Summat missing

Thursday, April 9th., Les Sablons.

A great Spring day today. Also yesterday. Sofia, a friend of ours, wrote the other day that "Spring had sprung" and she was right. I walked to Fontainebleau and back yesterday morning and wrote 2,000 words of novel in the afternoon; mainly background detail! This afternoon we had tea in the garden - first reflection of the year outside.

Finished Merrick's "The Actor-Manager" in twenty four hours. This is praise of it. The interest keeps up but the book ends abruptly, and unreasonably, long before the story is finished. I find it remarkable that so few authors really know how to finish a book. It is undoubtedly a good book but rather monotonous in colour and movement, and practically no backgrounds in it at all. As for scenic effects, whether of town or country, scarcely an attempt. It is excellent so far as it goes; but it lacks. It lacks the romantic feeling , or summat! I know that many authors see character as the focus of a novel and regard background detail, what I would call context, as of secondary importance. Not me. Not when I write or when I read. I find a richly described background essential for thorough immersion in a novel. And I don't think a character is separable from their context in a novel, or in life.

Getting on

Friday, April 7th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

The end of winter was very sudden last week. On Tuesday last week was the worst blizzard for fifty years, in which our car got smashed up against a tree that had fallen across the Colchester road. Snow, slush etc. very trying. And then on Saturday the sun was very hot, and the roads full of flying dust. Just like summer even to the East and North-East winds.

I really 'got on to' the first scene of "Carlotta" play on Wednesday.

In the meantime I have been reading Conrad short stories. "Youth" excellent. It evidently comes from the heart and is perfectly convincing. Then "The End of the Tether". Probably the second or third time I have read it and likely to be my last. As I get older so it becomes more and more poignant. I don't think I could bear to see Captain Whalley decline again. It is a tragedy in the real sense of the word. A masterpiece in my view. When I am drawn into a story by a writer of Conrad's genius I realise anew just what a miracle literature is. I hope that somewhere, at some time, someone has felt the same having read a work of mine. If so, my life will not have been wasted.

Almost content

Monday, March 22nd., Villa des Nefliers, Fontainebleau.

I am half way through Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" which, surprisingly, I have not previously read. I don't know what to make of it. Is it to be taken at face value? Is it a subtle critique of social mores, colonialism, class, progress ...? I sense that it is a joke but one to which I either lack the necessary background or am too constrained to appreciate. I do not dislike it, and will finish it, but I am perplexed.

Change of weather last night. Today, first day of Spring, twelve kilometres in the forest. Through too much work I have slept badly for several nights, which upset my digestion. Still my output is enormous. Pleasure in being in the country increases. Yet, a certain dissatisfaction, an expectancy, behind the content. Probably this will always be there, wherever I am and whatever I am doing.

The vernal equinox. Time to set aside this journal of commonplace matters, which musty not becomw a burden, in favour of more time out of doors. Time to walk, and to breathe. To savour the burgeoning forest. No doubt I will make the occasional entry when there is something of consequence to be written. And Autumn will come around soon enough.

More Cointreau needed

Saturday, March 21st., Cadogan Square, London.

We were at Lady Colefax's supper to meet John Barrymore on Thursday night. There were no Asquith's there which was surprising as Asquiths seemed to occupy all the boxes on the first night of Barrymore's "Hamlet" at the Haymarket. Also they were photographed in their boxes. Barrymore, at the supper where he arrived after 1 a.m., seemed to be partly exhausted. He looked distinguished but didn't talk distinguished. During songs he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep. Then he exclaimed: "Oh, for some Cointreau!" very urgently, and it was brought quickly to him. He is very shrewd and perspicacious. Needless to say he was much admired by the ladies, not excepting Dorothy.

I am inclined to be 'unwell'; some people, I know, think me something of a hypochondriac because I generally look well enough whilst complaining of a variety of symptoms not visible to them. In fact I think that people admit themselves 'unwell' oftener than they used to. This is because they know a little more about the greatest of all physical marvels and mysteries, the human body. I former days an indisposition was looked upon as the act of God and regarded fatalistically. Now it is known to be the act of man and therefore perhaps cuarable if officially proclaimed and treated. The champions of the past in this matter say that we are a generation of mollycoddles.

Still, we live appreciably longer than our ancestors. Some will assert that since life is a nuisance, then longer life is a still greater nuisance. I do not subscribe to this view in spite of my notorious ill health. In some ways we have retained the foolishness of the past. Today, just as in former times, there are certain diseases, especially those affecting physical attractiveness, as to which women will unfailingly become hysterical. And men are as apt as ever to become hysterical if their digestive organs go wrong. I am guilty of this. On the other hand a man will still as of old deny to himself the existence of an obvious  chronic malady, and carry on his existence as if his proper place was not in bed. And then die suddenly, and have the effrontery to be surprised thereat.

And what remarkable faith we can generate, in the face of all good sense, in patent remedies. I am guilty of this as well. Not only will people try all sorts of quack medicines, they will convince themselves they are working, and broadcast their success, until their failure becomes manifest and there is no alternative to a quiet reversion often accompanied by a declaration that they didn't really expect it to work in any case.

In the country

Saturday, March 20th., Trinity Hall Farm, Hockliffe.

Out early this morning after a decent night. Nearly five hour first sleep. Feeling pretty fit and very glad to be away from towns and cities, though they pull me still. I suppose it is to do with having been raised in an urban setting. Though I feel happy here I shall never feel that I belong. I am tolerated and humoured by the people I meet locally. They are too polite to tell me I am not one of them, but I know it.

Speaking of belonging, I have just finished reading an excellent short novel which has that as one of its themes. "A Month in the Country" by J.L. Carr. I think it spoke more clearly to me living here than it would have done had I been still living in London or, God forbid, Paris. It is a remembrance by a man named Birkin of a golden summer when he was a young man, not long back from the horrors of the War. He is a restorer of wall paintings in old churches and is commissioned to a job in Yorkshire. There he meets another ex-soldier, lives in the belfry of the church, becomes involved in aspects of local life, and falls in love with the vicar's wife. All in the space of a few weeks of summer. Carr draws his characters for us sparely but sufficiently. We can feel Birkin coming alive again before our eyes. It is a portrait of an ideal, imaginary, England such as we would like to believe in, inhabited by decent people, a place of hope and comfort. Hopelessly nostalgic of course but none the worse for that; I was happily absorbed by it. Only a novella really though presented as a novel in the edition I read which was additionally beautifully illustrated (engravings) by Ian Stephens. A pleasure to read and to look at.

Two bibliophiles

Friday, March 24th., Hotel Majestic, Paris.

This is an excellent hotel, but not the one I would have chosen. It is all we could get. Rosenbach and I have a terrific apartment here: Drawing-room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms for £3.10/- a day. You wouldn't get it in London for twice that. But I shall leave it because the Champs Elysee is such a hades of a length.

We had an excellent journey here, no problem with the crossing. Rosenbach is one of those exhaustless persons. He would go to a music-hall last night  because of the row going on here about nude women on the stage. There is danger of them being forbidden so we had to see them before they were. Well, we saw them all right! Some with a frail girdle, some with nothing whatever. Then he wanted to go forth for 'supper', but I dissuaded him and got him back here by 12.30, and this morning he thanked me heartily for that. Who would have thought that a bibliophile would turn out to be such a lively character? We first met in the U.S.A. in 1911 and at that time he seemed to me to be a typical Jewish intellectual, or at least my stereotype of one. He is known in London as "The Terror of the Auction Rooms", and here as "The Napoleon of Books". Knowing this I suppose I should have guessed that his character would be rather larger than life.

