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Title: Things That Have Interested Me
Author: Bennett, Enoch Arnold (1867-1931)
Date of first publication: 13 January 1921
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Chatto & Windus, March 1921
Date first posted: 7 September 2011
Date last updated: 7 September 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #849

This ebook was produced by:
 Iona Vaughan, Ross Cooling, Mark Akrigg
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available by the Internet Archive/University of Toronto
- Robarts Library






  THINGS THAT HAVE INTERESTED ME




  WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

    _NOVELS_

  A MAN FROM THE NORTH
  ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  LEONORA
  A GREAT MAN
  SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
  WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
  BURIED ALIVE
  THE OLD WIVES' TALE
  THE GLIMPSE
  THE PRICE OF LOVE
  HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
  CLAYHANGER
  THE LION'S SHARE
  HILDA LESSWAYS
  THE CARD
  THESE TWAIN
  THE REGENT
  THE ROLL-CALL
  THE PRETTY LADY

    _FANTASIAS_

  THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
  THE GATES OF WRATH
  TERESA OF WATLING STREET
  THE LOOT OF CITIES
  HUGO
  THE GHOST
  THE CITY OF PLEASURE

    _SHORT STORIES_

  TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS

    _BELLES-LETTRES_

  JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
  FAME AND FICTION
  HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
  THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
  MENTAL EFFICIENCY
  HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
  THE HUMAN MACHINE
  LITERARY TASTE
  FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
  THOSE UNITED STATES
  PARIS NIGHTS
  MARRIED LIFE
  LIBERTY
  OVER THERE: WAR SCENES
  THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT
  BOOKS AND PERSONS
  SELF AND SELF-MANAGEMENT
  FROM THE LOG OF THE "VELSA"
  OUR WOMEN

    _DRAMA_

  POLITE FARCES
  CUPID AND COMMON SENSE
  WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
  THE HONEYMOON
  THE TITLE
  THE GREAT ADVENTURE
  MILESTONES (In Collaboration with Edward Knoblock)
  JUDITH
  SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE

    _In Collaboration with Eden Phillpotts_

  THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE
  THE STATUE: A ROMANCE




  THINGS THAT HAVE INTERESTED ME

  BY

  ARNOLD BENNETT



  LONDON
  CHATTO & WINDUS




  _First Published       January 13, 1921_
  _Reprinted             March       1921_


  _All rights reserved_




  NOTE

Chronological order has not been followed in the arrangement of this
book; but in every case where it seemed advisable to date an item, the
date has been added.

In 1906 and 1907 I printed privately and issued to friends two small
volumes of unpublished matter entitled respectively _Things that
Interested Me_ and _Things which have Interested Me_. Neither of them
contains anything which is included in the present work.




  CONTENTS

                                                      PAGE
  Operatic Performances                                  1

  Jerry Oxford                                           6

  The Old Fellows and the New                           10

  In Calais Harbour during Mobilisation                 16

  A Great Responsibility                                24

  Women at War-Work                                     27

  "Funny Stories"                                       30

  Grimness and Optimism                                 35

  The Appeal to Providence                              39

  _The Rosenkavalier_                                   40

  Translating Literature into Life                      42

  After Asquith                                         46

  More Efficient Housekeeping                           50

  The Barber                                            52

  Sacking                                               60

  Bicarbonate of Soda                                   62

  The Casino Ball                                       64

  Dinner of the Syndicate of Literary Critics, Paris    67

  Going down a Coal-pit                                 69

  Self-control                                          72

  Rationing Petrol                                      73

  Durand Ruel                                           75

  Football Match                                        77

  Psychology of Russia                                  79

  Railway Accident at Mantes                            83

  The Paper-Shortage                                    86

  The Patriot's Reward                                  87

  Style                                                 89

  Finishing Books                                       90

  Politics and Morals                                   92

  Flag-Days                                             94

  Privilege of Dogma                                    96

  The Royal Academy                                     98

  Gaming                                               100

  A Judgment                                           102

  Plate-breaking                                       103

  The Truth about Revolutions                          105

  A General                                            108

  Ministerial Candour                                  109

  What is Wrong with the Theatre?                      111

  The Farmer's Attitude                                114

  Freedom of Discussion                                116

  Wagner after the War                                 121

  Charity Carnivals                                    124

  A Legal Banquet                                      126

  Musical Composers who get a Hearing                  129

  Free-Handedness                                      130

  Hardships of the Ruling Class                        132

  Caillaux                                             134

  Teaching History                                     136

  For and Against Prohibition                          138

  Hindle Wakes                                         141

  Hotel Mornings                                       143

  English Society in the Nineties                      147

  Certain Profiteers                                   149

  Brains and Eating                                    152

  A Transatlantic View                                 154

  After the March Offensive                            155

  The Royal Academy Again                              157

  J G Bennett                                          159

  Portuguese Streets                                   160

  Saccharine                                           163

  The Jockey Club                                      165

  Balzac's Technique                                   167

  Tailoring                                            170

  A First Night                                        171

  The Inquisition on "Seasons"                         174

  Interpreting the Gospel                              176

  International                                        178

  The Siege of Paris                                   180

  Madsen Gun Rumours                                   183

  Fatigue                                              186

  The Railway Guide                                    188

  Pavlova at the Palace                                189

  _Echo de Paris_                                      190

  A Canadian Banquet                                   192

  Slump in Pessimism                                   194

  Short Stories                                        195

  Byron on the Stage                                   198

  Coupons                                              200

  _The Merry Widow_                                    203

  Travel and Politics                                  204

  Pro-Germanism                                        207

  Foch                                                 209

  Miscellaneous Reading                                212

  Prayer                                               215

  Respect for Brains                                   216

  Egyptology                                           218

  Play-licensing                                       221

  Rostand                                              223

  The Cornet at Elections                              226

  Two Generals                                         228

  An Officer's Grievance                               229

  At a Public Dinner                                   230

  Life of a Girl                                       232

  The Octogenarian                                     234

  Morphia                                              236

  Prophylaxis                                          238

  At the Quai d'Orsay Terminus, Paris                  240

  Street Cries                                         243

  After the Armistice                                  244

  Orthodoxy                                            248

  Cartoonists                                          251

  Sunday Theatres                                      252

  Rops                                                 254

  Sex Equality                                         259

  French Juries                                        260

  In the Tube                                          262

  Ritualism                                            264

  The Prize Fight                                      267

  Patrons of the Opera                                 276

  The Guitrys                                          278

  Women's Education in 1920                            283

  Biography                                            284

  The League of Nations in 1920                        287

  The Desire for France                                289

  Paris Flats                                          295

  Paris Streets                                        299

  Graphic Art in Paris                                 303

  Players and Authors                                  309

  Henry James                                          312




  THINGS THAT HAVE INTERESTED ME




  OPERATIC PERFORMANCES


I have never seen a reasonably good all-round performance of grand
opera. Nevertheless, though not a melomaniac, I am extremely fond of
grand opera, and have seen it in the following cities: Antwerp,
Brussels, Florence, Ghent, Hanley, Lisbon, London, Milan, New York,
Paris, Ostend, Philadelphia, Rome, San Remo, and others which I cannot
recall. If operatic performances succeed in several particulars, as they
sometimes do--though rarely in more than one--they always fail in at
least one particular, generally in several, sometimes in all. The best
show I ever saw anywhere on the operatic stage was a performance of _Le
Mariage de Figaro_ in English at Drury Lane under Sir Thomas Beecham.
The production had been superintended by Nigel Playfair. The translation
was quite neat, and often very witty indeed. The acting was good. There
was an ensemble. The scenery was not really good, but it was so
immensely better than ordinary scenery in world-renowned opera-houses
that it gave the illusion of being good. I was as well satisfied by this
affair as by a faulty performance of Strauss's absolutely enchanting
_Rosenkavalier_ at Covent Garden: which is saying a great deal. It would
be impossible for me to decide which was the worst show I ever saw--the
choice would be too embarrassing. But it occurred certainly in either
Paris, Milan, or London. I know that after a performance of _Siegfried_,
at the Paris Opera House I took an oath never again to enter the Paris
Opera House. It was all bad, but especially the scenery and the
"production" were horrible. I broke my oath, because the Russian ballet
chose to begin its West-European career at the Paris Opera House, and I
attended. After a pre-war performance of _Parsifal_ at Covent Garden I
took an oath never again to enter Covent Garden. The flower-maidens'
garden and the costumes and antics of the flower-maidens must count
among the foulest and most ghastly artistic outrages in the history of
music. I had to close my eyes; I slept. I broke my Covent Garden oath
because of Strauss. All the standard operas ought to be re-"produced,"
and their stage traditions entirely demolished, by somebody fairly
abreast of the craft of modern play-producing. They ought properly to be
re-"produced" by the creative producers who have made the Russian
ballet; but one must not ask for too much.

    *    *    *    *    *

The methods of the Russian ballet appear as yet to have had no
influence at all on French, English, American, or Italian productions.
Imagine what the Russian ballet people might do with _Tannhuser_, _Don
Juan_, _Faust_, _Tristan_! Operatic performances frequently give
ravishing pleasure to the ear, but they always, always, always offend
the eye; and they offend the reason. Operatic scenery, for instance, is
more than ugly; it is ridiculous. When architecture is given, the
architecture is manifestly impossible. No architecture could conceivably
exist with the plans and elevations of the palaces, cottages, and
cabarets of the operatic stage. The same with gardens, forests, rocky
crags, and desert places. There is no technical excuse for this. Nor is
there any technical excuse for the operatic mismanagement of lighting
and grouping. The truth is that operatic mismanagers are obsessed by the
music, and they leave everything else to people who are either dead and
have forgotten to get themselves buried, or who don't know the elements
of their job. I do not underestimate the tremendous difficulties of
operatic production, but I do assert that the importing of common sense,
comeliness, and logic into operatic production would lessen and not
magnify those difficulties.

    *    *    *    *    *

There is one difficulty, however, that only the progress of medical
science can remove. Either a predisposition to obesity goes with vocal
capacity, or singing has a marked and frightful tendency to produce
obesity in singers. I do not know which. The whole question is very
mysterious. The obesity of male singers can be borne by the opera-goer
with relative equanimity, but the obesity of women on the stage is a
real affliction for the sensitive opera-goer. Much discretion is needed
for the discussion of this subject. Stout sopranos are not criminals,
though I know opera-goers who would violently refer to them as such.
They are victims, who fight in vain against their unkind fate. Nothing
can at present be done, for to put all obesity out of business in opera
would be nearly to annihilate the profession. Yet in some cases licence
is carried too far. Last night I saw a vast woman, a highly accomplished
singer with a long and honourable career behind her, in a part which
demanded grace and physical charm. As the beloved of a very young and
very slight creature she had constantly to say things which in the most
cruel manner rendered her grotesque, and the climax came when she had to
disguise herself and be mistaken for a mere girl. Many members of the
audience, screened in darkness, smiled and laughed to one another. Every
scene in which she appeared, and especially the scenes of comedy, took
on a horrid humour which nobody intended. The opera was ruined. If this
lady accepted a mere offer of the rle, then both she and the
mismanagers were to blame. If the rle was forced upon her, then the
mismanagers were solely to blame. Anyhow, the result was excruciating to
the sensitive. Of course, the case was extremely exceptional. But all
cases of obesity are gravely regrettable. Does one Venus in twenty look
the part, even from the distance of the farthest gallery? I think I have
only seen one really slim Venus in my life; and what a marvellous
difference she made to _Tannhuser_!




  JERRY OXFORD


A pronounced Jew type; aged about sixty. He had been living alone in the
hotel for months. He said he had made nearly thirty voyages to distant
colonies, and two voyages round the world, and that he had visited every
civilised country. Then he spoke of his younger sons at Eton and Harrow,
and of his various clubs. "Money was no object to me at one time," he
said, not conceitedly, but rather navely, attractively. He must be
nave. He is convinced that Carnegie gave a million pounds to the
Liberal Party funds, and that this money had enabled the Party to win
general elections. Yes, I think his chief characteristic must be
navet; he would be very startled if I told him I thought so. He
mentioned his book, _A Dish of Chesnuts: by one who has gathered them_,
begun a quarter of a century ago and never finished. His friends are
constantly stopping him to inquire: "Jerry ['My name is Gerald, but
everyone calls me Jerry'], when is that book of yours coming out?" His
excuse for the delay over the book is that he can't write. He says he
can talk. To make a speech is no trouble to him. He has no nerves. To
speechify, impromptu, on any topic, for any given length of time, is as
easy to him as walking across a room.

    *    *    *    *    *

He proceeds: "I am a good speaker. I have no difficulty because I am a
good raconteur, and a very good mimic. Then I have invention. I tell
you a tale now. You hear me tell that tale in a fortnight and you
wouldn't recognise it." He says all this quite simply and naturally,
with an air of perfect impartiality. He talks in a mild voice, very
correctly and fluently, using all sorts of clichs with a certain
elegance. The truth is that he is tedious, but you do not realise it at
the moment owing to his excellent delivery and the variety of his
experiences. He will invent apropos incidents, and assert that they
really happened and even that he has just witnessed them. We went to an
orchestral concert together--he is unquestionably fond of music--and
there was a break-down. He instantly told us that the first violin was a
friend of his and had confided to him that the conductor could not read
music and that a break-down was bound to occur. He went further and told
us that at the moment of the break-down the first violin signed to him,
as if to say: "You see. It _has_ happened." Quite probably he does know
the first violin.

    *    *    *    *    *

Talking about the baronial X family, he said that the previous Lord X
had every happiness and that he (Jerry) had envied him for years. Then
Lord X's boys, one after the other, were dismissed from Eton ["where my
son was"] for stealing. Jerry then saw that nobody was to be envied, and
recalled his old father's tale to the effect that once upon a time every
man was ordered to hang his trouble on a line, and then every man was
ordered to chose _any_ trouble from the line, and then every man took
back his own. And so on in this vein.

Years later he met the present Lord X and walked in the Park with him.
The next day a friend stopped him and said: "Hello, Jerry! You choose
your friends well. Saw you walking yesterday with that damned thief X."

"Damned thief?"

"Well, wasn't he expelled from Eton for stealing a fiver?"

It appears that after the second X boy was dismissed the headmaster
called the school together and explained the reason for the dismissal. A
lady present with me protested against this act of the headmaster's.
Then Jerry:

"A schoolmaster must know much better than anybody else--I say it with
the greatest respect [here a faint coarse smile]--even than you, how to
treat boys."

Here was an instance of the coarseness which sometimes pierces through
his bland urbanity. My theory is that he fairly successfully imposed the
urbanity on himself many years ago.

He told me a funny story about two Jews. "Husband and wife of the Hebrew
persuasion," he said condescendingly, just as if I was incapable of
perceiving that he has Jew written all over him.

    *    *    *    *    *

He urged me to go to his favourite Colony. Fine climate! And a great
deal to be done there in the way of fiction! Brisk demand for
literature! "I may tell you that as a literary man you would be received
with special attention. I should be happy to give you introductions, and
my daughter and her husband would look after you, see you were all right
everywhere." Then he offered me his card, which was gilt-edged. He was
equally nave about medicine. He said to me with pitying condescension:
"Do you still take bicarbonate of soda for indigestion? I've got about
twelve pounds I can give you. I used to take it in spoonfuls. Now I take
homoglobin, two after each meal. You must try homoglobin. In a few days
you'll be able to eat what you like. Wonderful thing! Wonderful!" He was
apparently convinced that homoglobin would furnish me with a new
stomach. He gave me a lot of homoglobin. He said with genuine glee that
the retail price was a shilling a dozen, but that he got them from the
manufacturers at 1s. 3d. per gross. He was notably polite.




  THE OLD FELLOWS AND THE NEW


I was walking along the road from Cascaes to Mont Estoril when an
Englishman passing in the opposite direction called out to me, with a
wave of the hand heavenwards: "Rather like a Bonington sky, that, don't
you think?" A nice kind of greeting to get in Portugal! I had spoken to
this Englishman only once before. I knew nothing whatever of him, except
that, having questioned me about something curious in my sketching-case,
he was interested in water-colour apparatus and was probably an amateur
himself. I stopped, and in two seconds he told me that he was the
possessor of a couple of Boningtons. I marched close up to him and said
in an intimate tone: "Do you mean to say that you've got two
Boningtons?" That I was impressed delighted him. I demanded how long he
had had them, where he bought them, and even what he paid for them. He
answered quite freely, and gave me a tip about a certain dealer.

"And what's more," he said, "I think Bonington's the finest English
landscape artist, bar none. Better than de Wint, better than Girtin,
better than Turner."

"But what about Crome?"

The suggestion shook him.

"Ah! I meant water-colourists."

Unfortunately I never thought to put him to the test of Cotman.

    *    *    *    *    *

However, he could scarcely have belonged to the secret society of
Cotmanists, or he would not have placed Bonington first. I once went
into an artist's studio and said casually, indicating a sepia sketch on
the distant opposite wall: "Is that a Cotman?" It was. I needed no
further credential. A bond was created. (Similarly will a bond be
created if you ask a man where is the finest modern English prose and he
replies: "In _The Revolution in Tanner's Lane_.") To my taste, finer
water-colours by Cotman are hidden in portfolios upstairs in the British
Museum than any that Turner did in his glittering maturity. I cannot
forget my corroding disappointment when I first saw at Agnew's a
collection of the more celebrated Turner pieces, such as "The Red
Righi." True, Turner's water-colours are a proof of the absurdity of the
maxim that a good water-colour is an accident; but they are far too
virtuous--in the sense of virtuosity. They amount to a circus. Delicate
as they are, they bang everything with such a prodigious bang that after
seeing them you feel the need of aspirin and repose. Now even Turner did
not know more perfectly and profoundly what he was doing with brushes
and tints on a bit of damp paper than Cotman. Cotman puts the washes on
once for all--and such washes--but it does not occur to him to give a
"performance." Cotmans are dear; they will be dearer; I have a hope that
buyers of Turners for the rise will drop money.

    *    *    *    *    *

My friend on the road held, and I agreed, that Copley Fielding would
soon be coming a cropper in the sale-rooms. He recounted how a Copley
Fielding had recently fetched twelve hundred guineas at Christie's and
immediately been resold on the spot for fifteen hundred. I remember
buying a good average Copley Fielding in Brighton for five pounds. A
pleasing thing, but extravagantly accomplished. Copley Fielding grew
into a performer, like Turner, though _qua_ performer he must not be
mentioned in the same breath with the mysterious man who acknowledged a
superior in Girtin. It was fortunate for Turner that Girtin died early.
He might have knocked spots off Turner. And while I am about the matter,
I may as well say that I doubt whether Turner was well-advised in having
his big oil-paintings hung alongside of Claude's in the National
Gallery. The ordeal was the least in the world too severe for them.
Still, I would not deny that Turner was a very great person. Bits of the
foregoing came into my conversation with the man on the road. He was a
collector. "I go in for all these old fellows." We catalogued most of
the big British names in water-colour, threading them rapidly on a
string of appreciation. In three minutes we had esteemed the old
fellows, and we went on our ways full of an obscure and nave pleasure
in the encounter. Hobbyists are very simple-minded. I did not know his
name, nor whether he was an opponent of the "insidious policy of mine
nationalisation," nor whether his own sketches were worse even than
mine, nor anything about him except that he was a great prophet of
Bonington in Portugal. As such he had established himself in my heart.

    *    *    *    *    *

Nevertheless there was also a worm in my heart. He "went in for all
those old fellows"; but I had not dared to ask him about the new
fellows, who were painting and expecting customers at the very moment of
our conversation. Was he equally enthusiastic for the new fellows? Or
did he imitate in the graphic arts Mr. Augustine Birrell's confessed
practice of marking the publication of a new book by reading an old one?
Would he have bought Boningtons while Bonington was alive and
innovating? I was afraid to risk the test. Not that I would have tried
him too hard--with the newest names and the most impudent processes. No,
I would have been content to mention stars already fixed. But suppose I
had asked him about Cezanne's water-colours (though I am not mad for
them), and he had replied that he seemed to have heard the name? Suppose
I had asked him about Rodin's water-colours, and he had lowered the
portcullis of his collector's face? He might have disapproved of Wilson
Steer's water-colours, though they are as sure of immortality as any
Bonington that was ever collected. He might have ruined our fragile
acquaintance by declaring that Brabazon was a passing fad of certain
professional painters who wanted a foil and a toy. I could not have
borne that.

    *    *    *    *    *

Brabazon in his old age became the prince of sketchers-from-nature; but
sketchers-from-nature were characteristically slow in perceiving this.
For years, despite the grim and august praise of Mr. John Sargent,
Brabazon's sketches could be bought anywhere for twenty guineas. I do
believe that I was the last man to buy a Brabazon at that price. The
transaction occurred a few days before the first appearance of Brabazons
at Christie's. About a dozen sketches were catalogued together in a
sale. Dealers protested that they had no idea what the stuff might
fetch. The stuff might fetch anything or nothing. It had never had an
"official" price. I commissioned a dealer to go up to twenty guineas
apiece on my behalf. The stuff went for fifties and sixties; and, like a
good many other people, I was both delighted and disappointed. I wanted
Brabazons to rise; but I wanted Brabazons. Brabazon should be the model
to all sketchers-from-nature. He didn't formally "paint"; he sketched.
His aim was the general effect. In my opinion his "Taj Mahal" is the
finest water-colour _sketch_ ever done. He probably did it in about a
quarter of an hour. It is a marvel of simplification, and simplification
is what Mr. Clement K. Shorter, if he sketched, would undoubtedly term
"the great desideratum" of the sketcher-from-nature. It is the most
difficult thing in that world. It is the kill-joy of my existence. The
captain of a passenger ship which had called at Oporto once told me that
he was summoned in the night to a raving passenger. This passenger had
been visiting the incredible "wine-lodges" of the district during the
day. He lay in an upper berth kicking the ceiling and exclaiming in an
agonised voice: "Millions of bottles! Millions of bottles!" Similarly,
but with more decency and perhaps still more divine despair, may I be
heard crying in the night, after a day of inglorious sketching:
"Simplification! Simplification!"




  IN CALAIS HARBOUR DURING MOBILISATION


When, on Sunday at noon, we threw a rope to a loafer on the outer quay
of the smack-basin in Calais harbour, the loafer, as soon as he had made
it fast and assured us that we were in a good position and received a
franc, climbed down the iron rungs of the ladder in the wall, so as to
be closer to us, and said:

"That is going badly, the war."

Prone by nature and training to reject all rumours of a startling kind,
I replied that I hoped that "that" would arrange itself.

"Nevertheless," said he, shrugging his shoulders, "the general
mobilisation has begun."

This was real news to me. I had had none since the early editions of
Saturday afternoon. I had waited all Saturday in Dover harbour, which
was full of men-of-war, for some sort of reasonable weather to allow me
to move on towards Cowes, whither I was bound. And it had been a gloomy
day, in spite of the sunshine and in spite of the bright crowds and the
band on the esplanade. It seemed to be monstrous, then, that the glory
of Cowes Regatta should be even impaired by fears of war. (That the
Regatta might be wiped entirely off the Calendar did not occur to me,
because it was unthinkable.) Soldiers and sailors had a peculiar air of
importance and busy-ness. A group of officers and men manoeuvring the
immense iron booms for closing the eastern entrance to the harbour
might have been a hierarchy rearranging the swing of the solar universe.
Another group of officers went out of the harbour on a harbour-tug, and
cruised to and fro--and me after them in a dinghy!--and returned with
great mystery; and what they were doing on a harbour-tug none could say.
A royal train came on the pier and debarked mysterious personages. Whom?
I guessed that the train bore the Empress Dowager of Russia, and I was
right; but at the time one was more inclined to believe in the dispatch
of another special peace envoy. One instinctively related every
phenomenon observed to the theory of the chances of war. If one saw a
soldier with a girl, one said: "There can't be any real fear of war or
he wouldn't be gallivanting with that girl." And instantly afterwards
one said: "War is a certainty--he's taking leave of her."

    *    *    *    *    *

This absurd rationality had coloured the whole of one's secret mental
life. At Dover a harbour clock striking at night had had the very ring
of destiny; and as for a tramp steamer suddenly blowing off steam--its
effect on the nerves was appalling. So that, although convinced that
there would be no general European war, I had determined on Saturday at
midnight that, wherever I spent Sunday, I would not spend it in Dover
harbour.

In response to the perhaps justifiable curiosity of the Dover
harbour-official on watch as to my destination, I had stated as we
passed out on Sunday morning that I did not know my destination. Our
hope was to reach towards the French coast and then beat up towards
Dungeness; failing that, to make Boulogne; failing Boulogne, Calais. My
skipper had shown hesitations about entering any foreign country, but I
had reassured him.

The sequel was Calais, and in a gale of wind! We could not possibly have
made Boulogne. And then, after the risk of being smashed against one of
the piers on entering, to be told that the general mobilisation had
begun! Moreover, the high wind was carrying the dust and litter from all
the streets of Calais and depositing it on my decks. And straw hats,
pursued by men, were travelling at terrific speeds along the quays. I
thought: "I may be weather-bound here for a week." Two years ago I had
been weather-bound at Boulogne for a week in the height of summer. The
fact is, the Channel is no place for yachting.

    *    *    *    *    *

Then the health officers came aboard, climbing gingerly down the ladder.
One was about forty-five and the other about thirty, and both were
serious, respectable, urbane men. I invited them into the saloon to
transact business. With all their calm they were much more exciting than
the shore-loafer. In the space of about a minute they told me that a
German paper-factory in the town had closed down and its manager fled;
that no newspapers whatever were to be had in Calais; that the French
packets were to be at once suppressed; that there was a train service
only to Paris--and that very restricted; that all foreign money had
ceased to circulate, except English; that English and French torpedo
boats had performed evolutions in company outside the harbour; that
mines were to be laid; that fishing had almost stopped; that pilotage
was stopped; that the customs officers had gone; that the German and
Russian armies were in contact; and that a ship entering Calais harbour
on the previous day had been commandeered (_confisqu_, they said) by
the Government.

I said I hoped they would not commandeer me.

