Monday, April 30th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.
Today, in accordance with time-table, I finished my novel "The Roll Call" at 4 p.m. 114,000 words. It is goodish I think, but that is it for the Clayhangers, unless I go further with my idea of writing an alternative ending to "Clayhanger" itself. It has been in my mind for a few days now and would be interesting to do. I don't think it's been done before and would generate some interest I think. And make a few bob! Probably write to Pinker about it.
I went to the Russian Exhibition today, not for pleasure but to put the sacred autograph into books and to answer questions by Lady Muriel P. and other toffs about how to make these enterprises hum. It is in aid of the Anglo-Russian Hospital. The Russian theatre in the basement of the Grafton Galleries is most excellent. Plays by Tolstoy and Tchekoff. To see a play with ideas in it was like having a bath. It made me want to sit down and write more plays at once. The Russian pictures were terrible. It would have been better to have had none. I haven't tried the Russian restaurant, but I shall.
Showing posts with label The Roll Call. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Roll Call. Show all posts
Monday, 30 April 2018
Thursday, 8 February 2018
In Inefficienza
Thursday, February 11th., Leixoes, Portugal.
With Swinnerton in Portugal. He is an excellent travelling companion. He tells me, rather guardedly, that the whole trip was 'cooked-up' between him and Knoblock. They have become aware of the growing tension between myself and Marguerite, and Knoblock apparently was of the sincere conviction that if I was not 'got away' for a complete rest I would break down. He may be right. I certainly begin to feel more myself. But of course it will still be there to go back to.
Anyway we arrived from Havre yesterday and are off to Lisbon tomorrow. Swinnerton, myself and a Brazilian gent motored into Oporto yesterday afternoon. It is about 6 miles up the River Douro, but big ships can't get up the Douro, or even into it at all. So this port has been built just north of the mouth. Oporto is a great place, on about 40 hills, with towers on top thereof. The principal street is certainly steeper than the Sytch in Burslem. The life of a car here must be about as long as a horse at the Front - the roads are simply appalling, even in fine dry weather as now. I never thought such roads existed, at least near a big city.
It takes two men to do one man's work in Portugal. Thus we had two chauffeurs, the second's duty being solely to wind up when necessary. We had a Fiat - very noisy.
The name of Oporto should be Inefficienza. Still it is very amusing. We had a perfectly smooth passage through the Bay of Biscay, with bright moonlit nights etc. Very pleasant. Today we loaded up a lot of steerage passengers and about a million barrels of wine. The monetary system here is continuously funny. Three of us had a magnificent lunch at a great restaurant called the Crystal Palace. It cost fiftenn thousand three hundred reis. Still, after paying for it I had money left as the equivalent in English is about £1.1.10. We saw rings in jewellers shops marked at three million reis. The Portuguese Dollar has fallen dramatically relative to the Pound, which is very advantageous to us but makes the Portuguese very cross.
Telegrams are terribly expensive. I had to send one of only twenty six words and it cost me nearly as much as the meal! It was interesting to see over what the wireless operators call their Marconi House. They explained the wireless system to me at great length but I am embarrassed to say I understood nothing. Still one of them had a copy of "The Roll Call" and asked me to sign it, so he was pleased. He wanted to know if George Cannon survived the war. I was evasive.
With Swinnerton in Portugal. He is an excellent travelling companion. He tells me, rather guardedly, that the whole trip was 'cooked-up' between him and Knoblock. They have become aware of the growing tension between myself and Marguerite, and Knoblock apparently was of the sincere conviction that if I was not 'got away' for a complete rest I would break down. He may be right. I certainly begin to feel more myself. But of course it will still be there to go back to.
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| Oporto |
It takes two men to do one man's work in Portugal. Thus we had two chauffeurs, the second's duty being solely to wind up when necessary. We had a Fiat - very noisy.
The name of Oporto should be Inefficienza. Still it is very amusing. We had a perfectly smooth passage through the Bay of Biscay, with bright moonlit nights etc. Very pleasant. Today we loaded up a lot of steerage passengers and about a million barrels of wine. The monetary system here is continuously funny. Three of us had a magnificent lunch at a great restaurant called the Crystal Palace. It cost fiftenn thousand three hundred reis. Still, after paying for it I had money left as the equivalent in English is about £1.1.10. We saw rings in jewellers shops marked at three million reis. The Portuguese Dollar has fallen dramatically relative to the Pound, which is very advantageous to us but makes the Portuguese very cross.
