French praise

Saturday, November 30th., George Street, London.

Andre Gide

Andre Gide has written me a most charming and complimentary letter. It has given me the greatest satisfaction. I have always had the idea that French critics must regard English fiction as rather barbaric, lacking in finesse and in civilised breadth. In brief an imperfect attitude to life. I have written back that no appreciation that I have ever received has given me such pleasure, not even that of Joseph Conrad, who is an oriental and gives praise like one.

Gide has the idea that I have developed a new 'manner', and perhaps he is right. There were symptoms of it I think in "The Pretty Lady", but it is not emerging in my new book which is a light one. After writing sixty books one cannot change one's manner I find simply by taking thought. However, I feel encouraged to be more experimental, less circumspect, more challenging.

My film is progressing. As a first effort in this new medium I don't expect much of it, but when I have broken down the outer-defences of 'the trade' I hope to do something better. In France, Manoire's transalations of my books appear to be doing well. Most recently "Clayhanger". The firm of Bernard Grasset is to publish several. I understand that "These Twain" is to appear in the Revue de Paris, no doubt with the usual terrible cuts, but it may enhance my reputation and increase sales of the books. "The Price of Love" is to appear in a thing called La Revue de la Semaine of which I have never heard.

A toad

Monday, November 29th., Cadogan Square, London.

I didn't finally wake up until 7.58, a very rare occurence, as I had had very few breaks during the night. I don't expect I shall ever have another uninterrupted night's sleep, at least not in this life. So I was calmly browsing in the Daily Mail when I came across an article by Birkenhead on me, in which he practically accused me of lying. The toad. I went downstairs and wrote my reply to Birkenhead in the form of a letter to the Mail. When I took it to Miss Nerney she said that the Mail had phoned for an article: so I crossed out the Sir and Yours Truly, and called it an article, and charged £60 for it. I could do with a few more eminent persons taking a public stance against me!

A beautiful day at last, after so much rain. I had to get out this afternoon and walked up to Kensington Gardens. I walked right round the Serpentine, glanced at the Albert Memorial, and came home feeling revitalised and refreshed. Everywhere I walked people were smiling because of the sun. It was rather cold and I fancy there may be frost tonight.

The other day Eric Kennington was here and showed me Lawrence's £30 book, "The Seven Pillars". It is not very good book-making; very fine illustrations in it, many of them coloured, and lots of lovely drawings by Roberts. But most of the illustrations are thoroughly out of place in the book and spoil the look of it. It seems that Lawrence has kept Kennington and Roberts, not to mention Wadsworth, pretty busy on it for several years.

Depression

Friday, November 28th., Cadogan Square, London.

I am now in a state of much desperation. Perhaps I oughtn't to have finished "Dance Club". Still it is finished. Anyhow the reaction after writing it has been too much for me. Two bad nights; last night awful; depression, indigestion; the usual phenomena after a 'work'. But "Prohack" tortures me all the time. I worked hard at it yesterday and nearly all that I did was no good. I hoped for better today; and lo! in the night from 2.50 onwards I watch the hours go by; get up, smoke, drink, do exercises at intervals. No sleep; and I watch also the hope of a day's work gradually destroyed. Looks as if I will not be able to work today, and every day is precious. I feel harried to death in a triangle of which the sides are fulfilling my engagement to Knoblock, fulfilling my engagement to Dorothy, and my financial worry. I can't see a way forward but know that a good night's sleep would work wonders.

Every hour of the day-time is precious, or seems so, and I have cut out all social things from all afternoons. People who must see me have to come to lunch and leave at 2 pm. I feel sometimes just as if I should go off my head and I remember that at exactly my present age my father's brain gave way. I know that I am getting near the end of my mental and physical resources. I have had a terrible autumn and I daresay that I am perhaps not quite so much of a stoic as I think myself, or am thought to be.

Grey and gloomy

Wednesday, November 27th., Waterloo Road, Burslem.

Mildish day, but grey and gloomy. Rather suited my mood in fact. I took a long walk, initially for nostalgic reasons, down towards Middleport, onto the canal and along to the Harecastle tunnel entrance. Partly the way I used to go to and from school. Not much has changed. At the bridge where I got onto the towpath there was a barge coming south, loaded with clay, towed by a disconsolate-looking horse. I had to wait for it to pass. The horse was being 'encouraged' by a young girl with a whippy bit of stick. Didn't seem to be making any difference to the horse which is probably inured to all such treatment.

Looking up towards Burslem, chimneys and smoke making the gloom of the day even gloomier, but I liked it. Brooding bottle kilns of course but all sorts of other chimneys as well - tall, short, some round and some square. Once I started to look carefully there was a lot of subtle colour to be seen - grey, blue, black, the browns and reds in the marl hole, the white of the shordruck. One building in the middle distance had its side painted a bright red and it almost glowed in the surrounding gloom. Swirls of smoke in the sky. It could be painted and might be striking. But not by me!

Up at Harecastle the water was pouring out of Brindley's tunnel because of all the rain we have had recently. Bright orange colour due to the iron content in the ridge. I thought about asking one of the boats to give me a ride through the tunnel but I would have had to walk back along Boathorse Lane and my clothes would have been a sight to see. And I'm not sure that I fancied the dark enclosed tunnel. So I walked back through Tunstall, got some oatcakes at the Market, and was more than ready to eat them when I got in.

