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?

Struggles

Friday, February 15th., Hotel San Remo, Nice.

I am here for a few weeks of productive writing with Phillpotts, and to enjoy some better weather. Also I must take stock, and decide how best to proceed, in connection with Mme. Soulie. She came, unexpectedly, to see me off from the Gare de Lyon which I took to be more or less a declaration of commitment should I want to reciprocate. I like her very much and we seem to be suited sexually, which is a great thing. I think that if I offered to put her 'under my protection' as the French say then she would be willing, but perhaps I want more than that. Or perhaps I want nothing at all! I have written to her laying out something of my character, experience and prospects, but have left the future open for the present. This time away, though hard, will give me space to decide what will be for the best. I am approaching forty and have declared several times, and to several people, that I will marry before I am forty. Perhaps I will.

I read in the continental Daily Mail of the largest clashes yet between suffragettes and the police in London yesterday. The trouble started after a decision by what the movement calls 'its parliament', which has been set up in Caxton Hall, to present a resolution to its male counterpart in Westminster. The struggles between the women and the officers, many it seems on horseback, lasted for more than five hours and marked the most ferocious battle yet in women's war for the vote. As the women marched through the streets at dusk mounted police rode into the procession to break it up. The women were scattered and some had their clothes torn and bodies bruised, but they still fought to get to the House. Fifteen of them in fact reached the Strangers' Lobby where they tried to hold a meeting before being arrested. Apparently Miss Pankhurst and others will appear in court today. Needless to say the leader writer in the Mail borders on the apoplectic in condemning these women for so forgetting their place as to challenge the political order. The presence of mounted police ready to intervene suggests to me that the government had prior knowledge of the womens' intentions. In my opinion heavy-handed tactics are sure to backfire.

Feted

Saturday, February 14th., Cadogan Square, London.

I had a great time in the Potteries. Sundry hours with Wilcox Edge in the train! He is a very interesting old man, and the Potteries is too much obsessed by his failings. He tells me he was Mayor of Burslem thirty years ago. Imagine that! Though born in Burslem he lived mainly in Wolstanton and had a scheme for the 'annexation' of Wolstanton by Burslem. It came to nothing in the end and Wolstanton remained instead in the clutches of Newcastle. Seemed philosophical about it. A lifelong Liberal.

I went to Hanley and did nothing whatever except ornament the proceedings with my presence, and I was told about forty times how much I had 'honoured' the said proceedings with my 'presence'. Not at all as I expected. The Mayor wore his two-ton chain. I sat on his right. I saw all sorts of people who knew me and whom I didn't know, and whom I admirably pretended to know.  Disconcerting to be feted in a place one has persistently described as being indifferent, if not inimical, to worldly renown. I arrived at 2.30 and left at 6.39, breathing a sigh of relief, and dozed on the train.

But I got home without a headache and the next three days did vast quantities of my novel. yesterday I reposed, and had Robert Loraines to lunch, and a musical supper party. At this party Arnold Bax and Eugene Goossens sat down at the piano and improvised, without a preliminary word to each other, a Spanish tango which lasted a quarter of an hour, and to which Tania danced. It was full of new tunes, and there was never the slightest hitch, discord, or fumbling. How they do it I know not but in that line it was the most marvellous thing I ever heard. Bed at 1.45. Tania was, of course, much admired.

Today I am writing the preface to "Don Juan".

Cheered up

 Monday, February 13th., Cadogan Square, London.

To Lucas's restaurant where we entertained Marcel Achard and wife; Mimi and husband. Alfred Beit also came. The others gradually left but Achard stayed, at my request, and we talked there till nearly five o'clock. He is only a young chap but intelligent and excellent company. We then went into a Russian tea place, which was interesting. I have a disinclination to work, a chill in the head and more acute insomnia. yet quite well enough to go about. I am doing no work except articles. I don't know how long it will last. It has lasted about two weeks so far. The annoying thing is that everybody tells me how well I look!