What to make of the nude revues now that I have seen one for myself? What they are not is titillating. They aim I think to be artistic, and perhaps they are, but it is indubitably the nudity that is the attraction. They undoubtedly objectify women and that must be a bad thing. Of course that is what men have always done. Many of the great masters of painting, Titian as an example, did the same thing. Where lies the difference? I did feel uncomfortable, as a man, staring at naked women on stage. I won't be going again.

Rosenbach tells me that he is hopeful of purchasing the manuscript of "Ulysses"  from Joyce. He is confident that it will increase in value, and he certainly seems to be reliable in his judgement as far as books are concerned. For him, it seems to me, the two aspects of books are more clearly defined than for anyone else I have met. He is a man who understands and appreciates literature, but he also acknowledges books as objects, unsentimentally. I think it ironic that there is apparently more money to be made trading in books, if you know what you are doing, than in writing them.

Self examination

Thursday, March 18th., Cadogan Square, London.

Two good sleeps last night. One of four and a quarter hours. Felt quite rested this morning and did some deep breathing and stretching exercises as Holden recommended. My shoulders were a bit stiff after yesterday's exertions and this helped. I am trying to get some sort of exercise each day. Seems to be helping me feel more relaxed in mind and body. Walked down to the river late morning and then along the Chelsea Embankment and back via King's Road. Fairly mild though grey. Daffodils appearing here and there which is a good sign.
 

Got to thinking about self-indulgence and self-denial. I don't know why. It occured to me (I don't know why I haven't thought this before) that both are rewarding, but in different ways. Suppose one had just finished a good meal, felt satisfied, and were then offered a sweet treat such as a chocolate; would there be more reward in indulgence or denial? Alternatively, if one were hungry, having been deprived food for a period, indulgence would seem likely and in fact would not seem to be indulgence at all. But wouldn't self-denial in that situation be even more rewarding if one were inclined in that direction? I should think that either, but especially self-denial, can be addictive particularly if some moral value can be attached. Hence the ascetics who crop up from time to time throughout history.

I suppose that there is a sort of continuum and we all fall somewhere along it, in the sense of our characteristic response. Obviously we all are able to self-indulge or self-deny to extreme on occasion. For myself, I think I tend towards the self-indulgent, though I have detected some movement towards self-denial as I have grown older, especially where alcohol is concerned. I think that as one ages one becomes more bodily aware, less reilient, and less likely to over-indulge, knowing what the consequences will be. I became quite engrossed in these thoughts, and hardly noticed my walking at all.

Beginning again

Wednesday, March 17th., Hotel Bristol, Paris.

We drove to Andre Maurois's house at Neuilly. Nice ground-floor flat with garden and two children (boys 4 and 5); the daughter aged 12 had gone to her cours. Portrait of the dead mother on the table in drawing-room. She was beautiful. Something tragic about this. Maurois, slim, slight, Jewish; charming; with an open mind; interested, admirably urbane. Agreeable talking. It was all very nice. We left at 3.50, and Maurois drove us to Faubourg St. Honore in his car. I dozed.

At 6.30 I went out to sample the Champs Elysee in the half-light, and began to like Paris again. Dined at the hotel. Good. Then to the Theatre Femina. Crowded. Heated. People came in half an hour late, noisily. Play began 17 minutes late. Ended 11.45. The first act terribly Bernsteinish and old-fashioned. Nothing to it. But in 2nd act, when it appears that Irene's frison is a Lesbian attachment, things begin to look up a bit. But the play was always wooden and antique in treatment; especially in dialogue. It was admirably acted by three women. Mdme. Sylvie as the heroine Irene was very fine indeed.

I had sandwiches at the hotel. Muriel Foster came along and talked a bit. Alfred Sutro and wife had come along at dinner time.

Prowling round

Monday, March 16th., Villa des Nefliers, Avon S/M.

Worried about the finances of Fontainebleau lately. Still I kept myself in hand very well until the moment arrived last night for me to receive a crucial letter from Pinker. I had given him carte blanche to dispose of "Buried Alive" exactly as he thought best, and had made it clear that my priority was more money! The letter was handed to me in a dark street. I had some difficulty not stopping to read it under a gas lamp. I read it at the station with a commendable show of nonchalance, though nobody there had the least interest in me or my business. Strange the compulsion to 'perform' even when there is no audience. It was alright. No mistake, the constant practice of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus has had its gradual effect on me.

Have never worked better than these last few days. 4,000 words of "The Old Wives' Tale" in three days plus two articles and some verse. And I have a general scheme of a long article on the London theatrical situation. And ideas for a big play about journalism for the Stage Society, designed to thrill London. Of course I cannot go on at this level or I will be ill. Marguerite is due to return from Paris today and will no doubt make me slow down by deployment of her feminine wiles.

Lovely weather but chilly. Chilblains on hands. Immense pleasure, pretty nearly ecstatic sometimes, in looking at the country, in being in it, particularly by the Seine and in the forest. I said to myself the other morning that the early savage used to prowl about from his cave like that and that I might almost meet one in the forest; whereupon it occurred to me that I was exactly the early savage over again, prowling round his cave, with the same sniffing sensations of instinctive joy in nature. We have lost a great deal in the acquisition of civilisation. Perhaps too much. Of course the life of primitive man was short and beset by hardship and violence, but how much richer it must have been in many respects. Is the worth of a life to be measured by the number of days lived, or by the way one lives today? Very curious this getting down to the bedrock of existence.

 

Users of words

Monday, March 15th., Chiltern Court, London.

I am myself a chronic user of words and, I like to think, have acquired some reputation for using them well. But there are others more adept than I, and I give way willingly.

C.E. Montague

Among the major modern experts and virtuosi in writing must be counted the late C.E. Montague, a man with a passion for the proper use of words, a man who turned leading articles into literature. A few years before the war, being acutely intrigued by the literary performances of this Manchester man, I went up to Manchester to make his acquaintance. A temeraraious excursion, rather like going over the top! He was just about the most reserved man I ever met. He had the air of a secondary school teacher or a Wesleyan preacher, but when he talked, he did talk. I soon perceived that he knew a hundred times more than I knew, and had an infinitely more complex taste. He did not traffic in simplicities. His reputation was that he was 'cold'. Well, he was, but he had a heart which he carried in a padlocked secret pocket, never on his sleeve.
 

Another fine user of words is Edith Sitwell, one of the most original poets of our day, who now stands forth as a literary biographer and critic. Her "Alexander Pope" (illustrated and with designs by Rex Whistler) has the qualities one would expect from her. It is brilliantly written, it is challenging, and it is ruthless. She sets out to prove that Pope was a lovable and kindly man as well as a great writer and, by and large, she succeeds. The final chapter is criticism of a very illuminating, unusual sort. If you would see what a vitruoso can see in a given collocation of words, read this chapter. It is revealing and as fresh as the dawn. The plum of the book to my mind is the tirade in the opening chapter upon the "general blighting and withering of the poetic taste" during the first quarter of the twentieth century. She uses strong words, and good words. Her book would be much admired and appreciated by Montague.

A character

Sunday, March 14th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Disturbed night. Five or six hours in total. Felt discontented this morning so I went for a walk first thing after breakfast. Blustery sort of day, and had obviously rained in the night so I stuck to the roads and made-up paths. Quiet. Nobody about except that as I was passing the gate to one of the local estates a rough looking man appeared and engaged me in conversation. Turns out that he is some sort of gamekeeper, but not paid; rather he receives benefit in kind. At least that was the impression he gave me.

