Rattling good things

Thursday, January 18th., Hotel Californie, Cannes.

Yesterday I finished the fifth article of the Harper's series. And today I turned towards the construction of the sequel to "The Card" (I haven't decided what to title it yet) for the American Magazine. It is only between two spells of work that I can find time for unimportant correspondence, notes etc. For example I wrote declining an invitation to speak at a dinner of the Writers' Club. The invitation, from a Miss Simpson, was most flattering but that sort of thing is entirely out of my line; I consistently refuse speaking engagements though I could make money from them.

I had a letter from my cousin in the Isle of Man, and must reply to that before I get immersed in the novel. Also, she mentioned a couple of things which perplexed me and I must ask about them. She seems well and was extolling the virtues of the mild Isle of Man climate - no extremes of weather apparently. No doubt she has a point, but I would rather be in Cannes! 

My days are always full at the moment, without counting that I have hadthree abcesses, two together, as a result of a chill in December. The last one is not yet gone, quite. 

I am now in the full swing of my ordinary day: writing, reading a lot of newspapers, and several books at once. I bought Whymper's "Scrambles among the Alps", and Stendhal's "Vie de Napoleon", and began reading them together, and immediately felt that I had got hold of two rattling good things. These, with a more or les daily instalment of Sorel's "l'Europe et la Revolution Francais", keep me busy.

Headache

Thursday, October 14th., Villa des Nefliers.

Headache, began yesterday. The camel's backbreaking straw was probably a Dutch cigar that Godebski gave me. I nearly cured the headache twice today and then brought it on again by working. The trouble is that if I stop work every time I have a headache I won't get much done. My inclination when suffering is to turn inwards, allow myself to be entirely self-absorbed, and to become uncommunicative, or sometimes surly. I know that the best thing is just to get on with things, but easier said than done. My wife copes brilliantly with headaches which she gets infrequently but which last for three days - she seems able just to ignore them.
 
Godebski's for tea yesterday.


I finished "Ann Veronica" yesterday. Wells sent me a copy with the inscription "The Young Mistresses' Tale, to Arnold B. with love from his nephew H.G." The last 30 pages are the best. But still, a minor work. Seems to me much too short; incidents not described in sufficient detail. But then again I have been accused of too much attention to detail. Mere writing impudently careless of dissonant effects, and full of extreme colloquialisms. Of course it occurs to me that my appreciation of the book may have been affected by my headache. Critics ought to take this into account and declare at the start of each review what the state of their health was when they were reading!

I finished a letter to a cousin of mine who lives on the Isle of Man today. She is a native of the "ancient borough" but has lived on Man for a long time and I asked her if she felt herself to be a manxwoman. I suspect not. You probably have to be born there to be Manx. When people ask me where I am from I say "the Potteries, but I don't live there at the moment". There is a sort of implication in the statement that I would live there if I could, and one day might. In fact I have no intention of doing so. I may well leave here one day, but I won't be going back to the Potteries.