I was cheered up considerably this week when I discovered that my work has become of interest in academia. This both surprised and delighted me. It turns out that a Doctor Hudson, of Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, has published a paper in the journal Geoforum entitled

"Arnold Bennett, Geography and Architecture: A Literary Synthesis". I have read it, several times, and it is good. Dr. Hudson describes himself as a literary geographer and it seems that, unbeknown to me, some geographers are using books like mine as a source for research. Hudson says that my writings are "a particularly rich source". Wonderful! Essentially he argues that geography must take account, if it is to have value, not only of places per se, but of how people experience them. He says that "no other literary artist domonstrates a better understanding of the nature of geography". He also notes the considerable changes, economic social and technological, that have taken place during my literary career, and finds that I have shown in my writing a deep understanding of them. This is all extremely gratifying!

On the domestic front, we have decided not to go ahead with the idea to build a house on land at Aldwick. In fact I have sold it for £1,400 free of agents commission; this means a profit of £300 in less than a year. I also expect to make a good profit on a Modigliani picture which I bought ten years ago for £50. I certainly had quite a sound instinct for Modiglianis and ought to have trusted it more, for I could have bought two at the time instead of one, equally good, at the same price each. I hope and expect to get at least £1000 for this one.

But we are no nearer deciding what to do when the lease runs out here, and I foresee strife ahead.

 

Arnold Bennett, Geography and Architecture: A Literary Synthesis, Geoforum, 119. February, 2021, pp. 94-101.

War news

Friday, February 12th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

I think that the war is now drawing to a close and I should be rather surprised if it didn't end this year. The whole thing has been a sheer madness in my opinion.  But when you see the newspapers more occupied with the social and political news of the war and not the military news of the war you may bet a great change has come over the scene. And not before time because the food situation here is grave. In Germany and Austria it is, I understand, appalling. The recent strikes in Germany and Austria were very real and alarming, and all this is to the good. The only potential problem I see is that if social unrest gets completely out of hand then there may occur something similar to what has happened in Russia. It depends on whether or not there are sufficiently charismatic agitators to lead a revolution.

As I see it, it would be sufficient for us for Austria to cave in. If Austria did then Germany would have to. As Austria is easily the weaker of the two, the most interesting thing is what is happening in Austria, and yet people seem always more interested in what is happening in Germany. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link and Austria is the weakest link. I don't count Turkey and Bulgaria. 

The U.S.A. have now 400,000 men in France, and the number is increasing all the time. Up to the present however the U.S.A. haven't displayed much talent for turning men into an coherent fighting machine. They are not conceited and they admit this. So far, they are far inferior to us in this respect. I have this on good authority because I see a great many people of all sorts who are in a position to know the facts and who talk freely to me.

Russian news is scarce and much of it is censored. An English manufacturer in Russia who has escaped told a friend of mine, who told me, that he was tried for his life by his own workmen, and got off by a majority of two.Also that he himself saw people being burned alive in barrels of kerosene in the Nevsky Prospect, the principal street of Petrograd, and that nobody seemed to be particularly upset by it. Except those being incinerated of course! Hugh Walpole has spent most of the war in Petrograd and has the most astounding stories to tell of robbery and violence and so on. Some interesting material for his use when this is all over.

I have just now finished "The Pretty Lady" but it doesn't leave me much freer as I am always worried with articles and oddments for this tedious war

On form

Thursday, February 1th., Fulham Park Gardens, London.

I have struck a good seam of form. In the last month I have finished my serial and have written two short stories, one of 4,000 words and one of 5,000. They are pretty good I think. The serial is 'sensational' of course but there is money to be earned from sensational serials and I cannot afford to spurn any opportunity to earn. If I continued to write psychological treatises like "A Man from the North" I might earn some sort of reputation but I would most definitely not earn a livelihood. And in any case I have today read through as much as is done of the draft of "Anna Tellwright". It is not sensational. It is, I think, good. Perhaps even very good. I am drawn to finish it.

At the moment, in between work, I am in the act of discovering W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet, whose prose, to my mind, is just about equal to anything going round. I have been fascinated by "The Celtic Twilight", a little volume of essays about fairies and spirits. I wrote to Frank to recommend it to him only to find that he bought it when it came out and has admired it for six years now. He might have told me! I intend to get Yeats' complete works. It dawns upon me that he is one of the men of the century, so aloof, so spiritual, and with a style which is the last word of simplicity and natural refinement.