Telegrams are terribly expensive. I had to send one of only twenty six words and it cost me nearly as much as the meal! It was interesting to see over what the wireless operators call their Marconi House. They explained the wireless system to me at great length but I am embarrassed to say I understood nothing. Still one of them had a copy of "The Roll Call" and asked me to sign it, so he was pleased. He wanted to know if George Cannon survived the war. I was evasive.
Friday, 25 April 2014
Out of the war
Wednesday, April 25th., Yacht Club, London.
I wrote the last scene but one of "The Roll Call" today and was exhausted. Lunched alone at crowded Reform Club.
I walked down past Buckingham Palace this morning. Two naval petty officers outside in full fig, and their women. A police superintendent (?) and a policeman at gates. Former said to latter: "We'd better be getting 'em in," and then, to the sailors, "You decorations? Come on. Come along. Come on," curtly, as if they had done some deed suspicious, and not valorous. The sailors talked with their women for a few moments, and then went obediently within the precincts. They were two roughish, short, thick-set chaps. I wonder what they had done to earn their decorations?
Called at Reform Club, where I spent 40 minutes with Wells and an American journalist-lecturer-professor named Macdonald, over here for the New York Nation. Wells was talking about the after-war exacerbationary reaction on nerves, which would cause rows, quarrels, etc. unless it was consciously kept well in hand, and Macdonald said that a year or so after the San Francisco earthquake prominent S.F. men would disappear; they were in sanatoria, etc. Also lifelong friends, such as business partners, would quarrel over some trifle, each go to his solicitor, and never speak to one another again.
Additionally for April 25th., see 'In Arcadia'
Then begins a hundred mile drive across the Pelponnesus Peninsula to Nauplia. A crow would measure the distance as forty miles; the odd sixty are made up in loops and hair-pin turns. The scenery is consistently stupendous. This region is the original Arcadia, where the Athenian met the great god Pan and concluded a bargain with him. Considered as Arcadia the countryside is not in the least what it decently ought to be. A few small poplar trees of tender green, some olives, some cypresses, some belled goats, but in the main untilled and very desolate slopes! Plainly many groves must have vanished since Pan helped to win wars, because he could not possibly have stayed in a province which as it now stands must be excessively unsuited to the happiness of persons of the Pan temperament.
I wrote the last scene but one of "The Roll Call" today and was exhausted. Lunched alone at crowded Reform Club.
I walked down past Buckingham Palace this morning. Two naval petty officers outside in full fig, and their women. A police superintendent (?) and a policeman at gates. Former said to latter: "We'd better be getting 'em in," and then, to the sailors, "You decorations? Come on. Come along. Come on," curtly, as if they had done some deed suspicious, and not valorous. The sailors talked with their women for a few moments, and then went obediently within the precincts. They were two roughish, short, thick-set chaps. I wonder what they had done to earn their decorations?
Called at Reform Club, where I spent 40 minutes with Wells and an American journalist-lecturer-professor named Macdonald, over here for the New York Nation. Wells was talking about the after-war exacerbationary reaction on nerves, which would cause rows, quarrels, etc. unless it was consciously kept well in hand, and Macdonald said that a year or so after the San Francisco earthquake prominent S.F. men would disappear; they were in sanatoria, etc. Also lifelong friends, such as business partners, would quarrel over some trifle, each go to his solicitor, and never speak to one another again.
Additionally for April 25th., see 'In Arcadia'
Then begins a hundred mile drive across the Pelponnesus Peninsula to Nauplia. A crow would measure the distance as forty miles; the odd sixty are made up in loops and hair-pin turns. The scenery is consistently stupendous. This region is the original Arcadia, where the Athenian met the great god Pan and concluded a bargain with him. Considered as Arcadia the countryside is not in the least what it decently ought to be. A few small poplar trees of tender green, some olives, some cypresses, some belled goats, but in the main untilled and very desolate slopes! Plainly many groves must have vanished since Pan helped to win wars, because he could not possibly have stayed in a province which as it now stands must be excessively unsuited to the happiness of persons of the Pan temperament.
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