The older one said:

"Oh no! You are too small. You are useless."

Then he most amiably took half a crown instead of three francs for dues,
no doubt in order to prove that English money still circulated.

We began to talk about the causes of the war. These two excellent and
sensible men seemed to symbolise the absolute innocence of France in the
affair. They had no desire nor enthusiasm for a war. They were
whole-hearted in their condemnation of German diplomacy (so much so that
it would have been futile for me to state my views), but they were by no
means whole-hearted in their condemnation of the German character.
Indeed, they at once put a limit to a rather hasty generalisation of
mine framed to soothe them. When I said that the British Fleet would
certainly be placed at the disposal of France (I was not at all certain
of it, but one talks at random and sentimentally in these international
conversations), they were obviously reassured; but when I softly
predicted success for France, the elder one only said gravely: "I hope
you may be right." Nobody could have been less Chauvinistic than these
two. In the afternoon, friendship having been established, they came to
see me again, and to assure me that their receipt for dues gave me the
right to depart whenever I chose. However, I relied less on their
receipt than on the blue ensign of the British Naval Reserve, which I
was entitled to fly, and which I kept flying all night, monstrously
contrary to the etiquette of yachts.

    *    *    *    *    *

After lunch I went ashore and walked about in the wind and the dust.
Fragments of the "Marseillaise" came down on the wind. Baggage carts
abounded; also motor-cars. I read the proclamations on the walls. The
mobilisation order, with its coloured flags, was fairly comprehensive;
it included all _liable_ men not already with the colours. There was
further a patriotic outburst by the Mayor of Calais, neatly turned in
its grandiloquence; and, more disturbing, an announcement to foreigners
ordering them to go instantly and report themselves to the Mayor, and
from him to obtain permission either to clear out or to remain.
Personally, I ignored this, relying on my blue ensign. Finally, there
was an instruction to horse-owners to bring all liable horses to the
centre of the town on Monday morning.

Save for a few uncomfortable submarines, the harbour and basins were
quite quiet. I was getting too close to the submarines when a sentry
politely asked me to remove myself. I did so, and went to the station.
At the station there was everything except trains and newspapers. The
two middle-aged dames at the bookstall told me with firmness and pride
that newspapers existed not for the present in Calais. Many soldiers
were preparing to entrain; scarcely a woman could be seen.

    *    *    *    *    *

I went thence to the enormous beach where the Casino and the cabins are,
and the distressing monument to the victims of the _Pluviose_. Two
operatic performances were billed for that day at the Casino, but I
could see no sign of them. Nearly all the scores of cabins were locked
up; all the bathing-vans were deserted. People wandered vaguely along
the planks at the top of the beach--here and there an elegant, too
elegant, woman. The high wind swept violently across the huge expanse of
sand, carrying sand along in interminable undulating lines that looked
like yellow vapour. A very curious spectacle! A priest came down in
charge of a school of boys. They took off their shoes and stockings, and
against each shoe the wind immediately raised a hillock of sand. The
priest took off his shoes and stockings and tucked up his skirts. As he
entered the water he carefully washed his feet; it was a wise action.

Then I went into the town dominated by the jangle of car-bells. Calais
is a picturesque city; it is the southernmost outpost of Flemish
architecture on that coast; the people, too, are a little Flemish. The
cafs were not full--about half full; here and there a waiter was
serving in military uniform. The populace was interested and talkative,
but neither gay nor gloomy. On the faces of only two women did I see an
expression of positive sorrow. The cafs-chantants were functioning.

Towards nightfall the wind and the dust dropped. The town grew noisier.
The "Marseillaise" was multiplied in the air. My skipper and cook went
ashore, and returned with the news that in the town they had received an
ovation as British tars.

    *    *    *    *    *

The next morning it rained heavily. We crept out to sea at 4.30, with
vitality at its lowest ebb. Apparently, no one had noticed us, but at
the mouth of the harbour two submarines were uncomfortably in waiting,
as though for ourselves. "What a fool I was to come here!" I thought.
"They may refuse to let us go." But they didn't. We exchanged salutes,
and I was free. Winds and tides favouring, we made a magnificent passage
to Brightlingsea in exactly ten hours. Once, near the Edinborough
Lightship, we were hailed by a British torpedo boat, who demanded the
yacht's name. Because he couldn't hear our reply he bore right down on
us. We held up a white life-belt with the yacht's name thereon in black,
and the torpedo boat, sheering off, gave an august consent to our
continuance. The whole coast was patrolled. Brightlingsea was precisely
as gay as it always is on every August Bank Holiday. Not a sign of war.
But we had not dropped anchor ten minutes before my cook, who belongs to
the Naval Reserve, received official notice that he was "wanted." Such
organisation struck me as being rather good.

"What pay do you get?" I asked the cook.

"Well, sir," he said, "I don't exactly know. We get a guinea a week
drill money, but we shan't get so much now we're called up."

"Then what about your wife and family?"

"I don't know, sir."

He was moved. Much as I admired the organisation of the State, I was
confirmed in my ancient conviction that the Government has still
something to learn as an employer.




  A GREAT RESPONSIBILITY


In the ballroom of the Casino, Mrs. V., after discussing the amount of
freedom that ought to be allowed to her girls, and continuously
disagreeing with me, said: "Writers like you and Mr. Wells have a great
responsibility, a very great responsibility. It is you who are really
the teachers."

I said: "You don't suppose that when I sit down to write I think to
myself: 'Now you have a very great responsibility to the nation and to
the younger generation'?"

She admitted that she supposed not, and asked what my attitude of mind
was on such occasions. I said that my only reason for writing a given
thing was that I felt like writing it.

"Ah!" she said. "Some of your books have been household words in our
house for years. _The Human Machine_ and _Literary Taste_, and so on.
But there are others--well----"

I said that I knew all about her implications, and that some of my books
had got me into dreadful trouble; but I couldn't help what some people
thought, and it didn't influence me.

"But surely you wouldn't care to make vice attractive!"

I almost answered that my aim was to show grandeur and beauty in
everything, but I had mercy on her simplicity, and mumbled I forget
what. Whereupon she remarked with surprising intelligence:

"But of course you wouldn't consider its attractiveness or the reverse
was any affair of yours. You only want to put down the truth as you see
it. Still, it's a great responsibility. Many people have thought that
you were playing down to the public taste."

"It never pays--in England," I said grimly.

She said: "Oh! I always thought it did!"

"You are quite wrong," I said. "At least, it only pays to play down to
the public in one way--that is, by being sentimental. If you're
sentimental you may be as vicious as you please. But if you can't be
sentimental don't touch the forbidden subjects unless you want to be up
against the strongest force in England and Scotland."

"What's that?"

"Hypocrisy, of course. English hypocrisy is bad enough. Scotch is
worse."

She concurred, but with her lips only.

Later she said: "A friend of ours came to see me one morning and said:
'I was reading a pitiable book of Arnold Bennett's last night.'" (I knew
without her telling me that the reference was to _The Pretty Lady_.) "He
was very distressed indeed. You see, some of your books have given us
intense pleasure, the most intense pleasure. 'Yes,' he said, 'a pitiable
book! _I read it because I felt it was my duty to read it._'" (My
italics. He would probably read _Justine_ and _L'Education de Laure_
from a sense of duty.)

I said: "He didn't understand the book."

She demurred: "Oh! I think he understood it. _I'm sure he did. He's a
very high literary authority in Edinburgh._"

The lady was beginning to exhaust my strength, so I merely retorted that
I should go on writing whatever I wanted to write, and people would have
to stick it. "I mean to write a book next year that will make you sit
up. You needn't read it, of course, but of course you will."

"Ah!" she said. "You're angry with Britain. You're resentful, and you
want to punish us. It's a very great responsibility. But I'm so glad to
have had this talk with you."

Of all which the lesson is that the artist must suffer the righteous
gladly.




  WOMEN AT WAR-WORK


There is much talk of man-power, but strangely little of woman-power.
The shortage of military nurses is serious. Adequate nursing means
quicker recovery of the wounded. Nurses therefore mean soldiers. For a
year past the authorities have been worried by this shortage, which has
now become acute, if not alarming. Last week a new 700-bed hospital in
London was ready--except that it entirely lacked nurses. The exportation
of both nurses and doctors has been frowned upon for a long time. To-day
it is absolutely forbidden, as those war-charity committees who occupy
themselves with allied countries are learning to their dismay. The War
Office, of course, cannot directly control by ukase the movements of
women, or of doctors over military age, but it can and does achieve its
end by refusing passports. The causes of the shortage are two. Nurses
and V.A.D. women have been, and are, shockingly overworked; sometimes
very badly treated. Many of them have retired in collapse. Others have
retired in resentment. And the tales told have impeded recruitment to
the thinned ranks--ranks at best extremely inadequate. Women-workers in
every branch of activity have met with injustice. They are underpaid in
the War Office, and thousands of them are underpaid in the munition
factories. Also they are underpaid by private employers. For example, I
know cases of competent girls who enthusiastically went to London as
drivers of motor-vans in order to liberate men. I could name two girls
who were employed by two wealthy and prominent firms in the West End.
They worked from 8.30 a.m. to 8, 9, and 10 p.m., and earned 28s. a week.
Van-driving in Central London may be deemed to be skilled labour. The
price of a male chauffeur in London is now 60s. a week. In a few months
these girls were worn out. One of them, when she gave notice, was
offered a rise of 2s. a week! The offer did not change her resolve.
After a one-roomed miserable existence in London they returned to
country houses and spread the glorious news of the metropolitan
labour-market.

    *    *    *    *    *

The other cause of the shortage is that women who might have volunteered
have not volunteered. While many women have left the idleness of
comfortable houses in town and country for war-work, many women without
ties have not. I am personally acquainted with instances, especially in
the country, which I unhesitatingly call scandalous. Again, there are
women who plunge furiously into war-work--and tire of it for no reason
save that a ridiculous upbringing has deprived them of the necessary
moral stamina. I talked at length to one such woman the other night. She
was rich, and had done six months' hard in a Government office for 35s.
a week. The feat was enormous for her. She went back with a terrific
rebound into private life. She had seen _Watch your Step_ forty-two
times and _The Bing Boys_ are Here sixteen times. She said: "It isn't
that I enjoy these things after about the third time, but people ask you
to dinner and 'to go to the theatre afterwards.' You don't know
beforehand where you are going to. So what is one to do?" Sidelight on
British war-manners! _Cf._ the strictures of the elect on the cinema
craze in the East End!

    *    *    *    *    *

Then there are the women who from the first have deemed it their most
sacred duty to give officers on leave a good time. In this connection
one is entitled to comment upon the marvellous silence which the Press
has maintained about the raiding by the police of the establishment
where the art of giving officers on leave a good time is practised in
its highest and costliest perfection. Yet the event had immense
possibilities as "copy." I am informed that a policeman, entering,
raised his hand, and, in the grandeur of the moment forgetting his
grammar, proclaimed: "In the name of the law, everybody is forbidden to
touch their glasses." The defiance of the liquor regulations in this
resort (and in others) has been open and notorious for months, and for
weeks frequenters had been betting among themselves about the chances of
a police-raid. Britain is not a country where there is one law for the
rich and another for the poor. Certainly not! But it is a country where
the swiftness of the law is in inverse ratio to the wealth and prestige
of the person who defies it.

  _4 November 1916._




  "FUNNY STORIES"


It was in the half-forgotten days when there were horse-omnibuses,
driven and conducted by men, and wit flourished in the thoroughfares. A
bus-horse, checked too late, knocked his nose against a policeman's arm.
The policeman, very ugly in face, cursed heartily. The wise driver said
naught, but just listened and listened to the imprecations. As he was
moving off, he gazed inoffensively curious at the policeman's features,
and remarked with gentle melancholy: "You never sent me that photograph
as you promised me." And then, at a later day, when motor-buses had
begun seriously to compete with horse-omnibuses, a motor-bus was trying
ineffectually to start, and making those gramophonic noises which we all
remember. The conductor of the horse-omnibus just in front, taking down
the way-bill from its pocket, threw over his shoulder: "Try another
record, Bill."

    *    *    *    *    *

Which reminds me of conductors in general, and especially of English
conductors, though it is said that there are none. A certain English
conductor is noted among orchestras for the beauty of his language at
rehearsals. In fact, his remarks have been recorded _verbatim_ by an
orchestral player interested in literature. He said to the orchestra, in
the way of guidance: "Sigh and die." He said: "Don't handicap the
crescendo." He said: "I want a savage staccato." He said: "All this
passage must be nice and manifold." He said to a particular player:
"Weep, Mr. Parker, weep. [Mr. Parker makes his instrument weep.] That's
jolly. That's jolly." He said, persistent in getting an effect: "Sorry
to tease you, gentlemen." He said: "Now, side-drums, assert yourself."
He said: "I want it mostly music." He asked for: "That regular tum-tum
which you do so ideally." He said: "Now I want a sudden exquisite hush."
He said: "Everybody must be shadowy together." He said: "Let the
pizzicato act as a sort of springboard to the passage." He demanded:
"Can't we court that better?" And he said: "Gentlemen of the first
fiddles, this isn't a bees' wedding; it's something elemental."

    *    *    *    *    *

Which reminds me that I was once talking to a celebrated Hungarian
pianist about English conductors, and I mentioned an English conductor
renowned for his terrific energy. Although I authoritatively informed
the pianist that the methods of the conductor in question at rehearsals
were so conducive to perspiration that on the days preceding musical
festivals he regularly changed all his clothes three times a day, the
pianist would not admit that he was a conductor at all. "I will tell you
why," said the pianist, very serious and very convinced. "He always
stands with his legs together while conducting. You cannot _conduct_ if
you always stand with your legs together. It is physically impossible."

    *    *    *    *    *

Which reminds me somehow of music. I once went to a Philharmonic
concert, and it was not so very long ago either--as music goes.
Precisely, it was in November 1912. Strauss's _Also sprach Zarathustra_
was in the programme. Now, _Also sprach Zarathustra_ was composed about
1896, and first performed in England, at the Crystal Palace, in 1897.
But the Philharmonic programme in 1912 said: "First time at these
concerts." And the very characters of the printing seemed to show a
British pride in that dignified delay of sixteen years.

    *    *    *    *    *

Music is a vast subject, and I recall all sorts of things about it. I
remember meeting an orchestral player lugging his violoncello one night
late in the streets of London. "Hello!" I said in the vernacular. "Where
you been?" "Where I been?" he replied. "I been with a few pals to play
at Virginia Water. There's a lunatic asylum there. There was a ball for
the lunatics, with an interval in the middle. We were the interval." And
still speaking of music, a certain fervent professor of the piano,
pointing to a passage in a Beethoven sonata, said: "You can see him
writing a passage like that and shaking his hair." "Yes," brightly
observed the girl-pupil, "he _had_ rather long hair, hadn't he?" Even
sonatas, though but a branch, are a vast subject in themselves. I am
reminded that a young lady went into a music shop and said: "I want a
piece called 'Sonata.'" Shopman, after hesitating: "Which one, miss?"
Young lady: "I'll take the one in the window."

    *    *    *    *    *

A similar incident occurred on the very same day. A wealthy lady
remarked to a friend of mine: "I bought quite a batch of six-shilling
novels the other day for ninepence each, as good as new." "Really!"
exclaimed my friend. "What were they? Who are the authors?" Said the
lady: "Oh! I don't know. But the shop-girl assured me that she had read
them herself and they were all very good." Which inevitably reminds me,
and must remind all readers, of the British attitude towards the arts.
At the very Philharmonic concert referred to above, I heard one musical
_dilettante_ say to another, after the Strauss: "Pity that a man with so
much talent should prostitute himself in that way, isn't it?"

    *    *    *    *    *

And I remember being at a picture-show at the Grafton Galleries when
entered a large woman of the ruling caste with a large voice and a
lorgnette. She smiled her self-satisfaction all over the place,
revelling in the opportunity which such shows give to a leisured class
of feeling artistically superior. She went straight to a Czanne and
said loudly: "Now no one will persuade me that the man who painted that
was serious. He was just pulling our legs." She said it to the whole
room. She said it to me. "Madam," I nearly, but not quite, answered, "a
leg like yours must want some pulling." Which reminds me that I have
lived intimately with painters, and that one of them in Paris, who had
discovered that he could mix better colours than he could buy, once said
to me: "I still go on with my colour-mixing. I get up rather late, paint
until lunch, paint after lunch till it's dark, and then till dinner I
mix my colours. It makes you feel virtuous. It makes you feel like an
old master. Goodness knows, it's the only time when you do feel like an
old master." And that reminds me of a group of provincial old masters of
the British art of football, who, after a final cup-tie at the Crystal
Palace, and an evening at the Empire, turned into their hotel just at
closing-time on a Saturday night. They were seven. Said the oldest
master of them all, glancing about him and counting: "Seven. A round
each. Waiter, bring forty-nine whiskies-and-sodas. Then you can go to
bed." And I was once--years ago--discussing English history with a young
athletic friend. I pointed out that no battles, except civil scraps, had
been fought on British soil for centuries. "Yes," he said, "all our
fixtures have been away."




  GRIMNESS AND OPTIMISM


The Roumanian helter-skelter is said to have caused a "wave of
depression" to run through the country. And there are pulse-feelers who
regularly every week register--by a gauge of their own--the state of
public opinion in regard to the war. According to them the fluctuations,
especially in London, are continual and very appreciable. For myself, I
have never been able to appreciate them. I find that British mankind is
steadily divided into three main classes, and that nothing but an
extremely great and striking event will shift individuals out of one
class into another class. The first class consists of optimistic
persons--and military officers are well represented in it. These persons
have remained optimistic through everything, and for them the war is
always going to end in about three months. They do not reason; they
feel. The second class consists of grim, obstinate persons; it is the
largest class. Speculation as to the end of the war rather bores them.
They drive on, and on, and on. They are inclined to ignore both the pros
and the cons. They do not reason; they feel. The third class consists of
pessimistic persons. They were pessimistic after Mons and through
Gallipoli; they were pessimistic when Douaumont was taken by the
Germans, and equally pessimistic when it was taken from the Germans.
They do not reason; they feel. Their haunting fear is that civilisation
is doomed. This fear seems to keep them awake at nights, and they
reflect in the dark upon previous disasters to civilisation.

    *    *    *    *    *

I do not profess history, but I will venture the view that the great
historical collapses have been made possible by one thing, namely, the
corrupt growth of privilege. This was the real cause, for example, of
the Roman collapse, of the Carlovingian collapse, and of the Bourbon
collapse. Indeed, history is quite monotonous in this respect. I will
also venture the view that the collapses have steadily decreased in
intensity. Even the Northern tribes were anxious, indeed pathetically
anxious, to preserve Roman institutions. As for the French revolution,
it was immediately followed by a system decidedly superior to that which
had been destroyed. Now, I do not see any sign of the corrupt extension
of privilege--either at present or in recent times. I see the reverse.
(True, a vast deal of privilege still survives--but it is a survival.)
Nor can I find any reason whatever why civilisation should collapse. The
war is terrific compared with previous wars, but our resources are
terrific compared with the resources of our ancestors. I take little
notice of the boastings of the prominent. That which will count is not
what people say, however sincerely, but what lies at the bottom of men's
minds. To wit, the instinct of self-preservation. This instinct acts in
one way at the beginning of a row; but it acts in another way towards
the end of a row. Long before civilisation is really endangered, this
master instinct--far stronger even than conceit in the great mass of
mankind--will come into play.

    *    *    *    *    *

Meanwhile a good proof of the prevalence of grimness and optimism is the
fullness of London. A director of the leading hotel company told me last
week that London had never--during or before the war--been so full as it
is to-day. The offices of flat agents have been thronged. I say
"thronged." Hotels are turning away old customers because they are
literally and physically full--not merely full in the commercial sense.
More, they have increased their prices. They were well justified in
doing so. For two years of the war the principal expensive hotels kept
their prices reduced by about 50 per cent. They ignored the increase of
costs. They gave nothing to their shareholders and very little to their
debenture-holders. But they saved the hotel habit alive. They are now
getting a bit--only a bit--of their own back. The causes of the fullness
of London, I am informed by those whose perspicuity I respect, are five:
1, the Somme advance; 2, the destruction of Zeppelins; 3, soldiers'
relatives from the Colonies; 4, British soldiers' relatives who come to
London to see soldiers off and are kept there because soldiers seldom
know when they are going off; 5 (and chiefly), restlessness of people
immobilised in the country who cannot abide the country any longer and
must have a change. Of course, town houses are closed. But town houses
are being opened too. I know of a magnate who has chosen this moment to
re-fit a big West End mansion. The regulations of the Ministry of
Munitions prevent him from doing anything really noble in the structural
line, but he is managing to spend over 2000 in curtains. It is true
that the police are very strict about exposed lights! And, you see, Mr.
M'Kenna was so ill-advised as to state publicly his opinion that the
country would stand the financial strain to the end. Still, the year's
expenditure will probably exceed his estimate by over a hundred
millions.

  _11 November 1916._




  THE APPEAL TO PROVIDENCE


The air raid of Monday reminds me of an incident in the last air raid
over the Midlands. A man, whom I will call Mr. Bigsby, was staying in a
house inhabited by five women. In the noise and excitement one of the
women dropped on to her knees on the hearthrug and began to pray. She
appealed to Providence, with great apparent sincerity, for some time,
and then she suddenly jumped up, crying: "Oh, dear! This is no good. I'm
going to fetch Mr. Bigsby!" and ran out of the room.

  _2 December 1916._




  _THE ROSENKAVALIER_


I was at the first performance of _The Rosenkavalier_, and the
description in the next day's newspapers of the enthusiastic applause
after each act astonished me, journalist though I have been and am. The
first act of this enchanting work was received with complete apathy by
the stalls, grand circle, and boxes, and not much applause seemed to
come from the amphitheatre and gallery--that fount of enthusiasm. The
same applies to the second act. After the third act there was the usual
ovation, and a sort of explosive shout from upstairs when Sir Thomas
Beecham appeared between the curtains. And that was all. It is untrue
that _The Rosenkavalier_ was liked by the Covent Garden public. It was
not. Its success was a success of snobbishness. The first accounts of
the opera from Germany, and the fantastic fatuity of the Censor in
substituting a sofa for a bed at the beginning of the first act, created
a prejudice against the mere book. The following is an overheard italic
conversation between two women at a performance:--A: "Well, _what_ do
you _think_ of the Opera?" B: "Well, you see, my dear, I've been trying
to dissociate it from the _stage_. I've been trying to listen to the
music and to forget the _grossness_ of the _libretto_." A: "But it is
very _fascinating_, isn't it, really?" B: "No, I don't think it is. Of
course it is very difficult to take in one without the other. One ought
to wear _blinkers_."

Now the libretto is not gross--neither sensual, nor perverse, nor
depraved. It is the simple story--arranged with consummate skill for the
operatic stage--of a young man providing a tragedy for an ageing woman
by ceasing to love her, and an ecstatic joy for a young woman by
beginning to love her. And the main theme is treated with gravity and
serene beauty. The trio in which the two women and the young man express
themselves together is no more gross than the second act of _Tristan_,
and quite as celestial. But thirty years ago _Tristan_ was gross in this
country. Happily Wagner, a serpent of wisdom, had the wit to keep his
princesses from having breakfast in bed, and so was ultimately saved. To
return to the point--at all the Strauss performances which I attended,
the major part of the audience was either inimical or brutishly
indifferent, so much so that one was humiliated--one felt that one ought
to apologise to the artistes. (The exception was the amphitheatre and
gallery. But then Covent Garden amphitheatre and gallery--together with
the floor of the Promenade Concerts--constitute the most genuine musical
public in London. The real future of English music lies undeciphered in
their hearts. And here is hope.)




  TRANSLATING LITERATURE INTO LIFE


Lo, a parable! A certain man, having bought a large, elaborate, and
complete manual of carpentry, studied it daily with much diligence and
regularity. Now there were no cupboards in his house; his dining-table
consisted of an arrangement of orange-boxes, and he had scarcely a chair
that was not a menace to the existence of the person who sat down upon
it. When asked why he did not set to work, and, by applying the
principles of the manual, endeavour to improve the conditions of his
life and of the lives of his wife and children, he replied that he was a
student, and he plunged more deeply than ever into the manual of
carpentry. His friends at length definitely came to the conclusion that,
though he was an industrious student, he was also a hopeless fool.

    *    *    *    *    *

By which I wish to indicate that there is no virtue in study by itself.
Study is not an end, but a means. I should blush to write down such a
platitude, did I not know by experience that the majority of readers
constantly ignore it. The man who pores over a manual of carpentry and
does naught else is a fool. But every book is a manual of carpentry, and
every man who pores over any book whatever and does naught else with it
is deserving of an abusive epithet. What is the object of reading unless
something definite comes of it? You would be better advised to play
billiards. Where is the sense of reading history if you do not obtain
from it a clearer insight into actual politics and render yourself less
liable to be duped by the rhetoric of party propaganda? Where is the
sense of reading philosophy if your own attitude towards the phenomena
of the universe does not become more philosophical? Where is the sense
of reading morals unless your own are improved? Where is the sense of
reading biography unless it is going to affect what people will say
about _you_ after your funeral? Where is the sense of reading poetry or
fiction unless you see more beauty, more passion, more scope for your
sympathy, than you saw before?

    *    *    *    *    *

If you boldly answer: "I only read for pleasure," then I retort that the
man who drinks whisky might with force say: "I only drink whisky for
pleasure." And I respectfully request you not to plume yourself on your
reading, nor expect to acquire merit thereby. But should you answer: "I
do try to translate literature into life," then I will ask you to take
down any book at random from your shelves and conduct in your own mind
an honest inquiry as to what has been the effect of that particular book
on your actual living. If you can put your hand on any subsequent
period, or fractional moment, of your life, and say: "I acted more
wisely then, I wasn't such a dupe then, I perceived more clearly then, I
felt more deeply then, I saw more beauty then, I was kinder then, I was
more joyous then, I was happier then--than I should have been if I had
not read that book"--if you can honestly say this, then your reading of
that book has not been utterly futile. But if you cannot say this, then
the chances are that your reading of that book has been utterly futile.
The chances are that you have been studying a manual of carpentry while
continuing to sit on a three-legged chair and to dine off an orange-box.