Tomorrow I am going down to Torquay for a weekend with Phillpotts and expect to have some jolly good jaws beside the whiskey bottle. He is a man who really can't argue. I can't argue myself, but I can argue him off his legs; yet he is always in the right ultimately. He is like Sharpe in that he feels, and what he feels he absolutely relies on, knowing that arguments are merely the refuge of the clever.

Phillpotts has a new play at the Court called "For the Love of Pim". It was very well done indeed, simple, direct and strong; and damn well acted too. In the main piece at the Court was our adored Miriam Clements, as regally lovely as ever, and just as bad an actress. She was playing the sister of Louis X1V and the role suited her appearance to perfection.

Much exhausted

 Wednesday, February 9th., George Street, London.

I arrived here from Monte last night, three and a half hours late, after one and a half days in trains and a steamer. Much exhausted this morning. I had quite enough worries and harassments on coming home, but the worst by far of all this morning is the news that my agent J.B. Pinker died suddenly in New York last night. Apart from the fact that he was a very old friend of mine, he had the whole of my affairs in his hands. There is no other really good agent in England. The difference between a good and a bad agent might mean the difference of thousands a year to me.

In spite of extreme tiredness I am off to Eastbourne this afternoon to see my play "The Love Match" which is, I hear, in difficulty. I am not surprised, and would prefer to leave it to its fate, but I have promised to go, and go I will. Kyrle Bellow, (or is it Bellew) has the lead role. I don't know much about her but she claims to have acted in films in the U.S.A. I have had a sore throat for a fortnight, and today I am really taking it in hand, sprays etc. In this connection my caretaker here, Mr. Tayler, is a marvel. He looks after me with the most touching solicitude, even coming to my bedroom last thing at night to see that I am 'tucked up' rightly. It is one of the astonishingest examples of personal devotion I have ever known. I think he may have been a batman in the war. I am taking him with me to Eastbourne!

The background bother is of course to do with the separation from Marguerite. Marie Belloc Lowndes, on behalf of Marguerite, is trying to arrange some sort of reconciliation. When I get back, and am somewhat restored, I will write to her and give a full account as it is evident that she has been taken in by hearing only one side of the story. But mainly I will tell her that she is wasting her time. There is no going back for me; it is not in my nature. Someone else asks me about the future of the Anglo-French Poetry Society. I thought only Marguerite cared about it. Well, it seems that the Committee has resigned en masse in protest at M.'s insistence that Legros be included. It will all break up now, without my guidance and cultural weight behind it. But in any case it could not long have survived the acute boringness of the performances!

Too busy

Wednesday, February 9th., Yacht Club, London.

Came to London today. First good, clear frost of the winter. Very sharp. I am suffering from lumbago but otherwise in good form. I am so busy, mainly with war work, that it is difficult even to find time to reply to letters from friends. I have signed a contract to dramatise "Sacred and Profane Love" for Doris Keane, a really fine American actress. I won't start it until Easter time, and don't expect to take very long, but it should be lucrative if successful. And "These Twain" is a great success both here and in America. It has sold better than any of my previous novels, in spite of critical doubts. Those people I know who have read it tell me it is the best description of real marriage they have ever come across.

Lunch at the Reform. Pinker came. Methuen joined us about alleged coming 'revolution' in price of novels. It seems that of the Council of the Publishers' Association who had suggested it, only four published novels at all, and none published novels on any scale. So they obviously know what they are talking about! Characteristic. We told him that the scheme of different prices would never work, and coached him as to what he should say at the grand meeting on Monday.

Then to W.A.R.C. offices. Difficulty with Lord X. as to my having put name of Queen Alexandra on posters for concert. Typical. I flatly disagreed with him, which I don't think he is used to or expected. And I showed him that I was in fact logically right, and in a spirit of recociliatrion drafted a letter for him to write to the Queen. It is his sort who give the aristocracy a bad name.

George Sturt

 Tuesday, February 8th., Hotel Savoy, Cortina.

