Pacifists

Wednesday, March 7th., Yacht Club, London.

I returned home from London on Friday last, wrote large quantities of my London novel each day, wrote my Sardonyx article in odd moments, and came back to London again yesterday.

Lunched with Wells. The Webbs said the new 'business men' officials had upset all Whitehall. New ministers' habit of writing letters from home and getting answers at home and thus springing surprises on departments is also much resented.

I worked all afternoon at Y.C. Massingham, Ross and I dined together. I was thus between two pacifists.

Massingham told a good story of an Australian who was asked his opinion as to the end of the war. The Australian said: "I think what my friend Fritz thinks. Fritz was my German prisoner - a very decent sort of chap. Fritz said: 'You'll win, but you'll all come home on one steamer.' "

This of course expressed Massingham's view beautifully, also Ross's.

For more on Massingham see 'A curious mixture'

Additionally for March 7th., see 'Rural idyll'

Six miles this morning in the forest, in fitful sunshine. When I looked about me in the forest I wondered that I could have endured three months in a city. Large spaces of sky. River rapid, and in flood, isolating many trees. Excellent food; attentive, simple-minded cook. Grocer's wife had a baby. Local youths drawing their conscription numbers. News of a Freemasons banquet, and of failure of a girls' school. Such are the events. I have time to think of writing another poem - subject in my head for just a year. I resume the piano, read papers more leisurely, and get excited about posts and about the sins of omission of local tradesmen.

At the cinema

Thursday, March 6th., Cadogan Square, London.

Regent Street Polytechnic Cinema

German film last night at Polytechnic Cinema. One has the idea that all films are crowded. The balcony here was not 15% full. Front row, where Duff Tayler and I were , 8s. 6d. for one and a half hours entertainment. A gloomy place with gloomy audience. No style or grace in them. All lower middle-class, or nearly so. The hall tricked out with a silly sort of an ikon, illuminated, of Death, to advertise or recall or illustrate the film. The orchestra most mediocre. Played all the time, and three audiences a day! Hell for the players I should think. Also the horrid habit of illustrating certain points musically or noisily. The clock must strike, etc. And a special noise as a sort of leit motif for death. Lastly three small common Oriental mats (probably made in England) laid in front of the screen on the stage to indicate that much of the story was Oriental. the captions, etc., were appalling, and even misspelt, such as 'extention', 'Soloman' etc. The phrasing! Good God. "The City of Yesteryear" meant, I believe, the cemetery.

German spies

Wednesday, March 5th., Yacht Club, London.

We came to London yesterday. Marguerite went to Newcastle to stay with the Shufflebothams. Swinnerton, Playfair and A. E. W. Mason dined with me at the Garrick. Mason told us some of his secret service adventures in Mexico. He was very good as a raconteur, and evidently has a great gift for secret service, though he said he began as an amateur.

For more on Mason see 'Lost in Venice'

Mason said that practically all the German spies and many of the Zeppelin men carried a packet of obscene photographs on their persons. He did not say why. I fully expected that he would laugh at the reputation of the German Secret Service for efficiency, and he did. I felt sure the German temperament is not a good secret service temperament. Too gullible and talkative. Mason said their secret service was merely expensive. Money chucked away idiotically.

Additionally for March 5th., see 'A tall tale'

He was extremely witty and fine about the attitude of Keir Hardie and so on (but not sufficiently sympathetic). He told a really astounding tale of a dinner given by Cust to about 20 men, including Balfour and himself, when the house got on fire over their heads. Talk so interesting that dinner went on, though Cust was obliged to absent himself once for a few minutes. Perfection of menservants who offered bath towels with the port to protect from firemen's water coming through the ceiling. Talk to accompaniment of engine throbs, swishing, tramping etc. Guests obliged to move table further up room out of puddles. Dinner lasted till midnight in Dining Room, when they went to Drawing Room to view the place gutted. One of the finest social recitals I have ever heard.

