AB is away

Sunday, February 23rd., Chiltern Court, London.

AB has unexpectedly gone off on holday to the Canary Islands.

It is not known whether, or if, he will return. 

In the meantime:
 

What I want

Wednesday, February 22nd., Fulham Park Gardens, London.

Eden Phillpotts

On Friday I went down to Torquay to spend the weekend with Eden Phillpotts.

I found him settled in a decently large house (with several rooms about 20 feet square), with a charming wife and two children, with whom he must play every evening in the nursery from 6 to 7, inventing new games etc. Mrs. P. is a rather attractive woman, if a little older than me, and it was a pleasure to be entertained by her whilst Eden was upstairs. We were quickly on friendly terms and she was particularly interested in my life in Paris. Once or twice she have me a 'knowing' look when I referred (obliquely) to the pleasures to be had there.

On Saturday Eden and I went for a walk in the February mist. Very mild down here. Both he and his brother ask nothing better than to potter about garden and greenhouse, diagnosing the case of every plant, noting minute changes, and discussing methods of treatment. For two days a rumour that a camellia was growing in the hedge of a certain garden in a certain street excited them until they proved to themselves satisfactorily that the rumour was wrong and the camellia only a rhododendron.

Today Tillotsons offered me £60 for the serial rights of "For Love and Life". I have asked them for £80, but £60 was the price I had myself thought of.

I left Phillpotts full of desire to live in the country in a large house with plenty of servants, as he does, not working too hard, but working how and when one likes, at good rates. And an attractive wife would be good as well! It can only be done by means of fiction. Perhaps the sale of this my first serial may be considered as a step in the desired direction.

Now I am packing to go away again, somewhere warm and sunny. I feel the need for some rest and recuperation.

Ruthless

Friday, February 21st., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

I have been up to my neck in the mud of work, especially proof-correcting. But I have at least got my improper novel entirely off my mind and don't want to hear anything more about it except highly favourable reviews and immense cheques. 

There was a bomb on St. Pancras Hotel on Sunday night and on Chelsea Hospital on Saturday night. No official casualty figures as far as I have heard. Yesterday there was a fog. We now like fogs and rain - except on moonless nights.

Lunch with Rosher to meet Kennedy Jones at Thatched House Club. He is a Glasgow man, aged 52, with pale eyes, and when talking he screws them up a little, and looks far away as if cogitating on the most difficult and interesting aspects of what he is discussing. Largely affectation I think. He struck me as a powerful and ruthless man, but I wouldn't have any of his ruthlessness. When he was firm, I was firmer. In spite of the superior knowledge of which he boasts he has already lost two bets to Rosher about the war. I wouldn't like to be one of his 'men', but he was interesting enough to meet.

Blowing a gale

Sunday, February 20th., Royal York Hotel, Brighton.

All secure in the hotel. But terrific wind beating on the south windows and general shaking. Female anxiety is apparent. I affect nonchalance to the extent of going out for a stroll in the dark. You then see hotels from the outside. Blocks of stone and yellow light, immensely secure. Very brilliant in lower stages. The consumption of power in this town has a sort of 'damn you' quality. Aquarium a cluster of lights with its absurd little tower. Moon in cloudy sky. Little crowds at two points on the pier an example of the herd mentality in action. vast sea of foam for 200 yards out. Rows of little people in the half-distance silhouetted like a long-toothed saw against this. I find the general look of these groups of people perhaps the most interesting. So small. Waves breaking over jetty and over Marine drive. Waves coming between jetty and pier, running along wall of jetty in a line like the curves of a long ropeshaken to imitate waves. Noise of naked shingles. Plenty of suffused light about. Sheet lightning from time to time.

Harley Granville-Barker

There was a wonderful sunset the night before, salmon (and a salmon sea) in south, pink to the east, and sapphire to west. In 15 minutes it was all grey. But while it lasted the sky was a composition in itself.

I wrote 2,600 words of "Clayhanger" on Friday and about the same yesterday. Good words.

