Tyranny of thrift

Thursday, December 7th., Royal Thames Yacht Club, Piccadilly.

In the afternoon read through what I have written of my new novel. Not so bad. Undoubtedly I have been refreshed and invigorated by reading Dreiser's "The Financier", which absolutely held me. "The Titan", which I am now reading, is not so good.

Rebecca West and H. G. Wells

I came to London yesterday with Marguerite. Rebecca west, Gladys Wheeler, and H. G. Wells lunched with me at Romano's. Wells called my fob "gastric jewellery"! He offered to bet 2 to 1 that the war would be over by August next.
http://therumpus.net/2012/08/saturday-history-lesson-rebecca-west-h-g-wells-and-anthony-panther-west/


The other day I was out making some small purchases and became uncomfortably aware of a feature of my character - subservience to the tyranny of thrift. I am on the way to being a miser, though I have bouts of resistance. Perhaps this is why I have written so successfully about misers such as Ephraim Tellwright, James Ollerenshaw and Mrs. Garlick. I find myself incapable of making a purchase, even a small one, if I believe I can get better value (which generally means cheaper) elsewhere. It is almost physically impossible for me to pay more than I must, even though the amount saved is trivial, and I am far from being short of a few coppers. Have I learned this behaviour, or is it in some way an inherited predisposition?

Additionally for December 7th., see -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/french-and-english-girls.html

I went to have tea with Mrs. Spear and found all her three daughters there. The two eldest, aged about 18 or 19, are charming. There are, I suppose, no such French girls. The French girl is sacrificed to the French woman - and no doubt the French woman is worth the price. I had an extraordinarily rich tea of home-made jams and cakes. I was very facetious, I don't know why, and I made them laugh continually. It is very satisfying and contenting to make young girls laugh by simple means. I stayed two hours.

Protocol

Sunday, December 6th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Major Danielson asked me on Tuesday to write to the Press about behaviour of civilians in case of a raid. I did so, and sent the letter to, inter alia, The Times, where it made a great effect. Major-General Heath, G.O.C. South Midlands Division, wrote me on Friday saying that he agreed with every word of the letter, but that I ought not to have written it in my capacity of Military Representative, or to have mentioned him as my authority. This is very characteristic of the official fear of responsibility. The military are really very anxious for their views to prevail, but they don't want anybody to know!

Meeting yesterday of Emergency Committee at Colchester. Representative of police there - an awful, beefy, decent piece of stupidity. I paid for maps for Parish Councils. Badges for Special Constables simply cannot be got.

Returning to Emergency Committee we haven't yet been able to get out of Headquarters what roads they will want if there is a raid, nor to settle with police what signal is to be.

I am now fairly in the last part of the third Clayhanger.

Additionally for December 6th., see 'Influences' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/influences.html

This afternoon, reading in the New Review (which this month ceases to exist) the conclusion of Joseph Conrad's superb book, "The Nigger of the Narcissus", I had a mind to go on at once with my Staffordshire novel, treating it in the Conrad manner, which after all is my own, on a grander scale.

Sacred and profane

Thursday, December 5th., London.

Called on Farrar. He said: "The health of London has been simply appalling this year. The death rate has dropped to 11 per 1,000. During one week in November I had no one to call on at all. Other doctors were in the same fix." He could not explain it at all. The only phrase he could use was "a sort of wave of good health passing over".

I affirmed before I started writing "Sacred and Profane Love" that it was going to be 'entirely magnificent'. And I think it is. I have been reading it (the Tauschnitz edition) again and it caught me. Of course there are some things I would do differently but the conception was good and the execution admirable, occasionally brilliant. I recall that a review in the Sentinel (unattributed) described it as daring and original. And it is. Wells was not so enamoured, though kind enough. He thought I gave too much attention to surface values, and failed to 'penetrate'. Well, I think that opinion simply reflects the difference between my style of writing and his. Wells doesn't merely have nothing to do with 'surface values', he rejects them completely. In the Manchester Guardian, A. N. Monkhouse described the book as daring and open to misinterpretation, but he thought the whole to be admirable, and written with brilliant facility. I was particularly taken by an unsigned review in the Academy. This reviewer contended that the weak point of the book was that I had not sufficiently trusted my power to ennoble the theme on its own merits; that I had made use of unnecessary artifice. For example, I need not have made Diaz a world-famous pianist, or contrived the wildly successful Paris opera scene. There is something in this. In my re-reading I felt that some parts of the book were overdone. I also felt that I failed to deal adequately with Diaz as a drunkard. My attempt to put drunken behaviour into words fell well short of the standard of realism I aspire to. Still, it is no mean achievement for a man to write successfully in the first person as a woman.