My boots were in a state, but I enjoyed the walk and was in much better humour as a result. It occurs to me that there is romance of a sort here, looked at aright. I have been reading Conrad lately. Are his jungle river settlements, hemmed in by the great forests, really so different. There are people here striving and often failing, living lives in any case.

Fatal defects

Thursday, November 26th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I wrote over 3000 words of my last Windsor story, dined at a nice Duval in the Parc du Champs de Mars, smoked a cigar at the Globe, and then went to the Theatre Antoine and saw Ibsen's "Ghosts". This is not after all a good play. It is vitiated by the symbolism of the asylum. The defect, fatal defect, of the play is that it is too 'stagey'. It has not the air of being quite sincere. It is too clever. All this I can see quite clearly. There are moments in the first and second acts however which are poignantly dramatic.

Also "La Paix Chez-soi", a new one act piece by Georges Courteline. Very good, funny, and at the same time bitterly true, in its essence, to real life. How such an idea would have been ruined by sentimentality in an English play. But I think that I could write a play as good. I returned home after 12, and after reaching my etage dropped my box of matches, which fell right down the well of the stairs to the bottom. How I cursed! I had to go down and find them. Vile weather.

Somehow I got to thinking of Oscar Wilde whilst I was out and about today. It is only three years since he died here in Paris. I might well have met him had dissipation and the effects of imprisonment not taken their toll. How would we have got on? Well of course he was a toff so probably not very well. Not that I have anything against toffs, so long as they are only toffish in private and with other consenting adults. In fact I know little of Wilde's life but my sense is that, whilst he didn't deserve to be imprisoned, he was the author of his own destiny. No doubt attitudes to homosexuality will change in time but it is unwise to balatantly disregard public mores however much you despise them personally.

Paranoiacs

Monday, November 25th., Chiltern Court, London.

I have just read two novels which I fear must be the decadent fruits of paranoia. 

The first is "Tarka the Otter" by Henry Williamson. Instead of dealing with mankind, Mr. Williamson deals with otters, fish and other aquatic and amphibious beings. His knowledge of them and his imaginative sympathy with them are really astonishing. But is not this preoccupation with beasts and fish a sure symptom of paranoia? "Tarka the Otter" has been very highly praised by some of the finest literary critics in our depraved land. I agree that it is marvellous. And the writing of it is marvellous. Indeed to my mind the writing of it is too marvellous. I consider it to be over-written, marked by a certain preciosity. The author has searched too often and too long for the utterly right word. But I have no other criticism.

The second novel is "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder. It deals, I regret to say, with life in the early eighteenth century in such mad places as Lima. And a strange and hot, decadent lot the characters indeed are! Paranoiacs, nearly every one of them, and their creator a paranoiac, according to what I can gather of the definitions of Dr. Hyslop. A horrid qualm seizes me - I may be a paranoiac myself! In my opinion "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is an absolutely first-rate work. It dazzled me by its accomplishment. The writing, simple, straight, juste and powerful, has not been surpassed in the present epoch. This author does not search for the right word. He calls; it comes. Here is a sample of the writing: "She saw that the people of this world moved about in an armour of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents which befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires."

I regret to write, but honesty compels me to declare, that the imaginative power of these two writers is now beyond my reach. Such is the effect of growing old.

Malicious mischief-making

Sunday, November 24th., Cadogan Square, London.

I seem to have upset Richmond Temple, publicity agent for the Savoy group of hotels and an acquaintance of mine. Or rather his friends have upset him by suggesting that Morfey, a character in "Mr Prohack", is a caricature of him. I understand that Temple has not seen the play himself but is, as it were, upset at one remove. Morfey is described in my notes for the play as 'nervous, mincing, intelligent; very much groomed, eyeglass, gardenia and all'. I did not have Temple in mind when I wrote those notes but I must admit to myself that his reaction is just what I might have expected from Morfey, were he not a fictional character, in similar circumstances.

The character of Morfey is taken from my book "Mr Prohack". I admit that his profession would not have been what it is in the play if I had not heard of that profession from Temple himself; he happens to be the chief exponent of it, as far as I know. Still, as the profession exists it surely cannot be barred from imaginative literature. In my opinion no offence whatever can be found in the play. Morfey is even a more sympathetic person in the play than in the book. He comes out on top every time, and gives a lesson in manners to the Prohacks every time. He is beautifully played by Frederick Cooper.

This is a clear example of malicious mischief-making. I suspect that ass Swaffer who writes in the Express to be behind it. I am very cross with the mischief-makers and would cheerfully break their heads whoever they are. That said, I think Temple is being oversensitive and rather 'precious'. It is the sort of reaction that gives homosexuals a bad name.
 

Yesterday I went by bus to Trafalgar Square, to the National Gallery, to get ideas. And I got them. I spent some time looking at Turner's "Rain, Steam, Speed - the Great Western Railway" which had not previously struck me as deserving its reputation. The more I looked the better it seemed to get. After a while I had the strangest sensation of the train coming out of the painting towards me. Tremendous effect. Shows the necessity of taking time to appreciate works of art. All too easy, particularly in a place like the National Gallery, to glance at a painting and move on.

Completely sick

Tuesday, November 23rd., Les Sablons.