This morning I carried Mrs. Granville Barker's hot-water bottle onto the pier for her. I called on them in the evening and had a bit of a yarn. Barker told me some plots of plays he had produced. He said A. Schnitzler was the best writer of one act plays, and recounted the plot of "In a Hospital". I then had a great desire to write a big one-act play. The plot of "In a Hospital" as recounted by Barker was very striking.


 

English after all

Thursday, February 19th., Grand Hotel d'Italie, Mont Estoril, Portugal.

This change of scene is doing me the world of good. The only question is whether I shall be able to go back to my former way of life. Swinnerton has impressed upon me, and he is correct, that my emotional decline was due to the constant stress and antagonism arising from my relationship with Marguerite. He hasn't said as much but I am sure he thinks we should separate, if not divorce. He is right about that as well, but can I bring myself to initiate such a course? What I would really like is for Marguerite to tell me she has had enough of marriage and wants to live by herself. Am I a moral coward? Of course I am!

I have painted five watercolours since coming here. They are not good, but I have done worse and it is the activity, not the end product that matters. We have had bad weather, even very bad, but with marvellous sunsets. The weather is now improving, the barometer is rising and this morning is beautiful. I am in excellent health and I dream a lot at night. I think that is good. It is as if I am ridding myself of negative feelings. This journey has given me back my taste for travel. I would like to travel more but what bothers me is having two unused establishments. It does bother me. It makes life too complicated and it is too expensive. If I didn't have domestic expenses it would be as cheap to travel as to stay at home.

The main drawback of this hotel is that there are doors between the bedrooms, which is annoying. I have very proper neighbours who read until late at night but never breathe a word. They are a man of 40 and his wife of 30 so I speculate that my presence through the dividing door must necessarily be inhibiting their conjugal activities. Unless they are carrying on in silence. Perhaps so. That might be quite erotic as I think about it. More likely though that they come up during the day and are content to read at night. Or that they don't do anything much. They are English after all!

Mannered

Wednesday, February 18th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

We returned home this afternoon having spent a few days in Suffolk, which was extremely wet. Everywhere rivers had burst their banks, fields had become lakes, and some roads had become streams. All the result of weeks of storms and heavy rain in the south of England. Many people it seems are in despair following the inundation of their homes. Crossing a bridge, I saw a sign below saying:  "Private Property - do not cross this fence". As a fact, no fence was visible. The sign protruded forlornly from a sheet of water and the property owner presumably was in occupation of the upper floors of his water-lapped house.

I bought "Autobiography of Mark Rutherford" and "Mark Rutherford's Deliverance" in 7d. editions at the station. Started reading the latter which is very impressive and original. Fine style, no scheme of construction. As a continuous narrative extraordinarily amateurish. The man had no notion of fiction. Full of wisdom and high things. For example:

"As I got older I became aware of the folly of this perpetual reaching after the future, and of drawing from to-morrow, and from to-morrow only, a reason for the joyfulness of to-day. I learned, when, alas! it was almost too late, to live in each moment as it passed over my head, believing that the sun as it is now rising is as good as it will ever be, and blinding myself as much as possible to what may follow. But when I was young I was the victim of that illusion, implanted for some purpose or other in us by Nature, which causes us, on the brightest morning in June, to think immediately of a brighter morning which is to come in July."

Middle-aged couple in our compartment. Well and quietly dressed. Upper class. Restrained. Extremely good natural and trained manners. The woman (35) especially was charming in her admirable breeding. Evidently wealthy. They talked in such a low tone that, although the articulation was perfectly clear, one did not hear unless one listened. After about an hour the woman, reading Daily Mail, said: "What is a tympani solo?" The man made a gesture of non-comprehension. She passed him the paper. He read the passage and made a scarcely perceptible sign of ignorance. "Don't you know?" she asked quietly. He repeated the sign - would not speak (as they were not alone). Her glance seemed to say to him: "Pardon me asking you such an outlandish impossible thing." She took back the Daily Mail. I felt that this was behaviour one could only expect to see in England. I remain unsure as to whether that is a good thing or not. I wonder what they made of us?