Interesting character. About sixty I should say but well preserved, ruddy complexion, strongly built though not especially tall. Looks as if he has seen something of life. Enjoys a good scrap he said. Wanted to talk about himself and his ideas and I let him. Obviously not an educated man, but naturally bright I should say and completely at home in the countryside. His talk ranged widely. Told me about, and showed me, some fossils he had found nearby eroding out from the bank of a stream. Wouldn't say where. Also the trouble he has with trespassers to whom he gives short shrift. "See that hedge", he said at one point, "If I am after a trespasser I don't go round a hedge, I go through it. That surprises 'em". I think he was serious. In fact he seemed a serious man in general. Believes in omens and 'wise women' who have powers that humanity generally has lost. Says he has seen some things that are inexplicable by science. Told me that he has shot over 100 squirrels on the estate just this year because they predate on birds eggs. Fascinating character. In fact I felt quite fascinated, in the literal sense, by his talk. Like someone from Yeats 'Faerie' book. Worth turning out for.

I felt better when I got back and did some good work after my afternoon sleep.

Laughing matters

Friday, March 14th., Cadogan Square, London.

Yesterday, Reform lunch. Talking about gambling. It was defended by James Currie and even by Lord Buckmaster. Stated to be the one distraction of the people! There is, however, fornication. I felt quite cross to listen to all these well fed and self-satisfied Tories taking about 'the people' as if they have any idea about the lives of ordinary men and women. They do not. Nor do I, but I don't go about the world pretending that I do. They also take it as read that their lives are necessarily 'better' and more important than those of the working classes. I doubt it. I should think there is more genuine feeling and life in the streets of Hammersmith than in any of the genteel homes the toffs return to when they leave their clubs. 

I say Hammersmith because, apropos of all this, when I was coming home from there in the Tube yesterday evening, two workmen got in, one about 35 and the other 18 or 20.They might have been father and son I suppose. It was a pleasure to watch them.

Hammersmith Broadway, 1910 - Tube Station on the right

They carried paint pots and 'turps' pots wrapped in paper and covered at the  top (paint pots, i.e.) with paper with a hole for brush handle to poke through. Dirty. Shabby. Dirty hands. Dirty caps with big peaks. The young one wore black leggings. They pushed the cans as far as possible under seats. The young man was smoking a cigarette. He carried a coil of rope within his buttoned jacket. It stuck up towards his neck. As soon as they sat down each of them pulled a new packet of chewing-gum from his pocket, stripped off the paper, broke the packet in half and put one half into his mouth. I didn't notice any actual jaw motion of chewing. The young man kept on smoking. The chewing-gum business was obviously a regular thing, and much looked forward to. Obvious satisfaction on their faces as they opened the packets. After a few minutes the young man pulled a novelette from his pocket and went on reading it. The elder just sat, contented and relaxed after a hard day's work. So here were some minor distractions of the people: cigarettes, chewing-gum, novelettes. And they probably called in for a pint or two on their way home. 

I think I have lost my sense of humour. I say this because the other evening, browsing on my book shelves, I came upon Stevenson's "Travels with a Donkey". It must be twenty years, if not more, since I read it last and I recalled how much pleasure it had given me. Not now. I doubt I even managed a smile and after three chapters I gave up. On its own this would be no evidence but I have noticed my failure to be amused in several contexts lately, and I feel sad about it. When did I last have a good 'belly laugh'? I would like to bet that there is plenty of laughter in Hammersmith of an evening.

 

Confident femininity

Saturday, March 12th., Fulham Park Gardens, London.

On my way to seeing Mrs. L. I called at a bread shop in Holborn. To judge from the exterior one could desire no place of refreshment more fastidiously neat and dainty. But when I was inside I found the shop and the room at the back occupied by women and girls in various conditions of deshabille. The place was being cleaned, and the hour being only 11 a.m. customers were clearly not expected. The girls all looked up surprised, and with a show of indifference I picked my way amongst kneeling figures into the inner room. When I had sat down, I heard a rummaging noise under the table, and presently a fat young girl appeared therefrom. She hurried away laughing, but came back shortly and produced from under the table a tin bowl of dirty water which she carried away, with a giggle. I ordered a glass of milk and a sandwich, and then waited. A girl, tall, thin and vacuous, ran upstairs and came down soon afterwards pinning on an apron at the back. She brought me my food. I ate it, while looking at a dirty newspaper placed to protect the newly washed floor, and at the crimson petticoat showing through the placket-hole of a girl who was washing the floor behind the counter. I could feel about me an atmosphere of confident femininity. I discovered that there were two of me present: one recoiling from the dirt and untidiness which spoilt the taste of my food; the other calculating how to become better acquainted with the crimson petticoat. I came away thinking: "This is a bad omen for the result of my interview with Mrs. L."

The room into which I was shown in Gower Street was, I think, the ugliest, the most banal I have seen. From the twisted columns of the furniture to the green rep of the upholstering, everything expressed Bloomsbury in its highest power. This was a boarding house. My hopes sank and they were not raised by the appearance of Mrs. L. who combines the profession of a landlady with that of a "mental healer". She looks the typical landlady, shabbily dressed, middle-aged, and with that hardened, permanently soured expression of eyes and lips which all landladies seem to acquire. She fitted with and completed the room. I put on my bravest face and surrendered to the situation.

She asked me about my stammering and my health generally, talking in a quiet, firm, authoritative voice. I noticed the fatigue of her drooping eyelids and the terrific firmness of her thin lips. She told me how she had been cured of nervousness by Dr. Patterson of America, and gave a number of instances of his success and her own in "mentally treating" nervous and physical disorders. Some of them were so incredible that I asked myself what I, notorious as a sane level-headed man, was doing in that galley. However as Mrs L. talked I was rather impressed by her sincerity, her strong quietude, and her sagacity. I was given to understand that she was a "Christian Scientist". I asked what the patient had to do. "Nothing", she said. I explained my attitude towards "mental healing" - that I neither believed nor disbelieved in it, that certainly I could not promise her the assistance of my 'faith'. "Can you cure me of my stammering?" "I am quite sure that I can," she answered with quiet assurance, "but it will take some time. This is a case of a lifelong habit, not of a passing ailment." "Shall you want to see me often?" "I shall not want to see you at all: but if you feel that you want to see me, of course you can do so. I shall look after your general health too. If you have a bad headache, or a liver attack, send me a word and I will help you."

I nodded acquiescence but I was nearly laughing aloud. At least I told myself that was what I was doing. I also told her, in my head, that I preferred to dispense with these mysterious services, but had not the moral courage to carry it through. So I arranged terms with her and as I did so I marvelled that I should be assisting at such an interview. And yet - supposing there were after all something in it! I was not without hope. She had distinctly impressed me, especially by odd phrases here and there which seemed to indicate a certain depth of character in her. I went away smiling - half believing that the whole thing was a clever fraud, and half-expecting some happy result.

Tonight I sent her a cheque. I wondered, as I wrote it out, whether twelve months hence I should be wanting to burn these pages which recorded my credulity, or whether with all the enthusiasm of my nature I should be spreading abroad the report of Mrs. L's powers.

Strolling about

Wednesday, March 11th., Cadogan Square, London.

Sloane Street up from Pond Street to the bottom; a shade under half a mile I suppose. Curious fact; they are laying a pipe, or rather six pipes, earthenware, all in one, and I have never had enough curiosity to ask what the pipe is, and why it should be in six divisions. I think it must be water, as I often see an official 'turncock' whilst strolling about. The street is being repaired very rapidly and very well and very noisily. The noise of about a dozen drills for boring and breaking up the concrete is awful. Men live in it all day, and those who use the drills have their hands vibrated all day. Must damage the nerves in the hands and arms I should think. And hearing as well. What a way to earn a crust. The whole thing is a 'perfect hive' and a wonderful scene. Might be worth an article.

