Dancing and dressing

Sunday, October 31st., London.

I finished the first installment of my new novel "Mr. Prohack" (14,500 words) on Friday afternoon, two days in front of schedule. I have done more of this in October than I hoped to be able to do. I think I can best describe it as workmanlike, unlikely to win any literary plaudits, but it will be a good read, and should bring in some much needed income.

On Friday night Olive, Marguerite, Legros and I went to the Hammersmith Palais de Dance. It was the first time I had ever danced in public. However there was no ordeal about it. I even danced with Marguerite who knows less about dancing than I do. Intense respectability about the whole place. The instructresses had a certain chic, at least for Hammersmith, perhaps not for Paris!

Yesterday I went with Marguerite to Dickins & Jones new shop, in Regent Street, and was much pleased with the ribbon department. I was as usual struck by the felinity of the women customers with the vendeuses. These latter I suppose get into a habit of diplomacy and forebearance. They need it, by God! The dress department head, a decent, worn, diplomatic sort, showed enormous tact after we had put her to a certain amount of trouble about a dress which we had not the slightest intention of buying. I had hoped that we might indulge ourselves in a little "fooling around" in the trying-on room, which we have enjoyed on occasion in the past, but M. obviously wasn't in the mood. In fact she has been a little cold on the physical front lately. Well, we are neither of us getting any younger.

Delights of Burslem

Wednesday, October 30th., Chiltern Court, London.

As for women, their case is even more complicated. I have never understood them; nobody has, not even themselves. All I know about them is that they are apparently actuated by the ideal of pleasing, the means to which seems to be chiefly physical and chiefly to concern the face. They "make up" before starting out on any day or evening of "living" - that is pleasing. I have even been informed by reliable witnesses of women who will absolutely decline to be "seen" in the absence of make up. And their last act of the day is to prepare, with the aid of revolting unguents, for pleasing the next day. Apparently, for women, the subterfuge involved in "making up" is synonymous with "pleasing". They are not the same thing! If they gave to genuine pleasing the tenth part of the trouble which they give to the preliminary mechanics of p[leasing, there wouldn't be a bachelor left in the land. 

Today, by means of the railway system, I have visited and returned from the Potteries - all trains on time; comfortable and relaxing. A sunny autumnal day and Burslem was looking better than I had expected. I had thought the town to be in terminal decline, but I felt there were signs of some recovery. I do wish that some way could be found to re-open the indoor market which was, and could be again, the beating heart of the town. In other towns of my experience the market is in use nearly every day - traditional market days interspersed with craft days and antique days and other imaginative alternative uses. No doubt restoration would necessitate considerable investment but I feel sure it would prove worthwhile in the long run.
 
There is a very good gallery in Burslem dealing in the work, in the main, of local artists. It is called Barewall, which strikes me as an excellent name. I had a pleasant browse, was shown an exhibition of work by Stephen Liddle, and bought a print of a watercolour by G Wynne. I liked Liddle's work but couldn't have lived with it - dark, enigmatic, atmospheric, too gloomy for me. My attention was drawn to an old building nearby, the Wedgwood Printing Works, on which has been painted the titles of many of my novels, at least the Five Towns ones. Rather striking. Not what I expected to see.