Ready for anything

Monday, February 17th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

I am chiefly occupied with the stage. I give a considerable amount of time to the Lyric, Hammersmith, where money has been lost in my absence owing to the lavish expenditure. And I am also being drawn into the production part of "Judith". I say drawn in, but in fact I am happy to be involved though I feign reticence. For a start Lillah Mc Carthy is taking the title role and I very much look forward to close observation of her in a state of undress (as much as we can get away with - she seems keen) in the climactic scene. Lillah is much taken with the play and on Tuesday last we had a three hour meeting with Eaton and Drinkwater about the rest of the cast. I think Marguerite may be a little jealous of Lillah, which isn't a bad thing.


I finished Professor Arthur Keith's "The Human Body" (Home University Library). A thoroughly sound little book, rottenly written, even to bad syntax. It is strange that these experts, such as Keith and Sidney Webb, do not take the trouble to be efficient in their first business, the vehicle of expression. I was amazed, but shouldn't have been, as to how ignorant I am about the workings of the body. We simply take it for granted, until it goes wrong, and then all we want to do is to get right again. At the moment I feel well-informed but I know that the knowledge will soon fade and become faulty.

This morning though I was feeling very well indeed. We have had quite a storm over the weekend - heavy rain and high winds. Significant flooding in some places. So, out walking I stuck to the roads and made paths and breathed deeply, and cleared my head of the various problems and aggravations, professional and domestic, of life. It was good. I strode out and covered the best part of six miles in two hours. Tired and hungry when I got back, and slept well after lunch. Ready for anything (almost) now. 

I am an author

Wednesday, February 16th., Fulham Park Road, London.

As I opened the front door this morning to leave for the office, the postman put a parcel in my hand. It was from John Lane, and it contained the first copy of my first book, "A Man from the North". Imagine that. I could hardly believe I was not dreaming. As a fact my heart was beating like the clappers and my breathing became shallow. I untied it hastily and after glancing at the cover gave it to Tertia to read. All day at the office I have been saying to myself: "I am an author". 

Tonight, with some ceremony, I picked the book up and indulged myself in the feel and smell of the thing. Then I looked through the tale, picking out my favourite bits. The style seemed better than I had hoped for. I am still pinching myself, but there it is, a tangible product of my heart and mind.I hope, trust and believe it is only the first of many.

The last time

Sunday, February 14th., Hotel Nettuno, Pisa.

We left Rome this morning.

Yesterday was a lovely day and Dorothy would go out for a drive along the Via Appia Antica. I told her it would tire and upset her, but she wanted to go, and we went. She was correct. The advantages of seeing the Campagna on such a day were obvious. The views were marvellous, especially the skies and other distances. Dorothy said she wanted to see it 'for the last time'. She repeated the phrase several times during the afternoon. Lots of people take a keen pleasure in the supposed sadness of seeing a thing for the last time. In fact I do myself. How many times have I revisited a favourite place, by the sea or out in the country, by myself, and wallowed in the thought that this might be my last time; it enhances the experience I think. And there seem to be no limits on how many 'last times' can be enjoyed!

I find that this year I have written more words than I have spent lire, and as a lire is worth 2d. and my words ought to be worth nearly 2s. each, I should be all right on balance.

We left Rome easily and comfortably for the 11.55 lusso to Paris, and got off the train at Pisa punctually at 5.25. A marvellous, cloudless, sunshiny day, with ditto scenery the whole way and smooth travelling. Descended at the Nettuno at Pisa. The plumbing in these Italian hotels is barbaric. Hot and cold water in each room and private bathroom (140 lire per day the lot), but the water running away out of the basins makes a perfect hades of a row - so much so that they cannot be used at night without waking the person in the next room. And single doors between rooms!

Dripping wet

Saturday, February 13th., London.
Yesterday afternoon, a sandwich man in Coventry Street, stooping with difficulty owing to his encumbrances, picked up a cigarette out of the gutter. "My first of the day," he exclaimed to his mate who was in front of him. 