    *    *    *    *    *

You say: "I know all that. But it is not so easy to translate literature
into life." And I admit freely that when I think of the time I have
wasted in reading masterpieces, I stand aghast. The explanation is
simple. Idleness, intellectual sloth, is the explanation. If you were
invited to meet a great writer, you would brace yourself to the
occasion. You would say to yourself: "I must keep my ears open, and my
brain wide-awake, so as to miss nothing." You would tingle with your own
bracing of yourself. But you--I mean we--will sit down to a great book
as though we were sitting down to a ham sandwich. No sense of personal
inferiority in us! No mood of resolve! No tuning up of the intellectual
apparatus! But just a casual, easy air, as if saying to the book: "Well,
come along, let's have a look at you!" What is the matter with our
reading is casualness, languor, preoccupation. We don't give the book a
chance. We don't put ourselves at the disposal of the book. It is
impossible to read properly without using all one's engine-power. If we
are not tired after reading, common sense is not in us. How should one
grapple with a superior and not be out of breath?

    *    *    *    *    *

But even if we read with the whole force of our brain, and do nothing
else, common sense is still not in us, while sublime conceit is. For we
are assuming that, without further trouble, we can possess, co-ordinate,
and assimilate all the ideas and sensations rapidly offered to us by a
mind greater than our own. The assumption has only to be stated in order
to appear in its monstrous absurdity. Hence it follows that something
remains to be done. This something is the act of reflection. Reading
without subsequent reflection is ridiculous; it is a proof equally of
folly and of vanity. Further, it is a sign of undue self-esteem to
suppose that we can grasp the full import of an author's message at a
single reading. I would not say that every book worth reading once is
worth reading twice over. But I would say that no book of great and
established reputation is read till it is read at least twice. You can
easily test the truth of this by reading again any classic.




  AFTER ASQUITH


In the thick of the crisis I had some opportunities of discovering what
has been the moderate conservative City opinion on events. I do not mean
the kind of City opinion represented at the meeting of Lord Beresford,
which responsible persons seem to regard as a circus over-staffed with
clowns. There was some feeling against the Navy. It is held that though
warnings did not lack, no preparations whatever had been made at the
beginning of the war against the first or minor submarine campaign, and
that the success in defeating it was due not to policy but to vigorous
inventive resource at the moment. Further, that though again warnings
did not lack, no proper preparations had been made at the beginning of
the second or major submarine campaign. Both Mr. Runciman and Mr.
M'Kenna had the confidence of this moderate City opinion, the former
in a very high degree. Lord Grey was esteemed a masterly writer of
dispatches and admirable in his dealings with America, but otherwise
very faulty. It was held that three times the Foreign Office has lost
the chance of winning the war in the Balkans, and that the greatest of
all our mistakes in the Balkans have been Foreign Office mistakes. It
was held that Lord Grey still stands for the old Foreign Office system,
and that no attempt whatever has been made to reform it. The serious
City now openly admits that our public school and university education,
despite its admirable results in the hunting-field, wants a little
altering. In this connection it is worth while to note the
accomplishment of our highly educated Ministers in the use of the
key-language of Europe. Mr. Balfour speaks no French. Lord Grey speaks a
French disgraceful on the lips of a Foreign Secretary. Mr. Asquith's
French is excessively bad. Mr. Runciman speaks fair French. Mr.
M'Kenna speaks excellent, fluent, conversational (though no
colloquial) French. But then Mr. M'Kenna never went to one of our
great public schools.

    *    *    *    *    *

City opinion wanted a change, but it was timorous about Mr. Lloyd
George, and it emphatically did not wish to lose Mr. Asquith as Prime
Minister. That is certain. Still, the best that these people would say
about Mr. Asquith was that he was less objectionable in the post than
anybody else. Over an unfresh fourpenny egg at the realistic hour of
breakfast, with all the bad news between us in the open newspaper, a
prominent banker said gloomily to me: "It is discouraging, though, when
for Prime Minister we have to be content with a mere manipulator of
men." I replied: "But hasn't a Prime Minister just got to be chiefly a
manipulator of men?" The banker saw something in this idea. The fact is,
that the real complaint against the new Prime Minister is that he does
not manipulate men sufficiently, but rather leaves them alone, with a
resulting delay and failure to co-ordinate. The fact is, also, that
what the supporters of Mr. Lloyd George, when they praise him, specially
lay stress on, is precisely his skill in manipulating men. Of course,
they phrase the faculty differently. It is remarkable how even the
canniest brains may be at the mercy of a phrase. "Manipulator of men"
sounds bad, and the alliteration intensifies its subtle abusiveness.

    *    *    *    *    *

What the public cannot appreciate too clearly is that Ministers are
tired. They are very tired. The best of them were rather tired before
the war began. I have never seen Cabinet Ministers at work, but I have
seen them in repose. Go to lunch at the house of a Cabinet Minister, and
the Minister will come in at a quarter to two, and at half-past two he
will be gone again, slipping quietly away with scarcely a word, unless
among his guests are foreign strangers necessitating ceremony. Go to
dinner, and you are bidden for 8.30, and the meal may with luck begin at
8.45, and even then the Minister will as like as not appear in morning
dress, having had no time to change. This kind of thing goes on
continuously month after month and year after year, until a severe cold,
influenza, or a complete breakdown interrupts the endless sequence. What
saves Ministers is the brief week-end--to which certain newspapers
invariably refer in sarcastic terms. The charge of lethargy is comic.
The principal Ministers are engaged in hard constructive or critical
thinking all day for five and a half days a week at least. Some work
more than others, and among the former are those with an aptitude for
departmental detail. Neither Mr. Lloyd George nor Mr. Balfour has this
aptitude. In my view, the unsatisfactoriness of the late Government was
due wholly to inevitable fatigue and inevitable coalition, and to
nothing else save the universal imperfection of human nature. To expect
forthright decisions from a Coalition is childish.

  _9 December 1916._




  MORE EFFICIENT HOUSEKEEPING


The domestic life of the middle classes has now settled down, and the
servant question is solved--so far as it will be solved. (Servants, by
the way, are ever so slightly easier to get than they were six months
ago.) The charwoman has solved it, as she has solved every similar
difficulty in the past. But the definition of "charwoman" must be
enlarged in order to include any female domestic servant who "sleeps
out" in a home of her own. While ordinary domestic servants are rare,
these women are not rare. They can be got. There are at the present time
in London thousands of homes of which the household income runs up to
400 or 500 a year whence the ordinary domestic servant has vanished.
The mistress does most of the work, and she is assisted by a charwoman,
and by the children if there are any. One result I can judge for myself:
houses are appreciably cleaner, and meals are better cooked and more
promptly served. Incidentally, mistresses have acquired a new interest
in existence, and they try to take pride in roughened hands and in their
evening fatigue. The other principal result is, I am told, a really
immense economy. When I was personally interested in housekeeping and
kept my own household accounts, twenty years ago, the efficient thing
was not to let household expenses exceed 10s. per head per week. It
could be done, and with a plenteous menu. That well-known domestic
expert, Mrs. C. S. Peel, since turned novelist, once wrote a book with
the strange title, _10s. a Head per Week for House-Books_. I am
informed, and believe, that to-day it is possible to do for 15s. 6d.
what in those days was done for 10s., and that without servants the
figure can be considerably reduced. It doubtless can. Necessity is the
great miracle-worker.

  _16 December 1916._




  THE BARBER


I was staying in an agreeable English village. And my hair grew as
usual. I asked an acquaintance of mine, a chauffeur, for information
about local barbers. He replied that there was a good barber in the
county town twelve and a half miles off, and that there was no other.
Discouraged, I put the inconvenient matter aside, hoping, as one does of
an inconvenient matter, that in some mysterious way time would purge it
of its inconvenience. But my hair kept on inexorably growing, growing.
No shutting of my eyes, no determination not to be inconvenienced, would
stop it. My hair was as irresistible as an avalanche or as the evolution
of a society. I foresaw the danger of being mistaken on the high road
for a genius, and I spoke to the chauffeur again. He repeated what he
had said. "But," I protested, "there are fifteen hundred people living
within a couple of miles of this spot. Surely they don't all travel
twelve and a half miles to get their hair cut!" He smiled. Oh no! A
barber's shop existed in the hinterland of the village. "But it would be
quite impossible for you, sir. Quite impossible!" His tone was
convinced. An experienced gardener confirmed his judgment with equal
conviction. I accepted it. The chasms which separate one human being
from another are often unsuspected and terrible. Did the chauffeur
submit himself to the village barber? He did not. The gardener did, but
not the chauffeur. The chauffeur, I learnt, went to the principal
barber's at X, a seaside resort about four miles off. Being a
practically uneducated man, incapable even of cutting my own hair, and
thus painfully dependent on superiors in skill, I was bound to yield
somehow in the end, and I compromised. Travel twelve and a half miles
for so simple an affair I would not. But I would travel four. "Couldn't
I go to the barber's at X?" I asked. The chauffeur, having reflected,
admitted that perhaps I might. And after a few moments he stated that
the place was clean, and indeed rather smart.

    *    *    *    *    *

X is a very select resort, and in part residential. It has a renowned
golf-links, many red detached houses with tennis lawns, many habitable
bathing-cabins, two frigid and virtuous hotels, and no pier or band. In
summer it is alive with the gawky elegance of upper-class Englishwomen,
athletic or maternal. But this happened in the middle of winter. The
principal barber's was in the broad main street, and the front shop was
devoted to tobacco. I passed into the back shop, a very small room. The
barber was shaving another customer. He did not greet me, nor show by
any sign that my arrival had reached his senses. A small sturdy boy in
knickers, with a dirty white apron too large for him, grinned at me
amicably. When I asked him: "Is it you who are going to operate on me?"
he grinned still more and shook his head. I was relieved. The shabby
room, though small, was very cold. A tiny fire burned in the grate; and
the grate, in this quite modern back shop, was such as one finds in
servants' bedrooms--when servants' bedrooms have any grate at all. Clean
white curtains partially screened a chilly French window that gave on to
a backyard. The whiteness of these curtains and of three marble
wash-basins gave to the room an aspect of cleanliness which had deceived
the chauffeur's simplicity. The room was not clean. Thick dust lay on
the opaline gas-shades, and the corners were full of cobwebs. A dirty
apron and a cap hung on a nail in one corner. In another was a fitment
containing about fifteen heavy mugs and shaving-brushes, numbered. The
hair-brushes were poor. The floor was of unpolished dirty planks,
perhaps deal. There was no sign of any antiseptic apparatus. I cannot
say that I was surprised, because in England I already knew of towns of
thirty-five to forty thousand inhabitants, not to mention vast
metropolitan suburbs, without a single barber's shop that is not
slatternly, dirty, and inadequate in everything except the sharpness of
the razors. But I was disappointed in the chauffeur, whom I had deemed
to be a bit of a connoisseur. The truth was that the chauffeur had
imposed himself on me as a grenadier on a nurse girl. However, I now
knew that chauffeurs are not necessarily what they seem.

    *    *    *    *    *

I stood as close as I could with my back to the tiny fire, and glanced
through the pages of the _Daily Mirror_. And while I waited I thought
of all the barbers in my career. I am interested in barbers. I esteem
hair-cutting a very delicate and intimate experience, and one, like
going out to dinner, not to be undertaken lightly. I said once to a
barber in Guernsey: "That's the first time I've ever been shaved!" I was
proud of my sangfroid. He answered grimly: "I thought so, sir." He
silenced me; but the fellow had no imagination. I bring the same charge
against most New York barbers, who, rendered callous by the harsh and
complex splendour of their catacombs, take hold of your head as if it
was your foot, or perhaps a detachable wooden sphere. I like Denmark
because there some of the barber's shops have a thin ascending jet of
water whose summit just caresses the bent chin, which, after shaving, is
thus laved without either the repugnant British sponge or the clumsy
splashing practised in France and Italy. French barbers are far better
than English. They greet you kindly when you enter their establishments
and invariably create in you the illusion that you will not have to
wait. I knew well a fashionable barber in Paris, and in his shop I
reclined generally between a Count and a Marquis. This prevalence of the
nobility amazed and pleased me until one day the barber addressed me as
Monsieur le Marquis. He made a peer, but lost a customer. For years I
knew very well indeed the sole barber of a small French village. This
man was in his excellent shop fourteen hours a day seven days a week. He
had one day's holiday every year, Easter Monday, when he went to Paris
for the day. He was never ill and always placid. Then came the Weekly
Repose Act, and the barber was compelled to close his shop one day a
week. He chose Monday, and on Mondays he went fishing. He had been a
barber; he was now a king; his gorgeous satisfaction in life impregnated
the whole village like ozone. Not every Act of Parliament is
ineffective.

    *    *    *    *    *

Italian barbers are greater than French, both in quality and in numbers.
Every Italian village has several big barbers; and in some of the more
withdrawn towns, festering in their own history, the barber's seems to
be the only industry that is left. On a certain afternoon I walked up
and down the short and narrow Via Umberto Primo in that surpassingly
monumental port, Civita Vecchia, and there were at least ten seductive
barber's shops in the street, and they were all very busy, so that I
entered none of them, though boys in white ran out at intervals and
begged me to enter. These small boys in white are indispensable to the
ceremonial of a good Italian barber's shop. After you are shaved they
approach you reverently, bearing a large silver or brass bowl of water
high in their raised hands, and you deign to rinse. In that industrial
purgatory, Piombino, I found an admirable shop with three such acolytes,
brothers, all tiny. The disadvantage of them, however, is grave; when
you reflect that they work ninety hours a week your pleasure is spoilt.
There are wondrous barbers in Rome, artists who comprehend that a
living head is entitled to respect, and whose affectionate scissors
create while destroying. Unnecessary to say to these men: "Please
remember that the whole of my livelihood and stock-in-trade is between
your hands." But the finest artist I know or have known is nevertheless
in Paris. His life has the austerity of a monk's. I once saw him in the
street; he struck me as out of place there, and he seemed to apologise
for having quitted even for an instant his priest-like task. Whenever I
visit him he asks me where I last had my hair cut. His criticisms of the
previous barber are brief and unanswerable. But once, when I had come
from Rome, he murmured, with negligent approval: "_C'est assez bien
coup._"

    *    *    *    *    *

The principal barber at X signed to me to take the chair. The chair was
very uncomfortable because it was too high in the seat. I mildly
commented on this. The barber answered:

"It's not high enough for me as it is. I always have to stoop."

He was a rather tall man.

Abashed, I suggested that a footstool might be provided for customers.

He answered with quiet indifference:

"I believe that they do have them in some places."

He was a decent, sad, disappointed man, aged about thirty-five; and very
badly shaved. No vice in him; but probably a touch of mysticism;
assuredly a fatalist. I felt a certain sympathy with him, and I asked if
business was good. No, it was not. X was nothing of a place. The season
was far too short; in fact, it scarcely existed. Constant "improvements"
involved high rates--twelve shillings in the pound--and there were too
few ratepayers, because most of the houses stood in large gardens. The
owners of these gardens enjoyed the "improvements" on the sea-front,
which he paid for. His rent was too heavy--fifty pounds a year--and he
was rated at thirty-two. Such was his conspectus of X, in which
everything was wrong except his chairs--and even they were too low for
him. He had been at Z with his uncle. Now Z _was_ a town! But he could
not set up against his uncle, so he had come to X.

    *    *    *    *    *

Two young men entered the front shop. The barber immediately left me to
attend to them. But as he reached the door between the two shops he
startled me by turning round and muttering:

"Excuse me, sir."

Mollified by this unexpected urbanity, I waited cheerfully with my hair
wet some time while he discussed at length with the two young men the
repairing of a damaged tobacco-pipe. When he came back he parted my hair
on the wrong side--sure sign of an inefficient barber. He had been
barbering for probably twenty years and had not learnt that a barber
ought to notice the disposition of a customer's hair before touching
it. He was incapable, but not a bad sort. He took my money with kindly
gloom, and wished me an amicable good-day, and I walked up the street
away from the principal barber's hurriedly in order to get warm. The
man's crass and sublime ignorance of himself was touching. He had not
suspected his own incapacity. Above all, he had not guessed that he was
the very incarnation of the spirit of British small retail commerce.
Soon he and about ten thousand other barbers just like him will be
discovering that something is wrong with the barber world, and, full of
a grievance against the public, they will try to set it right by
combining to raise prices.




  SACKING


Do you suppose that the existence of a serious crisis in the war and in
the history of civilisation will make the slightest difference to the
attitude of the typical departmental servant (who may be yourself or
myself) to the new Minister who has been summoned in from
extra-departmental wilds? The leading idea in the mind of the typical
departmental servant on that ticklish first morning of introductions and
hollow politenesses must inevitably be: "My rights! My habits! My
susceptibilities!. . . You have everything to learn, while I know all. I
can foresee just where you will stumble. You possess authority, but
unreal and fleeting. You intrude. I was here long before you, and I
shall be here long after you. I am eternal. So look out for yourself."
And think of the wary business man, on that same morning, weighing
individualities, divining trouble, and keeping his thoughts to himself!
The greater his experience of the world, the swifter will be his
realisation of the complexity and vastness and traditional momentum of
the dangerous machine into which he has plunged with his fragile
reputation that he cherishes so. Tell a man of organising genius to
co-ordinate and control the huge traffic of a city of seven millions,
undisturbed for generations, and he will set about it and do it. But
tell him also that he must accomplish the work with a staff not one
member of which he is at liberty to sack, and he will laugh at you. The
foregoing is an exercise in realism perhaps unpleasant, but not without
a useful value if we are to be just to Ministers and to avoid illusions
and therefore disillusions.

    *    *    *    *    *

Sack a Civil Servant! Shove a high Staff Officer back into the
struggling ruck! Unthinkable! Why unthinkable? The idea should only be
unthinkable to a nation of bureaucrats. (In certain other nations
bureaucracy has been sackable in its entirety.) The charwoman of the
Ministerial offices can be sacked. The Minister himself can be
sacked--notoriously _is_ sacked. Everybody is sackable except the
intermediate grades of State servants. It may be right or it may not be.
I believe that a general suspicion that it is not right is responsible
for the half-hearted combing-out arrangements in the Indian Civil. We do
move, after all. I do not assert that the question is in the least
simple, or that it is the greatest of all questions.

  _23 December 1916._




  BICARBONATE OF SODA


For our drive along the savage coast west and north of Mont Estoril, we
had a fine pair of horses and a fine coachman, who spoke a little
French. He was old, but we never decided how old, and of course we did
not ask his age. He had a pocket-book crammed with Portuguese paper
money; it was about an inch and a half thick and contained nothing but
notes. No doubt some of them were worth only an English penny;
nevertheless, they gave him a considerable air of substance. He had
dignity, manners, a fine smile; and though his French vocabulary was
very limited he used it with an excellent accent. We saw a solitary
fisherman fishing with a long rod from a dark rock that overlooked what
might fitly have been called a seething cauldron of waters; on that
coast there are always breakers and flying spray. We saw a
lighthouse-keeper tinkering at his house just like a suburban dweller.
Later we saw the lighthouse-keeper's children, a little girl and a less
boy, meandering along the exposed road. Both were in rags and the boy
was barefooted. After a while we turned the carriage back because I had
seen two subjects for sketches. It began to rain. We saw the solitary
fisherman walking home forlorn in the rain; and he proved to be a very
old man with a face nearly black from exposure and mixed blood, and
strange toes sticking out of straw shoes. We saw the two children
hurrying home, also forlorn in the rain, and the boy's head and face
were all enfolded in the little girl's arm. Then I stopped the carriage
to look at a view; we were well sheltered under the raised hood. The
coachman got down. He had put on a large lined coat which made him seem
suddenly very old and fragile indeed; it took away all his neat
slimness. He ferreted under his seat, and produced a linen bag holding a
bottle, a glass, and some white powder in a paper, and made himself a
potion. This act was too much for my curiosity. He answered the
inquisitive question: "Bicarbonate of soda, sir. I have a malady of the
stomach." He spoke with extreme and almost despairing sadness. The
usually benign climate counted for nothing; his worldly courtesy counted
for nothing. He was a sick old man, very sorry for himself. Quite apart
from the realisation which it gave of the universality of bicarbonate of
soda, this incident of the aged coachman descending from his box in
order to mix himself some medicine in the rain on that wild and
beautiful coast had importance for me, for somehow it was one of the
most impressive and tragic that I remember for years.




  THE CASINO BALL


The hotel-resident who took us by storm in the matter of buying tickets
for the Shrove Tuesday dance at the Casino answered our objection that
we did not dance by the argument that the affair was for charity. And
she boasted of the number of tickets she had already sold and the number
she would sell before Pancake Day. She mentioned some young women upon
whom she had planted tickets, and when we pointed out that as all male
residents in all the hotels were middle-aged or old the aforesaid young
women would never get partners, she said that she had promised to get
native partners for them and that her knowledge of the whole district
would enable her to do so. Then she made the thing romantic for us by
stating that every purchaser of a ticket had to be vouched for, on
account of the Orientalism of the local husbands, who feared that
undesirable persons might obtain admittance to the ball. She said that
only on Shrove Tuesday were the indigenous ladies permitted to attend a
public dance, and she added that some of them might possibly be masked.
The tickets said clearly enough that masks would be forbidden; but she
insisted that the regulation applied only to men. Hence we went to the
dance excited by anticipations of mysterious beauties, fierce husbands,
and the chance of undesirable persons. And sure enough when we presented
our cards they were taken by old and beflowered heavy swells who
inspected them carefully (after the manner of passport officials),
searched for our names on long lists of names, and ticked off our names
on the list, and then, apparently reassured, invited us with bows and
smiles to go forward into Paradise.

    *    *    *    *    *

The band and the lights were embedded in fresh blossoms. The centre of
the floor was quite empty, and round about it seats with rather high
backs were arranged in very straight rows, so that they resembled church
pews. And the place was as solemn as a church, and as an English church,
and the occupants of the pews were almost exclusively nave English and
Scotch girls with their equally nave mammas. There were no masked
native beauties, there were no native beauties at all. There was not the
slightest mystery about the origin and past of any of these fair simple
creatures in their best hotel frocks. We knew them from A to Z. A number
of young and youngish men gradually congregated round the door, and they
were without doubt native; but they were acquainted with none of the
English, and the ticket-seller was invisible, and no M.C. arrived to
perform introductions. Presently a middle-aged English bachelor from one
of the hotels came along and respectfully asked one of the girls for the
pleasure of a dance, which pleasure she at once gave him. That noble
public-spirited fellow had resolved to go through as many of the girls
as time would permit, and he manfully did so, and each time he solicited
a dance he marvellously contrived by his tone to indicate that it was
he and not the lady who was receiving the favour. Soon girls were to be
seen dancing together. A honeymoon couple danced dance after
dance. . . . Every fifteen minutes seemed like two hours. The girls
smiled and chatted courageously, but from those with whom we had
achieved some intimacy we learned that furious discontent reigned and
that curses were floating off in hundreds to damn the still invisible
ticker-seller with her false promises of partners. Assuredly the romance
of the country had been for ever dissipated, and in spite of its
poetical climate the town was shown up in its true prosaic quality--as
being no better than Bournemouth, indeed not so good.

    *    *    *    *    *

The next day the ticket-seller told us of the great success of the ball
and of the fact that she had sold sixty-two tickets and paid in the
money to the account of charity. We expressed our surprise that she
still lived, and warned her of a widespread demand on the part of nave
British girls for her blood.




  DINNER OF THE SYNDICATE OF LITERARY CRITICS, PARIS


A wide, long table. Very bare. No ornaments at all. A piano in the room.
Soup, fish, fowl, vegetables, beef, ice, wines, mineral water, champagne
_frapp_, cheese, dessert, coffee, cognac, cloakroom, tips. Inclusive, 4
francs 75 centimes. There were thirty or thirty-five men and six women.
A red-robed lady from the provinces, and something the matter with her
corsage behind. A rich young woman who was said to pay for the
production of her own play. Also a daughter of a well-known translator,
in pale blue; a bad-mannered young Jew (who took my ice with glee) tried
to _tutoyer_ her. Also an American _poseuse_ who talked to Marcel
Ballot, of _Le Figaro_, at the end of the table. M. Ballot looked
fatigued. M. Henri Duvernois, opposite me, was preoccupied. M.
Chantavoine presided. He had a neat sardonic air. Drooping eyelids, and
quick, light gestures. No age. The official of the Education Department,
who sat by his side and looked fairly old had been his pupil. A friend
described M. Chantavoine as "a true Athenian."

    *    *    *    *    *

After the ice, he made a speech--neat and bright, full of genuine
culture, but full also of the usual stuff about sympathy, _chers
confrres_, etc., exactly as in England, and punctuated by fervent
"Hear, hears!" from the company on the slightest excuse. Also the usual
clich stuff about the surpassing devotion of the Secretary; but the
latter may very well have been true in this case; the Secretary, a big,
stout man, with the air of a foreman, had an attractive and serious
face. Afterwards in the cloakroom, when I offered to assist the
President with his overcoat, he energetically refused. "_Jamais_," he
said, with decision. "_Toutes mes excuses_," I said ironically. "_Je les
accepte_," he said ironically. Lakes of mud outside, but the rain had
just ceased. Clouds drove across the sky. A crowd stood waiting for a
tramcar at the corner of the Boulevards St. Denis and Sebastopol. Among
this crowd was the Athenian President. To contrast this brilliant and
erudite man's worldly position with that of the newspaper proprietor in
his motor-car, etc., was inevitable. As for me, I took the Underground.