 Put me in mind of the painting titled "Work" by Ford Madox Brown which I saw some time ago; I forget where. If I remember rightly that focussed on workmen digging a road. Hampstead? Excellent piece of work in the Pre-Rapaelite manner. Detailed. Beautifully painted but also socially relevant. I remember being genuinely impressed by it at the time. Must find out where it is and have another look. I wouldn't mind having a reproduction to look at if I could get one. Interesting chap by all accounts, Madox Brown. As I recall, in the painting Carlyle was depicted watching the work; can't remember what the point was but I smile to think that I could have been observed today in similar pose!

Part of the street was totally up and repaved about two years ago or less. Why this so soon duplication of work? Another instance of the amateurishness and 'loose-limbedness' of London government.

Plenty of material

Saturday, March 10th., Cadogan Square, London.

George Doran came to lunch, and after lunch, in my study, he began talking about the idea he had given me last year for a novel based on the tragic life of Ernest Hodder-Williams. I said I liked it but couldn't handle it yet, as I was more attracted by a scheme for a realistic novel about a big luxury hotel. I have had this scheme in mind for years now and it is a ghost I must lay before I am much older. All the material is in my head. I shall probably begin it as soon as I have finished my play. Doran was disappointed but accepted the inevitability of my decision.

An interesting novel by a young Irish (Northern) writer has come into my hands. Nick Laird. I think we will be hearing more from him. The book's title is "Modern Gods". Essentially the story concerns two sisters, one of whom is an academic anthropologist but has rather 'lost her way' professionally and emotionally, and the other has married a man who turns out to have an unfortunate past. Very unfortunate - he has killed several people in a sectarian act and served a sentence. The first sister, Elizabeth, has, and takes, the opportunity to go off to New Guinea to investigate and report on a new cult that has arisen there. The second, Alison, has to cope with being bound to a man she feels she no longer recognises. Tribalism is at the centre of the narrative. Also the chronic hypocrisy of religion and professedly religious people. Also elements of a daughter's relationship with her mother, misunderstandings and betrayals. Laird is good at dialogue which is very authentic to my ear, and he handles the juxtaposition of the parallel stories well. Good also at creating a sense of menace which unsettles the reader. The ending is poor. In fact it seems to just stop as if the author had run out of time. I also felt that there was so much material that Laird had failed to write the much longer and more interesting book that was available to him. Definitely a writer to watch out for.

I was at a big dinner at the Savoy last evening, given to Capt. George Nicholls ('Quex' of the Evening News). He insisted that I sit next to him, for moral support, which I thought a great compliment. Birkenhead was in the chair and made a most brilliant and impudent speech. Champagne was bad and so I have a slight headache today. But I have spent time with Virginia and have taught her to negotiate the stairs with only minimal help. Dorothy will be surprised when she returns.

Wondering and wandering

Tuesday, March 9th., Chiltern Court, London.

A sunny morning and I walked out to get ideas. Regents Park. I haven't spent much time there since the move, but I like its informality. Strolled along the Broad Walk and almost felt as if I were on holiday. Mainly young women pushing perambulators, nannies in the main I suppose. So what are the mothers doing who would otherwise be out here with their children? Difficult job being a nanny I should think. Not the work as such, but the social relationships, getting the balance right with family and other servants. Increasingly difficult with the way society is changing. Servants are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

I noticed today that I am talking to myself more. I don't mean the internal dialogue which I suppose everybody has, but actually talking out loud. Is this a sign of ageing? Probably. I think I do it most frequently in my study, when something is on my mind and I pace about from one side of the room to the other. It is not quite a 'real' conversation because it seems most often to be a case of seeking confirmation of a point of view or a decision taken. I find myself saying things like "What do you think AB?" and hearing myself reply "Absolutely right, just what I think". It seems perfectly natural at the time but is a bit odd set down in writing. I wouldn't mind asking other men of my age if they do it, but perhaps they would think me peculiar. Rivers would be the very man for this. I could ask him without any embarrassment.

When I think of it I don't really have any intimate friends now, and sometimes feel quite lonely, which is strange for a person who spends most of his spare time 'going out'. No point trying to talk to Dorothy about it. She would listen of course but wouldn't be able to imagine herself as me and would respond superficially. Would Marguerite have understood had we still been together? I don't know. 

Internal dialogue. That is an interesting phenomenon it seems to me. Personally, I can't imagine how I would think at all without language, and yet I must have done so I suppose before I learned to speak. And what about our distant ancestors? It increasingly appears that the evolution of man has taken place over many millions of years, but language is relatively recent as far as I have understood things. So how did men think before they had language? In the same way that animals do now I suppose. I cannot imagine what that would be like. It seems that once the bridge has been crossed into speech then there is no going back.

Censorship

Thursday, March 8th., Cadogan Square, London.

John Buchan came for tea yesterday. He was invited for 4.30 and arrived at 4.27. I expect he had been 'hanging about' nearby to be sure of his time; I would have been. He had a committee meeting nearby for 5.30, and at 5.15 he simply got up and left. He is a thoroughly organised man who I have known for decades and I admire him greatly.

We spoke about censorship, amongst other things. Am I in favour of censorship? Of course I am, and so is he. No country can exist without some form of censorship. I was asked the other day whether I would permit in Britain the unrestricted circulation of one of the most wonderful and original of modern novels, James Joyce's "Ulysses". My plain reply was that I would not. It simply would not do. A censorship there must be. But I maintain that any form of censorship does some harm; it must do. The question is whether it does more harm than good. I think that our present censorship does do more harm than good and ought, if anything, to be weakened, not strengthened. But not eliminated altogether.

In fact I am not in favour of any alteration to the law at the present time because it might, despite excellent motives, be too easily altered for the worse. We have to keep in mind that laws are enacted by politicians and often miss their targets. Best to leave the law alone and entrust liberty to its sane administration and to the tendency for all excessively drastic laws to fall into desuetude through their own inherent absurdity. As a fact the present law on censorship fell into partial desuetude from the moment it came into operation for the reason that to apply it strictly would have meant its instant death from ridicule.

I felt fatigued somehow after Buchan left. Not by him as he is most brisk and has a tonic effect generally. So I rested for a while and, feeling better, took up the play again and reeled it off with strange ease.

The Bach of fiction

Sunday, March 7th., Victoria Grove, London.

To my mind Turgenev is the master. Having conceived his story his method is to strip away every picturesque inessential, austerely turn aside from artfulness, and present it in the simplest, most straightforward form. That is why he can tell in 60,000 words a history which George Eliot or Thomas Hardy would only have hinted at in 200,000. He is the Bach of fiction, whose severity and simplicity are mistaken for lack of imagination and baldness. I used to think that Bach was a lofty creature without a heart, but I have been told by people who know that he is in fact as emotional as any composer who ever lived. I am now beginning to see as much for myself.

I have not touched my novel this week. The demands of Woman and my new bicycle have been too imperious to be ignored, but I am also digesting the Turgenev method and will endeavour to imitate it when I restart my writing. I may not succeed but the intention will be there. I feel now that I could do a remarkably good short story (5 or 6,000 words) so much has my ability improved as I have been writing the novel. When "In the Shadow" is in the shadow I will have a go at one and will contrive to make it ten times as good as "A Letter Home" which was a sentimental early effort. I am getting pretty weary of "In the Shadow" and am positively anxious to start something new.

