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.