This struck a chord with me. I have been told by my mother that when I was young I used to be taken out for walks by my Uncle Len, by the canal or to Bradwell Woods near Tunstall. He was more or less an itinerant, never working to my knowledge. My mother said it was because he had been on a ship that was sunk by a submarine during the war. Apparently I got into the habit of picking up cigarette ends for him to smoke later, because he could never afford to buy them. I saw nothing unusual in this behaviour at the time. It all came out when I was out shopping with my mother one day and automatically picked up a cigarette end I saw on the floor. She was horrified when I explained that it was to save for Lennie.


In either 1893 or 1894 I heard a Wagner opera for the fist time with understanding. It was at Drury Lane and we sat in the balcony. There was no crush on entering, not more than a dozen people had collected when the doors opened. At most 40 people occupied the balcony, and the other parts of the immense building were similarly forlorn. Nevertheless it was an excellent performance with Alvarez and (I think) Klapsky as chief stars. Contrast: Tonight with Frank I went to a Wagner orchestral concert (promenade) at Queen's Hall, under Henry J. Wood. We got there a quarter of an hour before the commencement and already the entrance hall was packed with an eager tumultuous mass (excited by expectation) struggling to get at the ticket offices. At eight o'clock the vast floor (promenade) and the upper circle were crowded in every part, and in the balcony only a few reserved seats were left, which in turn were taken before the second piece on the programme had been played. The audience was enthusiastic, keenly anticipatory; and the orchestra under the magnetic influence of the occasion played in a fashion which steadily increased the exquisite nervous tension of its hearers. At the opening bars of "The Flying Dutchman" overture I felt those strange tickling sensations in the back which are the physical signs of aesthetic emotion. The mysterious effects of orchestral colour contrast dazed and dazzled Frank's willing ears till he existed simply as a "receiver" - receiver of a microphone or other phonetic instrument ... The waves of sound swallowed him up, and at the end he emerged, like a courageous child from the surf of a summer sea, dripping wet, breathless, and enraptured.

Crunched and crumbled

Monday February 12th., Trinity Hall Farm.

A bicycling excursion to Maldon, Essex, yesterday in spite of the weather. Cold air was exhilarating once one became used to it. Very hungry when we got there and enjoyed a considerable lunch in an old-fashioned hotel. Pretty serving maid. The whole place is old-fashioned. I liked it.

We stood on a bridge over the Blackwater at the bottom of the town. There was snow everywhere, a very keen frost, and a bright moon approaching the full. On either side of the river the warehouses and wharves were silhouetted in deep tones. The tide was coming in, and we could hear a faint continuous crackling, or mysterious rustling as the ice, constantly forming, was crunched and crumbled gently against the projecting piles of the wharves. We stood quite still in the silent town and listened to this strange soft sound. Then we threw tiny pebbles over the bridge and they slid along the surface of the river. The water froze in broad areas as it passed under the bridge.

We saw a very fat and aged woman walking home very carefully. The road was extremely slippery, and a fall would have been serious to one of her age and weight. Serious for us as well because we would have had to go to her assistance. To me she seemed a rather pathetic figure balancing along ... And yet, if I have learned anything, it is not to be spendthrift of pity. She would be all right.

Pure self-indulgence

Friday, February 9th., London Yacht Club.

I wrote 1200 words of my London novel yesterday. I am pretty sure that it will be found offensive by some people who perhaps do not want to be reminded that physical relations sometimes occur between consenting adults outside of marriage. We don't seem to have advanced terribly far since Hardy was pilloried for oblique references to the way humans actually behave.

Walter Sickert

Today George Moore and Walter Sickert came to lunch. Sickert had swum in the morning and skated. In fact he had his skates with him and no overcoat though it seems cold to me out there. They talked. I said little. Moore clearly was the man of letters. He is rather detached from the normal world it seems; even the war seems to be of no interest to him. He said that he didn't read the papers now, as they only made him feel depressed and did him no good. Well, he has a point of course but surely an artist ought to have some contact with the real world? He said several very foolish things such as that he could not understand how anyone could read a war book. To read about new war devices he could understand, but not how anyone could read a war book.  