The sun was shining from a clear sky today, and there was genuine warmth to be felt though the air temperature remained cold. That always seems strange to me. But I feel a little unsettled and dissatisfied which is, I think, to do with these signs of Spring springing. I have a feeling that this may be a significant year for me.

A big idea

Sunday, March 6th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Edmund Gosse

The Davrays dined with me last night at the Hippodrome, and afterwards we went to the Grand Cafe. He gave me sundry particulars about the French dinner to Edmund Gosse, and said that Gosse's speech was simply admirable and was continually interrupted, at every sentence, by applause. Schwob's speech in English was also very good he said.

It appears that Gosse received the offer of his appointment to the Librarianship of the House of Lords on the very morning of the banquet. Davray saw the letter offering the appointment, from Sir Henry Loundes Graham, and said it was extraordinarily flattering.

I had great ideas this last day or two of a chart of English Literature, chronological; divided in coloured sections showing different groups such as poetry- history, drama etc. .... and showing the 'contemporaneousness' of authors and works exactly. Thus the years from 'Summer is y-cumen in' down to Wells would be marked perpendicularly and the contemporaneousness shown horizontally. It would be possible to see at a glance what poetry, history, theology etc. was being produced at the date, say, of "Tom Jones"; and how "Tom Jones" stood with "Clarissa", or "Hamlet" with "The Broken Heart". And also the ages of the authors at the dates of their various works would be automatically perceptible.

Such a chart would be extremely useful. A month's work with nothing but Chambers "Encyclopedia of English Literature" and the "Dictionary of National Biography" would suffice for it. I would try to include all the authors dealt with in the former. I sem to see myself doing it, for fun, after an illness, or when I was thoroughly exhausted with creative work

Nice chaps

Friday, March 5th., Cadogan Square, London.

I have had an acutish liver attack for two days but it is over now.

I didn't get into bed this morning until 1.20 and was up at 7. I dined at Diana Cooper's last night. I have never been to her Gower Street house before. It is fine, a complete house. Next door is a converted block of flats and they have knocked a hole through the wall and added one of the flats to their own home. An ingenious scheme. Amazing what can be accomplished when one has pots of money. The house does look beautiful though, and I feel quite envious. One curious thing is that Duff Cooper doesn't smoke, therefore there were no cigars, which pained me. Not because I can't do without cigars, but because I disliked the argument which ensued. Yet Duff is a most delightful man. 

I am dining with the Duke of Marlborough on Thursday and I hope, and expect, that things will be better there. I have known him for twelve years but at the Other Club last Thursday we became more intimate and he requested me to dinner. He is of course the head of the Churchill family and the grand grand grandson of the greatest soldier in English history, to whom a greatful country presented Blenheim. Also he is a very nice ignorant chap, and an ardent Roman Catholic. That is about all I know of him.

Our new servants are now installed. But when I wanted a bath last night (1.10 a.m.) the water was cold. This annoys Fred even more than it does me. His views on women (or rather girls) are gradually being soured. Wells and Shaw are coming to lunch on Friday next. The top of the house has been painted and papered as part of our preparations to move out later this year. I wish to God that we could stay! We still have no idea where we will move to and the cost of the whole operation will be fantastic. Which means that the unrelenting round of work continues. I increasingly wonder if it is all worthwhile, but feel entirely trapped.

Tomorrow I am off to the first night of "The Lady of the Camellias" with Duff Tayler. It is at the Garrick and features Tallulah Bankhead.

Making up the numbers

Saturday, March 4th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Went to London Wednesday. Lunch and sleep at Marriott's. Then national 'Economy' meeting at Guildhall where I sat next but one to Barrie. McKenna spoke well but too slowly. Kitchener read badly a speech which had evidently been prepared for him. Balfour was pleasing. I found myself thinking that it was all so much theatricality. Everybody going through the motions, playing their part, feeling important, and it all amounted to what? Simply a show to put a stamp of joint purpose on policies which are already decided and in train. But it looked good in the papers yesterday! I don't know why I was there. To make up the numbers I suppose.

Some of the Labour people were funny. The representative of one branch of workers drank too much. Another slanged trade unions. Turner of the Shop Assistants was good. 

Another quarrel with Marguerite. Once again she has instructed the maids that they must get up at 5.30 to start their work. Once again I have explained to her that my peace of mind, my work, my sleep, my general well-being are of primary importance. The management of the house must be organised to fit in with me, not the other way round. Marguerite knows this, she has admitted as much, and yet she persists in making changes which go against my wishes, and upset me. I don't want to get involved in the management of the house and the indoor servants; at the outset we agreed that she should do those things and I would look after the garden. But I will not be disturbed!

Theatricals

Thursday, March 3rd., George Street, London.

I reached home from Liverpool late on Tuesday night and was run off my brain-legs yesterday until 7 p.m. The play went most excellently in Liverpool, and the house was full, and I went before the curtain and so on. The mischief was that Tayler and I had to go out to supper afterwards to meet the whole company. This feast lasted until 2 a.m. I was most gratified by the attentions of some of the young lady cast members; I think it must have gotten about that I am restored to bachelorhood (or thereabouts).

On reaching Euston on Tuesday we found Herman Finck, the music hall composer, had come to meet us, so the least I could do was ask him to come with us to the flat. He stayed yarning, being a good yarner, until 12.20 a.m. By that time I was dead with fatigue, though diverted by the yarns. Finck has been a prolific composer for the last twenty years and must have pots of money I should think. Apparently he conducted the first phonograph record of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker". A few risque stories about the famous 'Palace Girls' when he was conducting at the Palace Theatre which we were in a mood to enjoy.

Yesterday I was determined to lunch quietly at home, which I did. But there was a Lyric Theatre meeting in the afternoon and in the evening I dined with Beaverbrook at Fulham. Couldn't get away from there because I had promised to deliver home in my brougham Helen Drury, B's sister, and Eleanor Smith, daughter of the Lord Chancellor. These young girls definitely refused to move until midnight, and I had to keep my end up. So bed at 1.15 for me. However I slept well which surprised me. 

Off to the theatre yet again tonight for a first night of a David Garrick opera. Not looking forward to it, but what can you do?

Astonished

Monday, March 2nd., R.M.S. Anselm, at sea.

I can positively say that we are at sea. I cannot say where at sea we are. Somewhere in or near the Irish Sea it seems. The coastline to starboard may be Wales! Expecting to be in the Mersey on Wednesday.

All sorts of problems before we left. Originally it was to have been a February 24th. departure but owing to quarantine delays in Brazil it was changed to the 28th. Then reports came that she had made up time, but they proved unfounded as she was again delayed by gales and 'bad coal' and hadn't reached Lisbon on the 27th. Eventually we left Oporto at 8.32 a.m. yesterday.

Just as I was sending off a Marconi to advise people back home of the situation, to my great astonishment, I received a Marconi. My first ever. I thought it might be that there had been an earthquake at Thorpe, or an armed rising in Burslem! But it was a message offering me £530 a week and expenses to go to Russia to interview Lenin and report generally on the beauties and defects of Soviet Government. I wirelessed back that I would go if the American newspaper syndicate making the offer would send with me a courier who knew Russia and who could attend to all formalities and despatching of cables etc. I am equivocal about going. A unique experience, but a month of my valuable time and the likelihood of discomfort.