I have now written for rooms to hotels in Paris and London. First preparations beginning for our departure on Saturday. I am completely sick of all literary work, and could not possibly find energy to keep a journal satisfactorily. The prospect of a complete change of life is, at the same time, both exciting and threatening. Hence my emotional turmoil which shows itself in physical symptoms. We have been happy here, or at least content which is the most a reasonable man can expect. The die is cast. I must make the best of it.

Very cold weather also. I began a chill yesterday, and today, as I was walking down from the Point de Vue de Calvaire, I had a stab of lumbago, and had to stand still for a few seconds in order to collect myself sufficiently to go on. But I have had worse lumbago than that in my time.

An extraordinary character

Friday, November 22nd., George Street, London.

My wife is away in Scotland of all places, reciting Baudelaire, of all things. I cannot imagine that in any feat of his imagination Baudelaire might have foreseen such an eventuality. And what about the Scots? What will they possibly make of a middle-aged Frenchwoman  reciting to them; will any, in fact, attend the performances? My imagination fails me in this crisis. I only know that there will be a price to pay in terms of my mental harmony when she returns. Marguerite's natural volatility is undoubtedly increasing as she ages. So, let me enjoy my rest now!

I am feeling much better in myself now that the first night of "Milestones" revival has come and gone. The dress rehearsal had been a great success. Professional critics and managers shed tears and wiped their noses to hide their emotion. St. John Ervine was there for the Observer and sat next to me. There is no doubt that he was profoundly impressed; he told me privately that he thought it was as pertinent to 1920 as it had been to 1912. I had a rug and hot-water bottle with me to help with cold in the liver, but I felt myself warming internally as it became apparent that we were to have a success. I later slept 6 hours without a break. And now the play is truly launched and I can relax, at least for a little while.

Today I finished my reading of "The Woman in White". The plot is trivial and hinges on too many coincidences, but the novel is good in total. What a literary creation is Count Fosco. The book is worth reading just to become acquainted with that enormous personage. A pity that Collins didn't have the idea to return to the character in the shape of the many adventures that must necessarily have characterised his earlier life. I for one would have been interested to know how he came by his extraordinary conceit, erudition, titles, and amoral attributes, not to mention his size! Some characters stand out from their context and achieve a sort of independent life in the imagination of the reader. Such is Fosco.

Peerless

Thursday, November 21st., St. Simon's Avenue, London.

I have recently re-read Conrad's "Nostromo". To myself I always think of it as "Higuerota", the said mountain being the principal personage in the novel. I will admit frankly that I found it slow to start, which only means that I had not yet adjusted myself to the pace of Conrad's majestic prose. Once settled it became apparent to me that I was reading the finest novel of this generation, bar none. I have always asserted the Russian novelists to be supreme masters of the form, but now I am in doubt. "Nostromo" is peerless, the Higuerota among novels. There is no more to be said.

An ass of my acquaintance warned me that the latter half of "Under Western Eyes" was inferior to the beginning, and I have heard the opinion from others. It is not true.The whole book is superb. And as for the 'eastern' novels, "Almayer's Folly", "An Outcast of the Islands", "Lord Jim" and "Victory", no fault is to be found by me; they convey the sensitive reader directly to that place of overpowering heat, timeless forest, and inscrutable natives. 

I hear that Conrad is not in good health. I think of writing to him but am held back by silly notions of conceivable impertinence. It seems to me that if I could convey to him the passionate comprehension which some of us have for his work, it would do him good. Probably only another creative artist can understand a creative artist, which limits public comprehension rather severely. I would like to acquaint him with my state of mind - intense satisfaction in seeing a thing truly done, mixed with anger because I know I can never do it as well myself.

It occurs to me that when we move from here, that is when our house in Essex is ready for occupation, then I might reasonably write to Conrad, express my admiration, and invite him to visit. What talks we might have. Well worth the risk of seeming impertinent.

A fine retort

Wednesday, November 20th., Les Sablons.

I have had several days of hesitation about this, the eighth volume of my journal. I thought, and still think, it too small for really fast writing , and I can only arrive at getting down my impressions in full by writing fast - pell-mell, with out regard to sentence construction. There is the dilemma: I like to write correctly, grammatically, to produce an appealing finished version; 'tossing-off' ideas in note form goes against my grain. What to do? Mirbeau's book "628-E8" has shown me, again, what a lot of stuff, perhaps as valuable as his, I lose by not writing it down. I have made, in the last three days, three fullish sketches that I may use later, and that certainly would have been lost if I had not seized them and held them.

A fine retort. Mrs Deveraux told me how a pressing lover responded to a refusing mistress. "Bah!" she said. "With people like you, love means only one thing." "No," he replied. "It means twenty things, but it doesn't mean nineteen." Marvellous.

An appalling discrepancy

Tuesday, November 19th., Chiltern Court, London.
 
Jeremiahs continually lament over the present state of literature; and their burden is that more bad books are published nowadays than ever before. I agree that more 'bad books' are published now than ever before, but only because more books in total are published than ever before. Further, nobody is compelled to read bad books. If bad books are issued that is the affair of the publishers. The trouble with literature is not at the authors end, it is at the readers end; the population abuses its liberty not to read. Not enough new books are bought. There is an appalling discrepancy between the number of potential book buyers and the number of actual book buyers.Why? I think it is the price. The price of new novels must come down. In the short term this would hit the profits of the publishers and the income of the authors, but looking ahead it is essential for all literary persons that the habit of book buying should be inculcated in the general public.