  GOING DOWN A COAL-PIT


A small party of us, men and women, went down the Sneyd pit. First of
all, we had to dress for the part. Then our matches were taken from us.
The cage descended at the maximum speed, 72 feet per second, but there
was scarcely any feeling of motion. Dust everywhere, and black dust, and
the coquettish whitewash came to an end within a few yards of the main
gallery. The running traction cable overhead, with biggish guiding
wheels whizzing at intervals, gave an uncanny sensation, which the
electric light did not mitigate in the least. We were shown a prize
pony. _C'tait trs touchant._ Perhaps it ought not to have been, but it
was. The miners wore ragged vests or were naked to the waist. The
"going" was hard. The temperature steadily rose. We were told to make
the motion of swallowing in order to relieve the pressure of the air on
the ear-drums. The women bore up bravely, each secretly saying to
herself: "If the others can stand it, I can." Long ago we had passed the
little office where the lamps were tested. At last we reached the
coalface, amid a forest of wooden pillars. It was "snapping time" (or as
some people who live on the earth's surface might say, "time for a
snack"). In the heavy dusk of the mine, the men were seated in a row,
eating. Contrast of the white bread against the black hands. The heat
was now intense; we all visibly perspired. Except for the calm and
cheerful faces of the miners, it was like a foretaste of the seventh
hell.

    *    *    *    *    *

This was a model pit, and the conditions were appalling. The men
absolutely insisted, with a certain childish insistence, that I should
"get" a bit of coal--part of the visiting ritual, to omit which would
offend. So I "got" about a pound. On the previous Wednesday 2000 tons
had been got by 1400 men. One thousand seven hundred were employed in
and above the pit. On the return journey, the timekeeper, a taciturn,
shrewd, fattish man of fifty, had a talk with the mighty managing
director and panjandrum about the proposed new situation of a telephone.
The timekeeper said curtly: "_I_ shall keep it where it is for the
present," as if he alone were the deity of the pit. I noticed a noise
like that of escaping steam from some conduits, but it was compressed
air, not steam, that fizzled. Strange, when the cage whizzed upwards
there was a very violent _upward_ draught of air that travelled much
faster than the cage.

    *    *    *    *    *

Encased in layers of dirt, we inspected the huge engine-house. One man,
seated in a chair, directed everything. The winding wheel was colossal.
Little indicators showed the exact position of each cage as it moved up
or down the shaft, and another indicator, locked in a glass case like a
captive gnome, recorded in ink all the windings and stoppings all day
and every day. We were informed with pride that the electric plant and
ventilating machinery were actuated by the exhaust steam. Yes, this was
a highly up-to-date pit. Luxury was increasing everywhere. The masters
had "powerful and luxurious" motor-cars, and splendid residences in
unspoilt rural surroundings. The miners had the latest appliances for
saving their lives. Something agreeably ironic about this!




  SELF-CONTROL


A man once went up in my esteem under the following circumstances. He
was a very celebrated novelist and a very intimate friend of mine.
Speaking of a certain critic whom many creative artists, while admitting
that he has frequently been on the side of the angels, refer to with
disdain, I said that what I objected to in him was that his necktie was
always crooked. When I went upstairs before dinner I noticed that my own
necktie was conspicuously crooked. My friend had not mentioned the fact,
or even hinted at it. He knew that I was bound to discover it for
myself. An example of masterly self-control.




  RATIONING PETROL


The creation of the Petrol Rations office in Berkeley Street offers a
superlative example of how not to create an office. The petrol
multitude--numbering some hundreds, perhaps five--occupied, and
occupies, a building of seven floors. Half the floors and half the
multitude would certainly have been more efficient. The following is an
actual authentic sample of the dialogues which used to take place
between aspirant young ladies and the incarnation of the official mind
at the Petrol Office: "Have you had any experience?" "I'm afraid I
haven't." "Have you any qualifications?" "I'm afraid I haven't." "Will
you take twenty-two shillings a week?" "Oh yes." "Well, then, you are
engaged." No doubt such labour was held to be cheap. The hours were from
9 to 4, Saturdays included. One can imagine the whites of the eyes of
the Tory press if young ladies engaged in a different kind of war-work
in the East End were allotted a 9-to-4 day. But, you see, seven hours
(with an hour off for luncheon) was the official "Civil Service day."
However, there was overtime. The beneficent device of overtime came into
operation at 4 p.m., and lady clerks might raise their week to a maximum
of seventy hours, at 7d. per hour for overtime. A war bonus of 2s. a
week was also added. Later, the wages had to be increased to 25s., but
if you had come in at 22s. you had to remain at 22s., even if your job
consisted in supervising the work of newcomers at 25s. The
inexperienced and the incompetent tumbled over each other for many weeks
at Berkeley Street, with consequences profoundly understood by, for
instance, country doctors; and the official mind floated blandly
immanent in the noisy chaos. As late as October replies to appealing
letters written in August were being sternly held back for re-copying,
because the date had not been written in the right official place on the
notepaper.

  _6 January 1917._




  DURAND RUEL


I went to see the historic Durand Ruel collection of pictures. The
furniture of the abode was startlingly different in quality and taste
from the pictures. All the furniture might have been bought at the Bon
March. The table in the dining-room was covered with the chequered
cloth so prevalent in small French households. (In this room was a
still-life by Monet.) The doors, however, were all very ably painted in
panels. Aged and young domestics moved about. There was a peculiar close
smell--no, not peculiar, because it permeates thousands of Paris homes.
From the front windows was seen a fine view of St. Lazare station, with
whiffs of steam transpiring from the vast edifice. The visitors while I
was there included two Englishmen, one very well-dressed, though his
socks were behind the times and he had rouged his nostrils; some
Americans, and four doll-like Japanese. Certainly the chief languages
spoken were American and Japanese. The "great" Renoir (the man and woman
in the box of a theatre) hung in the study. It was rather thrilling to
see this illustrious work for the first time, as it were, in the flesh.
There were Monets of all periods, and the latest period was not the
best. A magnificent Czanne landscape and a few other Czannes. Manet,
Dgas, Sisley, Boudin--all notable. Yes, a collection very limited in
scope, but fully worthy of its reputation. Only it wants hanging. It
simply hasn't a chance where it is. The place is far too small, and the
contrast between the pictures and the furniture altogether far too
disconcerting. Still, the pictures exist, and they are a proof that a
man can possess marvellous taste in a fine art, while remaining quite
insensitive in an applied art.

    *    *    *    *    *

Afterwards I called on a painter in Montmartre, and learnt to my
astonishment that it was precisely he who had painted Durand Ruel's
doors. Seventy doors had been ordered, and whenever Durand Ruel found
the painter painting anything else, he would say: "But my doors." The
painter told me how Durand Ruel had bought Renoirs for twenty years
without selling. The "great" Renoir had been sold at Angers for 400
francs, after a commissioning amateur had refused to give Renoir 1500
francs for it. The amateur had said: "Yes, it's very good, of course,
but it isn't what I expected from you." (They always talk like
that--these commissioning amateurs.) Then Durand Ruel bought it. And now
he has refused 125,000 francs for it. In my friend's studio I was told
how dealers who specialise in modern pictures really make their money. A
"lord" wants to dispose of, say, a Rubens on the quiet. It comes
mysteriously to the dealer, who puts it in a private room, and shows it
only to a very few favoured young painters, who pronounce upon it. Soon
afterwards it disappears for an unknown destination; the dealer is
vastly enriched, and he goes on specialising in modern pictures.




  FOOTBALL MATCH


The ticket-takers were strangely polite, for the Five Towns. I thought
for a moment that manners were changing there. The Leek players and
partisans made a mass of yellow and white. They had a dog, with a
curious fringe of hair under his belly, who carried the Leek favours.
They had also a trumpet. But the concerted music of inspiration was
supplied by the Leek Temperance Silver Prize Band. The musicians wore
new uniforms. Their instruments, taken out of costly cases, lay superb
on the grass. The big drum had a new strap, and was thus engraved:
"_Arte favente nil desperandum._" In fact this Easter Monday Final was a
great occasion. I noticed with apprehension that the Grand Stand showed
signs of splitting, and that the various officials and others crouching
in the crypt beneath it stood a chance of being crushed under many tons
of splintered wood and human bodies. A linesman trotted out on to the
ground with a bag of medical and surgical remedies and some cordial.
Soon after the beginning of the match a man was hurt; to all appearances
he was mortally wounded, but he seemed to recover very quickly. However,
after a few minutes he retired to the crypt. In another ten minutes he
returned and resumed play. Almost immediately he was hurt again. Then
there was true pandemonium; screeching outcries; a battle of shrieking
between rival partisans. Girls swore terribly. I heard them swearing.
The hurt man lay on his back, ignored by the crowd, which was interested
solely in the question whether or not his damage was due to a foul. Amid
the enormous din the poles of electric tram-cars could be seen swimming
silently across the high horizon made by the hoardings at the end of the
ground, and the advertisements of Quakerish chocolates in front of the
Grand Stand continued their silent effective appeal. Some, with an eye
on the central and supreme figure in the field, suddenly yelled:
"Referee's gen [given] it!" The yelling replies were: "I should b----y
well think he had gen it." "Dirtiest b---- in all Staffs," etc. The hurt
man got up, and the crowd had the amiable idea of cheering him. At
half-time the Leek Temperance Silver Prize Band did a walk round in
review order, with the trombone and another big instrument in front.
Pigeons were let off, and after very slight hesitation departed in the
direction of their newspaper offices. Nothing else struck me, except the
arguments of a Football Company Director, who was also a Wesleyan and a
teetotaller, in favour of football. This gentleman was not blind to the
significance of certain phenomena of crowd-psychology which we had
witnessed during the afternoon. He would have been a convinced opponent
of the institution of football, but for one quality of it: football
matches keep people out of public-houses!




  PSYCHOLOGY OF RUSSIA


A great deal of the talk in the Press of all countries about
pro-Germanism in Russia is nearly as loose as the talk in the
Northcliffe Press and its imitators about pro-Germanism in England.
According to my conclusions, there is much less pro-Germanism in Russia
than is generally supposed. Take the Court, and look at the facts,
remembering always that their Majesties are closely united. The Empress
exerts a real influence over the Emperor in family affairs. Why should
she not? (But the ruling of Russia is a family affair.) When she went to
Russia in 1894 to be married she was full of English ideas and ideals,
and her early enthusiasm for these things did nothing to lessen the
difficulties inherent in her position. Her first business, like the
first business of every Empress, was to bear a son. She bore daughters
in 1895, 1897, 1899, and 1901. Imagine her profound disappointment!
Imagine, also, the effect upon an admittedly very sensitive woman of the
tremendous disaster which attended the Imperial Coronation in 1896!
Then, in 1904, after ten years (less three months) of marriage, when she
had given up hope, she bore a son. It was inevitable that the Tsarevitch
should become everything to her,--more than everything! The Tsarevitch
fell ill. Rasputin said he could help the Tsarevitch. The Tsarevitch got
better. Again, Rasputin being exiled, foretold a disaster to the Court.
The Tsarevitch fell ill. Rasputin was recalled. The Tsarevitch got
better. The position of Rasputin grew unassailable. The Empress has
often been called superstitious. She may be. But how many British
mothers, in similar circumstances, would not have displayed an equal
superstition?

    *    *    *    *    *

The justifiable passion of the Empress for the Tsarevitch, coupled with
her influence over her husband, changed utterly the orientation of the
Court. The Empress regarded all political phenomena from one quite
simple point of view. How would they affect the future of the
Tsarevitch? If they tended to diminish the power and the glory which
were his by inheritance, they were bad. If they tended to conserve that
power and glory, they were good. All this strikes me as very natural.
The motive ideal of the Empress is not pro-Germanism but
pro-Tsarevitchism. Similarly the motive ideal of the majority of the
reactionary Russians is obviously not pro-Germanism but pro-Russianism
and anti-democratism. In justice these "isms" ought not to be confused.
Russia is an anti-democratic country. She necessarily regards England
with the reserve with which an anti-democratic country would regard a
democratic country. Further, it is, I am convinced, an immense mistake
for us to conceive Russia as a country consisting of 90 per cent. of
enlightened democratic martyrs and 10 per cent. of reactionary
anti-democratic profiteers. Russia is homogeneous, and she has the
bureaucracy which her characteristics ensured for her. Russians admire
English common sense, but they disdain English ingenuousness. The
profoundest intellectual Russian quality is cynicism. This is certain.

    *    *    *    *    *

As in Britain, so in Russia, common sense is unequally distributed. In
some people the triumph of reason over instinct is less complete than in
others. The wiser long ago perceived that autocracy was inefficient, and
was bound to be so at the present stage of social evolution. The war has
made the fact glaring. The intelligent now admit that Russia cannot play
her full part in the war unless autocracy accepts the co-operation of
democracy. Autocracy, in Russia, as elsewhere, hates the notion of
accepting the co-operation of democracy. No doubt it also hates the
notion of a German triumph, but it sees in a German defeat the defeat of
its own ideals. It is in a very awkward position, a position which must
extort the sympathy of the judicial-minded. It is on the fence, hesitant
and afraid. Part of the autocratic organism comes down on one side of
the fence, part on the other: which must be rather trying for the
organism. The military chiefs, for example, are not democratic. Military
chiefs seldom are. But the military chiefs had taken on a job, and their
professional pride was at stake. They said to the rest of the organism:
"We want to win this war, and we will. You are inefficient. Reform
yourselves in the only possible way--democratisation." The Duma scene,
in which a military chief publicly congratulated a courageous attacker
of privilege and reaction, was a marvellous exhibition of the victory of
reason over instinct. Strmer fell. The outlook for efficiency
brightened. The Empress, with her maternal obsession of the future
prestige of the Tsarevitch, was far away at the moment of crisis, and
(it is generally believed) was held up by a railway block. After
twenty-four hours Her Majesty got through. The outlook for efficiency
darkened. Trepoff, another reactionary, took the place of Strmer, and
to-day Protopopoff, once an extreme Liberal but now an ardent convert to
the Empress and the mystic doctrines of pro-Tsarevitchism, is Minister
of the Interior, the plain opponent of efficiency in food distribution,
and one of the most unpopular men in Russia.

  _13 January 1917._




  RAILWAY ACCIDENT AT MANTES


There had already been a breakdown in a tunnel. Officials said that a
_rotule_ of an _attache_ had got broken. It was repaired, and we jolted
onwards at, I should say, about 30 or 35 kilometres an hour. Then just
after we passed Mantes station there was a really terrific jolting. I
knew after four or five jolts that one coach at any rate had left the
metals. I was in a sort of large Pulmanesque compartment at the back of
the first-class coach, two or three coaches from the engine. The windows
broke. The corridor door sailed into the compartment. My stick flew out
of the rack. The table smashed itself. I clung hard to the arms of my
seat, but fell against an arm-chair in front of me. There was a noise of
splintering, and there were various other noises. An old woman lay on
the floor crying. I wondered: Shall I remain unharmed until the thing
stops? Extreme tension of waiting for the final stoppage! Equilibrium at
last, and I was unhurt! I couldn't get out at first. Then someone opened
the door. I soothed the old woman. I took my eye-glasses off and put
them in their case. I found my hat (under some dbris), and my stick. My
bag had remained in the rack. I left the train with my belongings, but I
had forgotten all about the book I was reading, _L'Eve Future_. This
book was all that I lost. Two wounded women were already lying out on
the grass at the side of the track. Up above, from the street bordering
the cutting, crowds of people were gazing curiously as at a show. One
woman asked if she could do anything, and someone said: "A doctor." I
walked round to the other side of the train, and a minor official asked
me and others to go back. "_Ce n'est pas pour vous commander,
mais_. . ." We obeyed. Two coaches lay on their sides. One of them was
unwheeled and partly sticking in the ground. No sound came from an
overturned second-class coach, though there were people in it. Presently
some men began lifting helpless passengers on to cushions which had been
laid on the ground. I had no desire of any sort to help. I argued
uncompassionately that it was the incompetent railway company's affair.
I held my bag and stick and I looked around. I didn't want to see any
more wounded nor to be any more _impression_ than I could help. I had
to get to Paris. I certainly didn't observe things very accurately nor
take in details well. My recollection of appearances quickly became
vague. I remember that the face of one wounded woman was covered with
coal-dust. We had shaved a short goods train standing on the next line,
and the tender of the train was against our coach. A young American said
that it was sticking into our coach, but I don't think that it was. He
said that the front part of our coach was entirely telescoped; but it
wasn't entirely telescoped. It was, however, all smashed up. My chief
impression is of a total wreck brought about in a few seconds.

    *    *    *    *    *

I walked off up the line towards the station, and met various groups of
employees running towards the train. At last two came with a stretcher
or ambulance. I passed out of the station into the _place_, and a
collector feebly asked me for my ticket, which I didn't give. I went
straight to a garage and demanded an auto for Paris. But all autos had
been taken off to the scene of the accident. Having been promised one in
due course, I waited some time, and then had a wash and took tea. I
couldn't help eating and drinking quickly. Then I was told that two
Americans wanted an auto. I said that they might share the one promised
to me. Agreed. At last my auto came. The price was 100 francs. A
Frenchman came up who wanted to get to Paris quickly (he had not been in
the accident). I gave him a place for 20 francs, making a mistake in
dividing 100 by 4. This detail shows how I really was under my
superficial calmness. We went off at 5.50. The two Americans, aunt and
nephew, chatted freely the whole time, with no sign of nerves, except
that the aunt said she never felt comfortable in an auto. Nothing had
happened to her, yet the gun-metal clasp of her handbag was all bent.
She discovered this in the auto, and the discovery made a sensation. We
reached Paris before 8 o'clock. Travelling by the P.L.M. Railway later
in the evening I had a fright each time the crude brakes worked bumpily
on stopping at Melun, Bois le Roi, and Fontainebleau.




  THE PAPER-SHORTAGE


Touching the Stunt Press, the recent daily manifestoes of the _Times_ as
to its own circulation do indeed demonstrate the genius which Lord
Northcliffe's admirers claim for him--and most of his foes admit. During
the whole of the present week the _Times_ has openly threatened its
readers with reprisals if a certain proportion of them do not cease
buying the _Times_. It has said in effect: "We tried 1d. No result. We
now try 2d. If there is still no result we shall go to 3d., and if
necessary we "shall not hesitate" to go even to the old price of 7d. At
any risk of increasing our profits we mean to reduce our
circulation. . . ." Nay, it announces that the public's patriotic duty
is to help to reduce the circulation of the _Times_. These manifestoes
reach the summit of originality, and also they rank high among stunts.

  _17 February 1917._




  THE PATRIOT'S REWARD


Sidelight on the great Voluntary National Service regulation:--A
prosperous journalist in the South of England, with a wife and two
daughters, went into the army. He also went to the Front. He came back
from the Front a physical wreck. The medical authorities quickly decided
that he would no longer be of any use to the army, whereupon he was
turned out of hospital and left to recover as best he could, of course
at his own expense. He now walks with a crutch; but he is a handy man,
and prepared to do anything. As a proof of his intelligence and resource
I may note that when a doctor told him that country air was absolutely
essential for the restoration of nerves, he set out to walk, with his
crutch and with two shillings in his pockets, from London to Birmingham.
He safely arrived in Birmingham, having kept himself throughout the
journey by odd jobs of various kinds. Within the last few days a friend
tried to find him a situation worthy of his qualities. This friend was
instantly met by the adamantine fact that no firm in the proscribed
trades and vocations may now add to its staff any male between the ages
of eighteen and sixty-one. Thus the once prosperous journalist, with a
wife and two daughters dependent upon him, wrecked and ruined by his own
patriotism, is forced, if he is to live, into the humiliations of the
Labour Exchange, with a glorious chance of snatching twenty-five
shillings a week out of the national machine. I wonder whether Mr.
Neville Chamberlain, in framing his wonderful contrivance for the total
destruction of industrial liberty, ever thought of such a case as I have
truthfully described? And I wonder whether, if he did think of such a
case, he deliberately decided that discharged soldiers from the Front
deserved no better treatment than the ruck of us?

  _17 March 1917._




  STYLE


"The King and Queen were present at a first night in a London theatre
last evening for the initial time in their reign." I take this from the
dramatic criticism, not of a provincial, but of a London daily. It is
quite a first-rate example of bad English. The culprit, whose name is
well known to myself and other members of the London literary police
force, evidently thought that it would be inelegant to use the same word
twice in two lines; so he substituted "initial" for "first" in the
second line. The affair must have cost him considerable cerebration, and
no doubt he was rather pleased with the elegance of the result. Perhaps
he had never reflected that words express ideas, and that therefore, if
a precise idea recurs, the precise word for that idea ought to recur.
The idea expressed by the word "first" is precise enough, and no other
English word means what "first" means. Certainly "initial" does not mean
"first." Still, the man meant well. His misfortune was that, having
picked up a good notion without examining it, he imagined that
repetition was inelegant in itself. Repetition is only wrong when it is
unintentional, and when, being horrid to the ear, it is reasonably and
honestly avoidable. On the other hand, repetition, used with tact and
courage, may achieve not merely elegance but positive brilliance. What a
phrase--"the initial time"!




  FINISHING BOOKS


To a novelist who specialises in cases of crime I happened to mention
Albert Bataille's _Causes Criminelles et Mondaines_ (18 vols. Paris,
1881-98). She became enthusiastic about them, and said they were the
finest example of criminal reporting in the world. So they are. There is
not a star reporter in England or America who could study Bataille's
methods without profit. As for novelists, all novelists ought to read
reports of trials. Many novelists do. Better than anything else in print
that I know of, honest detailed reports of trials teach you how people
actually live their daily lives. My friend mentioned two trials as being
of special interest. I had not read them. I was then reading, in bed at
nights, Stendhal's _Rome, Florence, Naples_, one of the finest studies
of manners in existence--for those who have understood Stendhal's unique
mind. That night I put Stendhal aside for Albert Bataille, and for
several nights I read and re-read trials. It might have been the end of
Stendhal's book for me if _Rome, Florence, Naples_, were not a really
first-rate work. A test of a first-rate work, and a test of your
sincerity in calling it a first-rate work, is that you finish it. All of
us can remember instances of books which we have been enthusiastic
about, and which we have never finished. The enthusiasm must have been
in some degree factitious--probably induced by exterior suggestion. Such
books are, for us, either dull or tiresome. All dull books are bad, and
all tiresome books are either bad or maladroit or both. If we have
"stuck" in a book, or if we have simply forgotten to go on with it, we
ought to have the courage of our personal experience, and never be
enthusiastic about that book again. For us there is something vitally
wrong about that book, whatever its reputation. So doing, we should
perform a useful sanitary function in literature. Many dead books remain
unburied and offend the air simply because we dishonestly pretend that
they are alive and kicking. Make no mistake. I duly finished the
Stendhal. I finished it with keen regret. I lingered over the last
pages, hating to reach the last page of all. And I comforted myself with
the thought: "Well, in three years I shall have forgotten it enough to
be able to read it again." This is just about the highest praise that
can be given to a book.




  POLITICS AND MORALS


Much talking with politicians, amateur and professional, and with
political journalists. A strange delusion seems to be very rife among
such people--namely, that characters are in the main divided into white
and black, and that those who think as you think are white, and those
who don't think as you think are black. Yet it is absolutely
platitudinous to point out that the great majority of characters are
neither white nor black, but grey. To attempt to divide mankind into
white sheep and black sheep, or into sheep and goats, is infantile. It
is made ridiculous by the personal experience of nearly everybody. Nor
can one assert that a special honesty or dishonesty is connected with
any brand of political opinion. Nevertheless, I am constantly meeting
men otherwise apparently intelligent, sometimes very intelligent, whose
whole attitude towards politics is falsified by this truly singular
delusion. All their conversation implies that the best and the
straightest men are on their side and the crookedest and least competent
men are on the opposing side. Of course they make exceptions, but in
making exceptions they only emphasise their delusion. Thus they will say
of an opponent: "_He's_ an honest chap," thereby indicating that in
their opinion the rest emphatically are not. To be thus deluded surely
proves that one has fundamentally failed to see human nature as it is,
and therefore that one's judgment in affairs is not worth more than
about twopence halfpenny. Nevertheless, some victims of the delusion
will go about to lecture the whole world, and are indeed taken quite
seriously by very large sections of the community. I admit that they may
have nearly all the qualifications of a first-rate publicist; they lack
merely the chief qualification--impartial common sense.

    *    *    *    *    *

The cure for the delusion is office. Even if you are but a member of
Parliament you generally soon begin to lose it, because you have to mix
with the individuals whom you have been classifying as monsters of
iniquity, ineptitude, and incompetence. You are bound to realise that
the bulk of them are curiously like yourself and your friends, neither
better nor worse. Many political journalists attain high position
without freeing themselves of the delusion. A few politicians of marked
integrity and enormous experience never get rid of it. These persons are
dangerous to the state and tedious in drawing-rooms. And they are almost
invariably conceited. If you told them that one set of political
opinions is just about as "good" as the other--that one makes for
progress while the other makes for stability, both aims being perfectly
laudable--they would freeze you with a righteous disdain, and in their
hearts accuse you of wanting the best of both worlds. There is only one
world.




  FLAG-DAYS


I doubt whether recent gestures of the British Government have done much
to diminish the sinister effect in Petrograd of Northcliffe articles and
Ministerial utterances in favour of the ex-Tsar and all the
too-chivalrous silences in favour of the ex-Tsaritsa. In Petrograd
England is regarded as loving royalism for its own august sake. The
impression is, of course, false of the nation as a whole, but true of
some influential coteries in London. There is shortly to be another
Russian flag-day. Now under the Russian _rgime_ the executive
_personnel_ of the Russian flag-day in London was the last word of
social elegance. It will be interesting to see whether the old West End
enthusiasm has survived the Revolution. From what I have heard it will
survive, if it does survive, with difficulty; and I foresee a diminution
of zeal on the part of those ladies without whose names no London
war-charity can be called truly _chic_. Hence, for myself, I will buy a
dozen flags on the Russian day.

