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.

Truth and beauty

Wednesday, February 28th., Cadogan Square, London.

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.