The most enjoyable new book I have read recently has been "Half in Love" by Justin Cartwright. I have read several of his novels and find him to be an interesting mixture of the deeply cynical and the sensitive, not to say sentimental. "Half in Love" is about an affair between a British cabinet minister and an actress, also British, who has been catapulted to stardom after a successful movie. The issues are to do with personal integrity, loyalty, celebrity, and the absurdity of politics. I most enjoyed the passages of dialogue between the minister and the P.M's private secretary, a sort of benign enforcer. Both come to the realisation that they have become involved, more or less without intention, in game-playing on a grand scale which was not what either intended to do. The casual analysis of the politics of power is masterly, if rather depressing.

There are some interesting minor characters including a self-exiled Russian who has set up as a sort of therapist/philosopher/spiritual seeker. Horses provide a central theme and I think the author's intention is to shine a light on the human condition by showing that the powerlessness of horses, which are at the whim of forces they don't understand and cannot control, is really no different from people. Cartwright is best at describing African scenes, paticularly colonial Africa which he seems to have a feel for. His descriptions of the New Forest are at best adequate. When his female character is in the United States, and later the Caribbean, the settings are flimsy, almost comical. 

My feeling overall is that Cartwright could have made this a longer and more satisfying book. I felt as I read that I was being rushed through and would like to have lingered. That said, it gripped me and is worth reading. Most definitely not a 'bad book'.

Mr Prohack

Monday, November 18th., Cadogan Square, London.

I have written to Knoblock to give him my thoughts on the play, and I may as well set them down here also.

Laughton had a great triumph as Mr. Prohack, after being very bad and wrong at all the later rehearsals. The second act didn't go very well but that was a fault of the production rather than of the play. The third act undoubtedly went very well indeed. Sidney Bernstein (the film man) one of our directors, had not cared much for the play when he read it, but he was positively enthusiastic about it when he saw it performed. There were laughs throughout. Advance booking is vey bad, but I do not see how it can be anything else. I think the play will take some time to reach the public consciousness, but I think that it will succeed in doing so.
 
One or two of the morning notices were bad, especially that of The Times, but some of the others were decidedly good, and the rest decent. The notices in the three evening papers are all admirable. Laughton was the focus of most of the notices. I am told that he was made up to look like me and that he copies some of my gestures etc. Whether this is true or not I do not know. It is in nearly all the papers, so I suppose there must be something in it. He took care not to do this in rehearsals. I don't know if I should feel flattered or aggrieved.

Dorothy got some decent notices which will be good for her self-esteem.

Bookman

Wednesday, November 17th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken..

Yesterday morning, barber's. 

Then to Reform for directors meeting at noon of New Statesman, Shaw, Webb, Simon, and Clifford Sharp. Shaw said we ought to attack Asquith. Said we ought to make Haldane P.M. Shaw has no conception of public opinion at all. Afterwards, in the street, he told me he had talked like that as a "hygienic operation", and that it was necessary to exaggerate in such hygiene; he wanted to stir Sharp up. No idea what he meant. The fundamental decency and kindliness of Shaw was evident throughout.

Today in my library I was browsing in my set of "The Yellow Book". Enjoyable. Surprisingly interesting. I have put my book plate in each one and was musing on what some person years from now would make of it if they came across the set in a second-hand bookshop somewhere. Would the fact that they used to be mine add to their value and desirability. I would like to think so, for vanity's sake. Also I dipped in to a history book I picked up somewhere. The original owner had made numerous annotations in the margins of the text; tiny pencilled lettering but still perfectly legible. I like to see good annotations. It is almost like a conversation across time with another reader. However, I can't do them myself. The idea appeals to me strongly but simply cannot bring myself to write in a book; it would be like spitting in church.

 

Scandalous

Friday, November 15th., Yacht Club, London.

My resignation from Ministry took effect yesterday. Buchan, the liquidator, came down to see me and was very explanatory and apologetic. The behaviour of the Cabinet to me was of course scandalous. But they have treated many others similarly so I was not surprised. The only notice I got was a Roneo'd copy of the War Cabinet minute. I was never consulted in any way. Well, that is another, and most unexpected, phase of life behind me. It will be a relief to resume my normal working habits. The only negative is that I will have no further reason to keep these rooms at the Yacht Club, and I have enjoyed my 'bachelor' status while it lasted; back to being a full-time married man.

Sir Robert Donald

Luncheon to Robert Donald at Connaught Rooms. 400 there to honour him because he had not sold himself to the new proprietors of the Chronicle, a consortium centred on Lloyd George. He says that Ll G. is "trying to corner public opinion". The toastmaster in a red coat was the cream of the show. He had a terrifically bland manner, especially with his supplicating hands. And having prayed silence for toast of King he rushed madly right round the room and played "God Save the King" on the piano.

At night, dinner to American editors of Trade Journals at the Savoy. Smuts in the chair. Nothing special except that Smuts claimed some German colonies for British dependencies. I doubt the wisdom of that policy. It is one thing to defeat an enemy; it is another to humiliate him and thereby sow the seeds of future resentment.

Bursting borders

Thursday, November 14th., Chiltern Court, London.