    *    *    *    *    *

At the same time, my objection to flag-days is increasing. There can be
no doubt that the institution of the flag-day is abused. I had hoped
that after the Queen's flag-day last week we should have repose in
Piccadilly, but when I returned to town on Wednesday there was yet
another. One is conscious of an irrational and unchristian resentment
against the beautiful and very modish vendors, who are quite innocent
and indeed deserve sympathy and laudation. I have found a way of
nullifying flag-days. It is quite simple, and consists in walking slowly
past the flag-sellers, with a kind paternal or fraternal smile and a
dignified deprecatory wave of the hand. Many men assert that this feat
cannot be done. It can, but naturally it needs a little practice in
order to attain perfection. I have known it fail only once. While I was
in the very act, the flag-seller said plaintively to me: "I suppose you
don't want to buy a flag." The supposition was so correct, displayed
such deep psychological insight, that I felt obliged to falsify it.

  _12 May 1917._




  PRIVILEGE OF DOGMA


The ending in the House of Lords of the great case of Bowman _v._ The
Secular Society shows that the Lord Chancellor has yet to discover that
it is not illegal in this country to seek to disprove the tenets of
Christian dogma. Somebody long ago made a bequest to the Secular
Society, which is anti-Supernatural and pro-Freedom of Enquiry. The
next-of-kin, actuated no doubt by the highest patriotic and unselfish
motives, contested the validity of the bequest on the ground that it was
criminal to attack the Christian religion, and that a court of law would
not assist in the promotion of such objects as those of the Secular
Society. The Secular Society won its case in the High Court and also in
the Appeal Court, but the next-of-kin, having faith in the House of
Lords, went higher. The Lord Chancellor in his judgment justified their
faith and their pertinacity; but, happily, Lords Buckmaster, Dunedin,
Parker, and Sumner all disagreed with the sublime head of the
Judicature, and the next-of-kin were finally beaten by four against one.
Lord Buckmaster, in a bland and witty judgment, pointed out that if the
Lord Chancellor's theory held good, the result would be that editors and
publishers would be able to deny payment to contributors and authors
whom they had expressly employed to write philosophical and scientific
articles or books, if it could be decided that the work was
anti-Christian; while no one could be compelled to pay for any such
books or articles when purchased. Enchanting prospect--to step into
Hatchard's, seize for your own Professor Bury's edition of Gibbon, and
in answer to a request for payment, reply: "Shan't! This book is a
crime, and you're an accessory after the fact; and if you make any more
fuss I shall come back with a policeman." Bowman _v._ The Secular
Society has dragged on nearly as long as the war. It must have cost
thousands of pounds--perhaps more than the original bequest. But it has
shown what kind of mentality can rise to the highest judicial place in
the realm; and, incidentally, it permits the Secular Society and the
Rationalist Press Association and the Positivist Society to continue in
being. Progress persists!

  _19 May 1917._




  THE ROYAL ACADEMY


The Royal Academy continues to provide grandiose evidence in support of
its conviction that the flight of time is an illusion. Nobody could
divine from the display of automobiles in its quadrangle on a fine
afternoon that petrol for pleasure has been prohibited. You penetrate
within the august building, and there is not a symptom of an
entertainment-tax ticket. The gross charge for admission is still one
shilling. Determined to suppress every sign of change, the Academy pays
the tax itself and says no word. A noble gesture. In the galleries I
could perceive not the slightest indication of modernity. I doubt if the
Hanging Committee have chosen a single picture which for reasons of
technique might not have been painted twenty years ago. One of the
places of honour is given to Mr. Frank Salisbury's immortalisation of a
young naval hero. It has to be seen to be believed. Mr. Glyn Philpot's
portrait of an apache is a very dignified work. Sir William Orpen has
several portraits, of which the best is Mr. Winston Churchill--an
extremely accomplished piece of representational art, telling you in the
most vivid and polished language all that you already knew. Some years
ago Sir William Orpen discovered that the inside of a man's hat is full
of episodic interest. He may, indeed, be said to be the first modern
painter to observe that a man's hat has a concave as well as a convex
aspect. He has not yet rallied from the obsession of this discovery. In
the mass R.A. fashionable portraits are outshone by the fashionable
portraits at the Grosvenor Gallery, where Mr. M'Evoy, but yesterday
unknown, dominates the scene. I doubt whether any painter ever exhibited
so many portraits in a general portrait show as Mr. M'Evoy exhibits at
the Grosvenor Gallery. His translation of Mrs. M'Claren is perhaps the
most dazzling graphic feat of the kind in the present age. It is not,
however, really interesting. Mr. M'Evoy's water-colours--in the days
when people used shamelessly to ask, "Who is M'Evoy?"--used to attract
me. Then I suspected that he had fallen into the habit of putting them
under the tap before framing them. The suspicion was confirmed. Then he
produced an oil-painting of a boy in a green suit, and it was too
clever. And now he has become the prince of fashionable
portrait-painters.

  _26 May 1917._




  GAMING


I went into the little Casino. Only one table: roulette. The croupier
tried to cheat me after my first throw, but failed. In changing the
counters for money afterwards the money-changer tried to cheat me, but
failed. It was astonishing to see, after so long an interval, people
still believing in systems, as in a religion, and methodically marking
down all the winning numbers. No systematist has ever explained to me
how, according to him, the result of any previous throw can influence
the result of any future throw. It would perhaps be too much to expect a
systematist to see that the operation of the maximum must upset all
conceivable systems, and that herein precisely is the reason why casino
proprietors always insist on maxima. But a systematist out of his common
knowledge of the nature of things ought surely to be able to perceive
that if an infallible system existed or could exist it would have shut
up all roulette houses long ago. An acquaintance of mine, a
much-travelled novelist and journalist who ought to have known better,
once assured me that there were a few inobtrusive men and women at Monte
Carlo who had infallible systems and who always won. "Then why do not
the authorities turn them out?" I asked. He replied: "Obviously because
of the advertisement. They are a standing advertisement for the tables."
When I further inquired why these possessors of secret systems did not
make a fortune and retire, the answer was that the systems only
permitted of small gains. If no history of human credulity has yet been
written, the disease ought to be monographed like claustrophobia or
alcoholism. I once played regularly at Monte Carlo for several hours a
day. Were I to say that I did this in order to enter fully, for
professional literary purposes, into the sensation of the gambler, I
should not be believed. (If no history of human _in_credulity has yet
been written, etc.) I emerged from the ordeal with 600 francs gain. I
was writing a series of articles for _T.P.'s Weekly_ at the time, and I
recounted my experiences and mentioned that I had won 600 francs. The
editor struck this out. He said that it was not permissible for a
contributor to reveal that he had made a profit out of the gaming-tables
at Monte Carlo; the moral effect on readers would be too bad. For this
same paper, in another article, I once wrote that sometimes at home Lord
Tennyson behaved "like a pompous ass." The phrase was strong; but I
doubt not that it was a protest against the tone of one of the deceitful
little biographies of Lord Tennyson that somehow get themselves issued
at intervals. The editor cut out the phrase. He said it was impossible
to say in any respectable literary weekly that Tennyson ever under any
circumstances behaved like a pompous ass, and that if he had passed the
phrase he would have received thousands of angry complaints and lost
circulation.




  A JUDGMENT


While I was painting on the beach to-day a Portuguese workman came up
and watched. French being better understood than English in Portugal, I
asked him if he spoke French. "_Un poc_," he replied, and it was _un
poc_. Evidently he took me for a Frenchman. He told me that he had
fought in the war, and gave the names of several places in a very
curious pronunciation, but I seemed to recognise the words "Chapelle"
and "Laventie." I asked:

"_Etiez-vous prs des Anglais?_"

"_Oui. Franais bons pour la guerra. Anglais non bons, non bons. Anglais
trs malhonntes._"

"_Etiez-vous jamais prs des Franais._"

"_Non. Jamais. Franais trs bons. Anglais non bons._"

Perhaps part of the explanation was that for a time he had been, as he
informed me, orderly to a Portuguese general.




  PLATE-BREAKING


The phenomena of the Whitsuntide period and thereabouts may be divided
into the superficial and the opposite. A shiver ran through every
military unit on the southern part of the East Coast when it became
known that enemy aeroplanes had got to Folkestone and the other place
(still unnameable!) from the north without being officially detected _en
route_. A searching and drastic inquiry was expected, but no detailed
inquiry has made itself felt. I may say that nobody was less surprised
at the failure to detect and warn than those members of the
Anti-Aircraft Service who know both the land and the sea machinery of
the organisation, and have ineffectually criticised it. The bravest feat
in connection with this sanguinary raid was that of the _Times_ on
Monday morning, when, with truly astounding courage it implied that it
had never believed in Zeppelins, and had always advised concentration
upon measures to counteract aeroplanes. In ten lines the _Times_
practically effaced the memory of the grand gesture of Lord Beresford in
publicly breaking a plate at a Savoy banquet because it happened to have
been made in Germany. Lord Beresford, of course, found eager patriotic
imitators at the banquet. No doubt he and they forgot, in the ardour of
the moment, that the imported German plates were not the property of the
smashers, and that, after all, they had been duly paid for by British
exports; also that wanton destruction of useful articles involves for
their replacement the diversion of goods and services from the war. It
probably never occurred to these gentlemen that they were making
themselves rather more ridiculous even than the related nobles--one a
duke and the other an earl--who utilised an important debate in the
House of Lords for the ventilation of a family brawl. All such phenomena
may be accounted superficial. The great inner phenomenon of the period
is that Mr. Lloyd George, to use a phrase sanctified by Dr. Dillon, is
"seeking a new orientation."

  _2 June 1917._




  THE TRUTH ABOUT REVOLUTIONS


Verbiage, really remarkable in its unconvincingness, has been sent over
during the week by correspondents on the Western Front, probably under
official inspiration. But nothing about the Western Front can equal in
absurdity some of the stuff that gets printed concerning Russia, and the
stuff that gets printed concerning Russia is much more sagacious than
the stuff that gets talked concerning Russia--especially in serious
conservative circles, where revolutions are not understood. There is a
large ingenuous body of British opinion that evidently expected the
Russian revolution to be carried through, finished, labelled, and put on
the shelf with the French revolution in a week or ten days--a fortnight
at the most. It is difficult, without research, to say exactly how long
the French revolution lasted. Taine annihilates the perception of time
in the reader; his method is the static, and all the phenomena of French
history from early feudalism to the corruption of the Empire seem to be
co-existent. From Carlyle, on the contrary, one receives the impression
that the French revolution went on revolving for forty years or so.
Perhaps four years would be about the mark. The Russian revolution, a
far vaster and less coherent thing than the French, has still,
therefore, some years to run before it can fairly be called dilatory by
historical standards. Again, people solemnly ask you: "What is the
_truth_ about Russia?" It would be nearly as reasonable to ask what is
the truth about that invisible God who of late apparently has been so
often seen. Nobody knows the truth about the Russian revolution. The
hundred best informed persons in Europe do not, between them, know the
hundredth part of the truth about it. The truth about it could not be
contained in a work of the dimensions of the _Encyclopdia Britannica_.
But surely the fact is obvious that, whatever the situation may now be
in its entirety, it is an improvement on the situation which obtained
before the revolution. Nobody alive has the slightest trustworthy idea
whether the war or the revolution will end first. I have had private
letters from two recognised non-journalistic authorities on Russia, one
in Petrograd, the other in France. Both are hopeful and optimistic. Both
count upon the common sense which is admittedly fundamental in the
Russian character. For myself I count upon the instinct for
self-preservation which is fundamental in all characters. Russians are
very sensitive to foreign opinion, and our chief export to Russia should
be faith in Russia. The one article which Russians do not require from
us is patronage. Of course, we are the world's great protagonists of
freedom and all that--though the Defence of the Realm Act, which
abolished Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus, was passed by a democratic
Commons without having been even read--but we are not just now such high
experts in liberty that we can properly treat the Russian revolutionists
as children.

  _9 June 1917._




  A GENERAL


True stories against our generals, and especially against our inspecting
generals, are not rare, but the following is perhaps worth adding to the
collection. I guarantee its authenticity. A general was inspecting a
battery, and the major in command was explaining that the scale on the
ranging-drums needed altering to suit the new guns, as the latter had a
higher muzzle-velocity than the old guns previously used by the battery.
The general asked: "What is the muzzle-velocity of the new gun?" The
major gave the answer. The general said: "Yes, but at what range?"

  _4 August 1917._




  MINISTERIAL CANDOUR


It is perhaps one proof of Lord Milner's true granitic greatness that he
continues to stick in the throat of the vast majority of the nation. The
things said of him in the Midlands and the North could not possibly be
printed without afflicting if not infuriating the Censor. Lord Milner
recently took a holiday with his chief. Enterprise as simple as it was
natural! And yet the whole country is alarmed thereby. And no doubt
rightly. For it is certain that the ex-pro-Boer and the iron hero of
South Africa did not tramp over Cader Idris together in order to pick
gentians. If we have a strong, silent man--and we have--that man is Lord
Milner. He may be hated, but his character is respected. It is
respected, for example, by the organising heads of the big departments
where the war work is really done. These men, though they may differ
violently from him in political principles, prefer him to any other
member of the War Cabinet. So much is beyond question. In an age of
self-advertisement he despises self-advertisement. I think he is the
sole Minister who does not subscribe to Romeike or Durrant, and the sole
Minister who does not conscientiously read his "papers" before
breakfast,--the said papers being, of course, the newspapers. He does
not care if he is never mentioned--so long as his principles make
headway. My suspicion is that he pushes silence too far. That he admires
Prussia as warmly as _The Morning Post_ admires Prussia is not to be
denied. How indeed should it be otherwise, having regard to his birth,
education, and early environment? But there are ways of admiring
Prussia, and even a Cabinet Minister, while keeping his patriotism pure,
may admire Prussia too much.

    *    *    *    *    *

All Ministers whom destiny has made ridiculous should be subjected to a
test. Events in South Africa have long since made Lord Milner extremely
ridiculous. He was wrong, utterly and grossly wrong. Can he, does he,
see that he was wrong? Or has he failed yet to comprehend the vastness
of his ineptitude? He ought to be subjected to the test of giving his
mature verdict on the closed chapter of history which he helped to
write. If he would confess in the forum that he had erred, by prejudice
or blindness, he might ameliorate his position in the great heart of the
people, which, oftener than some folk imagine, does really beat true.
If, on the other hand, he would positively say: "I am unconverted," then
we should know, even more surely than we do, where we are, and war to
the knife might properly ensue. But Ministers are a queer tribe. They
willingly admit that they owe their Sundays or their golf or their
silken dalliance to the nation, but it does not seem to occur to even
the most honest of them that more than anything else they owe candour to
the nation.

  _29 September 1917._




  WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE THEATRE?


Some serious adherents of the stage in Liverpool appear to be rather
concerned about what is called the "American invasion." I have heard it
stated that "the great majority" of London theatres are at present
occupied by American plays. This simply is not the fact, and a study of
the theatrical advertisements of the London dailies will show that it is
not the fact. The majority--to say nothing of the great majority--of
London theatres are not occupied by American plays. Only a minority are
so occupied. I do not feel in the least disturbed by the American
invasion. I might be somewhat disturbed if no English plays were
produced in New York. But it is well known that English plays, and many
English plays, are produced in New York. The exchange can only be
advantageous. Moreover, if American plays are produced in London, there
can be but one reason for it--the public likes these American plays. Why
should not the public have what it likes? If the public showed a
preference for Timbuctoo plays I should not complain. I should merely
try to understand what was the quality in Timbuctoo plays that appealed
to the British public. If half a dozen American plays succeed
simultaneously in London there must be some rational explanation of the
phenomenon. American plays are in the main even more sentimental than
English plays, and the explanation of their success probably lies in
this--that the sentimentality is done in a more workmanlike and thorough
manner than English playwrights have yet achieved. Personally I have no
use whatever for excessive sugar on the stage--I prefer salt--but I
recognise that sugar can be whole-heartedly or half-heartedly
manipulated in a play. Further, American dramatists seem to me to take
more trouble than British dramatists in the fabrication of an
attractive, outwardly novel, and easily graspable theme. You know where
you are in an American play. In sum, it is conceivable that English
dramatists may have something to learn from American dramatists in the
concoction of a sentimental play. Horrid thought, of course; but one not
to be lightly dismissed. At any rate I do not and cannot believe the
legend, so sedulously spread in the Press, that the British public goes
to see certain plays against its will because British managers refuse to
give it better stuff. Such a notion is totally absurd. Everybody
connected with the theatre knows that it is as easy to make an unthirsty
horse drink as to make the public pay to witness plays against its will.
If profit accrues from the production of American plays or any other
plays in England, you may be absolutely sure that the public has enjoyed
those plays.

    *    *    *    *    *

Another fallacy calls for exposure. Namely, that there are lots of
really good English plays written which cannot get a hearing in England
because managers are so terribly commercial-minded. Nothing of the
kind. The number of really good plays hopelessly awaiting performance is
infinitesimal. Really good plays or even fairly good plays, or even
plays with a particle of promise in them, are very seldom written by
unknown aspirants in this country. Plenty of promising novels are
written; scarcely any promising plays. I know, because I am connected
with the management of the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith, which
advertised its urgent desire to obtain promising plays, which has
received and read hundreds of plays, and which has not found three
possible ones in a year. The piles of pure trash that postmen have
delivered at Hammersmith during the last eight months appal the
imagination. To my mind the chief answer to the question, "What is wrong
with the theatre?" is plain enough. The root of the evil is not in the
innocent public. Nor is it in the commercial-minded managers, who, by
the way, are not a whit more commercial-minded than the publishers of
books. It is in the extreme and notorious paucity of interesting plays.
Dramatists must, in the logical sequence of things, precede actors,
managers, producers, scenic artists, and public. The first requisite of
the theatre is a play. And when interesting plays begin to be written in
appreciable numbers, the theatre will begin to improve. Not before.

  _15 September 1919._




  THE FARMER'S ATTITUDE


I had a scientific and enthusiastic farmer and breeder, a Radical friend
of mine, to dinner last Saturday night. He said: "Were you at ----
Market to-day?" I said: "You know I wasn't." He said: "Well, you ought
to have been. It was well worth seeing. There were something over a
hundred pigs. On Monday pigs were selling at 22s. a score live weight.
To-day the Food Control people came into the market, and took all the
pigs, weighed them, and marked their prices on the basis of the new
maximum of 18s. a score. Auctions were suspended. The butchers appointed
a committee to settle which butcher should buy which pig, and local
butchers had a preference. Those farmers who could afford it walked
their pigs home again. There will be practically no pigs in ---- Market
next Saturday, because pigs can't be sold at 18s. a score live weight
without loss." I said: "But you people can't keep your pigs for ever.
You're bound to sell sooner or later even at a loss." He said: "My dear
fellow, every day this week I shall have people pestering me to sell
pigs to them at over the maximum price. Quite easy. For instance,
there's no maximum on calves, and I can sell half a dozen pigs and a
couple of calves in one lot at a lump sum price. And I'm free to sell
pigs for breeding purposes. If a man tells me he wants pigs for breeding
purposes I'm not going to hold a court of inquiry about his plans. I
have to live. And I can't live out of bullocks, for instance. Every
bullock I sell means a dead loss to me of at least 8. Of course the
price of foodstuffs has been reduced, but not enough. Also foodstuffs
are constantly being sold at over the maximum. I tell you that most
people who have taken steps to _increase_ production have been caught.
Look at flax. We were urged to grow flax--urged! Risky crop. We didn't
know much about it. Just as it was ripening the Government commandeered
the lot, at a price that left farmers decidedly out of pocket." I said:
"What will be the result of all this?" He said: "You will see what will
be the result next year. And it will be interesting then to listen to
you collectivist chaps. Production is being dried up, that's what's
occurring. And if you think that farmers haven't got a real grievance
and aren't really resentful--at any rate in this district, where it
happens that nobody has made a cent on corn crops--well, you never were
more mistaken in your life." The foregoing pretends to be nothing but an
accurate prcis of a conversation.

  _17 November 1917._




  FREEDOM OF DISCUSSION


For forty years, ever since the pure milk of Toryism was first poured
into my very youthful mind, I have continually heard that the House of
Commons was degenerating. But I had never believed it until the _rgime_
of coalitions began. I now fully believe it. Indeed, I am inclined to
think that the House of Commons is not only degenerate but dead, though
a few interested people for their own purposes strive ingeniously to
maintain the illusion that the corpse still breathes. No more dramatic
illustration of the nonentity of the House of Commons could be desired
than the manner in which the offensive censorship of pamphlets has been
withdrawn. True, the thing really has been withdrawn; the authorities
really have climbed down; and the victory is quite remarkable. But the
victory ought to have been won openly on the floor of the House, not
bargained out by secret negotiations in which the House was disdainfully
and completely ignored. The blow to the prestige of Parliament is
severe. And after the craven behaviour of the House in this and other
kindred matters, I am not prepared to say that the blow was undeserved.
The episode is the more extraordinary in view of the fact that the moral
power of the official leader of the Opposition is admittedly enormous.

    *    *    *    *    *

In justice to legislators generally I ought to add that one or two of
them have indeed spoken with force in this matter. The following
extract from a speech will touch the hearts of all lovers of common
sense: "The mandate seems to have gone forth to the sovereign people of
this country that they must be silent while those things are being done
by their Government which most vitally concern their well-being, their
happiness, and their lives. To-day and for weeks past honest and
law-abiding citizens of this country are being terrorised and outraged
in their rights by those sworn to uphold the laws and protect the rights
of the people. I have in my possession numerous affidavits establishing
the fact that . . . private residences are being invaded, loyal citizens
of undoubted integrity and probity arrested and cross-examined, and the
most sacred constitutional rights violated. It appears to be the purpose
of those conducting this campaign to throw the country into a state of
terror, to coerce public opinion, to stifle criticism, and to suppress
discussion of the great issues involved in the war. I think all men
recognise that in time of war the citizen must surrender some rights for
the common good which he is entitled to enjoy in time of peace. But,
sir, the right to control their own Government according to
constitutional forms is not one of the rights that the citizens of this
country are called upon to surrender in time of war. Rather in time of
war the citizen must be more alert to the preservation of his right to
control his Government. He must beware of those precedents in support of
arbitrary action by administrative officials." And so on, to: "If the
people are to carry on this great war, if public opinion is to be
enlightened and intelligent, there must be free discussion." Let no
reader rush to Hansard in order to study at length this allocution in
Mr. Asquith's best manner. It was uttered, not in the House of Commons,
but in the United States Senate, and I have taken it from the official
_Congressional Record_.

    *    *    *    *    *

Meanwhile, as is natural, the executive of the Irish Government copies
the great exemplar in London. By way of soothing Sinn Fein and cutting
the ground from under the Spanish feet of Edmund de Valera, M.P., the
Dublin police have raided the shops of a few aged persons who sold Sinn
Fein postcards and have been selling them unmolested for months. Now
nothing could be cruder, more infantile, and less "frightful" than a
Sinn Fein postcard. I once examined the stock of one of these little
shops with a view to collecting some really rebellious literature, but
the show was so poor that I could not bring myself to spend a single
halfpenny on it. Further, twelve small Dublin children have been
summoned to the police-court and solemnly fined one shilling apiece--for
collecting money towards a fund to provide for the dependants of rebels
killed in Easter week!

  _1 December 1917._

    *    *    *    *    *

A very pleasing example of the Government control of opinion has been
brought to my notice. A man was going to the United States, and before
he started his baggage was duly examined according to the principles of
the official mind. The examiner, sequestrating certain printed matter,
said to the traveller: "You are not permitted to take these papers with
you to New York." "But," cried the traveller, "they are the recent
issues of _The New Republic_ which I've just received from New York."
Said the examiner: "I don't know anything about that. You can't take
them." And the traveller did not take them.

  _15 December 1917._

    *    *    *    *    *

And, speaking of opinion, there has been a good deal of control of
opinion in the matter of Lord Lansdowne's letter. Not only was French
Press opinion about the letter grossly misrepresented in the London
Press, but London Press opinion was grossly misrepresented in the French
Press--until, of course, the posts had had time to overtake the cables.
The _Manchester Guardian_ resentfully asks why Reuter failed to
telegraph a less inaccurate account. (Incidentally, let me say that not
Reuter alone among telegraphists was to blame.) This question seems to
me to be a very odd question to come from a newspaper. Reuter is the
wholesaler. The _Manchester Guardian_ is the retailer who sells goods to
the public. The effect would be surprising if a shop put up a notice in
its windows as follows: "The goods which we sold to you last week were
not what they pretended to be. Why?" Even the most benign and fatuous
public would retort that if the retailer did not know why, it was his
business to find out why, and to state why, and finally to arrive at an
understanding with the wholesaler. I bring no accusation against Reuter,
but it is obvious that the fault was either Reuter's or the Censor's;
and it is equally obvious that daily papers, being customers buying
goods from Reuter for commercial purposes, are well entitled to make an
effective fuss when the goods supplied have for any reason been proved
to be unsatisfactory. No telegraphic agency can continue to exist
without the support of daily papers, and I have never been able to
understand the habit which daily papers have of referring to telegraphic
agencies as though they were almighty and inscrutable gods. It is
notorious that for decades past public opinion in the Colonies and
Dependencies has been seriously influenced by the political prejudices
of telegraphic agencies; but colonial and similar newspapers are far
less powerful to protect themselves, assuming that they wanted to
protect themselves, than the earthquaking organs of this isle. The
_Manchester Guardian_ can easily obtain and print the answer to its own
question; and if it has not done so, I suggest, as one of its most
faithful subscribers, that it ought to do so immediately.

