Major
Danielson and Lieut. Goodhart called on me this afternoon. Danielson
told me that their intelligence department was extraordinarily good,
and that they had news of the visit of German ships this week at 5
o’clock on the evening before they arrived. I did not, however,
understand why sufficient big English ships could not arrive in time
to deal with them. Obtaining intelligence which you are unable to act
upon seems a little pointless.
From
Thursday in last week to last Thursday I did nothing on my novel. I
was fairly free to go on with it on Wednesday, but I had neuralgia. I
wrote 2,500 words of it yesterday. Always a dilemma I find – to
make oneself write even when not feeling like it, or to wait for
inspiration. I am inclined to the former but sometimes it is a step
too far for me.
I have been feeling moderately pleased with myself lately, between bouts of neuralgia, as a result of certain words reported to me by Pinker. It seems that in conversation with Henry James he asked the great man what he thought of "The Price of Love"? James apparently said: "I read it with great interest. It is an example of Bennett's amazing talent. I do not quite see why he should want to do it, but for what it sets out to be it is excellent. He has, it seems to me, rather declined in it on too easy a style, but it is wonderfully interesting to see how he can, after apparently squeezing his own particular orange so dry, come back to his original inspiration, and find us something fresh." I agree about the style, but the general tenor of James' remarks is gratifying.
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