The difference between Scotland and England is that Scotland is educated while England, relatively, is not. All creative artists, literary, dramatic, musical ,graphic, are aware that Scotland is keener than England on the phenomena of art. The theatre and concert audiences of Glasgow and Edinburgh are far more alert than any London audience. I remember once being present at a performance of one of my own plays in Glasgow. The audience was unique in my long experience. It took every point. It saw jokes which have never been seen either before or since by a living soul - except myself. In England it has occasionally been my experience to be present when an audience has seen none of my jokes at all. A chastening experience for your correspondent.

True, Scotland has but one great poet. And she has made the most of him. Whereas England has about forty great poets, including the greatest in the world, and she has made the least of them. There is no recipe for emptying a West End theatre more efficacious than the mere name of Shakespeare.

So, to Burns. For myself, I had reached quite a mature age before the notion of casting a casual English eye upon Burns occurred to me. I confess that Burns bowled me over completely. For weeks I kept saying: "This man stands alone!" And so he does - almost. What mighty inspiration, what free-flowing lyricism, what wit, what humour, what satire, what nerve, what reckless and abounding vivacity, what sheer resourceful skill. It is rather surprising that a poet so great should not have burst the borders of a country so small, and flooded England even unto Stratford-on-Avon. Hadrian must have built his wall in prophetic mood.

Artistic inclinations

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

Gale, rainy windy showers early. Rain all day until 8 o'clock.

I drove in the driving rain to the Tate Gallery in order to think over my novel, and saw some good English pictures. There are indeed some fine ones. The elder of the two Tate lecturers was very good on both Blake and Rossetti. He pointed out the humour in Rossetti's watercolours, and he very well explained their origin. Then I wrote some more notes for my novel - to be called, pro tem., "Accident". Also I found names for two of the characters.

I have been reading "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins which is widely praised but never before read by me. It is good so far, improving after a slow start. Better than I expected. I particularly like the characters of Marian Halcombe, unattractive but intelligent, resourceful and strong-minded, and Count Fosco. He is an excellent creation - fat, fascinating, cultured and coldly evil. Of course the book is of its time, mannered and over-long, but I am enjoying it and hope the characterisation will carry me through to the end. It is a tribute to the author that I really cannot imagine how the plot is likely to proceed or what will be the denouement.

At the Lyceum for the first night of the Russian Ballet the other day. The whole high-brow and snob world was there, with a good sprinkling of decent people. The spectacle was good. 

The charm of danger

Thursday, November 12th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I am still reading "Don Quixote", and was much struck with the perfect narrative style of the inserted story "The Ill-Advised Curiosity". It is simply charming. And I am with the licentiate who, after censuring the improbabilities, said: "With the manner of the telling I have no fault to find." I should like sometime to write a few stories in that simple style - pure narration, very little dialogue, and what there is arranged conventionally in long speeches. Hardy's "A Group of Noble Dames" must have been composed under some such influence I imagine.

"Bostock's Great Animal Arena" at the Hippodrome de Place Clichy. First night. Vast crowd, very badly controlled. The whole performance consisted of wild-animal tricks. The principal dompteur had some exciting moments in the vast cage with lionesses, a tiger, several bears, a hyena, a leopard, two superb dogs, and other animals. When a crisis arrived the Frenchmen around me were as impressed as children. "Ils ne sont pas commodes", "Il a du sangfroid!", and, when their nerves were getting strained, "Assez! Assez!" in a nervous tone. Some of the crises were apparently somewhat dangerous. During a long bout of opposing wills between the trainer and a tiger, the tiger chewed up a good part of a wooden seat and splintered the gate over which he had to jump. And if, at the end of that bout, the trainer was only acting when he wiped his brow, he was acting very well. At the beginning the crowd was captious and fractious, owing to delays and bad arrangements, but the applause was now tremendous. The performance was really rather out of the way and it is no good me pretending that I watched it unmoved. I did not. And I certainly appreciate more than I have done before the charm of danger in a show, real danger.

Bostock himself, remarkably to my mind, was born in Basford in Derbyshire and started his career in small circuses. But he is now celebrated worldwide as "The Animal King". I am told that only a couple of years ago in New York a tiger nearly ripped his arm off. My informant was not able to tell me if it was the same tiger I saw last last evening. Bostock is only a year older than me and I thought I had risen strongly from humble Midland origins. I shall have to review this perception in light of new information.

Hell with the lid off

Monday, November 11th., Cadogan Square, London.

Chamberlain

Just back from Beaverbrook's where I wrote 3,900 words of a story from Saturday evening until this morning. Bit of a hairy drive back with high winds and rain. It hardly seems to have stopped raining for months now and there is much evidence of flooding in the fields. Apparently they are having it particularly bad in Yorkshire where whole villages have been evacuated. One good thing about living in a big city is that one feels somewhat insulated from the weather.

Birkenhead

It has been a very political weekend, consorting with Austen Chamberlain, Birkenhead, Churchill and Lloyd George, not to mention Lord Walgrave, Sir Edward Hulton and Evelyn Fitzgerald. I like the name Evelyn for a man; I shall use it for one of my characters when the opportunity arises.