Today I read in the Continental Daily Mail that my old friend George Sturt had died. This death produced no effect of sadness on me at all. George had been ill and half-paralysed for many years, and I don't think I had seen him at all for about sixteen years. When I did see him I drove down to Farnham, and he asked me to keep my car and chauffeur out of the way lest it should constrain or frighten or embarrass, or something, his household. And I had to eat at the local inn. I understood all this perfectly well however, and I had about a couple of hours fine time with him, chiefly in his garden. His later books, so far as I read them, were not as good as his earlier.

I remember that when I started to keep a journal, which is more than thirty years ago, I made up and bound (in cardboard) the volumes myself. I later had them bound in calf. I showed the first volume, scarcely written in, to George. He said: "If you'll bind me a volume like that I'll keep a journal too." So I did. Afterwards he kept on keeping a journal, but in large volumes. I think that he had made notes before, but he had never kept a journal. Of course all these notes and journals were the material for his books in a quite exceptional degree. He was an exceptional man in my opinion but not the sort to make what the world regards as a 'success'.

Funny how we change in the course of a lifetime. I suppose that in most respects George didn't change at all, whilst I did, and so we drifted apart. That happens a lot I think, especially in marriages. Still I have often thought of him, and wondered how he was getting on. Now I have made myself feel quite sad by writing this. I could have made more of an effort, but there were always other priorities and, truth be told, I was afraid of giving or taking offence. At least there will not be the decision to take whether or not to go to the funeral. 

Time for a walk to clear my head.

 

Intense cold

 Sunday, February 7th., Hotel Matignon, Paris.

According to newspaper reports it is colder here than it is in London, but here we are so we shall have to make the best of it. I can well believe the reports. About the cold the word 'intense' can safely be used. There is a strong wind from the east, what a friend of mine used to call a 'lazy wind' because it went through you rather than round you. It was like this occasionally in Thorpe, but you don't really expect it in the middle of a big city.

Arrived here yesterday and went to a play last night. I warned Dorothy how it would be - theatre dirty, theatre packed, theatre entirely unventilated - and it was. Happily the play was good. But a play which lasts from 8.45 to midnight is thirty minutes too long for me. Dorothy doesn't seem to be able to get enough theatre. For my part I often think that if I see one more play in this lifetime, it will be one too many. 

Haven't done much today apart from a light lunch for Madame Andre Maurois and Jean Aubry. Maurois himself couldn't come as he is lecturing in Lyons. I said that anybody who went to a place like Lyons deserved all the consequences thereof. He agreed. But I bet it is warmer there. We did walk out briefly after lunch. To go forth into the streets at present is quite an adventure. Most of the girls run, or at least scuttle, and there are public braziers lighted in various places so that passers-by can warm themselves. That is a nice touch I think. There are fewer people in Paris than usual which is excellent. I don't think it was ever this cold during the time I lived here. I had considered walking down to the Rue de Calais, just to look at my old haunt, but I thought better of it. It is not usually a good idea to revisit places in my experience.

This hotel is decidedly good. And cheap! We have two bedrooms, one private bathroom and a cabinet de toilette for 22s. a day. The food could be better but I intend to eat as much as I can. More theatre tomorrow I expect but I hope to renew acquaintance with a few old friends at least.

Visiting

Saturday, February 6th., Royal York Hotel, Brighton.

We went to see Hornung's "Stingaree" on Monday and I arranged with Vedrenne to compress it into good shape and give it guts, with a view to turning it from a failure into a success. Subject to Hornung's consent - for £100. However, on Tuesday Vedrenne telegraphed me that Hornung refused his consent, so that is that. No reason given. I suppose it is a case of professional 'offence'. I expect I would feel the same if some other author offered to improve one of my plays!

We went to Mrs. Perrin's today, and she took us to Lady Seton's. A large house full of numberless bad pictures, etc. Mrs Perrin is, it turns out, almost exactly the same age as me. She was born in India and tells me that she took to writing to "relieve the boredom of being a British woman in India". I have read a few of her short stories and enjoyed them well enough. She was certainly observant in India, even when bored. Regrettably she is the sort of woman who is very class conscious, impressed by the aristocracy because they are the aristocracy. Marguerite liked her but I sensed that the liking was not particularly reciprocated.