Sickert was much more reserved - he is much more normal. He told us that he cooked his own food, and cooked it very well. I admire him for that. Formerly he used to read between spells of painting during the day, but now he cooked. He goes over to the stove and say: "Ca mijotte". They both used a lot of French and spoke it very well. Moore recited a French ballad which he had written about a maquereau which I thought rather good. The he recited Villon. He is naively and harmlessly vain, and very agreeable. I enjoyed the company of both men very much.

Home to Essex for the weekend. I can admit to myself that I am not looking forward to it. How agreeable it would be to stay here, read, write, walk a little, simply please myself. Conjugal pleasures are well enough, but my balance is tipping in favour of the bachelor lifestyle. I find that I am thinking more and more frequently of separation from Marguerite. I often imagine being informed that she has been killed in an accident or an air raid. I know that my first emotion, were I so informed, would be one of relief. Then I think, would I really be happier on my own or is it just another case of the grass being greener? There would have to be something decisive and dramatic to precipitate the break because I can't imagine myself proposing it. I wonder if she is thinking something similar? How preposterous that people are so unable to communicate effectively. I don't hanker for new relationships, but would just like to do what I like, when I like, without recourse to the needs of someone else; pure self-indulgence.

Confused

Friday, February 8th., Cadogan Square, London.

Last night, first performance of "The Way of the World" at Lyric Hammersmith. I have seen two rehearsals and the performance of this play, and still do not know what the plot is, nor have I met anyone who does know. Further, the balance of the play is astoundingly neglected. There is a very long (and good) scene in the first act preparing for entrance of Petulant, and of course preparing the audience to believe that Petulant is the chief character, whereas Petulant does nothing whatever in the play, and might, so far as the plot is concerned, be left out. All extremely puzzling and confusing. Presumably that was the intention?

The last act drags terribly, and is enough to kill any play. It seems to me that Congreve had something of the superior and really snobbish artistic intelligence of Wilde and Byron. Anyhow his play suffers. It is celebrated but it cannot hold the stage because of its crude and inexcusable faults of construction. Were it well constructed it would easily rival Sheridan and Goldsmith. If it were put on in Hanley the audience would be throwing things, but we all applauded politely at the end. 

What liberty was allowed to unmarried girls in that period. If Millamant was not a widow, and I never understood that she was, they must have had a great deal of licence. I am betraying my 'Victorian' morals by making that statement. Strange to say that I am often shocked by current feminine bahaviours, because they are not what I was brought up to expect, and at the same time approve of femininism in principle. I am very glad that I have no daughter as I should be all at sea!

The performance and production last night were admirable. The play will fail, but it must add to the prestige of the theatre. Edith Evans as Millamant gave the finest comedy performance I have ever seen on stage. I went behind afterwards and told her so. "How exciting!" she said.

Party tricks

Wednesday, February 7th., Yacht Club, London.

Dined at Madame Van der Velde's, and sat at a spiritualistic seance with a clairvoyant named Peters who brought his son, a youth in the R.A.M.C. home for a few hours on leave. This son said there were 500 professed spiritualist soldiers at Aldershot. Theosophist. The clairvoyant a man of 45 or so. Short. Good forehead. Bald on top, dark hair at sides. Quick and nervous. Son of a barge owner. Present: Yeats the poet, Mr. and Mrs. Jowitt, Roger Fry, hostess and me. Mrs J. very beautiful, quite distractingly so. Jowitt is editor of the Daily Chronicle. 

We were all asked to put an object we had brought with us on a tray, unseen by Peters. Though not by his son I noticed. Peters then handled the objects with his eyes closed. His greatest success, quite startling, was with the glass stopper of a bottle brought by Jowitt. He decribed a man throwing himself out of something, down, with machinery behind him, and a big hotel or building behind him. Something to do with water, across water. He kept repeating these phrases with variations. Turns out the stopper had once belonged to a baronet (I forget his name) who threw himself off a launch in response to a challenge, at 3 a.m. into the Thames, after a party up river. He drowned. Drunk presumably.