LLoyd George

Chamberlain, Birkenhead, Churchill and Lloyd George are a self-seeking crowd plotting and conspiring against the government under the benign influences of Max. I never heard pronciples or the welfare of the country mentioned. It is all about personal power and influence. To be honest I think they all have their best days behind them but cannot accept the fact that the country has moved on.

Churchill

Churchill had too much to drink last night, which is not unusual, and was quarrelsome with Birkenhead who is himself quite a tippler. Lloyd George and Chamberlain were quite restrained. On the whole it was a pitiable spectacle and not in the least reassuring. It was a pleasure though to see them all squinting askance at me when they said something to judge what effect they were making on me, and fearing my fountain pen. So, I had a great lark all-in-all. Max said to me this morning: "Arnold, you've seen hell with the lid off." Well, I had.

A well married man

Sunday, November 11th., Les Sablons.

I have been persuaded back into journalism again, but not as a reviewer. I see myself now as a sort of moralist for the people. It is a strange role but I find that I am a most serious man at bottom. And though I can't for the life of me see what is the objection to sodomy (vide recent German trial) I seem to be getting more and more earnest every day. 

By the end of this year I shall jolly nearly have written 365,000 words, and most of them good words. My new novel is a long one about two sisters from the Five Towns who lead very different lives but come together again in old age; it is really about the romance of life, wherever it is lived. It is a prodigious canvas. It would be daunting were I not in such splendid health and form.

The most curious thing that has happened to me is that I have practically lost all my ambitions except the ambition to be allowed to work quietly. This remarkable phenomenon coincides with my marriage, and I think one component of the change is to do with sexual contentment. I have been frankly surprised to find that the sexual act with a woman you love is both satisfying and perpetually improving. I think it is to do with mutual confidence. It is also to do with being free from external stressors. I can make all the money I want and need; and as for other things that are necessary to philosophic calm, I have them. I have always said that I only lived in the capital because I couldn't stand the country alone by myself. Now that I am no longer alone, you don't catch me living any more in Paris.

We are going to England in December. Marriott announces that he is going to give a grandiose musical evening on December 14th. in our honour. Marguerite's English will certainly amuse England. I don't know what they will make of her in Burslem when we get there for Christmas. I feel as if I had always been married. I can't imagine myself not married. It suits me profoundly and I never did so much work in the time as I have done since my marriage

In the dark

Tuesday, November 9th., Les Sablons.

Today I rose in excellent health, began my last act, and at 5.30 had written one third of it. 

I received a complete bound set of my Tauchnitz works from the Baron. Though ugly, the format was not too ugly to please me. I put the row of twelve volumes in Marguerite's secretaire. Pauline seized "A Great Man" out of the lot, and has been reading it at every spare moment and smiling to herself the whole time. Not to be outdone, I began to read "Buried Alive", and also smiled the whole time. I don't think I have ever read a funnier book than this unless it's Wells's "The History of Mr. Polly".

Dark early of course but I determined to go out for a night walk, and did. I have always enjoyed getting out when it is dark, starting when I was young and needed to get out from under my extensive family. Very different walking here from walking the streets of Burslem. Two ideas came into my mind as I walked. One was to ask the question, "Has any author successfully conveyed the sensation of night walking?" The other was to think about how different the experience of darkness must have been before the advent of artificial lighting. Just imagine at this time of year how people managed with candles, or oil lamps, or just the light from a fire. Did the darkness make them melancholy? Bears thinking about.

Refugees

Sunday, November 8th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

"The Great Adventure" finished its London run last night after 673 performances. Perhaps it would have continued if not for the war, although in much of London it is difficult to remember that there is a war. But I am sure that in the minds of most people, or at least those who attend theatrical performances, there must be a tension when thinking of doing enjoyable things while others, not so far away, are suffering. I came home on Thursday this week to give Marguerite a little support.

Yesterday was the Sale and Show at Frinton that she organised for Belgian refugees. Total gross receipts £82 6s. 7d. and about £3 more still to come. Expenses under £5 I think. Opened by Marguerite who, during her speech, kept jabbing a pair of scissors into green cloth of table. Hall full of exhibits, plants, flowers, jam, vegetables and sundries; and of visitors. Hard to believe that there are refugees from Belgium but as I write this there are Belgian wounded, convalescent, strolling in our garden. Talk about Five Towns nonchalance. It is nothing to Belgian. These chaps convince me that I am emotional, mercurial and light-headed. Their cheerful calm is an absolutely staggering phenomenon.

It seems simply madness to me that there are refugees in Europe as a result of civilised countries fighting each other. I am optimistic that the war will be won but supposing it goes against us. Where would we seek refuge? The United States?

I walked out to the sea this afternoon. Lovely. I went home for tea and wrote most of a war article and returned at 8 pm for auction of things left. This auction, worked with difficulty by a good auctioneer, fetched over £8. Young housewives hesitated to buy astounding bargains in fruit etc. The affair as a whole was a striking success.



 

Orlando

Thursday, November 7th., Chiltern Court, London.

Well, I have read Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" and hope thereby to keep my end up more successfully in middle-brow circles.

It is a very odd volume. The novel, which is a play of fancy, a wild fantasia, a romance, a high brow lark, is illustrated with ordinary realistic photographs, including several of Vita Sackville-West, to whom the book is dedicated. The portraits of Miss V. S-W are labelled "Orlando". I draw no particular conclusion from this, though certain rumours have been brought to my attention. Who knows why Mrs. Woolf has decided to indulge herself in this way and whether she has some objective in view vis-a-vis her relationship with Miss S-W.