I am getting on with "Clayhanger". I am resisting the temptation to 'press on regardless' as my mother would say. Instead I intend to take as long as I need and to make the book the best I possibly can.

Life

 Friday, February 5th., Chiltern Court, London.

What I desiderate more than anything in the reminiscential line is a book of reminiscences by a known person about encounters with the admiring uncelebrated. Such a book might be marvellous. I would not write it myself but I have heaped material for it. As an example. Once, on board ship, a lady said to me suddenly: "Oh, Mr. Bennett, I do love your "Old Wives' Tale". I made no reply because, what can one reply that is not desolatingly banal? She thought I was displeased and went on: "But I love your serious books too!" "For instance?" I enquired. "Well, "How to Live on Twenty Four Hours a Day." For once, words failed me!

And words almost fail me in connection with a book I am reading at the moment. In fact I have nearly finished it and stopped reading this afternoon only because I could sense the end was near and I want to savour it. It is "Zorba the Greek" by Nikos Kazantzakis. In translation. This is a book about how to live life, nothing else. I know nothing of Kazantzakis but he must know something about living. Certainly more than I know. The book put me in mind from the start of Hess's "Narziss and Goldmund", the contrast between the sensualist and the aesthete/ascetic. But Zorba is, for me, much more fully realised than is Goldmund. What a character! To say that he is 'larger than life' is to underestimate the man; he is life. Zorba is a noble creation. Casting around for a character on the same scale from my reading I came up with Haggard's noble Zulu, Umslopogaas; he too expanded the conception of what is possible to a man.

We know nothing worth knowing about the narrator of the story, not even his name, but that does not matter. All we need is to have been introduced to Zorba, and to listen fascinated as he tells the stories of his life. We do not believe all he says of course, but his experience fills our breasts to overflowing. At times I wanted to throw down the book and set off immediately in search of adventure. In search of life. To go to Greece. And as for Crete, well, I have been there, but I was wasting my time. I don't suppose the cast of colourful village characters are any more true to life than are Hardy's peasantry, but they live in the mind of the reader in the same way, and will continue to live in the memory. I am exhausted but exhilarated as is the hapless narrator after a night eating and drinking with Zorba.

Peace needed

Monday, February 5th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Lunch at the Reform with Wells and Gardiner yesterday. They were in favour of communal feeding in case of starvation, as most efficient, starting in schools. Hard to believe that such a possibility is even being considered here. What a pretty pass! Wells took the submarine menace, like me, very calmly. On the other hand, Donald and McKenna who joined the conversation were much upset by it and gave dramatic figures. They are closer to the centre than we are, so should know what they are talking about.

The announcement that U.S.A. had severed diplomatic relations with Germany caused really very little discussion here. It was discussed a little at lunch. Already the intensely misunderstanding and unjust attitude of Marguerite and the officers (some of them) to the U.S.A. is changing. It is some sort of cognitive adjustment which allows people to 'fit in' with a different way of looking at things when that way becomes the accepted one. Within a week they will have forgotten that they ever thought differently.

At tea , when Lieut. and Mrs. Tracy came, it was discussed a little, and Mrs.Tracy well formulated for me the advantages of an 'American Peace', that is an unbiased peace, which was received with silence not altogether hostile. The fact is that unless something happens soon, both 'sides' will suffer and nothing will be gained except the salving of some misplaced pride. Afterwards Clegg agreed with me as to the advantages of the 'American Peace'. During the remainder of the evening nothing was said as to America, but the cognitive wheels were imperceptibly turning.

Some discomfort

Wednesday, February 4th., Rue de Grenelle, Paris.

It seems that the Bookman magazine is preparing an article about me, to be written by Bettany. I have had a letter from them asking for an up-to-date photograph. I don't have such a thing. In fact I don't much like to be photographed, but I sent them a few things I have on hand, including a couple of Rickards' caricatures. They also asked about photographs of the Potteries. Why I should be a source of these I know not.

