Strange feelings

Monday, March 1st., Winter Palace Hotel, Menton.

I wrote 700 words this morning, and 700 this afternoon, of my new novel which I think I shall call "The Vanguard". Dorothy worked on her scenario of my short story "Death, Fire and Life", and so was not ready to go out until 12.22.  We sat in the garden of the hotel for a bit, and began to lunch fairly early. After a snooze we went out at 3 and walked down to the level ground, about six minutes, and then Dorothy did not want to walk any more, and we took a victoria and went about town shopping. I think that pregnancy is starting to make her lazy, and warned her that she will get fat if not careful. She laughed.

I have been reading more of Yeats's "Celtic Twilight". It is an engaging little book. Simple but elegantly written. I particularly like the way Yeats tells the reader, without frills or comment, what he has himself been told about supernatural experiences. Their matter-of-fact delivery makes them more credible. Yeats describes a couple of weird experiences of his own but shrinks from saying that he believes in 'faeries'; intimates that he may have fallen under some sort of enchanting influence. But I think he does believe. A part I was reading today about the feeling one can get in isolated places, especially woods, rang a bell with me. I have sometimes felt that sense of heightened awareness, a sort of anticipation that something strange is going to happen, even on one occasion in Bradwell Woods when I was a boy. I can remember that just in the act of taking one step I felt as if I had crossed some sort of line, things were quieter, I became wary, and wanted to look round as if I was being watched. Not scared exactly, but conscious that there was more around me than I had been aware of previously. This must have been forty odd years ago, and yet I can resurrect the feeling now, and the hair on my neck rises.

We have had an invitation to visit the Wells's for one of their 'weekends' but won't be back in England in time. Our intention is to leave here next Sunday and travel by easy stages to Paris, then on to Calais and home.

Miracle of wireless

Wednesday, June 9th., Amberley, Sussex.

After a little hesitation, I set to work on a new chapter of "The Vanguard" and wrote 1,800 words in just three hours (3 o'clock to 6 o'clock) It meant ten words a minute throughout, and really more than that, because at 4.15 I made my own tea (or rather my own verveine) and partook of the same in a leisurely manner with brown bread and butter. And all this after a rotten bad night. Pride! Vainglory! 

In the evening (when it rained tremendously) we paddled down to Mrs. Glenister's bungalow. At the end of the evening, she turned on the loudspeaker-wireless, "Valkyrie" in the room. I don't seem to be able to get over the amazing magic of this wireless device. The music seems to come to you from nowhere, and you wonder where it has been hiding while waiting for you to want it.

Additionally for June 9th., see 'Lunch with Mad Jack'

Siegfried Sassoon lunched with me at the Reform yesterday. He expected some decoration for admittedly fine bombing work. Colonel had applied for it three times, but was finally told that as that particular push was a failure it could not be granted. Sassoon was uncertain about accepting a home billet if he got the offer of one. I advised him to accept it. He is evidently one of the reckless ones. He said his pals said he always gave the Germans every chance to pot him. He said he would like to go out once more and give them another chance to get him, and come home unscathed. He seemed jealous for the military reputation of poets. He said most of war was a tedious nuisance, but there were great moments and he would like them again.

Neuralgic

Sunday, May23rd., Amberley, Sussex.

I wrote 1,100 words of "The Vanguard" in the dining room during the morning, after various short strolls. I meant to write another 900 words but somehow couldn't begin. The fact is that my heart isn't in this book. I get a few ideas when I am walking about. Enough to go on, but I need some way to liven the darned thing up a bit.

Dreiser's "An American Tragedy". I have already read 150 pages of this novel. The mere writing is simply bloody-careless, clumsy, terrible. But there is power, and he holds you, because his big construction is good. The book quite woke me up last night, just as I was going off to sleep.

This house belongs to an artist, name of Stratton. His pictures abound and they are the filthiest you ever saw.

Fred Stratton. Horse and Cart in a Lanscape. 1923

Fred Stratton was born in Lincolnshire, the son of a farmer. It is not known where he studied but by the 1890s he had a studio in London. By 1900 he had moved to Amberley in Sussex where he worked with Edward Stott who had settled there in 1889 and established an artists' community in the village. Stratton exhibited widely in London and the provinces, specializing in evening summer idylls and evening subjects. However, it was as a portrait painter that he made his living and for that reason left Amberley to set up a studio in Chelsea in the late 1920s. At the outbreak of World War II Stratton was living in Peru where he remained until his death in 1960.

I have had neuralgia since we arrived here and it is not improving, which may account somewhat for my rather negative view of things at present.

On the Downs

Thursday, June 10th., Amberley, Sussex.

Yesterday, after a little hesitation, I set to work on a new chapter of "The Vanguard" and wrote 1,800 words in just three hours (3 o'c to 6 o'c). It meant ten words a minute throughout, and really more than that, because at 4.15 I made my own tea (or rather my own verveine) and partook of the same in a leisurely manner with brown bread and butter. And all this after a rotten bad night. Pride! Vainglory!
I have now worked myself into a spell (which may prove short) of mass-production in"The Vanguard". I wrote 1,100 words before tea today in less than 90 minutes, and another 500 words after tea in about 30 minutes. All this, for me, is very quick work, though Trollope beat it practically the whole time, and so did Scott.

Last evening (when it rained tremendously) we paddled down to Mrs. Glenister's bungalow. At the end of the evening, she turned on the loudspeaker wireless, "Valkyrie" in the room. I don't seem to be able to get over the amazing magic of this wireless device. The music seems to come to you from nowhere, and you wonder where it has been hiding while waiting for you to want it.

Before my writing today I went for a walk to North Stoke in rotten, very windy weather, and got caught in only one shower, from which I protected myself under a hedge. About four miles I suppose. Then after work I went out with Dorothy up to the Downs, and I reckon by the large scale map that we walked at least four miles and a half. It was all very splendid, with skies full of disasters and great distance-effects. This makes the longest walking I have done in a day for years.
See also, 'A rural retreat' - May 31st., http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/a-rural-retreat.html

I read about half "The Ghost" yesterday. I sent to London for it specially so that I could see what it was really like. It begins brilliantly, but is not so good later on. But it is all fairly good and an excellent performance for a first book (as I believe it was). I am still puzzled by La Nouvelle Revue Francaise  beginning their publication of my novels with this book, but I am less puzzled than I was before. I happened to see "Le Spectre" by Arnold Bennett advertised in the N.R.F. a few days ago." I expect I wrote it about 27 years ago. Nobody thought anything of it, and I didn't. And yet the very highbrow N.R.F. chooses it to begin its campaign for "imposing me on the French public"; (according to the words of Gaston Gallimard, who has now written to me twice). All of which is very strange. The Vanguard" is better than "The Ghost" in truth to nature and in skill of handling material, but that it is fundamentally better in creativeness and verve, I doubt. Neither of them is more than a fantastic lark, nor pretends to be more.