Additionally for December 5th., see 'Another sort of life' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/another-sort-of-life.html

I cannot read in Burslem. All I can do is go about and take notes. My mind is in a whirl all the time. I have only been here 5 days, and yet all Paris and Avon seems years off; I scarcely ever even think of these places and my life there. Sometimes by accident I speak to myself or one of the children in French.

Bachelor arrangements

Friday, December 4th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Last night "Pelleas et Melisande", at the Opera Comique. This time I thought Debussy's music very good. Sometimes really powerful.

The Opéra Comique was founded in 1714 under the reign of Louis XIV. It is among the oldest French dramatic and musical institutions. Its history was alternately turbulent and prestigious until it was listed on the register of national theaters in 2005. Since then a new era has begun renewing with its history, it set itself the task of spreading its unique repertoire and securing the production and dissemination of operatic works to the widest audience.

The day before yesterday or a bit earlier two children were born in the streets of Paris the same day. Chichi explained to me that the thing occurred not infrequently. Accouchement in a 'maison' was an expensive affair, comparatively. hence women, at the very last moment, went to the poste de police and demanded the assistance that the law binds itself to give.

It is extraordinary how the leading cafes of Montmartre are absolutely crammed at midnight. Till a day or two ago I had scarcely known of the existence of the Cafe Graff. I was in there last night and at 12.15 there was not a seat empty. I came home and found my stove gone out. I lighted it at 1 p.m. but it would not 'take'. This trifling thing annoyed me wonderfully. It got on my nerves. I could not sleep and was extremely depressed about everything. The cold continues, and this morning it is even more severe.

Yesterday afternoon I very suddenly decided to alter the entire arrangement of the flat, making the bedroom the study, the study the cabinette de toilette, and the cabinette de toilette the bedroom. I called in the concierge to assist, and also the carpenter's young son to shave pieces off the bottoms of the doors. It took over two hours, and the young son received 75 centimes and the concierge 2 francs' worth of coke which I had no use for, as my infernal new stove doesn't burn coke. I can now work in the same room as the stove.

Yesterday I tackled the Phillpotts play for about 4 hours and got into it considerably.

Additionally for December 4th., see 'A patriotic concert' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/a-patriotic-concert.html

Patriotic concert last night in the village schoolroom. Full. All the toffs of the village were there. Rev. Mathews and family dined with us before it. Most of the programme was given by soldiers, except one pro. It was far more amusing than one could have expected. Corporal Snell, with a really superb bass voice, sang two very patriotic, sentimental songs, sound in sentiment but extremely bad in expression. They would have been excruciating in an ordinary voice; but he was thrilling in them.

Farces

Monday, December 3rd., Cadogan Square, London.

Walk round Shaftesbury Avenue, etc., to Reform Club to get ideas for "Punch and Judy". I got some, and I got more at the Club between 12.30 and 1. I did a little writing of the film between 5 and 6.30. 

Dined at home, and we dashed off to see Tallulah Bankhead in "Her Cardboard Lover", a French farce by Duval, anglicised by P. G. Wodehouse and another. This was quite a good boulevard farce in the traditional manner, well played by Tallulah and Leslie Howard. The rest very mediocre. Wodehouse had handled it with some skill. It was nothing at all, of course, excessively old-fashioned; but it was not so very boring. Tallulah has great resource, and so has Leslie Howard.

Her Cardboard Lover Theatre: Lyric; Opening Date: Aug. 21, 1928; Performances: 173; Playwright: Valerie Wyngate & P.G. Wodehouse; Director: Gilbert Miller; Producer: Leslie Howard. 

