Censorship

Sunday, January 24th., Rue de Grenelle, Paris.

Attempts at censorship in England have been annoying me for some time and I have been waging a small campaign of my own, against censorship, in the New Age. Now the English Review have asked me to do an article on the subject for them. I said I would. To that end I wrote to John Lane because I understood that he had had trouble in connection with publication of "The Song of Songs" and "The New Machiavelli". I have now had his reply.

As I suspected, Lane tells me that Scotland Yard informed him of a complaint alleging obscenity in "the Song of Songs" as translated by Sudermann. I should like to know who inspired the police, not believing that Scotland Yard, in the intervals of its preoccupation with the Sidney Street brigands, had found time to make a study of current fiction in the interests of London morals. No doubt it is some self-appointed moral guardian, probably a fundamentalist Christian; they are the worst in my experience.

Lane has written to several authors to get a view about the alleged obscenity of the work. For myself I read it carefully and could see nothing to censure on grounds of obscenity, though much on grounds of aesthetics. Eden Phillpotts hit the nail on the head by saying that "the only things obscene therein were the Americanisms". Thomas Hardy apparently thought the book should be withdrawn because the translation is so poor. I agree entirely.

As regards "The New Machiavelli", I think it magnificent and in no way obscene. Conrad has called it "a master work". I have seen a review by Hubert Bland in the Daily Chronicle which describes it as "clever, but unpleasant and smug". The fact that they commissioned Bland to write the review shows that they had a preconceived antipathy to the book. Where is the Society of Authors in all this? Keeping quiet, that's where. If the Society of Authors and the Publishers' Association got together they could, in my view, kill library censorship very easily, but neither group seem willing. It seems to me that they are more by way of dining clubs than active literary organisations.

"Hilda" is progressing well. Over 16,000 words in three weeks. Good words too!

Fresh air

Tuesday, January 3rd., Royal York Hotel, Brighton.

I have read about a third of Edith Wharton's "The House of Mirth". Not fine, but capable. No connection with literature; a ceratin fairly agreeable bitterness of satire now and then. It can just be read. Probably a somewhat superior Mrs. Humphry Ward. I stopped reading it in favour of Marcus Clarke's "For the Term of his Natural Life", which I picked up here at Brighton in a sixpenny edition. I am enjoying this though in form and plot it is very naif. I could drop it without tears  Mood and context matter a great deal as far as pleasure in books goes. Here for example I don't expect to read with enjoyment anything 'heavy'. It's a place for crime stories, science fiction and humorous novels.

Today I wrote a New Age article, arranged the outline of an article for The Nation, and schemed out the first nine chapters of "Clayhanger" which I hope to begin to write on Wednesday. This afternoon we moved into our new room on the fourth floor, and I arranged everything for my work. We walked on the pier, and I saw subjects for water-colours and pastels. The weather was bright and bustery this afternoon. Excellently fresh air off the sea. I feel that I can get more air into my lungs here. Tremendous sensation of the chest expanding as one breaths in, and in, and in ... 

The one advance which I made last year in worldliness was having a play put on at a West End theatre for a run. That it failed is a detail. I bet it won't fail ultimately.

I wrote last year: "The Card", novel; "The Glimpse", novel; "The Honeymoon", three act comedy; scenario for "Don Juan", play; seven short stories; seventy odd articles; my journal. Total 312,000 words. Much less than the year before.

Simple and perfect joy

Wednesday, March 24th., Villa des Nefliers.

Arrival of four books today ordered from the Mercure de France, nicely bound. Astonishing how much simple and perfect joy can be bought for 15 fr. 60 c.! The anticipatory pleasure of unwrapping the parcel is almost worth that. And then to caress and smell the books ... I don't buy half enough books! Marguerite asked me today, playfully, how I would choose if the choice was between her and new books. I gave her the answer she wanted of course. The real answer I kept to myself.

My "Books and Persons" articles are just starting in the New Age. I am using the pseudonym Jacob Tonson. "Buried Alive" is to be published soon. I have struck into a golden vein of productivity.

Fine walks in the forest. Sunshine. Warmth. Cutting new books. A good patch of "The Old Wives' Tale". Disgust at the opposition lying in the Peckham election. Great fun in reading the account of the 200 million franc krach by a financial swindler in all the papers today. Another slice of my article on London stage. Embroidery design for Marguerite. Thus my day.