  _15 December 1917._




  WAGNER AFTER THE WAR


Over thirty years ago I first heard _Die Meistersinger_, in Italian, at
Covent Garden. I stood on tiptoe at the back of the farthest gallery,
the price of which, I think, was half a crown. I could make nothing
whatever of the affair; but I was very proud and even conceited the next
day, for it was my first Wagner performance. The house was packed in
every part then. And it was packed in every part last night, when I
heard the opera in English for the first time. Covent Garden is very
English; saturated with English tradition. It is vast and shabby, and
the most beautiful theatrical interior in London--far more beautiful
than the Scala at Milan, or the Paris Opera House, or the Costanzi at
Rome, but surpassed at Florence in both shabbiness and beauty. Nearly
the whole of the audience was seated before the lights were turned down;
and when they were turned down the place became magical. The immense
arch separating the amphitheatre from the body of the auditorium crossed
the immense dim gilded curves of the tiers. Close at hand sculptured
candelabra, thick with grime, were silhouetted grossly against the faint
diffused light. On the wall of the top gallery, infinitely above and
distant, one purple-shaded electric lamp gleamed. The forms of the tiny
people in the gallery could scarcely be discerned; they were mysterious
and impressive, and the crowded rows in the stalls not less so, nor the
superior persons in the innumerable discreet alcoves called boxes. Here
and there a screened lamp threw its ray on the word "Exit," obeying the
ordinance of public authority. A match flared up in a box occupied by
the wife of a very prominent statesman; someone there, slave of the
cigarette, still deemed himself above the law. I could hear muffled
footsteps in the corridor behind me. I knew that in the enormous
once-handsome foyer, itself larger than many theatres, decorated with
excellent paintings and disfigured by the most abominable architectural
alterations, the bar girls were ready for their work, and that outside
were some scores of automobiles, and that on the stage at various
altitudes scores of artistes and mechanics were waiting. The conductor,
in the dimensions of a doll, raised his stick over the hidden orchestra.
The most dramatic moment in any great opera is when the first chord is
sounded. The die is cast then, the boats burnt, the battle opened. Any
one of perhaps a hundred individuals can bring absolute disaster to the
business; the risks of some fatal failure in co-operation are
tremendous; yet absolute disaster never occurs. . . .

    *    *    *    *    *

The curtain rose. The church choruses, gently lifting and subsiding,
seemed to tranquillise the orchestra. Thrilling and overwhelming beauty
was achieved. It was a sublime example of the power of art to triumph
easily over prejudices and hatred and resentments. For Wagner was a
modern German; he was a very German German; he had little use for the
English. The opera is intensely German. Our troops were still occupying
Germany. Only the previous week our officers had suffered outrageous
insults at the hands of truculent Germans. Yet here we all were,
charmed, enthralled, enthusiastic, passionately grateful! Seventy-five
years since Wagner had begun the composition of this colossal and lovely
work, this most singular opera whose purely philosophic theme is the
conflict between the classical and the romantic! What a droll,
impossible theme for an opera! But the terrific pure original force and
beauty of its inspiration and execution had overcome time and us. The
performance was worthy of the occasion: beautiful singing, excellent
playing, good acting, admirable and ingenious stage-management. Only the
costumes and scenery were cursed with the curse of sordid and
pretentious ugliness which lies upon all indigenous productions at
Covent Garden. In thirty-one years I have seen no visually beautiful
production at Covent Garden except the Russian ballet.




  CHARITY CARNIVALS


A number of people seem to be at last waking up to the economic
fudginess of the grand, impressive institution of the war-charity mart
and carnival. Women of unbridled patriotism go to these vast stunts and
make purchases of all sorts, and then defend their conduct on the plea
that the money goes to charity. It does, in so far as the affair is a
success; but the ladies in question have not given anything to charity.
As a rule--especially when they leave their transactions to the final
day--they have merely acquired, on terms very advantageous to
themselves, goods whose production has absorbed raw material and labour
which might have been more usefully employed. Likewise, in witnessing
carnivals or other shows, they have merely indulged their taste for
glitter and snobbishness. In neither case have they "helped the war" in
an efficient manner. Many women do work really hard in arranging these
undertakings (though they are not always the identical women who receive
the praise of the illustrated press); but, on the other hand, many of
them unquestionably lend a hand, or a face, or a leg, in order to
satisfy the primeval passion for picturesque self-exhibition.

    *    *    *    *    *

As a means of raising money nearly the whole of the mart and carnival
business is extremely wasteful, even when it succeeds in amassing
considerable sums of money; but sometimes there is an actual deficit.
The present reaction is due, I am afraid, less to the direct perception
of economic truths than to grave personal inconvenience and
disappointment caused by the amateurish and exasperatingly foolish
organisation, or rather lack of organisation, which has been noticeable
in certain grandiose efforts. Two arguments are used in favour of the
continuance of the great fashionable industry. The first is that money
could not be raised in any other way. To which the answer is that it has
been and it still could be. The second is that an appreciable section of
our educated and refined womanhood would do nothing "for the war" if
they were not allowed to do just this. To which the answer is that, on
the whole, it would be better "for the war" if they did nothing. In many
windows of small provincial towns you see a card bearing the words: "A
MAN has gone from this house to fight for King and Country." It would
not be a bad plan, if the charity mart and carnival business were to
wither under the sirocco of public opinion, to have cards prepared for
certain residences in certain select West End streets: "A Lady is idling
in this house----"

  _15 December 1917._




  A LEGAL BANQUET


The most stimulating incident at the Gray's Inn dinner to meet the Prime
Minister, as to which expectation rose so high and realisation fell so
low, was the short speech of Lord Halsbury, aged ninety-six, in reply to
the toast of his health, proposed after the end of the formal programme.
The vigour and directness of this old man are still astounding. "We have
heard to-night some things with which we heartily agree," said the
illustrious Die-hard, and added, with malicious reluctance, "and many
things in which--I suppose--we must acquiesce." It was a good saying,
and Lord Halsbury brought the house down far more effectively than Mr.
Lloyd George when, in speaking alike of Prussian treaty-breakers and of
Englishmen who supported the war in 1914 and now don't support it, he
made, with immense gusto, the broad remark: "We all know that a man who
enters into a bargain and then backs out of it is a dirty scoundrel."

    *    *    *    *    *

Mr. Lloyd George himself looked a strong and independent individuality.
(But then Lord Beaverbrook was not, I think, present. At any rate he was
not in his advertised place.) The tone and phrasing of the Prime
Minister's references to Lord Lansdowne were histrionically very clever.
But there was little in his speech beyond one or two rather happy
similes. He began by saying that the speech was addressed to the
nation. Conceivably it may have suited the nation, but the assemblage of
inside experts found the procession of platitudes somewhat tedious
towards the close. When the speaker ceased to manipulate his eye-glasses
and dropped his notes, everyone waited for a grand climax. Forensic
skill, however, seemed to falter at the critical moment. The peroration
was much better to read than to hear. The voice lacked conviction. Do
not suppose that the performance was a failure. As a task in the
spectacular day's work of an extremely harassed Prime Minister it went
through with fair efficiency, even with credit. But as an energising
stream for the reinforcement of men at once intelligent and candid, it
simply did not exist.

    *    *    *    *    *

As the diners were invited to meet not only the Prime Minister but the
"Heads of the Air Force," and the night, after the Prime Minister had
sat down, became distinctly aerial, it was a pity that in no speech was
any reference made to the very prominent part in the air played by
Canadians and Australians. I am not in favour of making a song about
Colonials at the expense of the mere Briton; but the fighting heads of
the Air Force themselves make a quite special song concerning the
extremely helpful enthusiasm of Colonials about the air. In one
congratulatory speech, referring to the youthfulness of the main body of
air-fighters, it was said that many of them but for the war would still
be at Eton or Harrow. This perfectly well-meant conventional phrase was
taken up with spirit in the Service reply to the toast, and the fact was
stressed that far more fighting aviators came from Board-schools than
from Eton or Harrow. Indeed the democratic system of promotion in the
Air Force got a free advertisement, and drew applause which was
noticeable without being vulgar.

  _22 December 1917._




  MUSICAL COMPOSERS WHO GET A HEARING


The following extract from the _Sunday Express_ shows how some
musical-comedy music is written. It ought not to be lost to the world in
the files of a newspaper. It needs no comment:

      "Cannot Read a Note

    "_Society, Ltd._ is entirely a two-man production, the two
    Arthurs responsible for it writing it together when staying up
    the river. Arthur Carrington is one of those rare people who,
    having a remarkably good natural ear, can play any music once
    heard. Consequently, though he has travelled all over the
    Continent to hear good music he has never had a lesson and
    cannot read a single note, each chord of his setting for
    _Society, Ltd._ having been transcribed by a musician as the
    composer played it on the piano. He is forty-nine years of age,
    and has only recently discovered that he had any gift for
    musical composition."

  _21 March 1920._




  FREE-HANDEDNESS


Dr. P. had a young patient whose father is a big employer and very
wealthy. The youth was suffering from tuberculosis in some form, and Dr.
P. suggested that a specialist should be consulted. "The best," said the
father. A consultation was arranged with the very eminent Dr. Q. Dr. P.
was five minutes late for the appointment, and found the patient, the
father, and Dr. Q. already assembled. The father was telling Dr. Q.
wonderful tales about Dr. P. After some more general conversation the
father suddenly said: "Now, gentlemen, let's get to business," as though
at a Directors' meeting. Dr. Q.'s verdict was sufficiently serious. At
the end the father said: "Now, doctor, how much is your fee?" Dr. Q.
said five guineas. "What?" cried the father. Dr. Q. repeated, five
guineas. The father looked at Dr. P. and said: "I thought you'd brought
me to the best man in London?" "So I have," said Dr. P. "What?" cried
the father again to Dr. Q. "You're the best man in London and you only
charge five guineas! You'll have to take more." Dr. Q. said that five
guineas was his charge, and he shouldn't take more. "You'll have to,"
said the father, and pulled a roll of pound-notes out of his pocket two
inches thick, fastened with two indiarubber bands. He wet his thumb and
began to count--up to ten. He then felt in his waistcoat pocket for a
ten-shilling note, but couldn't find one. "Never mind," he said.
"Here's an extra ten shillings for luck, doctor," and then added an
eleventh pound-note, and offered the money to Dr. Q., who protested.
"Either you'll take 'em or they'll go in the fire." Dr. Q. took the
money. The father then proceeded: "Now, doctor, this is an important day
in my life, meeting the top man in London in his line. I don't mind
telling you I had a bottle of Veuve Clikko at my London office before I
came. Now you must come with me, and you too, Dr. P., and we'll have
another bottle. I've got my car waiting at the door. She was a damned
clever old woman, was that widow." It took the two doctors some time to
make the father understand that they wouldn't and couldn't come. So he
went off with his son, whose serious state did not seem to trouble him
in the least.




  HARDSHIPS OF THE RULING CLASS


Food-queues are annoying, not merely or chiefly to the classes which
constitute them, but to the ruling class--partly because they are held
to be the seed-bed of disaffection, and partly because they are an
offence to the eye and a disturbance to the soft heart of the ruling
class. The ruling class can splendidly tolerate the most ghastly
inconvenience to the other classes so long as it is not forced upon its
august attention. But what can be more exasperating to members of the
ruling class than a quarter-mile queue of dirty and shivering children,
women, and old men, in the immediate neighbourhood of a great railway
terminus when the exodus for Christmas holidays is in full swing? Even
the plenteousness of food in the few remaining restaurant-cars will not
suffice to expel the memory of those queues. And Heaven knows that food
is still plenteous in the restaurant-cars! You pay, for instance, a
fixed price for breakfast, and three rich rashers of bacon and a couple
of eggs, besides porridge, butter, sugar, marmalade, and jams are forced
upon you. You are not permitted to pay half-price for, say, one rasher
and one egg. You must put your money down for three rashers and two
eggs, and naturally you don't want to lose what you have paid for. The
arrangement is characteristic of that glorious survival, the British
railway company. Hotels and their restaurants are more harsh, but then
they are not managed by railway directors. In the most chic restaurants
of the West End you cannot get butter, or any substitute for it, at
either lunch or dinner. The most exclusive clubs are the scene of
terrible hardships in the matter of sugar. So that it can no more be
said that the wealthy are not bearing their fair share of the horrors of
war. The blockade, indeed, is certainly getting stricter.

    *    *    *    *    *

Nevertheless, the blockade seems still to leak, even in the West End,
far from restaurant-cars. The other day a customer went into a perfectly
respectable tea-shop, and had a carefully rationed afternoon tea at a
table. He then demanded of the waitress: "Can I have some cake?" To
which the waitress replied: "Well, sir, it's like this. I'm forbidden to
serve you with any cake, but if you go to that counter and buy a cake in
a bag, you can bring it to this table and eat it here." If Lord Rhondda
has not yet made a serious attempt to see life steadily and see it whole
in the only manner proper for a Food Controller, that is, by doing the
Haroun-al-Raschid stunt in tea-shops, I suggest that he might well begin
a tour at once.

  _29 December 1917._




  CAILLAUX


Joseph Caillaux is finding a great deal of support in the Press, both
French and English. And among this support none is more remarkable, even
if it be not surprising, than that of the Paris correspondent of the
_Manchester Guardian_, who actually compared him, before he publicly
compared himself, with Dreyfus--hinting that he may be a martyr! There
are three points in the Caillaux affair which need notice. The first
point is that the real basis of the charges against him is apparently
never mentioned in the newspapers. The real basis is that he is supposed
to have been acting in the interests of big German-controlled business
concerns which survive in France under French or Swiss auspices and
names. Hence, it is said, his pacifism and his anti-Englishness. The
second point is that the trial of Caillaux, whatever form it takes, will
probably prove nothing. The gang of adventurers who infest French
politics are all mixed up together, and each individual can, to a very
large extent, protect himself in a moment of crisis by threatening
revelations about the others. This fact is notorious. For myself, I
shall be surprised if Caillaux comes to any real harm at the trial. As
to whether or not he is guilty of taking German money I am not prepared
to offer an opinion. The third point is that, even assuming Caillaux to
be innocent of venality, and admitting all his personal charm, the
nimbleness of his wit and his extraordinary readiness of resource, he
has one fatal defect. He is a fool. I doubt whether there exists in
European statesmanship to-day another man so completely bereft of common
sense as Caillaux. Some say he is mad. He may be, though I doubt it. But
that he has again and again behaved with the most astounding silliness
cannot be seriously disputed. He has carried foolery to a degree at
which, in a politician, it is the equivalent of crime.

  _29 December 1917._




  TEACHING HISTORY


I find signs of an improvement in the methods of teaching history--even
in public schools. Indeed, it seems probable that public schools are
awakening to the fact that there is such a thing as a world-movement.
Many readers will share the stupefaction and delight with which I learnt
that one of the oldest public schools in England--Oundle--has recently
erected a special building, and rather a fine building, for the study of
industrial and economic history, etc. Of course, it is chiefly a
library. By the Oundle method the boys work in groups, or sometimes
singly, upon a given subject. The labour of research is divided into
sections, and each group takes up a definite section, reading the
authorities, and making original maps, charts, and graphs. The various
sections are then collated into a grand combined pow-wow. Thus in the
Michaelmas term last year the subject of Slavery was taken, under five
sections: (i.) Classical Times, (ii.) Africa, (iii.) America, (iv.)
American Civil War, (v.) Slavery in Relation to England. The scope of
the affair was evidently enormous. That the choice of authorities was
catholic was indicated by the detail that under section (iii.) was
included Mark Twain's greatest masterpiece. (Need I say that Mark
Twain's greatest masterpiece is _Life on the Mississippi_?) My first
thought naturally was, on glancing through the vast syllabus: "Yes, this
is all very well. But what about slavery _in_ England?" I then
discovered that the subject for the present term is precisely "The
Enslavement of the Working Classes and the Struggle for Freedom," of
which the third and fourth sections comprise, "Child Labour and Factory
Life in England," and "Adult Labour in England." The authors studied
under these sections include Cobbett, Sadler, Rogers, the Hammonds, and
G. D. H. Cole. I seem to remember the epoch when in the Eton curriculum,
as a concession to modern ideas, wood-carving was admitted as an
alternative to (I think) either Greek or German. As I have not the Eton
curriculum before me I cannot be exact, but anyhow the alternative had
an element of prodigiosity. That epoch is apparently passing. Oundle
belongs to the Worshipful Company of Grocers, and its growth during the
last twenty years has been tremendous.

  _16 February 1918._




  FOR AND AGAINST PROHIBITION


The mistress of the house being away, I had a male party for Easter. We
talked quite a lot about alcohol. Not many men can talk intelligently
about drink, but far more can talk intelligently about drink than about
food. A few days previously I had been to the dinner given to H. G.
Wells by George Newnes Limited to celebrate the completion of _The
Outline of History_. There was only one wine at that dinner, Bollinger
1911, a wine that will soon be extinct. It was perfect, as perfect as
the cigars. I now got up one of my rare remaining bottles of it. We
decided that no champagne could beat it, even if any could equal it, and
I once again abandoned the belief, put into me by certain experts, that
the finest 1911 champagnes were Krug and Duc de Montebello. We relished
various wines, clarets, burgundies, and ports, ranging up to fifty years
old; together with old brandy. It was inevitable that we should discuss
that subject upon which the arguments are apparently as forcible on one
side as on the other--American prohibition. Would the veto be withdrawn?
Or would prohibitionism spread gradually through the world? I have never
been able to believe that the great historical institution of alcohol,
whose use has heightened and commemorated so many tremendous events,
could be destroyed in spite of the vast influence of almost universal
human appetites. But a doctor who was among us conceived a future in
which man in general would procure daily enjoyment and ecstasy on a
plane less sensual than the present one. When he had amplified his idea
it was possible to imagine an epoch when alcohol would be looked back
upon as barbaric and a very inefficient vehicle of pleasure, and when
the cellarage of Rheims would be regarded as the Catacombs are regarded.
But some other vehicle will have been devised before this can happen. In
the meantime alcohol produces a delightful social atmosphere that
nothing else can produce. Only its next-mornings are not triumphant. Of
course I do not trouble to say that the morrow of an orgy is not
triumphant--that goes without saying. I mean even the morrows of
temperate indulgence. After a few days of this male holiday I discovered
myself anticipating with some eagerness the next meal and the next
glass. My sleep became even more insecure than usual, and a feeling of
_malaise_ infected the first hours of the day. Yet I never drank more
than one glass of champagne at night, and perhaps a spoonful of brandy.
No whisky, and, above all, no liqueurs. Almost the smallest quantity of
alcohol taken regularly day after day will clog my own particular
machine. I was driven by the force of intimate facts nearly to the
extreme position of the late Victor Horsley about alcohol. And on the
last day of the holiday, so that I might be reasonably ready for the
first day of work, I was obliged to decide that I would drink no
alcohol at all. I had to get alcohol not merely out of my body but out
of my thoughts. Still, during the holiday, alcohol did at moments create
a unique zest for existence.




  HINDLE WAKES


It has been a fairly momentous week, full of shipbuilding "mysteries"
that thousands of people could very well explain if they were allowed,
and of Siberian mysteries which really are mysteries. Nevertheless,
Trafalgar Square, brightly illuminated in the evening, gave night after
night an uncanny illusion of the war being over and air raids a mere
memory. The orchestra and the strings of lights and the moving crowds of
dark silhouettes under the glare resembled nothing so much as Hindle
Wakes. But to give green electric eyes to Nelson's lions was a mistake.
The National War Savings Committee, admirable in nearly every way, has
often accepted bad advice in matters of art. The gigantic scenic
paintings which hide the faades of the National Gallery and the Royal
Exchange are regrettable in their extreme mediocrity, and they might so
easily have been both beautiful and striking. I suppose that the
financial results of the week of hustle are, as a whole, considered very
satisfactory, though the returns of the Trafalgar Square Tank cannot
possibly be so considered. And really Glasgow and the other great
provincial competitors must have thought that London played it rather
low down on them in getting an enormous subscription for War Bonds from
the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. The notion of
these Commissioners employing their resources to increase the National
Debt doubtless gave intense pleasure to the brains that thought of it.
At any rate, during one week the citizens have subscribed, without the
impetus of a set Loan, vastly more than the country has spent--which is
somewhat novel.

  _9 March 1918._




  HOTEL MORNINGS


The bell-indicator, and the sole bell, for the entire floor are just
outside my bedroom. The first ring disturbs me about seven-fifteen.
After that, for half an hour, the rings are sporadic, very infrequent;
but from a quarter to eight to eight o'clock their frequency rapidly
increases, until at the hour the bell seems to be ringing almost
continuously,--expression of the collective, urgent, insistent, ruthless
desire of the population of the floor to drink tea and obtain hot water
preparatory to getting up. From eight o'clock the rings gradually
decrease, until at about eight-fifteen they are as rare as they were at
seven-fifteen. The great collective desire has been appeased. The
unanimity of this population brought together by chance is most
remarkable. It is also, somehow, very funny. It makes me laugh to myself
as I lie reading. The phenomenon of the increasing and decreasing
frequency of the rings occurs with astonishing sameness morning after
morning. It makes a rather striking illustration of the instinct of
human beings to conform, to coalesce into an ordered community, and of
the mighty force of public opinion.

    *    *    *    *    *

The mentality of some Continental hotel servants is very queer. When one
has grasped it one understands why hotel servants are hotel servants and
why they are not revolutionaries. Every morning the servant attached to
my room answers my ring promptly. He puts his head inside my door and
murmurs some phrase of which I do not comprehend the component words but
which I know signifies: "What does the gentleman want?" Every morning I
reply in a language of which I have acquired only about four phrases,
that I want hot water and a cup of tea. Every morning the servant's face
expresses a mild, polite surprise at such a curious demand. Every
morning as the servant plants the tea on a chair by my bed--and not
before--he says to me suddenly, in the manner of an explosion, and in
English, "Good morning, sir." He is a gloomy and patient man, with a
fatigued smile. Strange that he should get up earlier than I do! Strange
that he should get up without tea! Strange that his life's work should
consist in keeping me and such as me in ease and idleness! (Off and on I
have lived in pleasure hotels for years, but I have never grown used to
this strangeness; and I never shall.) The man may not be a fool; but he
is a simpleton.

    *    *    *    *    *

Breakfasts in pleasure hotels are trying affairs. Sensitive people avoid
them by breakfasting in their own rooms, unless, like me, they are
driven downstairs by an insatiable desire to watch human nature. At
these breakfasts human nature rasps you. What it wants to eat, how it
asks for what it wants, how it eats what it wants, its mean ingenuity in
extracting from the hotel more than the hotel wants to give it for a
fixed payment,--all these and many other manifestations of the
functioning of early-morning human nature rasp on the raw sensibilities
of the sensitive. For instance, an old lady comes down. She is dingily
dressed in black. She is ugly. She has the complexion of a cabman. She
is morose. She is offensive. She is exacting. She is the negative of
charm. She wants bacon and eggs. The Englishness of asking for bacon and
eggs in a Continental hotel is odious to me; it is disgusting. Not
merely does she want bacon and eggs, but she wants them very quickly.
She continually harries the pale head-waiter, who is wearing his worst
dress-suit and dirty linen; but happily the raging rollers of her desire
for bacon and eggs break quite harmlessly on the rocky smoothness of the
head-waiter's imperturbable polished demeanour. . . . I see the bacon
and eggs coming; and at the same moment I see an old gentleman coming.
The old gentleman sits down at the same table as the old lady. Says she,
as the head-waiter deposits the dish: "I've had some difficulty in
getting your bacon and eggs, and I was very much afraid you'd have to
wait. However----!" "Thank you, darling," says the old gentleman. She
did not want the bacon and eggs for herself; she wanted them for him!
She is the old gentleman's darling. He does not behold her with the same
eyes as I behold her. He does not observe that she has the complexion of
a cabman. I estimate that they may have forty or fifty years of married
life to look back upon. They are thoroughly accustomed to one another.
They talk together like very old friends. My sensibilities have been
rasped, but now they are smoothed; and I have to admit that hotel
breakfasts sometimes offer marvellous compensations. The aged couple
begin to chat with neighbouring tables. Their superficial uncouthness
disappears. I learn that they have travelled much, and seen many works
of art worth seeing, and that they can differentiate between schools of
painting, and that the lady, at any rate, can talk fluent Italian. Yet
they don't in the least look like connoisseurs. They look like nothing
at all but British winterers-abroad. Astounding, is it not, that so much
commerce with beauty should not have prevented them from achieving such
a damnable personal ugliness? Presently the old man turns to me, and
says, with the delicatest suggestion of humour in his blinking eyes:
"Can you tell us whether it is Saturday or Sunday to-day? We were
discussing the point upstairs, and couldn't decide it."




  ENGLISH SOCIETY IN THE NINETIES


I have been reading Wilfred Scawen Brunt's Diaries. The proof-correcting
of them is not impeccable; but perhaps the occasional negligent
composition, and the mistakes in proper names and in French, are to be
excused in so old and sick a man. One of his characteristics is the way
in which he takes for granted all the paraphernalia of service and
apparatus necessary to the luxurious existence of such a person as
himself. Thus in a considerable record of a long driving tour in a coach
and four there is almost nothing to show that he did not groom and feed
and harness and unharness the horses, and wash and grease the coach,
without any menial aid. The descriptions of life in and on the edge of
the African desert are delightful and very ably done. But the most
interesting parts of the first volume are the entries about London
Society at the close of the nineteenth century, and especially of the
group known as the Souls. He is continually insisting upon the extreme
intelligence and the high education of this group. They certainly were
clever--apparently they could write brilliant poems between two sets of
lawn tennis; they were highly diverting conversationalists, and their
heads must have held a tremendous mass of facts. But, with every
advantage, what did they amount to, after all? What was their
achievement? They were more remarkable for self-indulgence and caprice
and irregular hours than for any sort of steady endeavour. Their
education taught them neither discipline nor tenacity of purpose nor the
art of life. They had not the supreme intelligence, for the supreme
intelligence consists in an understanding of the value of deportment.
They were in the public eye, and the most famous of them, particularly
the women, simply did not know how to behave--and to this day do not
know how to behave. They had not even the wit to keep their photographs
out of the illustrated papers. They developed a mania for
self-advertisement. And notoriety became as necessary to them as wine,
cards, and constant change. For the most part they have done nothing
except corrupt society and render it ridiculous. As regards the
fulfilment of ambitions Lord Rosebery is the typical example of them.
Lord Rosebery displayed the limits of his intelligence when, emerging
from a sybaritism founded on the wealth of the Rothschilds, he declared
that it was good for a poet to starve. The one man among them who has
realised himself and maintained a massive public dignity in the face of
terrible handicaps (which it is needless to specify) is precisely the
man whom Blunt in these earlier years refers to with condescending
toleration: H. H. Asquith. The favoured group and its descendants have
now become the pawns of millionaires who treat them with a mixture
containing 5 per cent. of flattery and 95 per cent. of breezy disdain.