Interestingly they refer throughout the letter not to the Potteries, but to the Five Towns. Seemingly my invented name for the district has now become common usage. It is used as if it were the real name, even in the district itself, and also by other novelists sometimes. For example Wells, in "The New Machiavelli", lays a number of important scenes in the Potteries, which he calls the Five Towns. The town of Burslem he sometimes calls by its proper name and sometimes by my adaptation of it - Bursley. I suppose I should be flattered by this, and I am, but I know that there is a fair amount of ill-feeling about it in the Potteries. They are a proud people, and easily offended, especially about trivial matters.

I wonder if Hardy gets any trouble arising from his invention of Wessex? I have seen the term used as a description for the south-west in general in the press. But I have never seen Dorchester referred to as Casterbridge, or Weymouth as Budmouth, etc. And then there is Trollope. I don't think that his Barsetshire is in fact based on a particular locality, so it's not the same. Overall I am glad to have been sufficiently successful in my creation to have influenced popular perception. But I doubt if I shall ever be welcome in Fenton!

I am getting on well with "Hilda Lessways" (in Turnhill). Nearly 20,000 words in three weeks. But now and then I get an uncomfortable sensation all over the top of my head and I have to go out for a very quick sweating walk of half an hour to clear it off. Unfortunately concentrated effort like this leads to neuralgia of fatigue and insomnia and so on, and I have to build myself up again with foods.

As usual

Friday, February 2nd., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I went with the two Ullmans to "Fidelio" at the Opera Comique last night. The usual slightly hurried dinner and general excitement in order to get seats. And, the seats being got, the usual exit before the performance to have a cup of coffee in a neighbouring bar. The usual disgraceful physical conditions of the seat - bad air, talkative neighbours, and a very imperfect view of the stage. I believe that a lot of the people who go to the theatre here do so not for the performance but to 'perform' themselves.

I was inclined to change my opinion of the libretto, and to give Beethoven credit for having chosen it not so badly after all. There are situations in it that are genuinely heroic, but which less fine music might have rendered footling. The constant grand beauty of the music is what chiefly affects one in memory after the performance.

It was a wet and very muddy night. But we walked home because we had need of fresh air after the poison of the theatre. The Ullmans are very agreeable companions. Alice UIlman, formerly Alice Woods is an author and illustrator of some popularity in America and one of the few really intelligent American women I have met here. She is also rather strikingly pretty and was pleasantly attentive to me. I was decidedly envious of Eugene when we parted at their door. As usual!

Best medicine

Monday, February 1st., Chiltern Court, London.

"Laughter is the best medicine". So my mother often used to say. And she was right.

Like most professional humourists, I rarely laugh, even at what I think is funny. There are two sorts of humour, the sort that makes you laugh audibly, and the sort that makes you laugh subterraneanly, and noiselessly, somewhere down in your solar plexus. Some people hold that the second is better than the first. I am not of this opinion. I would give the two sorts equal marks, but the first or loud sort holds a clear advantage over the second in that it has a positive ameliorating influence on bodily health.

I shall never forget a supper, a long time ago, in my dyspeptic days at which Frederic Norton, celebrated as author of the music for Chu Chin Chow, told stories. Mr. Norton is the finest and most elaborate raconteur in my experience. Now the supper consisted of lobster, steak-and-kidney pudding and beer. What a combination! I quailed at the prospect as any one of these items taken at night ought to have incapacitated me for at least three days. Yet the next morning I awoke in the sublime perfection of health. The reason was that throughout the meal and after it I had laughed, as they say, 'consumedly'. I laughed indeed more than I have ever laughed before or since. Now I maintain that a man who can by speech or writing make you laugh in this fashion is a doctor in addition to being a humourist. He is a benefactor of mankind.

Nowadays I do not laugh enough. I admit it. It seems that I simply do not find things as funny as I used to. I am often amused, but it is a quiet, contained sort of amusement. I honestly cannot remember when I last had a proper 'belly-laugh'. This is a great pity and I feel I am the poorer for it, but laughing is not one of those things one can develop by taking thought, quite the opposite in fact. Perhaps a decine in the inclination to laugh out loud is a natural concomitant of growing old, like going grey? I must investigate this with some of my contemporaries.