 

Poetry and prose

Thursday, March 12th., Les Sablons.

I have tried for two days to find the rhythms for two poems that I found ideas for - one elegiac and the other Aristophanic, and can't. I am starting to feel, but perhaps not yet quite accepting, that poetry is not my medium. There is a sort of disconnection between my original conception and what appears when I write. Of course there are not many writers who have equal facility at poetry and prose. Hardy springs to mind, and Kipling. I may be wasting my time. When I have shown poems to a select few friends they are kind of course, but hardly enthused. Time to focus on what I can do well!

Speaking of which, I have read through the first part of "Old Wives Tale", and am deeply persuaded of its excellence. Also I feel ready to make a start on the second part on Saturday. The ideas have come quite easily. I am looking forward to getting on.

Today I had a notion for a more or less regular column of literary notes - title 'Books and Persons' - for the New Age, and I wrote and sent off the first column at once. I began to work this morning in bed at 6 a.m.

Yesterday I cycled in showers and through mud to Fontainebleau to meet the architect at the new house. Found it damp, but the works more advanced than I had expected.

Been reading Lord Acton. I am driven to the conclusion that his essays are too learned in their allusiveness for the plain man. I should say that for a man who specialised in the history of the world during the last 2,500 years they would make quite first class reading. I am not that man.

Layers

Sunday, January 24th., Vevey, Switzerland.

Thursday - goose. Friday evening bilious attack. But it did not stop me from working. Yesterday I finished the first third of "Denry the Audacious". And ideas still coming freely! Today it occurred to me to utilise my Jacob Tonson column in the New Age for the material of a book on the subject of the modern novel, its future, its moral etc. etc. After arranging all my ideas for the next chapter this morning, I arranged ideas for first chapter of this book on the novel this afternoon.

Published in London every Thursday morning, the modernist magazine The New Age was a boundless source of ideas during its heyday from 1907 to 1922. The New Age was “the Bible for our generation,” recalled British author Storm Jameson. “We would rather go hungry than not buy it. We quoted it, argued with it, and formed ourselves on it.” The New Age informed its readers about the new field of psychoanalysis, debated different versions of socialism, published translations of Chekhov's plays, popularized the novels of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, and explored post-impressionism and abstract art. Its pages included some of Katherine Mansfield's first stories, regular contributions by the cartoonist Tom Titt, more than a hundred reviews of music and art by Ezra Pound, and a defence of homosexuality by Havelock Ellis. Instead of following one editorial line, The New Age was known for its medley of perspectives. Each issue featured essays, reviews, and articles on politics, economics, literature, the arts—and just about any other subject that caught the interest of its editor, Alfred Richard Orage. The New Age “contributors have always been searched for zealously and indefatigably,” reported columnist Arnold Bennett, who wrote under the pen name Jacob Tonson. “They have been compelled to come in—sometimes with a lasso, sometimes with a revolver, sometimes with a lure of flattery; but they have been captured.” At one time or another, Orage's editorial lasso pulled in George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, H. G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, John Galsworthy, E. Nesbit, and Siegfried Sassoon.

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Arranged with Tauchnitz to abridge the "Old Wives Tale" so that he can get it into two volumes. A damned nuisance, yet I secretly consider myself fortunate to get it in. I had begun to think the thing was off.

<http://www.tauchnitzeditions.com/>

Letter from Waugh today to say that the book still selling, and their town traveller anxious that no new book should appear till this has run its course. All very healthy. A fourth edition is now quite possible. I had not in the least hoped for this success. It alters the value of all my future books. yet I was depressed all afternoon because I could not make a sketch. Another proof that public success is no guarantee whatever of happiness or even content. I think it makes no difference.

In becoming acquainted with people you uncover layer after layer. Using the word in my sense, one person may be the most distinguished of a crowd on the first layer, another on the second, and so on. Until after uncovering several layers, you may ultimately come to a person who, down below, is the most distinguished of all - on that layer. The final result may be quite unexpected. I suppose that the inmost layer is the most important, but each has its importance.
I think that I am a very layered person, and am likely to become more so as I get older. I don't think anyone has penetrated far below my surface and, if I am honest, I have no wish that they should.