He had some success with my toothpick, in getting me to the Potteries, and into the office of the Staffordshire Knot, or Sentinel, and described a man that might be either Goold or the editor of the Sentinel, and said that known or unknown to me, this man had greatly influenced me. He insisted on the word 'Zola'. He said there was a message to tell me, that I hadn't done my best work. I felt quite impressed at the time, but not so now. A professional would not have any difficulty finding out things about us, and offering fairly vague suggestions which we seize upon and mould to fit. Probably he and his son have some sort of code to indicate which item belongs to which person. 

What strikes me most is the banality of the whole thing. here we are in the middle of the greatest war the world has seen, people dying in their millions, and the spirits can only tell us who has fallen out of a boat or has a link with a newspaper! The fact is that people tend towards credulity and the mediums and clairvoyants make use of this tendency with their party tricks. I am glad I went. I made full notes.

Enough of Monte

Saturday, February 6th., Hotel d'Italie, Menton.

Yesterday being wet I went over to Monte Carlo, and lost money, and was depressed by that and the weather, and more particularly by my lack of sense in playing with insufficient capital. That sentence is a lie. I went over to Monte Carlo in spite of the weather because I wanted to gamble and I thought I would win. Idiot. If there were a way of beating the system then somebody would have thought of it by now. Supremely arrogant of me to think that I have some special insight. No more!

Early this morning, still in a fairly savage mood, I composed a limerick on that infernal and un-vanquishable bore Mrs. Miller:

     There was an old woman named Miller
     Whose acquaintances wanted to kill her,
     When they put her in ice,
     She sniggered, "How nice!"
     For nothing could possibly chill her.

I sent it off to Eden Phillpotts by special messenger, and instantly felt better.

Phillpotts and I should have finished our play in the next few days and I must then go to England to pay a duty call on my mother who is still quite ill. Then back to Paris. I am trying to persuade Wells to visit me there. I have read the first instalment of his "The Food of the Gods" in Pearson's and thought it extremely good apart from a few minor verbal infelicities. Wells's reputation is high in Paris and I am sure he would be suitably feted there. Anyway, I would like to see him. I am starting to think that I have been here long enough. The place has interested me but one can have too much of a good thing.

When in Rome

Friday, February 5th., Hotel Russie, Rome.

I spent a lot of the morning at the top of the hotel garden, which I had never discovered before, after having been here over seven weeks. Marvellous view over Rome, of which I made a sketch. I thought about my new novel, had quite a lot of excellent ideas concerning it. I expect to make a start this week.

After siesta we took a taxi and drove along dusty and dull and very bad roads to Tre Fontane - the place where Paul's head jumped three times after being cut off, at each place producing a fountain. There are three churches, and if they locate the fountains, Paul's head must have very considerably bounded. Two churches were open, both very poor and odd and neglected. In fact - no interest at all - yet it is a place one is supposed to go to!


Septimus is much on my mind, and I doubt that he will live much longer. Under 7 stones now apparently. Should I return to England for a last word with him? It would mean leaving Dorothy here and, though she is very well, I don't think it would do in her present condition. In any case I doubt if Sep would know me, or even be conscious. 

I found myself in a headline of the Continental Daily Mail and have since had trouble with journalists. Especially female American journalists. They are very determined and not above using their 'charms' to get me to do an interview. Of course I don't mind being 'charmed' by an attractive woman, but I am not in the mood to talk and if I gave way to one then that would open the floodgates.

Anyway, there is, as they say, no place like Rome. It is 13 years since I was here last and I feel that I am only just beginning to see what Rome is. I must admit that this is partly due to Dorothy who has a genuine passion for archaeology and has communicated some of her enthusiasm to me. Perhaps I should forget about the writing for a bit and just absorb the place. To think that I could not have imagined having this opportunity all those years ago in Burslem.

Strange people

Sunday, February 4th., 97 Chiltern Court, London.

