In the dark

Tuesday, November 9th., Les Sablons.

Today I rose in excellent health, began my last act, and at 5.30 had written one third of it. 

I received a complete bound set of my Tauchnitz works from the Baron. Though ugly, the format was not too ugly to please me. I put the row of twelve volumes in Marguerite's secretaire. Pauline seized "A Great Man" out of the lot, and has been reading it at every spare moment and smiling to herself the whole time. Not to be outdone, I began to read "Buried Alive", and also smiled the whole time. I don't think I have ever read a funnier book than this unless it's Wells's "The History of Mr. Polly".

Dark early of course but I determined to go out for a night walk, and did. I have always enjoyed getting out when it is dark, starting when I was young and needed to get out from under my extensive family. Very different walking here from walking the streets of Burslem. Two ideas came into my mind as I walked. One was to ask the question, "Has any author successfully conveyed the sensation of night walking?" The other was to think about how different the experience of darkness must have been before the advent of artificial lighting. Just imagine at this time of year how people managed with candles, or oil lamps, or just the light from a fire. Did the darkness make them melancholy? Bears thinking about.

Two novels

Tuesday, November 7th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I have just finished reading "L'Oeuvre". It has taken me a long time because I left it in the middle to read Wells's "Kipps". What a colossal affair it seems by the side of "Kipps"! So serious, tremendous, and imposing. The middle parts seem rather carelessly done; the detail piled up without sufficient attention to the form. But the final scene between Claude and Christine - the fight between love and art - is simply magnificent; it moved me; it is one of the finest things in Zola. It is overdone, it goes farther than the truth; but purposely; Zola has stepped into the heroic in this scene, as he does now and then. All the close of the book is most affecting.

As regards "Kipps", I am writing to Wells with my thoughts. The only real sizeable fault I can find is the engagement of Helen, which entirely failed to convince me. In fact it is useless to tell me they ever were engaged. I do not believe it! Helen is a real and lifelike figure, but Ann is more so, and the Ann scenes are the best in the book. After agreeing with myself that I read the book through with eagerness and joy, and after telling myself that I must not expect in Wells's 'human interest' novels those aspects of life which he disdains to see, I find myself asking what this book proves, and not getting any answer. Perhaps no question was intended? I think I must point out to Wells that I am deeply offended by his beginning a sentence: "Next to starting a haberdasher's shop ...." I hope he will take it in good part as I hope to avail myself of their hospitality when I am next in England!

A tall tale.

Thursday, March 5th., London.

Orage, editor and proprietor New Age, came on Monday night, and I sold him "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day" for his new series, and promised to give him an article on Wells, or an interview if Wells would agree.

Alfred Richard Orage (1873 – 1934) was a British intellectual, now best known for editing the magazine The New Age. While working as a schoolteacher in Leeds, he pursued various interests, including Plato, the Independent Labour Party, and theosophy. In 1900 Orage met Holbrook Jackson and three years later they co-founded the Leeds Arts Club, which became a centre of modernist culture in pre-World War I Britain. In 1905, Orage resigned his teaching position and moved to London. There, in 1907, he bought and edited the English weekly The New Age, at first with Holbrook Jackson, and became an influential figure in socialist politics and modernist culture, especially at the height of the magazine's fame before the First World War.

See also "Layers" - January 24th.

Went down to Wells on Tuesday, dine and sleep. He wouldn't agree. Said interviews must 'occur', with which I concur. Found him harder - yet politer and more reasonable in argument and posture than ever before. Seemed discontented about money, while admitting that he was making £3000 out of "War in the Air", which he wrote easily in 4 months.

The War in the Air, a novel by H. G. Wells written in four months in 1907 and serialized and published in 1908 in The Pall Mall Magazine, is like many of Wells’s works notable for its prophetic ideas, images, and concepts—in this case, the use of the aircraft for the purpose of warfare and the coming of World War I. The novel's hero is Bert Smallways, a forward-thinking young man, a "kind of bicycle engineer of the let's-'ave-a-look-at-it and enamel-chipping variety.

<http://www.ozebook.com/ozebook/warair.htm>

We had not enough time really to come to grips about things. He was extremely witty and fine about the attitude of Keir Hardie and so on (but not sufficiently sympathetic). he told a really astounding tale of a dinner given by Cust to about 20 men, including Balfour and himself, when the house got on fire over their heads. Talk so interesting that dinner went on, though Cust was obliged to absent himself once for a few minutes. Perfection of menservants who offerd bath towels with the port to protect from firemen's water coming through the ceiling. Talk to accompaniment of engine throbs, swishing, tramping etc. Guests obliged to move table further up room out of puddles. Dinner laste till midnight in Dining Room, when they went to Drawing Room to view the place gutted. One of the finest social recitals I have ever heard.