Handcuff king

Saturday, March 4th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Raphael and Co. dined with me at the Place Blanche and then we went to the Alhambra, and I was introduced to the manager, a young and extremely English man who could scarcely speak any French. Houdini (an American) the 'handcuff king' was the principal attraction. It appears that this man really has a gift for getting out of handcuffs and picking locks. he certainly did some extraordinary things last night - including one in which Raphael's overcoat took a share. Raphael told me that Houdini "had got out of all the principal prisons in the world". In Germany he challenged the police to put him in a cell that he couldn't escape from. They took the challenge and he won. But they denied that he had won (from motives of policy). he brought an action against them which lasted three years (costs £1000) and ultimately gained the day.

Houdini (and wife) Paris 1905

Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz in Budapest, 1874 – 1926) was a Hungarian-American illusionist and stunt performer, noted for his sensational escape acts. Houdini became widely known as "The Handcuff King." He toured England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Russia. In each city, Houdini challenged local police to restrain him with shackles and lock him in their jails. In many of these challenge escapes, Houdini was first stripped nude and searched. In Moscow, Houdini escaped from a Siberian prison transport van. Houdini claimed that, had he been unable to free himself, he would have had to travel to Siberia, where the only key was kept. In Cologne, he sued a police officer, Werner Graff, who alleged that he made his escapes via bribery. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to hold his breath inside a sealed milk can.

Tea and biscuits

Friday, March 3rd., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Somerset Maugham came up for tea. He has a very calm almost lethargic demeanour. He took two cups of tea with pleasure and absolutely refused a third; one knew instantly from his tone that nothing would induce him to take a third. He ate biscuits and gaufrettes very quickly, almost greedily, one after the other without a pause, and then suddenly stopped. He smoked two cigarettes furiously, in less time than I smoked one, and solidly declined a third. I liked him. He said he had sold a play to Liebler through Fred Kerr, on the terms of £300 down, and £100 every quarter until they produced it - in advance of royalties. I asked him if he liked the quartier Montparnasse and he said, "Yes: the atmosphere of it is rather like Oxford." He said that as soon as he could he should spend three years in travel.

For more on Maugham see'Woman'

Illustrations

 Wednesday, March 2nd., Fulham Park Gardens, London.

Dunn brought to lunch Charles Robinson who has designed the cover of "Journalism for Women": a very young, unkempt, pale, nervous man with tremulous eyes. One could see that not long since he had been more nervous than he is today. Contact with the world was making him less like a startled faun. He told me that his design for my book had been so much liked that it had resulted in orders for twenty other covers.

Charles Robinson (1870–1937) was a prolific British book illustrator. Born in Islington, London, he was the son of an illustrator and his brothers Thomas Heath Robinson and William Heath Robinson also became illustrators. He served an apprenticeship as a printer and took art lessons in the evenings. He won a place at the Royal Academy in 1892 but was unable to take it up due to lack of finances. The first full book he illustrated was Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses (1895) which includes over 100 pen and ink drawings. It was extremely popular, going through many reprints, and generated numerous commissions. He illustrated many fairy tale and children's books throughout his career, as well as non-fiction works like Arnold Bennett's "Journalism for Women"

Phillpotts was extremely enthusiastic about the merits of "A Man from the North". It seemed strange and unreal to be treated by this finely serious novelist as an artist of the same calibre as himself.

A significant purchase

Tuesday, March 1st., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I bought a new copy of "La Grande Encyclopedie", bound in cloth, 31 volumes for 290 francs, yesterday morning. It can be bought through Le Journal for about 400 francs. It seems a good thing and I read 'in' it yesterday. I found however nothing under the head of 'Cotgrave'; I wanted the date of the first edition of his dictionary. Schwob, on whom I called yesterday afternoon, praised it highly. He mentioned specially such articles as "Aristotle" by Boutroux, as being the very finest of their kind. I looked up this and it certainly impressed me. Brunetiere's article on "style" is admirable; also Remy de Gourmont's on "Aretino". 

Schwob was in bed, and had been there for a month. We discussed the war, and Dickens. He stood up for Dickens, and said that, for style, the opening of "Hard Times" is one of the finest things in English. Of course I disagreed. He said that Dickens's ghost story "The Signalman", was plagiarised from something in Defoe's essay on apparitions, but much improved. He told me about the dinner to Edmund Gosse. Said Gosse was charming but pedantic.
For more on "The Signalman" see 'Uncanny things'