Orlando at the end of the book has attained an age of some four centuries, which reminds one of the Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutchman. Halfway through the story he changes into a woman - and 'stays-put'. Which reminds one of "Seraphita", the dullest book that Balzac ever wrote. I surmise that Orlando is intended to be the incarnation of something or other - say the mustang spirit of the joy of life, but this is not quite clear to me; in fact it is as clear as mud. The first chapter is goodish. It contains vivacious descriptions of spectacular matters such as a big frost, royal courts, and the love-making of Orlando and a muscovite girl in furs and in the open air amid the fiercest frost since the Ice Age. Mrs. Woolf almost convinces us of the possibility of this surely very difficult dalliance. The second chapter shows a startling decline and fall-off, and succeeding chapters are still more tedious in their romp of fancy. Mrs. Woolf does not seem to understand that fancy must have something to play on. I shall no doubt be told that I have missed the magic of the work. The magic is indeed precisely what I have missed.

The theme is a great one. But it is a theme for Victor Hugo, not Virginia Woolf who, while sometimes excelling in fancy and in delicate realistic observation, has never yet shown the mighty imaginative power which the theme clearly demands. Her best novel "To the Lighthouse" raised my hopes of her. "Orlando" has dashed them, and they lie in irridescent fragments at my feet.

Drifting thoughts

Wednesday, November 6th., Les Sablons.

I am very well fixed here. The old couple are so decent, such brave gens; they exhale such an atmosphere of life's effort nearly accomplished. They may be narrow, but they have worked honestly and lived sanely. They like being praised as all right minded people do. And they are so simple. Imagine taking to a garden after 31 years railway work in Paris. Makes me realise that I have little or no idea about elderly people, their motivations, desires and attitudes. This is a sad omission for a writer and I must do something about it. Heretofore, I have thought (when I have thought at all) of older people as being essentially no different except slower in mind and action; I now think there is a difference in kind. This is something I may need to pick up if, for example, I were to write a book, or series of books, which covered a long period of years, which I may well do.

Autumn, Fontainebleau Forest - Maxime Maufra

I walked into the forest again this morning. There was a foggy mist everywhere, a proper autumnal day, and on all sides could be heard the dropping of water from the drenched trees. And looking into the depths of the forest one could conjure up the magic of "As You Like It" and "Midsummer Night's Dream". I felt quite surprisingly poetic, almost sentimental. Just think that by taking the same walk every day one would, if properly attentive, see the subtle changes as the seasons flowed by. Surely that is a more important thing to be part of than chasing fame and fortune?

At intervals cavalry trotted past towards Fontainebleau. One officer read a newspaper as he trotted along. Clearly the horse knew where he was going. For the second time in eight days the Government was in danger of falling yesterday. "So what", I thought! 

I was thinking this morning that the United States Republic has substituted an aristocracy of commercial cleverness for the old forms of aristocracy. It is said that every man (every white man that is) has an equal chance in the U.S. and he has. But commercial aptitude, with as little honesty as can be gotten away with, is the only thing that will be of use to him. And everything is arranged so that the 'risen' can trample on those who have not risen.

Writers

Tuesday, November 5th., Chiltern Court, London.

A man of immense technical experience in writing suggested to me the other day that authors frequently get flat because, in the desire to be industrious, they go on with their work after the divine (or devilish) afflatus has weakened through inspirational fatigue. I think this is true. A good rule for novelists is forcibly to stop the day's work while the impulse to proceed is still powerful. If this rule were observed we should have shorter and more concentrated books, and better books.

A writer who may already have adopted this approach is the Anglo-Irishman William Trevor. Two of his short novels have come my way and I read both, with pleasure, in three days. "The Old Boys" which I understand to be Trevor's first novel is almost a comic novel. It deals with the memories and machinations of a committee of elderly old boys of a minor public school. My favourite character, who has all the best lines, is the wife of the prospective new chairman. "The Silence in the Garden" is set in Ireland, having to do with the decline of a landed family and their island estate, set against the background of Irish civil war and independence. Both novels are to do with loss, the unreliability of memory, failed ambition, and uncertain motivation. Each requires the reader to involve himself in the characters in order to piece together the "real" story. Trevor is enviably good at managing a large cast of characters. He is best known for his short stories, and these two novels are more or less expanded short stories but no worse for that. I for one, was sorry to get to the end, especially of "The Silence in the Garden".

I have on my desk as I write a copy of Mrs. Virginia Woolf's "Orlando". You cannot keep your end up at a London dinner-party in these weeks unless you have read it; my end has decidedly not been kept up. I have succeeded for nearly a fortnight in not reading it - partly from obstinacy, partly from a sense of foreboding, and mainly from a natural desire for altercation at table about what ought to be read. However I undertake to read it this week and shall report thereon in my next column.

A new chapter

Friday, November 4th., Les Sablons.

I saw Liane de Pougy last night for the first time, in a little ballet at the Casino de Paris. She still looked young, and, though she was too thin, like Cleo de Merode, I thought her better than most Parisians will allow. I mentioned her name to Davray and Vallee today, and they both guffawed. Clearly they know things I am not aware of, and are not disposed to enlighten me; possibly my deficiencies of language are part of the problem.

