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.