  CERTAIN PROFITEERS


A publisher told me the other day that he had been offered some
"disgusting" paper--such paper as before the war he would not have given
1d. a lb. for--at 1s. 4d. a lb. as a special favour. Scarcely a
fortnight ago buyers were raising their hands at a price of 1s. a lb.
The next situation to be acute will be the paper situation. Papermakers
are prospering as gorgeously as salt-unions. They do not conceal it. But
can the innocent things be blamed? They cannot. Paper-buyers surround
them as courtiers surround thrones, and simply force high prices upon
them. The same excuse cannot be made for the fashionable-restaurant
profiteers. Lunchers and diners do not bid against each other in our
vast, gilded, orchestral eating-houses. The prices at _chic_ restaurants
have not greatly advanced, but the quantity of food supplied has greatly
diminished. The scandal is not that one cannot get certain foods--nobody
expects them--but that the "portions" of the food one can get are so
impudently small. And from the firm attitude of the waiters one may
divine that they have received definite instructions to distribute the
very tiniest quantities which the eater will accept without physical
protest. Nowadays I rarely go into a _chic_ restaurant, but I am
inclined to describe my few recent experiences therein as experiences of
being swindled. People continue to permit themselves to be swindled,
because the habit of being seen in these restaurants satisfies
something in their spiritual natures. Their feelings in _chic_
restaurants might be described by slightly modifying Dr. Johnson's
description of his feelings on the Paris boulevards: "Sat in the _chic_
restaurant awhile. Ate nothing in particular, but was glad to be there."
There are restaurants which, in addition to withholding the exquisite
torture of bad music, give twice the quantity of food, rather better
cooked, at about half the price of the _chic_ restaurants. These
restaurants I frequent, but if any reader imagines that I am going to
disclose their names and addresses he is immensely mistaken. I have
spoilt too many good, cheap restaurants in my time by disclosing their
names and addresses.

    *    *    *    *    *

Speaking of profiteers reminds me that the existence of this genus--I
have no wish to brand the whole genus with evil epithets--will probably
do more than anything else to bring about the conscription of a certain
amount of wealth when the post-war budgets come to be tackled. There are
arguments for and against the conscription of wealth, but the
sentimental argument in its favour will assuredly carry it. The war has
divided the nation into two parts. The larger part has lived in safety,
in comparative freedom, in comparative luxury; and a very considerable
number of individuals in it will be monetarily richer at the end of the
war than they were at the beginning. The smaller part--such portion of
it as survives--has abandoned its civil position and prospects, has
risked life and limb and health, has suffered terribly, has exchanged
liberty for a harsh discipline, and has received at the best a miserably
inadequate wage--a wage that scarcely anybody of corresponding status in
the larger part would look at. Visitors to the front are well aware that
this smaller part has exceedingly keen convictions as to the propriety
of the conscription of wealth, together with a general desire for the
blood of profiteers. Homicidal intentions may wither, but the intention
to see that some wealth is conscripted will unquestionably not wither.
And the philanthropic performances of wealth will not save wealth. In a
new exhibition of war-pictures by Mr. Nevinson (who is a wit as well as
an artist) is a fanciful portrait of a repellent type, thus labelled:
"He made a fortune and gave a sum."

  _16 March 1918._




  BRAINS AND EATING


Brain-workers expected no favours from Lord Rhondda; but they did not
expect to be insulted. Says Lord Rhondda: "Scientific opinion is
unanimous to the effect that a man does not need any more food because
he works with his brain than he would need if he were not working." I
should like Lord Rhondda to produce his authorities. I have little
scientific knowledge of the mysteries of the human organism in being,
but I have a very considerable empiric knowledge of the functioning of
my own body. I assert that I can sit down fresh to my particular sort of
brain-work, and at the end of three hours' concentration upon it I can
be so utterly exhausted that further efficient work is impossible till
the next day. I am prepared to believe that the exhaustion has a toxic
origin, and that physical exercise will appreciably mitigate it; but, on
the other hand, I should not have the volitional energy to take physical
exercise in these circumstances until I had received nourishment, which
nourishment I should certainly not have required had I remained idle or
merely written letters or bright articles or memoranda for committees.
My experience is that I need more food for a day's brain-work than for a
day of activity in the open air; that brain-work induces hunger, and
that if this hunger is not satisfied neuralgia ensues. And I know that
my experience is quite a common one. As one truly humble and anxious to
learn, I beg to ask those who know more about me than I do myself the
following questions: Does continuous and severe cerebration destroy
tissue? If it does not, why am I hungry after working in a chair and not
hungry after reading a novel in a chair? If it does not destroy tissue,
what does it do? If it does destroy tissue, what becomes of Lord
Rhondda's dictum?

  _23 March 1918._




  A TRANSATLANTIC VIEW


The wife of an American official, staggered and delighted at the
spectacle of a very great munitions factory in Britain: "I can just feel
the monarchical principle pulsating through all this effort."

  _30 March 1918._




  AFTER THE MARCH OFFENSIVE


Last Tuesday afternoon amounted to a "great occasion" in the House of
Commons. Mr. Lloyd George's speech was a most ordinary performance. It
is a pity that so few people have the faculty of being amazed at the
ordinary. The Prime Minister went through the ceremony of what is known
as "reviewing the situation." All the information which he imparted to
the House during the first fifty minutes of his speech was told in about
thirty seconds, and it had only a trifling importance. The rest was a
hash-up of what everybody knows, done really very badly indeed; and on
the military side it had the sole effect of making the German
achievement seem more miraculous even than we had thought it. Seventy
minutes had passed before Mr. Lloyd George arrived at his proper theme.
He spoke for a hundred and seventeen minutes, in which period he was
detected only once in the use of an argument. When he referred to the
valour of the British Army he was cheered. When he said that
conscription in Ireland was simply justice to England he got a
long-sustained cheer from the Conservative benches. And when he uttered
any easily comprehended sentimental truism he got the tiny cheer which
any speaker can get at any public meeting for such things. But after a
horribly creaking peroration he sat down practically in silence. The
show was incompetent. Worse, it was forced, meretricious, and noisy. One
felt constantly while Mr. Lloyd George thumped the brass-bound
dispatch-box and looked histrionically round the House challenging
Members to deny his impassioned assertion that two and two make
four--one felt that the dispatch-box ought to have been a tub. One felt
that if this kind of stunt has to be done in order to placate the
traditions of the House, Mr. Horatio Bottomley could do it far better
than Mr. Lloyd George. The spectacle was humiliating, the waste of time
shocking. Mr. Asquith showed the difference between genuine
Parliamentarianism and the other thing, and Mr. Joe Devlin dramatically
showed the difference between genuine oratory and the other thing.

  _13 April 1918._




  THE ROYAL ACADEMY AGAIN


The Private View of the Royal Academy was somewhat less crowded than
usual. There were far more horses (well fed) in the quadrangle during
the afternoon, and far fewer automobiles than for many years past.
Still, there were a few automobiles (other than electric) using petrol
or gas for purposes for which it is illegal to use petrol or gas; but
the policemen round about showed no sign of any intention to issue
summonses. Within, there was a notable paucity of khaki, and the English
ruling class, though very prevalent, seemed somehow less domineering and
offensive than aforetime. The chief characteristic of the Exhibition was
the absence, not merely of portraits by the fashionable performers, but
of any portraits whatever of certain prominent youngish and middle-aged
women, without portraits of whom no exhibition has hitherto been
considered respectable. The supreme positive achievement of the show is
Mr. Frank Salisbury's. Who could believe that he would surpass his
rendering of the heroism of Jack Cornwall? Yet he has done so. His group
of the King, the Prince of Wales, and Sir Douglas Haig, with their
satellites, is simply and totally amazing; and the footnote which
represents the Queen and some nurses is as amazing as the main subject.
In front of these canvases you have to pinch yourself in order to be
sure that you have not fallen into a trancd vision. Mr. Salisbury
undoubtedly ought to be president of the R.A., for no one has defied
time and the evolutionary process so perfectly as he has. The picture of
the year will be Mr. Walter Bayes' life-size version of the
alien-haunted Tube during a raid. It is not a bad picture, but it will
be overpraised for the realism of the woman in the ill-fitting stays.
The R.A. has no objection to the nude, but I question whether it ever
admitted ill-fitting stays to its walls before. Those interested in
graphic art will discover relief in distinguished productions by D. Y.
Cameron and George Clausen. The picture by Anning Bell, bought by the
Chantrey Trustees, is the best Anning Bell I ever saw. Still, it leaves
one entirely indifferent. I hear that a determined effort was made to
get the Trustees to buy pictures by Wilson Steer and William Nicholson.
It failed. The R.A. probably has an inkling that there is a war on, but
thinks it is the Boer War.

  _11 May 1918._




  J. G. BENNETT


The most curious thing in the notices of James Gordon Bennett is the
statement that he was in bed when Stanley called on him in the early
morning in Paris to arrange the Livingstone expedition. In Paris Bennett
rose at terrible hours, such as 4 a.m. I have known resentful employees
of his who have had appointments with him in what they held to be the
middle of the night. On the other hand he reckoned to have finished his
day's work at 9 a.m. Even in old age he was a fellow of astounding
energy. Unfortunately much of the interesting part of his biography
could not be printed without offending Anglo-Saxon public opinion. He
knew how to spend money and how to waste it. The last and greatest of
his yachts, the _Lysistrata_, was possibly not equal in grandeur to some
modern rivals, like the incomparable _Iolanda_, or the _Nahma_, but she
was a startling vessel. I remember once, on the Riviera, off which coast
the _Lysistrata_ often "hung," a well-known Clyde shipbuilder telling me
that he had just had an order to duplicate certain fittings for the
yacht. He said: "They were of solid gold." And in this way James Gordon
Bennett "went on."

  _18 May 1918._




  PORTUGUESE STREETS


Some streets in Portuguese towns and villages have agreeable
peculiarities. For example, the numbering often, if not generally,
includes the ground-floor windows as well as the door. Thus quite a
small house may well occupy three numbers in the series. And there is no
modesty or underhandedness or sparing of expense in the business; every
number is carefully painted over door or window in large characters.
What was the object of this method of numeration I never became
sufficiently intimate with any municipal authorities to learn. Indeed, I
was never sufficiently anxious to learn, being content to enjoy the mere
fact. Not satisfied with carrying the numeration of houses further than
some people, the Portuguese have also carried the nomenclature of
streets further. If a street is called after a regiment--and some
are--all the chief victories in which the regiment participated are set
up, with dates, at the ends of the said streets. (I doubt, however,
whether this is good League of Nations propaganda.) I woke one morning
in a suburb of Lisbon, and looking out of my window beheld the following
street sign on the opposite wall: "Street of the Lusiads. Poem by
Camoens. First edition 1572." Anybody can see sense in this device. The
advertisement for fine literature is permanent. Probably very few people
dwelling in the street will be tempted by the sign and the information
to get hold of Camoens and study him; but somebody might be tempted;
indeed a certain type of person might deem it a social duty, the
performance of which was necessary to his self-respect, to read the
works of a classical writer in whose street he lived. Anyhow the process
of familiarisation with the symbol of great things is continuous. I have
not read the Lusiads myself, in any language; but I am assured that they
make an admirable bed-book, and that once taken up they cannot easily be
put down. I can believe it. All great epics are full of meat and of
juicy side-dishes if only people will refrain from taking them as
seriously as porridge. _Paradise Lost_ is a whole picnic-menu, and in
fragments makes first-rate light reading.

    *    *    *    *    *

Other and more grandiose countries might advantageously imitate Portugal
in this matter of street nomenclature. But they must not shrink from a
full achievement. "Lusiads Street" would have no effect. Ninety-nine per
cent. of the inhabitants of a Lusiads Street would live and die without
troubling to guess what Lusiads were. But inhabitants of the "Street of
the Lusiads. Poem by Camoens. First edition 1572," unless they happen to
be blind, are forced to absorb the most important fact of their national
literary history. I can imagine the tremendous effect in New York of an
"Avenue of the Tales of Mystery and Imagination. By Edgar Allen Poe.
First edition 1845." It would turn New York into a city of dreams--and
would also produce a strike of clerks and a ukase of the Postal
Administration forbidding the admixture of letters with letters. But
nobody need be afraid. It is only very young and ingenuous republics who
go in for this kind of thing.




  SACCHARINE


The world is full of marvels. You go regularly into your favourite
chemist's, in order to mitigate by means of drugs the effects of too
much devotion to your country, and bottles of saccharine always lie on
the counter in front of you in heaps, inviting you to buy. You do buy,
but only occasionally, because one phial of saccharine goes a long way,
and there are heaps of them in the marvellous world. Then one day you
notice that saccharine has disappeared from the counter. You happen to
want some. The chemist, though he is your favourite chemist and knows
your weaknesses and talks politics with you, immediately puts on a
perfectly blank smile and says that he has no more saccharine and can't
get any. No use ingeniously cross-examining him! He is determined that
his ignorance shall be perfect. He doesn't know the cause of the
mysterious disappearance of saccharine. He doesn't know when he will be
able to get a fresh supply. He hasn't the slightest idea about anything
at all. He exists apparently quite content amid the most disconcerting
enigmas. You remember having seen in the newspaper that the Food
Controller had some sort of a notion of controlling saccharine at some
future time. But you cannot bring yourself to suggest to the chemist
that herein lies the explanation of the mysterious disappearance of
saccharine. The chemist's resolve to be an honest simpleton ties your
tongue. And you go from shop to shop. No saccharine anywhere. Not even
at the club. Saccharine has vanished like gold in a revolution.

  _18 May 1918._




  THE JOCKEY CLUB


One institution at any rate has not been "controlled" in the
war--namely, the Jockey Club. The Jockey Club, instead of being
controlled, is "requested." Its representatives seem to meet the
representatives of the War Cabinet on equal terms. The Government,
according to an announcement apparently official, "requested the Jockey
Club to co-operate with them in carrying into effect" the limitation of
racing rendered necessary by the stress of war. Whereupon the Jockey
Club duly met and unanimously agreed that "such a request coming direct
from the Government should be loyally complied with," and gave the
necessary orders for cancellation of race meetings. What would have
happened if the Jockey Club had "loyally" differed from the War Cabinet
on the grave question, Heaven knows! But we can all guess what would
happen to the Football Association or the M.C.C. if the War Cabinet
wanted anything from such bodies. Their "loyalty" would not be appealed
to. They would just receive an order from some department, and that
would be the end of that. The further curtailment of racing is probably
directly due to the season-ticket holders' dangerous resentment against
race-trains to and from Gatwick. If season-ticket holders had any sense
they would all become members of the Jockey Club. It would then suddenly
be discovered that to raise the price of seasons would involve the ruin
of the Empire, and the Board of Trade would sing a tune quite different
from its present melody.

  _1 June 1918._




  BALZAC'S TECHNIQUE


_Les Employs_ and _Le Cur de Tours_ are among the works of Balzac that
I like best. They are half-novels. But the beginning of _Les Employs_
is terrible. Balzac takes over forty pages to lay down his principal
personages, Rabourdin and des Lupeaulx. The latter is a complete
"character" (in the old meaning), and the description of him might be
made into a complete Balzacian work. The former is almost complete, but
there is tacked on to the description of him a full account of his
scheme for re-organising the Civil Service. You feel here that Balzac
did not know what he was talking about. The account is full of facile
generalities that would not stand serious criticism, and also it is
involved and heavy. In short, ill done; dull. Nevertheless, when you
have got through the forty odd pages, you have a reward in your own
feelings. You _do_ feel now that the ground plan is well and truly laid,
and the trouble which Balzac has made you take ensures your interest for
the future and makes it genuine. Especially as the thing does get
slightly more interesting in itself towards the end of the forty odd
pages. There are sentences about des Lupeaulx and company; for example:
"_Leur constante habitude de toujours faire un mouvement de tte
affirmatif pour approuver ce qui se dit, ou pour s'en donner l'air,
communiqua quelque chose d'trange  leur tte. Leur langage fut plein
de mais, de cependant, de nanmoins, de moi, je ferais, moi,  votre
place (ils disaient souvent  votre place), toutes phrases qui prparent
la contradiction_" (p. 41). . . . In fine, having arrived at Madame
Rabourdin's campaign to capture des Lupeaulx, you await with joy the
sequel.

    *    *    *    *    *

Note the falsification characteristic of Balzac in exaggerating the
charm and beauty of Rabourdin's home. He invents circumstances to
account for it, but the invention is not convincing. You can see the
impulse to idealise getting stronger in him. In a moment Madame
Rabourdin is one of the seven or eight really superior women of Paris.
And he gives her for a friend Madame Firmiani (_ne_ Cadignan)! At the
ministerial reception there is little surcease from character
description (pp. 45-47), and one thinks that the intrigue is really
beginning, when the Saillard Baudoyer lot is introduced. The ensuing
descriptiveness occupies over twenty pages (pp. 47-68). At Madame
Rabourdin's the intrigue makes a fresh start, for des Lupeaulx is now
casting on Madame Rabourdin the eye of love; but unfortunately M.
Rabourdin happens to be talking to a "supernumerary" in the Civil
Service, and hence (at p. 71) there is a dose of descriptiveness round
about supernumeraries in general and young Sbastien de la Roche in
particular (pp. 71-76). Then Madame Rabourdin begins her battle with des
Lupeaulx, and the intrigue moves once more. But (on p. 81) Madame
Rabourdin having gone to bed, Balzac curves away to the subject of the
denizens of the Civil Service bureaux. He describes the offices (pp.
82-85), and yields to the temptation to sketch in greater detail the
division of M. de la Billardire (who is dying), in fourteen pages (pp.
85-98). After this comes a little scene (pp. 98-99) between minor clerks
to prepare for the catastrophe due to de la Roche's carelessness about
secret documents. Then (at p. 101) Balzac has the magnificent nerve to
say: "_Avant d'entrer dans le drame, il est ncessaire de peindre ici la
silhouette des principaux acteurs de la division la Billardire._" This
painting occupies thirty-three pages. We are at p. 133. The story gets a
move on.




  TAILORING


My tailor, while trying me on, talked about trousers, and I said that a
pair of trousers could really only be worn once. After that it was no
longer worthy of a dandy. He said that he had said to G. W. E. Russell
that a man ought to have a pair of trousers for each day in the week.
Russell replied: "I do not agree with you. I think he ought to have a
pair for every day in the month, so that he will only wear a pair at
most twelve times in the year." The tailor asserted, doubtless with some
poetical tailorish exaggeration, that Russell, in order to be
consistent, thereupon ordered "about forty" pairs of trousers.




  A FIRST NIGHT


The attendance at a theatrical first night usually comprises three
groups: 1. The professional first-nighters--critics, agents,
ticket-agents, playwrights, and theatrical advisers. Most of them are
bored by the stage, blas, weary, indifferent. They seldom or never
applaud. 2. A small intermediate group, partially overlapping No. 1 and
consisting of professionals who have some reason to be sympathetic
towards the author, the management, or the players. This group shows its
friendliness by giving applause which in other circumstances it would
not give. 3. Friends of the author, the management, or the players, who
are not regular first-nighters. This group is present in order to
applaud, it is determined to applaud, and if there is no reason to
applaud it makes occasions. Thus on a first night the applause is both
less and more than it is on an ordinary night. On the whole, the
friendliness easily beats the indifference--but not always.

    *    *    *    *    *

A first night reception is by no means even a fairly sure index of what
the reception by the general public will be. Rapturous first nights have
inaugurated short runs, and chilly first nights have been followed by
many months of enthusiasm. Nevertheless there is one kind of negative
manifestation on a first night which amounts to an absolutely reliable
prophecy of failure. We had a clear example of this manifestation on
Tuesday evening. The author had got hold of a good idea, and he could
draw characters, and he could make middling to excellent jokes. But the
audience gradually grew uneasy. It grew uneasy because it did not know
what the author was driving at; and it did not know because the author
did not know. The main stream of the story divided itself into various
rivulets, and these rivulets were gradually lost in the sands of the
desert. There were a dozen stories, but there was no story. Above all
there was no sense of direction. The thing was incoherent in its
entirety. No episodical cleverness, no qualities of sincerity or wit or
passion will atone for this defect; and the defect is fatal. Whereas on
the other hand the mere virtue and attraction of a plain story, moving
in a recognisable curve from somewhere to somewhere, may atone for all
other defects. The uneasiness induced by a lack of coherence is painful.
It is not perhaps physically evident, save by an exaggerated eagerness
to appreciate points; it is secretly felt, and it spreads like poison
gas, unseen and inescapable. All audiences are alike in their
instinctive attitude towards narrative incoherence. They are not
necessarily bored, though they may be bored; they are _drout_, which
is worse. Everybody knew before the second act was over that this play
must fail. Of course in the foyer no one openly said so, for in the
foyer friends of the management and the artistes always abound. Only in
the second interval did a middle-aged, benevolent actor, taking a
busman's holiday, come along and say sadly to a member of the
management: "You know, I'm not very happy about this play." The good man
wrought a most painful effect by the simple act of uttering a sentiment
that was universal. The third act picked up ever so slightly. At the end
Group 1 departed in grimness. Groups 2 and 3 remembered all the passable
jokes and the ingenious turns of plot, and called loudly for the author,
and a beaming gentleman came forward and stated that the author
positively was not in the house, but that the favourable verdict of the
audience should be conveyed to him. The author was standing in the back
street and already knew his doom past any doubt. The next morning all
the newspaper notices were the same. Nothing brings about unanimity in
press criticism like a lack of the sense of direction.




  THE INQUISITION ON "SEASONS"


It is curious and interesting that, in the sensational rebellion of
season-ticket holders and would-be season-ticket holders, the phrase
"bomb-dodgers" has begun to lose its popularity. A month ago, two months
ago, it was all the rage; and just as once the right-minded used
contumeliously the term "free-thinker," so now the right-minded were
then holding it to be a sin to dodge bombs. Apparently the theory was
that as decent people they ought to stand still for possible bombs to
drop on them, and that there was something heroic and patriotic in doing
this. Another theory, which still lives, was to the effect that up-river
trains were monopolised by wealthy aliens, who had obtained their riches
by dubious means, who spoke queer English, and who would be interned if
the Home Office was not full of what Clemenceau calls _consciences
pourries_. I have never been able to get any confirmation of this
theory. I was talking to a friend who comes from Maidenhead like a
sardine and returns thither like a sardine every day, and he assured me
that his fellow-sardines are quite ordinary English Britons, with no
trace of the exotic. This man has gone to live at Maidenhead because of
a female relative whose nervous system has been disturbed by the noise
of raids. He is wondering about the future of his season-ticket, and
whether the judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature of the Great
Western Railway will graciously permit him to continue the same or not.
He is one of the tens of thousands of the disaffected. Indeed the
season-ticket ukase has exacerbated the season-ticket public, which
naturally is a public of fixed habits, more deeply even than the raising
of the military age.

  _1 June 1918._




  INTERPRETING THE GOSPEL


Sundry official and semi-official exponents of Christianity have
ventured from time to time during the war to maintain that the New
Testament injunction to love one's enemies was not merely an injunction
to love one's enemies unless they happened to be Germans. They have all
got into trouble, some of them into serious trouble. The latest victim
is the Archbishop of York, who said something dubious on Good Friday in
New York, and has been taken to task by the wonderful Lord Denbigh. The
Archbishop does not usually answer attacks in the Press, but to this
excellent rule he has made an exception in favour of Lord Denbigh. His
reply is infinitely prelatical. He explains that the occasion being the
Good Friday service he was obliged to base his address on the famous
words: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He says:
"I did not choose the subject, but obviously it could not be avoided."
Obviously! He then shows that he was prepared to pray for the heads of
the German militarist party on certain conditions--conditions which
really ought to satisfy Lord Denbigh--and he asserts positively that he
never did adjure his New York congregation to "think kindly of the
rulers, soldiers, and peoples of Germany and Austria." He further says
that he didn't condemn the German treatment of prisoners of war because
he hadn't time. In fact, he defends himself with skill. Nevertheless he
made a mistake in replying to Lord Denbigh. In the minds of the
judicious the resulting situation is very strange. It would need Mr.
Lytton Strachey to deal with it adequately. I have often suspected that
the Archbishop of York is an "eminent Victorian" strayed into the wrong
century.

  _1 June 1918._




  INTERNATIONAL


I escorted to the dinner a young woman who had a cold, together with a
red nose resulting therefrom; but the redness was partly disguised by
powder, and moreover her dress fitted well, and she was satisfied with
it. Among the guests were a young little Second Empire baron, ugly,
decent, the embryo of an intensely conventional and respectable Tory,
and his wife. They had been married only three years, and had a baby of
two years, and yet that pretty French girl had exactly the expression of
a confirmed British matron. She had never heard of Count Robert
d'Humires, the translator of Kipling, but thank Heaven she had heard of
Kipling; had even read him and thought him "interesting." Also an
Englishwoman and a male friend of hers, successfully pretending that
they had met in Paris by mere accident. Also a Roman countess, stoutish,
philosophic, who convinced me in about a quarter of an hour that she was
one of the wisest and shrewdest of women. Also the fat son of a Russian
banker; he was a philosopher, professionally; he spoke English with
fluent badness, infecting the air by reason of a chest disease from
which he suffered. Also a Greek spinster, who told me that she had once
been engaged to an Englishman, but the match was broken off because of
his weak lungs. She was agreeable, tolerant, thin, wizened, over-mature,
famished for love; no grace in her form. Also a young girl with a
strange coiffure, suffering from the first onset of Christian Science,
and in search of a husband with luxury thrown in; lamentably
unintelligent. Lastly an old politician--journalist of the Commune; tall
and big, gentle, forgiving--with thick, flowing white hair. During the
Commune he had been stood up against a wall to be shot, but someone in
authority had strolled along and saved him by a few seconds; after which
he was transported for ten years to Cayenne or New Caledonia. He
returned, and became one of the first chroniqueurs in Paris. An immense
cackle uprose of philosophy, the arts, literature. And through this
dizzying cackle a patient and clever valet and an English parlourmaid
kept their heads, serving very well a fairish dinner. No surcease in the
discussion. The talkers picked up the universe and shook it like a rat.
Its affairs got definitely settled about a dozen times, but unsettled
themselves instantly every time. After three hours the perfect servants
insinuated themselves once more with varied and much-needed drinks. At
midnight I removed my lady. The inexhaustible servants treated us as
perfectly helpless. Nice, forbearing, human creatures they were.
"Good-night," said my lady pleasantly to them, out of the fullness of
her satisfaction with the evening. They were too well-trained to reply.
But what the evening was all about I could not conceive, and outside the
universe seemed much as usual.