Today I came down to my new lodgings at Les Sablons. The bed-sitting room is large with a bare polished floor and a portrait of Melanchthon (in a fur coat) on the wall. Antoine Lebert and his wife, the householders, have lived in Paris 31 years and have retired here. They keep a large garden and grow grapes on long walls. Bunches still remain on certain vines which are covered with a kind of coarse muslin. I realise that I know nothing at all of viniculture - it wasn't much practised in Burslem.

The rooms face south and the weather is cold and lovely. I went for a walk in the forest which was magnificent, but I felt suddenly tired and came back and fell asleep over Butler's "The Way of all Flesh" in an armchair which at first I had thought to be extremely comfortable. I am very much looking forward to making this space my own. This is a new chapter in my life which has already wandered far from original expectations. How many places have I lived in now? And how many more in the future? In a way I can envy the Leberts who are settled contentedly, in harmony with their place in life, and not in search of new experience, but I am not yet forty and have my name to make. I may one day settle into comfortable retirement, but I can't imagine it.

"The Way of all Flesh" is exceedingly good in parts. Whenever the author is satirical he is excellent. And every now and then he gets a sudden sharp effect of pathos. He is very careless in details of construction, writes without dignity, and has a tendency to moralise at length. But I read the book with real zest, which is rare. There is a vast amount of naked truth in the book.

Making a chamge

Friday, November 3rd., Royal Thames Yacht Club.

I came to London on Wednesday and took possession of Apartment "C" at this Club which I have rented. Rather like celibate life in Paris again. Well, not so celibate in Paris, but bachelor anyway. What a relief it is, if I am honest, to be on my own, to do as I like when I like; I really don't think I am cut out for marriage. In fact I don't think men in general are. Our natural inclinations are to pursue whatever our personal objectives are to earn our living and to take opportunities to impregnate women as they arise. Not that I have any impregnation in mind!

I dined here at the Club and read Macready's diary; extraordinary sensation of having resumed a closed chapter of existence. At the Elysee Restaurant the other evening (where I was dining with Marguerite) I enjoyed watching two nice professional girls dancing during the intervals. Of course I could not give them my full attention because I definitely do not want Marguerite to think I have any ulterior motives for staying in London. A young nut came in at 9.31 and asked whether it was just before or just after drink-closing time. He crossed legs and leaned on a stick before beginning to ask the waiter. Tremendously affected - the sort of person who gives toffs a bad name.
 
Caledonian Market this morning. I got there too soon and saw trucks and hand-carts and carts being wheeled up by all sorts of people, mainly foroeigners. Type of pale puffed skin, or pinched and full red lips. Some very attractive mature women. I went back to my tailors for a try-on and went to the market again at noon, when it was in full swing. I bought an Eastern bowl for my apartment.

Suffragettes

Saturday, November 2nd., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

In Town yesterday I found myself on the fringes of a suffragette "outrage". Strolling along Regent Street, gathering ideas, paying no particular attention to my surroundings. Suddenly I became aware of a woman ten or fifteen yards away, standing quite still at the edge of the pavement which was moderately crowded with shoppers; pale, meagre sort of woman, wisps of light hair emerging from a small dark hat; dark clothes, rather dowdy and not well-to-do. What caught my attention most was the look on her face, a half-smile or more nearly a half-snarl. Then she opened her bag, took something from it, and hurled it through the adjacent shop window. Just like that. As if the sound of breaking glass were a signal, which I suppose it was, along the street (ahead of and behind me) there were similar sounds of shattering and shouts of "Votes for Women". All done so quickly that I just stood there, mouth agape no doubt. Their job done the women disappeared individually into the crowds, to avoid being seized by the police I expect. Disciplined and effective. I am full of admiration for these women who risk imprisonment and social sanction. Would I have the courage to act in an important cause I believed in? I doubt it.

This was my first experience of suffragettes in action and reflecting on it later on the train I was reinforced in my view that miltant acts are justified and necessary. In fact I consider that more will be needed before progress is made. I cannot see the present parliament extending the franchise. What is really needed is a martyr. This might be a woman who dies whilst being "force-fed" (an absolutely barbaric practice), but better would be a public death in the course of a militant act. Of course I regret that anyone should die, but I doubt that anything less will bring this matter to a climax. No doubt there will be much chuntering about suffragette action inconveniencing ordinary people going about their business; ordinary people who see no further than the end of their noses and accept the status quo. They probably vote (if they are men) Tory. Enough said!

Operatic inspiration

Sunday, November 1st., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Opera Comique. "Carmen". 2nd Act excellent. And all good and shapely. Charlotte Wyns as Carmen was very good - just the right amount of sauciness. She could have tempted me to almost anything! Hard to believe that when the opera was first performed here in 1875 its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Rather tame now in comparison to some of the things to be seen in Paris, but it has an emotional punch which has not, in my view, been bettered.

All this last week my whole existence has been upset and monopolised by that story and by people; and I seem to have lost the faculty for rigidly planning out my days into sections. I have studied no French at all; and this journal is reduced again to a mere chronicle. But perhaps I am being too hard on myself. What was it my mother used to say about "making Jack a dull boy"? Paris inevitably gets into the blood and I cannot expect, or desire, that I should live my life here as if I were in London or, God forbid, the Potteries. People and places are my material after all.