This holiday in Portugal with Swinnerton has been excellent. He was quite right to say that I needed to get away from domestic anxieties. I have only had one indisposition which kept me in bed for nearly a full day. We have been out most nights, music mainly, and I have done ten watercolours. Swinnerton particularly liked one I did of the lighthouse south of Cape Raso.
 

It is a great change from the Portuguese coast to the Welsh coast. Yesterday wandering on deck with no overcoat in blazing sun. Today, sun but two overcoats. Well, "San Ferry Ann" as my Uncle Fred used to say.

Strange feelings

Monday, March 1st., Winter Palace Hotel, Menton.

I wrote 700 words this morning, and 700 this afternoon, of my new novel which I think I shall call "The Vanguard". Dorothy worked on her scenario of my short story "Death, Fire and Life", and so was not ready to go out until 12.22.  We sat in the garden of the hotel for a bit, and began to lunch fairly early. After a snooze we went out at 3 and walked down to the level ground, about six minutes, and then Dorothy did not want to walk any more, and we took a victoria and went about town shopping. I think that pregnancy is starting to make her lazy, and warned her that she will get fat if not careful. She laughed.

I have been reading more of Yeats's "Celtic Twilight". It is an engaging little book. Simple but elegantly written. I particularly like the way Yeats tells the reader, without frills or comment, what he has himself been told about supernatural experiences. Their matter-of-fact delivery makes them more credible. Yeats describes a couple of weird experiences of his own but shrinks from saying that he believes in 'faeries'; intimates that he may have fallen under some sort of enchanting influence. But I think he does believe. A part I was reading today about the feeling one can get in isolated places, especially woods, rang a bell with me. I have sometimes felt that sense of heightened awareness, a sort of anticipation that something strange is going to happen, even on one occasion in Bradwell Woods when I was a boy. I can remember that just in the act of taking one step I felt as if I had crossed some sort of line, things were quieter, I became wary, and wanted to look round as if I was being watched. Not scared exactly, but conscious that there was more around me than I had been aware of previously. This must have been forty odd years ago, and yet I can resurrect the feeling now, and the hair on my neck rises.

We have had an invitation to visit the Wells's for one of their 'weekends' but won't be back in England in time. Our intention is to leave here next Sunday and travel by easy stages to Paris, then on to Calais and home.

Theatrical thoughts

Sunday, February 28th., Midland Hotel, Manchester.

Ten days ago, walking up Sloane Street, I was suddenly visited by an idea for a play. But as I have sworn that nothing will ever induce me to write another play I dismissed it with thanks. Today that idea for a play re-visited me, again in Sloane Street. It had grown. I dismissed it again. I have this strange feeling it will return. I have broken oaths before!

Of course, for a lot of people who know of me at all, I am thought of as a playwriight, or a newspaper columnist, rather than a novelist. Although I have continued to write novels, my heyday, as it were, was decades ago. I think of myself though as a novelist first and foremost. Interesting the relationship between novels and plays. I have rather walked the tightrope between the two for most of my career.

A few good novels and many bad ones have been turned into bad plays; and one or two good novels have been turned into fair plays. Many bad plays have been turned into worse novels. But a good novel adapted from a good play is a rarity. In the realm of 'goodness', other things being equal, a novel will be more convincing, more truthful, than a play. The medium of the stage is so clumsy, so limited, and so absurdly difficult to control, that it puts authors at a terrible disadvantage in the effective conveyance of truth and beauty, a disadvantage for which no possible compensating advantages can fully atone. If Shakespeare had lived in a novel-writing age he would have written novels far greater than "Hamlet" is great as a play. He was obviously worried by the resrictions of the stage, but though he tried to break through them, they were often too much for him.

All modern authors, myself included, who habitually produce both plays and novels produce better novels than plays. What play of Galsworthy's can rank with "A Man of Property"? Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" is simply a different class from even the best of his plays. That said, I have been thinking about cinema. I have had some experience myself of writing for the cinema. At the moment it is even more clumsy than the theatre but what if  'talking' pictures progress successfully? It occurs to me that then the producer will have much greater control of the material and thus, potentially, the means to reliably convey truth and beauty. The motion picture may become a real alternative to the novel for those who have not the time or inclination to read. 

A walk in town with Cochran. Good, solid Victorian buildings here. First night of "Cochran's 1928 Revue" at 7.30. Packed. Atmosphere of success. Glimpse of stage afterwards. Cochran gave a supper.

Settling down

Saturday, February 27th., Cadogan Square, London.

I am a little concerned about my niece Margaret who, judging by her most recent letter, has formed anti-semitic views. She is young and has apparently decided that Jews in general are 'beastly' on the evidence of some unpleasant Jews she has met. I have written to counsel her not to get up in herself any general prejudice against a whole race of people for such flimsy reasons. I told her that I know a considerable number of excellent Jews and I have not noticed that gentiles are superior in any respect. Strange how anti-semitism has persisted for so long and so widely. I have invited her to visit after Easter and hope to have a good influence on her attitude then.

Things may be coming to a head in my burgeoning relationship with Dorothy Cheston. She was here for a dinner tete-a-tete the other evening, a very intimate occasion as I intended it to be. Various things were said by both of us which, taken at face value, would indicate an inclination to 'formalise' our relationship. I sense that her mind is not made up and I do not want to swing her one way or another by direct persuasion. She must decide for herself and accept the responsibility of that decision. Though I feel clear in my own mind there is a part of me, typically, which fears commitment. It cannot be denied. But if she says "Yes", then I will do the honourable thing.

I am feeling quite well settled here now. Wells and wife are coming to dinner tonight and will give their verdict on the place. My health has been much better of late, as everyone remarks. I am trying to get to bed regularly at 12.30 and starting work at 8 a.m. That said, I was at a musical party at Harriet Cohen's last evening and didn't get to bed until 1 a.m. But I have worked well today.

Bad nights

Friday, February 26th., Cadogan Square, London.

A bad few nights. More than usually bad. Some sort of cold on the kidneys I think, affecting the bladder. Very uncomfortable at times, but things improving now. From experience I have learned that the best thing to do with this sort of internal irritation is to have 'a good flush out'. So yesterday I drank nothing but water, and lots of it. Seems to be working. Tonight should be better - only usually disturbed! I wonder if I will ever sleep through a night again? I doubt it.

Not feeling like doing any work, I have been reading Wells's "The Invisible Man". I read it when it first came out but enjoyed it more this second time. In fact I was quite gripped by it. Wells has an ability to construct a vivid scene in the reader's imagination in very few words and once engaged it is hard not to continue to the end. In fact I did continue to the end in spite of some minor inconveniences to the rest of the household. Griffin, the Invisible Man, is a great creation and it is hard not to feel sorry for him in spite of his amorality; one feels that his character is a product of cumulative prejudices and that his behaviour is beyond his conscious control. I wonder if Wells intended the story to be allegorical? It feels to me as if it is - the alienation which may arise for an intelligent and active man in a society which has no niche for him. I must ask Wells about this when I see him next. He will probably laugh and say that I am over-intellectualising.

Making a change

Monday, February 26th., Trinity Hall Farm, Hockliffe. 

The latter half of "The Queen's Necklace" is one of the finest examples of Dumas's skill, supreme skill, in handling a purely artificial intrigue. The complexity of it is only equalled by its perfect clarity, its diversity only by its unity and coherence. I have also been reading Gaboriau's "Lecoq" and its sequel (which is not a sequel, but he solution of the problem) for the Academy. It struck me as among the best of all detective stories. And the plot has a touch of Dumas at his most melodramatic and 'plotty'.