Henry John "Harry" Cockayne-Cust (1861 – 1917) was an English politician and editor who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Unionist Party. In 1892, Cust met with William Waldorf Astor, who invited him to edit the Pall Mall Gazette. Despite lacking any background in journalism, Cust accepted immediately. He soon transformed the newspaper into the best evening journal of the period, thanks in part to contributors such as Rudyard Kipling and H.G. Wells. After leaving the Pall Mall Gazette, Cust continued his career as an author. He wrote several poems, most notably "Non nobis domine". During World War I Cust was active in propaganda on behalf of the British Government. In August 1914, he founded the Central Committee for National Patriotic Organizations. He died in 1917 of a heart attack at his home in Hyde Park Gate, London. Considered a brilliant conversationalist by his contemporaries, he had a reputation as a womaniser and was the father of socialite and philanthropist Lady Diana Cooper, by the Duchess of Rutland, though this was not acknowledged until much later. Cust was also rumoured to be the natural father of Beatrice Stephenson Roberts, the mother of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and though there was no solid proof of this connection, Lady Diana Cooper often jokingly referred to Mrs. Thatcher as her niece.

The writing business

Thursday, January 4th., London.

Came to town yesterday. Lunched with Wells and his two boys, and Ross at the Reform. Ross told me, as regards inaccuracies in "Dict. National Biog.", that he offered to look through the proofs of Wilde's biography, but proofs were never sent to him. He found 18 mistakes of fact in the biography.
Gardiner, editor Daily News, suggested that I should resume writing for D.N. I said I would resume only on similar conditions as before, namely that I had a regular commission for articles, to appear at regular intervals - I didn't mind what the intervals were.

Alfred George Gardiner (1865–1946) was a British journalist and author. His essays, written under the pen-name Alpha of the Plough, are highly regarded. He was also Chairman of the National Anti-Sweating League, a pressure group which campaigned for a minimum wage in industry. He joined the Northern Daily Telegraph in 1887 which had been founded the year before by Thomas Purvis Ritzema. In 1902 Ritzema was named general manager of the Daily News. Needing an editor, he turned to his young protégé to fill the role. The choice soon proved a great success; under Gardiner's direction, it became one of the leading liberal journals of its day, as he improved its coverage of both the news and literary matters while crusading against social injustices. Yet while circulation rose from 80,000 when he joined the paper to 151,000 in 1907 and 400,000 with the introduction of a Manchester edition in 1909, the paper continued to run at a loss.

Vedrenne wrote me giving way, and agreeing to pay £200 down on receipt of MS. of a play for Eadie, for option on it. He had said to Pinker: "I have never paid and I never will pay to read a play."

John Eugene Vedrenne (1867-1930), often known as J. E. Vedrenne, was a West End theatre producer who co-managed the Savoy Theatre with Harley Granville-Barker, and then (from 1904 to 1907, also with Granville-Barker) the Royal Court Theatre. During their time at the latter, they premiered several of George Bernard Shaw's plays, including John Bull's Other Island and Major Barbara. His partnership with Granville-Barker ending in 1907, Vedrenne then became associated with Lewis Waller at the Lyric Theatre, and in 1911 with Dennis Eadie at the Royalty Theatre, and later still at the Kingsway Theatre.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&tbo=d&biw=1024&bih=629&tbm=isch&tbnid=b-3Ws0lPqEpZWM:&imgrefurl=http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/shaw/stage.html&docid=GDC3175UKiQ6lM&imgurl=http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/shaw/images/royalcourt2.gif&w=300&h=392&ei=iQDnUPeTJIqb0QXov4GABw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=636&sig=114687906414046325319&page=1&tbnh=146&tbnw=111&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:94&tx=27&ty=68

H.G.'s boom is over

Wednesday, October 10th., Yacht Club, London.

Dined with George Whale at the N.L.C. and in his great, ugly, sitting room took what I wanted from his large collection of notes on war superstitions , for my novel. His notes were extremely interesting.
Wells came in, and slanged the Webbs as usual, and incidentally said: "My boom is over. I've had my boom. I'm yesterday." He said that in air raids he was afraid of going to pieces altogether, so if there was a balcony he stood on it. He had been through several raids at Southend. He said: I get huffy and cross, just as if - " but I can't remember his comparison.