coffee all night. Apparently he once wrote 80 pages of a novel in a night. If he had known how to organise his energies he might just have well have written those pages in the daylight. At another period, when ill, defying his doctor, he worked 18 hours at a stretch.

Balzac however was incapable of organising his energy. In practical matters he was a perfect fool. His absurd business schemes were deservedly disastrous. He made quite a lot of money but was usually hard up. Seemingly, his dentist sent him to prison for an unpaid bill! He was always talking about francs; and his novels are full of francs; so are his letters. He wasted half a fortune on proof corrections, simply because he was always in a hurry.

He must have been a very restless worker; probably an effect of the coffee. He once exclaimed: "This year I have killed two armchairs under me." Which means that he either couldn't sit still or the armchairs were acutely gimcrack. One thing is to Balzac's credit in the enterprise of daily existence - he never made his wife unhappy. Because he never lived with a wife. Had he done so he would undoubtedly have made her unhappy, but she would certainly have cured him of working excessively. This consequential result I can attest to from personal experience.

Balzac entirely changed the status of the novel. Nobody before him had ever written novels with the scope of his. And for 80 years afterwards nobody enlarged the scope further. And very few novelists have proved able to draw characters as completely, or as powerfully, as Balzac. Balzac created new characters as easily as Dickens, and far more completely. It appears that for him his characters achieved an independent existence - on his death bed he is alleged to have called out for the character Bianchon, a doctor, to be called to save him!

In recent years I have re-read much Balzac, and regret to say that some of it dates. But the best of his novels do not date. For instance "Cousin Bette", which I always held, and still hold, to be the finest of the lot. Never was achieved a better, more heroical, more ruthless, more touching portrait of a libertine than the portrait of Hulot in this masterpiece.

 

Fish Ordinary

Wednesday, January 9th., Cadogan Square, London.

A snowstorm with howling wind last night and through the night. I walked home from Dorothy's. Feeling of exhilaration despite conditions. There is life in the old dog yet! I looked out once or twice during the night. Snow falling. This morning same. Scraping of spades of cleaners of pavements rather exhilarating. I suppose this exhilaration may be due partly to the increased light due to the snow. But one has the same exhilaration from a very thick fog, especially if one has to go out in it. I remember as a youth in the Potteries walking about near my home in thick fogs and feeling that my world had been transformed. Sensation of difficulties to be conquered no doubt. Snow is now (10.30 am) beginning again, and I have to get to Cheapside. Will exhilaration continue? 

The Bone families (James and Muirhead) asked me to lunch with then at the "Fish Ordinary" at Simpson's in Cheapside. While we were chatting before the meal a waiter came along and protested: "You've missed Grace." We had. An old gentleman was in the chair, and he had risen and said Grace. He said Grace again at the end, and we listened respectfully then. The point of this Fish Ordinary (which is said to take place four times a week) is that at the end a big Cheshire Cheese is brought on and served round (by the Chairman) and after he has done this, the company, each member of it, guesses the height, girth, and weight of the cheese. If any one succeeds in all three, champagne and cigars are served all round, the winner gets a printed certificate of winning, and 'his name is put in the papers'. No one guessed either 1, 2, or 3 today. I was miles out.

At the end the Chairman has to tell a story, humorous. This old man comes gratis to each "ordinary" at present as the proprietor is ill. He carves each course if it has to be carved. There was hare soup, cod with oyster sauce, whitebait, jam roll and cheese. All was fine except the whitebait which was a bit soft. Then you sign your names in the book with 'remarks' if any. At the end the old Chairman, hearing that we were the Manchester Guardian lot, came and spoke to us and expressed his pleasure, he being an old printer. All this was mightily quaint. All highly old-world. Low ceiling; second floor. It seems to have established itself in 1723. The different rooms have names: "King's Room', 'Queen's Room' etc. A bar, or small lounge on ground floor. Many habitual 'frequenters' about. As far as I could learn the cheese had only been fully guessed, in 100 years, about 15 times. But three times in the last ten years. Waiters very nice but firm withal. They told us that cheesemongers came specially to guess, but were never anywhere near right in all three.

James Bone said that he took Don Marquis, the American writer, there and introduced him to the real Chairman (now ill) as an American from New York, whereupon the Chairman said that he was particularly glad to meet him as in his opinion America was our finest colony. Bone related this for a fact, implying that the Chairman had not yet heard of the independence of the USA. Marquis' response was not vouchsafed me.

Bone and his wife had been staying with Joseph Conrad. They said that he said, about "Riceyman Steps" - "It has always been Bennett militant; but this is Bennett victorious."