Only persons of imagination can enter into my feelings at the moment. I have spent two thirds of my life in a squalid industrial town and the rest in a city. I think I knew every creosoted block in Fleet Street, every bookstall in Shoreditch, and every hosiers in Piccadilly. I certainly did know the order of the stations on the Inner Circle. Also the various frowns of publishers, the strange, hysteric, silly atmosphere of theatrical first-nights, the stars of the Empire and the Alhambra (by sight), and the vicious odours of a thousand and one restaurants. And now I am here 'in the country'. Not many people can stamp the top of their notepaper "Watling Street, England".

Down in the village early this morning I entered, not without a certain self-consciousness, the village shop. I had read about 'the village shop' in novels; I had even ventured to describe it in fiction of my own; and I was equally surprised and delighted to find that the village shop of fiction was also the village shop of fact. It was the mere truth that one could buy everything in this diminutive emporium, that the multifarious odours assailed the nostrils, and that the proprietor, who had never seen me before, instantly knew me and all about me. Soon I was in a fair way to knowing something about the proprietor.

As I left the shop a flamboyant person of, I should say, travelling stock asked me if I wanted to buy a pony. I didn't.

In Brighton

Thursday, February 24th., Royal York Hotel, Brighton.

Today I signed contracts with Duttons of New York for £1000. It is the most I have yet signed for in a day. It gives me some security financially, and confidence that others, hard-headed businessmen at that, have confidence in me. 

I walked about Brighton in cold showers this morning collecting my thoughts preparatory to writing my first love scene between Edwin and Hilda. Plenty of idlers about even though the weather is unsettled. I walked out to the end of the Palace Pier (1,722 feet long) and stood for a good while just looking out to sea. Not looking in fact, as my thoughts were turned inwards. But it was therapeutic and I turned, set my shoulders, and walked back here to begin work. I wrote 2,300 words and began to feel a wreck. 

The pier is advertised as 'the finest ever built'. Well, it may be. Must have cost a tremendous amount of money and one wonders how it can be viable financially. And of course it is not a one-off cost. It has been finished now for ten years and close inspection reveals that wind and waves are having their effect. So maintenance and repair must be a continual process. There is a sort of arrogance involved in throwing out a pier into the sea, as if the land is inadequate to contain human energy and ingenuity. I have thought of setting one of the scenes later in the book on the pier. We shall see!

Blown away

Tuesday, February 23rd., Cadogan Square, London.

I stepped outside for a breath of air this morning and was nearly blown away. As I write now I can hear the wind swirling round the building as if seeking a way in. Not surprising that ancient, and not so ancient, peoples believed that lost souls might be incorporated in wind. One does not expect to be so greatly assailed in the town; certainly not in the middle of a great city. The wind should be more properly a rural phenomenon, or especially a maritime one. I wasn't out long. But I had a breath or two of air!

I have been reading a book about Japan. It is a novel but intends I think to give an accurate account of that country to which I have never been. I like to read about strange places and often feel inclined to visit as a consequence. But I don't want to visit Japan. It sounds to be a terrible country. Terrible by reason of the cast-iron conventions which hold its society together. It is more Western than the Europe which it has too sedulously copied, and yet remains fantastically Oriental. In polite Japanese circles, and all Japanese circles are polite, everything it seems is 'honourable', both persons and things. 'Honourable' seems to be a key word of all social relations. Socially every Japanese is walking on a tight-rope over the Niagara of solecism all the time. There can be no relief for him, night and day.

I am to go up to Manchester by special train at the weekend for Cochran's "1928 Review". The book and lyrics are by Noel Coward, and there are alleged to be 28 tableaux and 500 costumes. I am promised that there will be a surfeit of pretty young women on the train. Otherwise, I would have preferred to go by car but Dorothy has robbed me of it for three weeks. She is somewhere in France with Audrey Anderson driving to the Riviera and back. Life is much calmer here in spite of the wind!

Springlike

Monday, February 22nd., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I corrected "These Twain" and cut it from 128,000 to 100,000 words. It is painful I find to expunge words one has sweated to produce, but necessary.

It has been remarkably mild today and I took a long walk down Golden Lane as far as the Beaumont Cut. There is still a little activity there but it is clear to see that the place is going to ruin. A chap I met there walking his dogs, who lives nearby, said there had been a canal of sorts there as early as Roman times, but the present cut was made in the nineteenth century in hope of exploiting the agricultural demand for lime. The lime kiln is still in good order. It would be worth preserving it for historic reasons, but that seems unlikely. In this country we generally only think about 'saving' things after they have fallen too far into disrepair. Two thames barges were employed to service the quay when it was in full operation but only the deteriorating remains of one is there now. Interesting to see even so. It is rather picturesque and would make a nice watercolour.

Hard to believe as I strolled back home in the spring-like sunshine that the country is at war and fighting is taking place only a hundred miles away as the crow flies. Thank god I am too old! I read on Saturday that Britain is now officially under 'blockade' by Germany. I expect that we shall all have to start tightening our belts.

Megalomaniacs

Sunday, February 21st., Cadogan Square, London.

One of the advantages of living here is that I am favourably situated for visits to Hyde Park. I was there today. I have joined congregations on scores and scores of occasions and have always been disappointed. I was again today. By the preachers, not by the experience which is usually instructive of human psychology. 

I stood for a while watching a girl preaching. She had seven or eight official supporters including two nice-looking girls much younger than herself. She 'held forth' - no other phrase would serve as well - in a strident voice, and with gestures both monotonous and violent, to a numerous crowd. She had nothing whatever to say except: "Seek God", and she said it many times over. No reasons or explanations were offered. The formula seemed to satisfy her. One of her supporters, an old man, hatless in the chilly breeze, ejaculated at intervals: "Praise God" and "Amen". 

More interesting was another group at the core of which two men were arguing upon God. One of them had just been preaching and now he was being 'tested'. They argued in quiet reasonable tones. Indeed so quietly that only the half dozen people nearest to them could hear what was said. The rest of us craned our necks in vain to catch some words of wisdom. The debaters were magnanimous to one another. Evidently their aim was not victory but truth, and neither appeared susceptible to persuasion in any case. So why debate at all, I thought? The argument proceeded for a long time and I observed the unfed crowd which went on hoping for crumbs and didn't get any.

Close by a smaller congregation listened to the polite contentions of two aged men who were smoking cigarettes. Again the same quiet reasonable tones, as of intellects well able to handle the most majestic and exciting themes without any inward disturbance. I heard one question: "Well then what do you call the thing that thinks? Do you call it the brain?" But the wind and the dull roar of Oxford Street traffic witheld the answer from me. I didn't feel much sense of loss.

I am convinced that the leading characteristic of the majority of the preachers is simple megalomania. I have never heard a single remark denoting any originality or vigour of mind. In contrast I have heard good effective speaking in the side streets of Glasgow on a Saturday night. The speakers however were advocating not godliness but birth control. Their object was to sell pamphlets about contraception, and they sold them.

Refreshed

Saturday, February 20th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Last night at 11 I finished another section of "A Great Man", having written 8,300 words in four days. It is too much. Today I needed a rest so I decided to rearrange my bookshelves. Is there anything more relaxing, and satisfying, than messing about with books? I recently acquired a couple more shelves having been on the verge of running out of space, and this gave me the opportunity to have a good rearrangement. And of course I permitted myself to be tempted to browse in the books as I went along. I feel a new man now.