Bernard Shaw came for lunch. He and Dorothy talked theatre all the time. He said that the first preliminary to her going in for theatrical management and acting was a divorce between us. I think he was joking. He was rather more sensible and agreeable than usual. He went with us to Harriet Cohen's Henry Wood orchestral concert at Wigmore Hall. The hall was full. I dozed off twice, being very fatigued and sleepy, but I still enjoyed it. We drove home in rain. Shaw left us to get exercise on foot, in the rain. He is a strange person.


But then, authors are strange people. I am one myself, and I probably know as many authors as any living man - except literary agents and income tax inspectors. Authors are ticklish, sensitive people, and, more than most categories of persons, they are victims (generally willing enough) of the astounding, and to me incomprehensible, mania for 'meeting' celebrities, notorieties and infamies. Why do I say so? Because it has been my observation over a long period of years. Why is it so? I don't know!

I regard myself as the exception that proves this particular rule. So far as I am aware I have never had the desire to meet a celebrity because he was a celebrity. On the contrary I have had, and still have, a desire to avoid him. "But you are a great admirer of his books!" said an acquaintance to me once, when I had demurred to an encounter with a genius. "Yes I am," I said. "That's why I don't want to meet him. If I run across him by chance, all right! But deliberately to go out of my way to meet him - No!" And I never did meet him.

Rightly or wrongly one has one's sense of dignity. I have been acused of having an over-developed sense of dignity, and that may be the case. But it is my sense of dignity and I cling to it. In my defence I will assert that my antipathy towards celebrity is by no means uncommon in the Midlands where I grew up. There were men in the Five Towns (and probably still are) who would not cross the street to acknowledge the existence of some local celebrity or other; they would be ashamed to do so. They would regard it as a matter of personal pride and self-respect not to acknowledge a celebrity. I have introduced them into some of my novels and stories. "The Death of Simon Fugue", which some suggest is my best short story, is a case in point. 

Were I to go to the Potteries myself, which is unlikely, I would have no expectation of acknowledgement and I expect that when I die there may be a brief obituary in The Sentinel, but not such as to draw attention away from 'real' news - the football results for example.

Thoughts

Wednesday, February 3rd., Hotel d'Italie, Menton.

"Leonora" is in every way a much better book than "Anna". What women of forty ought to concern themselves with is not the point. What they do concern themselves with they will know when they reach that interesting age; in the meantime they should make no assumptions. That women of forty, generally, do regret the past is a fact. That they long to be young again is an undoubted fact. That they are particularly, peculiarly, & specially passionate & prone to sexual excitement is incontrovertible. It was the discovery of these piquant truths which led me to write "Leonora". I didn't conceive the idea and then search round for confirmation. The reverse. I certainly do not think that 'love' is a woman's whole existence, as does at least one of my correspondents. It was certainly not Leonora's whole existence. She was extremely addicted to the higher walks of housewifery. But I think that 'love' is the major part of woman's existence. It is a good part of man's, but differently. I think there are only two things in the world really worth having - sexual love & the love of children. Over & over again, in a career intimately mixed up with many & diverse women, I have found that women with a tendency to 'sit on' love have ended suddenly & swiftly with marriage & become even more domesticated than their sisters. Just some thoughts on women that have arisen in my mind lately.


I have been a little under the weather for the last few days. Just a cold in the head but it is surprising what an impact it has on the mood. Of course it becomes difficult to sleep with any comfort and hence one is perpetually tired. I started to feel a little better yesterday and hoped to see further improvement this morning, but had a minor relapse. Drinks of hot lemon and honey I find to be soothing and restorative.

The ideas of the average decently-informed person are so warped, and out of perspective, and ignorant, and entirely perverse and wrong and crude, on nearly every mortal subject, that the task of discussing anything with him or her seriously and fully and to the end, is simply appalling. This has struck me several times recently in this hotel, and I have recoiled from a discussion. The state of that average person's mind can scarcely be contemplated by me, in certain moods. In fact I doubt the value of discussion generally. In my experience discussion usually amounts to repeated statements by the participants of their views. I have rarely felt that I have changed anyone's mind by talking to them. I know that no-one has changed mine. I think this is partly because a 'discussion' is necessarily an adversarial affair, and people hate to feel they have been defeated. Better it is to read alternative views, mull over them and, if so inclined, amend one's views accordingly.