“Her Cardboard Lover,” is an adaptation of a typical French farce. Simone, a bewitching French girl, very well played by Miss Tallulah Bankhead, has divorced her husband, but decides to take up “a cardboard lover” to help her resist the temptation of returning to her fascinating spouse. The “dummy” lover takes his job very seriously, and the various complications provide many amusing situations. The “high spot” of the play is a disrobing scene by Miss Bankhead. Mr. Leslie Howard, a young actor who has achieved a big reputation in America, was a great success as the makeshift lover, his acting being first rate throughout. (Daily Mirror, August 22, 1928)

We got home by 11.15, after learning that the King was slightly better, as if I cared either way; but if not him then it would be one of the parasites-in-waiting. Plus ca change. Crowds continually in front of the Palace. Are they there as some sort of remote moral support to the King, or do they hope to be able to say: "I was there when the old King died"? Most likely the latter.

I read some of J. W. N. Sullivan's "Beethoven", and wasn't much struck by it. Then 100 pages of "Alice in Wonderland". Quite readable, though confined to one set of fanciful invention. Tenniel's pictures very ugly.

Additionally for December 3rd., see 'A winter funeral' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/a-winter-funeral.html

These funeral rites in an English winter are absolutely barbaric. I met Max at the gate, and was so moved, unknown to myself till the moment came, that I could not speak to him.

Atlantic gale

Saturday, December 2nd., Lusitania, at sea.

Following gale, overtaking us. I began to construct a one act play for ship use, and this put me off going to sleep last night, and then I was kept awake by rolling and noises connected therewith. hence, bad night. Read a lot of "Sanine". Insincere voluptuous stuff.

Went out at 10.30. High seas. Whole surface of sea white with long marmoreal lines of foam. Through the mistiness the waves on the horizon looked as high as mountains; or high as a distant range of hills. Curious that distant waves should seem so much higher than those close to. Ship rolling enormously and her prow yawing about. yet forward, sheltered by deck houses from following gale, one had no sensation that the boat was moving forward. Walking backward from bow to stern, the following gale struck one sharply in the face, though one was running away from it at about 30 miles an hour. 

Big squall gradually overtook us. All sunshine clouded out for 15 minutes and snow came down almost horizontally, and much faster than the ship in the same direction. The wind blew spray fiercely off the water in clouds. The screws half-raced from time to time.

While waiting in barber's shop, read Jane Addams on "Old Social Evil and New Remedy". 

Also for "Lusitania" see -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/sailing-to-america.html
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/sailing-for-home.html
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/all-at-sea.html
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/exploring-lucy.html

Additionally for December 2nd., see "Being 'in it' or 'out of it' " -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/being-in-it-or-out-of-it.html

I hate, now, having any evenings quite free, with no society. It is on these evenings, although I amuse myself with writing letters and reading, that I feel 'out of it'. And that phrase expresses the whole thing. 'Out of it.' What it is I don't exactly know.

A death

Wednesday, December 1st., Waterloo Road, Burslem.

Arrived at Burslem last night. Noted for 3rd novel in trilogy, scene in train, and Shields' dentist scene, in special notebook. Wild weather. Glass lower than it has been all this year, I think.

My mother died in hospital yesterday morning at 10.42. Fortunately I was there at the time. She had been fading slowly since having a stroke three weeks ago, and died peacefully in the end. Her condition had deteriorated the evening before and soon after I arrived at the hospital yesterday morning it declined further. Her breathing which had been rapid slowed and became even more shallow, so I knew the end was near. Then she seemed to stop breathing, and I thought she had gone, but there was one more shuddering breath and she became still. I am sad of course but glad that she is released from a situation she would have hated with a vengeance. So, I have become an orphan at last.

Additionally for December 1st., see 'Theatrical evening' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/theatrical-evening.html

In the evening 'L'Escalade' by Maurice Donnay, at the Renaissance. This is quite a minor piece, with insufficient material, and what material there is, not too well arranged. It is surprising to me how a man like Donnay could let such work go out of the manufactory. Guitry and Brandes were magnificent, full of distinction; Guitry's son had also his father's distinction.