This evening I am to go to the Ambigu to see "Nana", a drama in five acts drawn by William Busnach from Zola's novel. It was first produced at the Ambigu in 1881. Amande Cassive in the title role. She is about forty now but still a pretty woman apparently. I am not much for seeing plays based on novels. They never do justice and the characters never correspond to the image I have in my head from reading. Still, I feel ready for anything after today and am especially hungry so out into the Paris night for a good dinner then off to the theatre. Who knows what adventures may await?

Regretful

 Saturday, February 19th., Hotel Ruhl, Nice.

I read a lot of the book Robert Nichols specially recommended to me: "Neighbours" by Claude Houghton. I think there may be an idea in it but up to page 100 it is very amateurish. I have also read three acts of "Troilus and Cressida". It is great stuff as regards character and language and 'closeness' of texture; and yet it takes the fellow nearly three acts to come to the real point of the plot.

At the back of my mind has been something Scott Moncrieff said to me when we were in Pisa. He asked me if I would ever commit suicide? Said he thought about it quite often himself. Not because he feels depressed or presently inclined to do it; but he feels that at some point in the future he may want to, and wonders if he would have the means and the determination. I think he said "integrity" but he meant determination I felt. I passed the question off with a joking aside at the time, but regret it now as it was seriously meant. I hope my disinclination to discuss it didn't offend him. I htink he is a rather sensitive chap.

Leaving aside the practical issues, which could be overcome, why has suicide become a reprehensible act? It wasn't for the Greeks or the Romans; nor is it now in Japan and other parts of the world I believe. In fact the ancients saw it as something an honourable man should do in some circumstances. Marcus Aurelius acknowledges the possibility of suicide as a rational act though he clearly favours a will to endure. Seneca says that the important thing is to die nobly, having lived nobly. No problems there!

So the change can only be, it seems to me, because of the ascendancy of the Abrahamic religions. Well, fair enough, if you subscribe to one of those religions then you should not kill yourself. But if you do not, then why should you be bound by their moral constraints? It makes no sense. The situation now is a remnant, like the debris left on a beach when the tide has ebbed, as religion has ebbed. 

Suicidal thoughts have not often come into my mind, though the troubles I had with Marguerite caused me much depression and even now there are times when I feel I am like Sisyphus, constantly pushing a weight uphill, with no prospect of release. But, reflecting on what Scott Moncrieff asked, I feel it would be a comfort to know that if I did want to 'end it all' then I would need no permission beyond my own and the means would be available.

Old times

Thursday, February 18th., Cadogan Square, London.

I have to make a visit to the Potteries next week. Only for the day! As usual an impending visit to my native area sets me reflecting on its distinctive character. 

Evolution in the Potteries has been quite remarkably dramatic during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. And of course it has marched with the improvement in the means of communication. Long after the death of Josiah Wedgwood, its supreme hero, the Potteries retained the primitive characteristics of a district cut off by Nature from the rest of the world. Josiah Wedgwood was a great man and did much, but his impress was left far more deeply on the manufacture of pottery than on the habits of the potters.

A great-uncle of mine used often to tell me stories of bear and dog fights at which he assisted as a boy. At that time Burslem had its municipal bear and Sunday was the day of battles. "But what about the law?" I asked him. "Bless ye!" he would reply, "There was no law in the Potteries in those days." The statement was exaggerated for effect of course, but it had some truth. Hundreds of men still alive in the Potteries can remember a period when during the annual 'Wakes', the public houses kept open day and night for a week, and the sole ambition of the population (male half) seemed to be to get drunk and to remain drunk.

In my youth the population of the Potteries was at least 130,000, and the towns were even then merged into one another, and yet there existed less than two miles of tram line in the entire district, and only two trams (drawn by horses and travelling between Burslem and Hanley) twice an hour. Now, electric cars in scores run about everywhere, from Longton in the south to Tunstall in the north, and from Newcastle in the east to Smallthorne in the west. And it was precisely these rapid cars which at last broke down the stubborn individualism of the separate towns and brought about their federation. And Hanley was in the middle and quickly outgrew its neighbours. Another case of geography influencing history.

I hope to find time for a walk up through Burslem Park as far as the cemetery where one day I hope to lie with my ancestors.

Starting to write

Wednesday, February 17th., Victoria Grove, London.

A very productive period. Last week I drafted 7,000 words. When I say drafted I mean that the stuff is rough because that is the method I have at the moment. I know myself and my absurd limitations and I have to get results as best I may, by dodging etc. If I were to begin to write carefully, straight away, weighing and arranging with proper nicety, I should get sick of my work in a week. I can't do much at once and I can't keep on for long even in spurts, without real or sham results for my encouragement. This is due to a lack of sustained determination in my composition. The needed dogged purposefulness is not there. I have found that out and I know that I can't put it there no more than by taking thought I can increase my height. Consequently I have to reckon with it.

So, I divide my task into little portions which look big. Any sort of a draft will do for me, provided it is of proper length. And in the first draft I am content to get down the facts. The facts being down, I have done something, there is a foundation to work upon. Strange that this foundation being laid, I seldom have any desire to alter or amend it. In fact I believe I have a considerable natural gift for arrangement, enhanced by my editing experience, which makes changes of foundation supererogatory. In the first draft I don't pretend to go deep or to arrange minor detail. I only make sure of my general outline as I go along.

The mere writing is appallingly unfinished. It can claim to be grammatical, but nothing more. But I have something to look at. Last week I produced over 35 pages of close writing. I have lifted the thing up to a certain height, whence it can't possibly fall down. The rest of the mountain can be taken in easy stages. I am the sort of writer who has a defined and definable purpose. I go in for unity of theme partly because I like it, and partly because it is easier to get effects with a simple single theme than it is with a complex one. A small man can make a largish sort of effect if he confines himself to one single character, with no relief, and turns it inside out. That is what I intend to do. At the moment I haven't got the creative impulse, or the writing experience, for a big theme, but I fancy that one of these days it will be there, and then we shall see something!

Sightseeing

Tuesday, February 16th., Hotel Nettuno, Pisa.

At 8.30 a.m. I received a note from C.K. Scott Moncrieff asking to see me and offering to show me things in the town. He came at 11.30. Lame, quick, fussy. Very talkative (smartishly) and rather nervous at first but not later when we became used to each other. He was lamed in the war, and converted to Catholicism whilst at the Front. Not married. I think he may be homosexual judging by the acquaintanceships he has had. But that is no problem for me. He tells me that he had a rather snide letter from Proust about his translation of Proust's "Swann's Way". I told him that I found Proust impossible to read, which he seemed to appreciate.

He said that Lucca was only twelve miles off. This was on our way to the cathedral here. I wanted to turn back at once and get a car for Lucca, which had always been romantical to me on account of a chapter in Heine's "Reisebilder". We couldn't get a car in the town. All had gone or were going to Viareggio for the carnival. However, after an early lunch, we did get a car and set off together.

At Lucca we got a carrozza, and went through the town at walking pace, and saw cathedrals and churches. Very fine and distinctive and Moncrieff a good guide. A rich town, prosperous, clean, self-contained, and self-sufficient. More so than Pisa. The oil business and farming must be money-making. But I asked for the Bagni di Lucca, made fascinating to me by Heine, and found they were twenty miles off. So I was baulked there. At San Frediano, Lucca, it was interesting to see the altar where Frankia's "Entombment" once was. Who pinched it and put it in the National Gallery I don't know.

The news of Septimus is no better. In fact worse. His weight apparently is under seven stone! he needs food but cannot assimilate it. Letters I have had from his doctor and from Maud convince me that there is very little hope of saving him. What a shame! In some ways I am glad not to be able to be over there to see him. Cowardly I know but it would be very upsetting for him as well as me, and what good would it do?