The funeral feast given by Catherine Ivanovna in "Crime and Punishment" is a magnificent piece of work, both as serious accurate observation and as brutal humour.

At the Savoy

Saturday, February 2nd., Cadogan Square, London.

Rupert Carte

Yesterday, lunch at the Savoy with Reeves Smith, Rupert Carte, Thornewill and Temple. They showed me over the hotel, by arrangement, as I have an idea of writing a novel with a great hotel at its centre. They know I will give it a fictitious name but I expect they believe good publicity will arise as its provenance becomes known. And of course I will formally acknowledge their assistance. They told me that the Savoy took in receipts a total of a million a year, about £3,000 a day.

Complex systems for tips which differ for waiters, chambermaids, valets, porters etc. Arcane. But not to be interfered with - hotel people are very conservative it appears.
Kitchen - Head Chef under thirty. Worked his way up. Wore a natty little cravat without collar. Stores. Fish in tanks. The man who calls out orders as they come down is called the aboyeur. I didn't see a great deal of special interest in the kitchens, except the patent washer-up.
Power station - Artesian wells. geared turbines. Power for carpet sweepers, pumping etc. The power station reminded me of the stoke hold of the Lusitania which I saw before the war when I went to the United States. Run by oil now. ventilated by vast draughts of cold air through trumpet-like things. Water heaters for both.
Graph Office (Capt. Jack) - graphs for various receipts. In summer receipts for rooms go up, and retaurant receipts go down. Londoners away in summer. Hence there are two publics; the travelling and the home publics - very distinct.
Audit Department - every bill separately checked, but afterwards. Every query on them has to be cleared up.
Printing Office -  all menus, cards, programmes and large bills. In their spare time they do the hotel's commercial printing, such as order forms.
Repairs Department - I didn't see this. But they plan all their big carpets there. However I saw through a window in the side-street the room where 10 to 12 women repair the hotel linen every day.
Laundry - Clapham. I didn't see it. An American expert said it was undoubtedly the finest equipped laundry in the world.
Bedrooms and suites - 6 guineas a day for double-bed and sitting room, bath etc. 9 guineas for two bedrooms and sitting room. It pleases visitors best that the rooms should be, if anything, too warm when shown. Thornewill had given orders previous night that one suite should not be let, so that I might see it at my ease.

A very instructive visit. Reinforces my view that a great hotel is a sort of organism and that it could, if dealt with properly, become almost a character in a novel. Much food for thought in this. I will allow the idea to 'ferment' in my mind, and one day it will burst forth.

 

Almost happy

Monday, February 1st., Victoria Grove, London.

Today I took up my novel again, and after roughly scribbling 2,300 words in three hours, began actually to have a dim vision of some of the characters - at last! To 'get way on' there is nothing like seizing the pen and writing something, anything about one's characters. The blank page is such a daunting thing to contemplate and it seems to grow in size the more one looks at it. It is a mistake to try to get everything right before starting. 

If I could spend every day as I have today spent today, happiness would be almost within grasp. A couple of hours editorial work at the office in the morning. After dinner I read myself to sleep with d'Annunzio's "Annales d'Anne", and when I woke I went to pay some money into the bank. Then I schemed out in my head the next chapter of my novel. Before tea Mrs. Sharpe came upstairs for a talk, a talk which continued for some time after tea was over. We talk entirely in French. Her suggestion, to improve my conversational ability as I have confided to her that it is my intention one day to live in Paris. She speaks French very well and I feel that I am improving under her tutelage.

From six to nine I worked fairly easily at my novel, drafting 2,300 words - a complete chapter. After supper, I opened a new copy of Arnold's "Essays in Criticism" (Second series) and read the essay on Tolstoy. I shall read myself to sleep (for the second time today) with Maria Edgeworth's "Belinda".

In spite of the laziest liver in the world, I am well nigh content with myself tonight.