  THE SIEGE OF PARIS


The Leberts, old husband and wife, were in the little room boarded off
from their kitchen. There was just space for us three and the cat. A
fire burned in the corner. Monsieur, with his cap on, glanced
mechanically at a newspaper. Madame was half seated on the corner of
something not a chair. I asked them for details of the siege of Paris.
It seemed to have left no particular mark on their minds. They were more
interested in an accident that had happened to them just before the
siege and in their great store of potatoes. They had three children, and
the children had gone to school as usual throughout the siege. At first
they were allowed a quarter of a pound of meat per day per person, but
later only two ounces; and one pound of bread. Then came black bread,
made of horse-chestnuts and barley. For about a fortnight this bread was
uneatable, and destroyed the stomach unless it was first cooked over a
fire. As a railway employee Lebert was requisitioned for ambulance work
when necessary. But he was also in the National Guard, receiving for
that a franc and a half a day. There was drill every day, and every day
the different companies of the National Guard marched through Paris with
their bands. No one worked. It was very cold. Rice was specially
commandeered for the soldiers. When a horse fell the men leaped on it,
cut it up, and carried off the pieces. Lebert was convinced that
towards the end the Government played tricks with the food supply, so
as to induce the people to acquiesce in the capitulation. Crudely, the
Government destroyed food on purpose--according to him.

    *    *    *    *    *

On the announcement of the capitulation the National Guard (200,000 of
them) had a lot to say (_faisait des potins_), and the Government was
accused of treachery. When the Germans entered the Champs Elyses, only
Bonapartists and Royalists (among Frenchmen) were there. All Republicans
absented themselves. The cafs were closed. One caf remained open, and
the mob afterwards sacked it. The Prussians were confined to the Champs
Elyses, the Cours la Reine, and the Place de la Concorde. Those of them
who tried to break bounds (_forcer la consigne_) were roughly handled,
and one was killed. The Leberts were still full of pride in this
ostracisation of the Prussians by the Parisians. Otherwise they appeared
only to attach importance to the siege because I attached importance to
it. They behaved like the inhabitants of a picturesque historic town or
curious village in the presence of an interested tourist. Their life had
gone pretty calmly on throughout the siege. During the Commune they
resided in a cellar for a fortnight. They repeated calmly: "Yes, we
slept in the cellar and kept the shutters closed for a fortnight because
there were always sharpshooters in the streets." And Lebert made an
elemental joke about sleeping with his sister-in-law in the cellar. A
baker lived next door, and they ordered their bread over the wall. When,
for some reason which I have forgotten, they could not order bread over
the wall, they called out to passers-by to order bread for them.




  MADSEN GUN RUMOURS


After nearly four years of war and nearly three years of air-raids, it
has suddenly occurred to the authorities to protect from bombs the only
decent outdoor statue in London, that of Charles I. There is some chance
of the protective work being finished, or nearly finished, before the
next air-raid. Thus is the irresistible force of sound ideas
demonstrated. Sound ideas do in the end "get there." I notice that even
musical comedies are opening their unwilling doors to ideas. The
legitimate stage is usually ten years behind events, and the
illegitimate stage usually twenty years behind. But to-day may be seen a
musical comedy devoted wholly and solely to flying. George Edwardes
would never have tolerated it. Similarly, Sir Auckland Geddes has just
accepted and fathered a most ingenious idea for introducing the reality
of industrial conscription without the appearance. It will result in a
notable increase of Sir Auckland's popularity. Similarly, the War Office
has set its door ajar--not fully open yet--to Mr. H. A. Barker's ideas
about manipulative surgery. Many well-informed and simple-minded people
will regard this last as the most wonderful thing that ever happened at
the War Office. But it is not.

    *    *    *    *    *

The most wonderful thing that ever happened at the War Office is the
affair of the Madsen gun. The Madsen gun is admitted by everybody,
including the War Office experts, to be the best machine-gun in
existence. Most persons whose opinion is of value think that no other
machine-gun can compare with it. Lord French asked for Madsen guns over
three years ago. He didn't get them. But he nearly got them. Mr. Lloyd
George ordered 5000 of them. Then the War Office "intimated" that it
didn't want Madsen guns, and a factory which was specially erected and
equipped to execute Mr. Lloyd George's order was "diverted" to the
manufacture of Rolls-Royce engines. Even to-day, though the unique value
of the Madsen gun is the theme of every martial lip, the Army Council is
"not in favour of a change," and G.H.Q. thinks that the disadvantages of
adopting the new type outweigh the advantages. Administrative
difficulties lie in the path, and also the War Office is worried about
manufacturing difficulties--though surely these concern the Ministry of
Munitions rather than the War Office. Nevertheless--and herein is the
wonder--the Madsen gun is coming. Yes, it really is coming, thanks
largely to the insistence of Lord Beresford. The War Office people have
announced that "further consideration of the whole matter leads them to
hope that a way out . . . may yet be found." The War Office is actually
"anxious to find a solution of the difficulties." It may be taken that
in due course, either during or after the war, the Madsen gun--the
greatest casualty-saving weapon in the history of war--will exist in
considerable quantities. Lord Beresford gave the opinion in his speech
in the House of Lords on the 6th instant that two battalions armed with
Madsen guns would hold three divisions on a limited front.

  _15 June 1918._




  FATIGUE


I scarcely felt tired in the morning. The day before might have been
just an ordinary day. Only I had a queer "full" feeling in the head. And
I was irritable and gloomy. I searched for the cause of my gloom, and
there was no cause. Moreover I had no real desire to conquer my gloom.
Its cause must have been physical. After lunch I was profoundly aware of
my fatigue. I slept an hour. I could have slept longer, but I got up.
With satisfaction I felt that _I had had a sleep_. Then tea and a cigar.
I meant to work, but I perceived that I was too tired to work; my head
was too "full." I lay down again and read, and slept three-quarters of
an hour. It was at this point, when the fatigue was nearly but not quite
dissipated, as I lay on the bed, that I began to have fine sensations. A
perception that my gloom was passing; what a wonderful thing life was;
an intensified consciousness of myself as an existing organism. Still,
there remained a slight "fullness" of the head; a pressure at two points
right and left of the crown. Withal a kind of enjoyment of these remains
of fatigue, knowing that they would soon be gone. And a physical
pleasure in the half-fatigued realisation of my being; a looking-forward
to the next activity; a calm resting. All this passed off when I arose,
but not the memory of it. I finally went to bed with an ardent appetite
for sleep; yet not quite so ardent as I had anticipated. It was the
intermediate period that was the most agreeable. However, the whole
experience was somehow voluptuous.




  THE RAILWAY GUIDE


Late at night in the hotel lounge I heard a man asking the page what
"a.b." meant in the _ABC Railway Guide_. As the page didn't know, I
explained that the train so marked carried only 1st and 2nd class--no
3rd class. The man said: "Oh! Thanks. I had an idea it was that. It
doesn't make any difference to me, however, as it happens I always
travel second."




  PAVLOVA AT THE PALACE


She danced the dying swan. (It was a pity, after the Russian Ballet, to
see her in front of such ugly scenery.) A feather fell from her costume.

One man said to another:

"Moulting."

Such was the whole of their conversation.

It is this kind of thing that infuriates me against audiences, and
against English audiences in particular. It annoys me more than the
laughter, half-hysterical, half-loutish, which even in West End theatres
seldom fails to punctuate a poignant moment in a play. Edmond de
Goncourt got the measure of the ridiculous monosyllabic Englishman in
his curious novel _La Faustin_. An English lord goes to look over an
empty house. When he sees a bird in a cage he ejaculates: "Bird." And
when he sees the bath he ejaculates: "Bath." And during the entire visit
he says nothing else whatever.




  _ECHO DE PARIS_


Lord Grey's pamphlet about a League of Nations has not had a strikingly
favourable reception in France; but there was at least one sound article
upon it in the Socialist Press. I imagine that Lord Northcliffe is a
much more popular man in French Fleet Street than Lord Grey, and his
tips are apt to be accepted there. The _Daily Mail_ began by boycotting
the pamphlet, just as it began by boycotting the Asquith luncheon at the
Aldwych Club; in both cases the boycott broke down, and the failure was
demonstrated in the usual manner--that is to say, by ill-temper. Perhaps
the worst article on Lord Grey's pamphlet appeared in the _Echo de
Paris_ on Friday of last week. It was written by M. Graud, known to the
French militarist and reactionary world as "Pertinax." On this occasion
"Impertinax" would have been a more suitable pseudonym. M. Graud
treated a League of Nations as the idle dream of a "country gentleman."
The country-gentlemanliness of Lord Grey was insisted upon. Indeed, it
occupied the better part of a column, and was embellished with
guaranteed and utterly false anecdotes, such as the anecdote that Lord
Grey once, at a moment of crisis, broke an important appointment with
statesmen and diplomatists because the fancy suddenly took him to go
hunting. I need say no more about this article than that it certainly
ought never to have appeared. I sent my copy of the _Echo_ containing
it to a friend. The copy was a whole copy, as sold in Paris, and not the
edition without advertisements which, under the new military law, now
has to be produced for foreign circulation. Wishing to read the article
again, I got a copy of the foreign edition of the same issue. Sure
enough, there was an article by "Pertinax" in it; but not the same
article, quite a different article on quite a different subject. The
Grey article had entirely disappeared. Thus were "Pertinax's" notions
about Lord Grey and about Lord Grey's pamphlet judiciously confined to
the French public. Which is instructive.

  _29 June 1918._




  A CANADIAN BANQUET


The Canadian journalists now in Europe are a very bright and variegated
lot. They have come prepared to learn, and they are learning--also
admiring. When I met them a young man from Quebec who preferred to talk
in French rather than in English invited me to tell him the whole truth
about all our principal politicians. I judiciously refrained. Another
gentleman from London (Ontario), who had not been here before,
handsomely admitted that our London "had it" over his. He went further,
and asserted that London (England) was much more of a "place" than even
New York. The visitors were really immensely impressed by Mr. Lloyd
George's oration at the private dinner given in the banqueting cave of
the Savoy Hotel on Friday of last week. And indeed I have never heard
the Prime Minister suit his audience better. The speech, by the way, was
imperfectly reported. The reply to it was given by Mr. Woods. When I
asked who was Mr. Woods, I was told that he was "a prairie man." He is
the editor of the _Calgary Herald_, and the most popular person in the
delegation. His speech was "the least as is" long, but it was an
admirable speech delivered with a great deal of charm. When Sir Robert
Borden bayed his voice across the enormous cave, you might have thought
that nobody could maintain the rle of the British bull-dog better than
he. General Turner, however, maintained it better. The restrained
vigour of his tenacity was simply terrific. General Turner had far more
letters after his name than any other speaker, and you felt that he must
have deserved them all. He showed a demeanour fit to strike Hindenburg
with apoplexy.

  _20 July 1918._




  SLUMP IN PESSIMISM


The last fortnight has been on the whole a very trying time for
confirmed pessimists, of whom I know several rather advanced specimens.
Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism.
Indeed, I think it must be more agreeable, must have a more rare savour,
than optimism--from the way in which pessimists abandon themselves to
it. "Look!" said a friend of mine to me once, of another friend who was
a passionate pessimist. "Look! Here is Blank coming in, terrified lest
there may be some good news." And so it was. Many pessimists seem to be
now cured. At first they hated the feeling of hope. But they have grown
used to it, and are beginning not positively to dislike it. The
Ludendorff stock is down in Britain, and even Prussian prestige, always,
up to the present, curiously high in the share-lists of those who prefer
peace to anything, has started to sag heavily.

  _27 July 1918._




  SHORT STORIES


When the short stories of Tchekoff began to appear in English, we
wondered whether Russia had not produced a greater than de Maupassant in
this line. Of course we could not depose de Maupassant all at once, but
I think that little by little we did do so. Tchekoff is more
comprehensive than de Maupassant; his interests and his sympathies are
wider; he certainly observes more; he was a far more generally
interesting personality. True, his artistic education was not equal to
de Maupassant's; he was less exclusively and severely an artist; and he
wrote a sad quantity of mediocre stuff. But the mass of his first-rate
stuff is large; and when you come to tales like _The Ravine_, The
Moujiks, and _Aphrodite_, you are aware that nothing could be better;
you say that de Maupassant never produced anything quite so full and
complete as these. After some years of Tchekoff I took up with de
Maupassant again. Well, I doubt whether after all Tchekoff "has it over
him." Although admittedly de Maupassant is a bit of a monomaniac and
admittedly Tchekoff is not; although Tchekoff's work is more
complete--still in the emotional power of rendering a given situation de
Maupassant is perhaps somewhat the superior of the other; assuredly he
is not his inferior. And does anything else finally count? In sheer
creative force is either _Aphrodite_ or _The Ravine_ equal to such a
tale as _L'Inutile Beaut_? _L'Inutile Beaut_ was the first story of
de Maupassant's I ever read; on its wings I crossed the Channel and was
transformed from an islander into an awakened and excited citizen of the
world; conceivably I have a weakness for _L'Inutile Beaut_. Yet even
after allowing for the favourable prejudice I am bound to put this story
at least as high as the very best of Tchekoff. The situations in it are
most drastically simplified, and is that a fault? Is it not, rather, a
virtue? And the handling of the thus simplified situations never falters
in its austere and tremendous power. Whatever Tchekoff was he was not
austere. As for de Maupassant, he steadily cultivated simplification.
_Boule de Suif_, the story by which he is chiefly known, is not
simplified. It is a youthful attempt to be complex and complete. It
succeeds. It is a great story, but it is a little self-conscious,
"arty," and over-careful. _L'Inutile Beaut_, like _Le Champ d'Oliviers_
and _La Maison Tellier_, shows a supreme ease and assurance--a
perfection of masterful technique and of economy that Tchekoff did not
in my opinion achieve. The mention of _Le Champ d'Oliviers_ reminds me
that de Maupassant was very economical in the use of his themes. He
treated the theme of this story at least twice elsewhere--in _Duchoux_
and _Un fils_; he treated it tragically in the first story, with grim
comedy in the second, and harrowingly in the third.

    *    *    *    *    *

Let us all thank God that there is no "best short story." When you have
nicely balanced Tchekoff against de Maupassant for the championship,
you suddenly think of Tolstoi and _The Death of Ivan Ilyitch_, than
which no story can be better. I am not sure that any short stories in
English can qualify for the championship. Thirty years ago Walter
Scott's _Wandering Willie's Tale_ was always cited as the best. Then it
was Stevenson's _Thrawn Janet_. Then Kipling took the floor. And to-day
Conrad and Hardy have ousted their forerunners in vogue. And neither of
them writes short stories any more. So far as I know, short stories with
serious pretensions to greatness are not being written now, either in
France, Russia, or England. And if they are not being written in France,
Russia, or England, they are not being written anywhere.




  BYRON ON THE STAGE


The weird and even terrible spectacle offered by the Stage Society at
Drury Lane Theatre, in the alleged shape of Byron's _Manfred_, did prove
one thing--namely, that Byron was not such a wild fool as he sometimes
appeared. Apropos of _Manfred_, he wrote to the excellent Murray on 15
February 1817: "You may perceive, by this outline, that I have no great
opinion of this piece of fantasy, but I have at least rendered it _quite
impossible_ for the stage, for which my intercourse with Drury Lane has
given me the greatest contempt. I have not even copied it off, and I
feel too lazy at present to attempt the whole; but when I have, I will
send it you, and you may either throw it on the fire or not." And on 3
March he wrote: "I sent you the other day, in two covers, the first act
of _Manfred_, a drama as mad as Nat Lee's Bedlam tragedy, which was in
twenty-five acts and some odd scenes: mine is but in three acts." And on
9 March he wrote: "The thing, you will see at a glimpse, could never be
attempted or thought of for the stage. I much doubt if for publication
even. . . . I composed it actually with a _horror_ of the stage, and
with a view to render the thought of it impractical, knowing the zeal of
my friends that I should try that for which I have an invincible
repugnance--namely, representation." Why the Stage Society should have
chosen to put upon the stage what is after all nothing but the noise of
Byron affectedly and picturesquely weeping for his strange sin, I
cannot imagine. Still, it is the first business of the Stage Society to
experiment; so I do not complain. The scenery looked as if it had
survived from the first British performance of _Die Walkre_. Heavens!
What Alps!

  _3 August 1918._




  COUPONS


The change in the value of the meat coupon has had a disastrous effect
upon the private lives of those who eat mainly in restaurants and clubs;
for--at any rate in the more dignified and righteous palaces--it has
practically abolished the half-coupon. The committees of some clubs
protect themselves against the wrath of their members by exhibiting a
copy of the Food Regulation which compels them (in theory) to yield up
to the Control one coupon for every five ounces of uncooked meat.
Useless to tell the patron of restaurants that he can now employ all his
coupons for beef; he could always do so! And almost useless to tell the
clubman that he can now have ham _ad lib._ He is already sick to death
of pig. He has pig for breakfast and then for lunch, and often eke for
dinner when coupons run short or his wife has confiscated the week's
supply. Happily the coupon is not always insisted upon in certain
restaurants--restaurants which I will not name. There are restaurants,
and good ones, in which, after a mock search for your ration-book, you
can moan to the head-waiter that you have forgotten it, and the
head-waiter, after pulling a pained, sympathetic face, will say, with a
noble gesture: "I suppose I must give you one of _my_ coupons." And he
produces a coupon from a receptacle similar to that in which he keeps
his inexhaustible supply of saccharine. And there are restaurants in
which any fragment of a coupon, or anything that looks like a coupon,
will serve for any quantity of meat for any number of persons.

    *    *    *    *    *

The fact is, the Food Control cannot control the coupon system. In order
to do so effectively it would be necessary to bring back the entire Army
from the Front to act as checkers. I am told that coupons are weighed in
mass by the Control, a method which simply invites various ingenuities
of evasion. And frequently the Control does not even weigh; it ignores,
especially in the provinces. As one of a party of six the other day I
sat down in a hotel to an admirable and entire leg of mutton. The
obscene word "coupon" was not breathed in that very correct hotel, which
had doubtless never heard of the Food Control, nor guessed that
frightful tyrants exist in Palace Chambers.

    *    *    *    *    *

In the luxurious and political portions of Paris meat difficulties are
over, but not sugar difficulties. The French, however, being an
ingenious and resourceful race, can create sugar out of nothing. If in a
fashionable restaurant you want sugar and have none, you call the waiter
and you say: "Waiter, my cloak-room number is so-and-so. I must have
left my sugar-packet there. Please go and get it for me." And he goes
and gets it for you. This is Gallic. We could never imitate it
successfully. We have not the requisite refined sense of style. On the
other hand, French children are very British. When Big Bertha has fired,
the street urchins playing together give a loud cheer. It is certain
that London kids would do the same.

  _17 August 1918._




  _THE MERRY WIDOW_


When I first saw it at Brighton, this spectacle had already become a
classic. But to me it seemed to be just the same old thing over again.
The music was much less "charming" (otherwise, superficially and
temporarily attractive) even than I had expected. A troupe of about
forty, with elaborate scenery, costumes, and properties. The girl
principals had apparently been chosen for their looks. Not one could
avoid the most glaring false emphasis. Thus a heroine looking at a man
asleep on a sofa, there being no other man asleep on the stage: "But
_he_ may wake up," instead of "He may wake _up_." This kind of blunder
recurred constantly. Also such pronunciations as "reco_gnise_." The male
principals were better. The story was all about getting drunk, whoring,
and obtaining money. There was nothing else in the piece at all, except
a certain insistence on patriotism. The hero had a string of six
trollops from Maxim's, and the names of these light ones were on the
lips of the other characters the whole time. Strange that a concoction
of such piquant ingredients should result in such excruciating boredom.
I stood two acts, and then I left, preferring to die in bed than in the
stalls of a theatre.




  TRAVEL AND POLITICS


One night a man and woman had a long conversation in the hotel
writing-room, a place certainly not intended for conversation. He was a
military officer, with a face so red that it might have been painted. He
had been through the Staff College. He spoke in a quiet voice, slowly,
with a restrained and judicial demeanour. He had evidently attained, or
had maintained from birth, a high degree of stupidity. The woman chiefly
listened. Her turn had not come. But she showed at intervals a
determination to get her turn. She was interested in charities. The
officer recounted how he had been to Reading at election time, and had
observed that the walls of the town were covered with obviously
inaccurate coloured posters.

"I said to myself: 'What sort of a mind must the British voter have to
be influenced by such things?'"

He spoke with the air of a psychologist who had made a great and
startling discovery about the mentality of the British, and on the
discovery he proceeded to build an immense superstructure of political
theory. Coloured posters had been necessary to awaken him to an
elementary truth concerning human nature.

    *    *    *    *    *

Then, going far backward, he said that he had read in the _Times_ Joseph
Chamberlain's Tariff Reform scheme, knowing nothing about Tariff
Reform--knowing not even what the words meant. He had "waited six
months for a reply," and had seen only one, which was mere personal
abuse of Chamberlain. "Therefore," the six months being up, he had come
to believe in Tariff Reform, and had gone in for it blind. But his most
interesting contribution was a theory of the effect of travel on
political opinions. He had observed that nearly all English abroad were
Unionist and Tariff Reformers. Liberals might go abroad, but "at the end
of the voyage" they had almost always been converted to sound politics.
He cited the saying of a ship's captain, a fervent radical, who said
that in thirty years of the sea he had only met one radical passenger.

"Very interesting," commented the woman, still waiting her turn.

The officer continued in his calm and judicial voice, but as I could no
longer write for his absorbing babble, I left the room at this point.
Although I could not endorse his theory about the sanative influence of
travel on politics, I did agree that nearly all English abroad are
Conservative. I have never yet been fortunate enough to meet a British
radical in a first-rate foreign hotel. Politically I have invariably
suffered a great solitude in the best foreign hotels. Indeed, the
unanimity of British political opinion abroad amounts to a most imposing
phenomenon. On the other hand I have never heard an intelligent
political discussion in English in a foreign hotel. Never! And I have
lived much in foreign hotels. On social questions the British attitude
in hotels was admirably illustrated by the remark of a beautiful and
elegant tennis-playing girl at Cannes, apropos of a miners' strike:
"They ought to be forced down the pits and _made_ to work." General
agreement on the courts.




  PRO-GERMANISM


There is a strange leniency about our magistrature, especially when
glaring cases of pro-Germanism come before them. Two women of the mature
ages of twenty and twenty-one respectively were guilty of repeatedly
asking that tea should be given to two German prisoners in the vicinity
of Farnborough. They also wrote to a German prisoner and enclosed to him
a packet of cigarettes. Will it be believed that these unpatriotic
females were fined only three guineas each? The magistrate admitted that
the case was "most serious," and yet he was "loth" to send the women to
prison. One's blood boils when one thinks of the opportunities afforded
by tea and packets of cigarettes for Hun plots, and of the misguided
sentimentalism of the magistrate in relation to so dangerous a case.
Will this Government never do anything to root out the pro-Hunnishness
which is still so frightfully rampant among us? Will it wobble for ever?
What hidden hand is protecting these females? Do not imagine that the
instance is isolated. There may be, there probably is, an extensive
secret organisation functioning in our midst. Thus the other day a
woman, whose son fought for us at Jutland, gave a sixpence to a German
prisoner who was passing through Cheltenham in charge of some horses.
She was fined 7, 10s.--three hundred times her offence. But why was she
not sentenced to penal servitude for life? Unfortunately Parliament is
"up," and these grave matters cannot be adequately exposed to the light.
But a time will come, and it may come sooner than some people expect!

  _17 August 1918._




  FOCH


Amid these enormous events, and the sound and dust of falling
architecture and the glinting of flames which will develop into vast
conflagrations, it should be remembered always that there is one man in
Europe who is entitled to say to himself, and who no doubt is quietly
saying and repeating to himself: "I've done it. I've done the trick,"
and with difficulty believing his own thought. For it is very well to
talk about solidarity, unification, valour, doggedness, the inevitable
triumph of noble ideals, the inevitable failure of wrong; the entire
situation to-day (except possibly the Palestine section thereof) is
built upon a couple of days' work in July last and the creative strategy
of one man. If the Germans had not been out-manoeuvred in July the
psychology of the whole world (and especially the psychology of
Ferdinand) would have been utterly different and the material phenomena
would have been utterly different. The Germans were out-manoeuvred.
Experts still violently argue about the true inwardness of the first
battle of the Marne, but common people will unanimously maintain that
the man who pulled the fat out of the fire in the summer of 1918 is the
same man who pulled the fat out of the fire in the autumn of 1914. What
was he doing in the long interval? Few among us could say offhand.
Assuredly he was not doing what he ought to have been doing: that is,
commanding the Allied forces. Is it not marvellous that his classic work
on war has only just now been translated into English? True, as a race,
we hate and distrust general principles! Nevertheless the fact emerges
that the greatest general has at last reached the top.

    *    *    *    *    *

We do not yet fully realise the potential prestige of Foch. Even to-day
in the popular legend he has by no means reached the looming Titanism of
Ludendorff or even of Hindenburg. Nor does he stand where Joffre stood.
The careers of big generals are astounding. Hindenburg threw down his
newspaper and walked out of a little caf in a little provincial town,
and crossed the German Empire to kill a hundred thousand Russians in a
day. He had it in him to do one thing, and he did it perfectly--and it
was a large thing. The rest of his reputation was meretricious. Nothing
could stop Ludendorff from climbing over him. Ludendorff has about forty
times more brain than Hindenburg. Ludendorff was passing himself off as
one of the greatest generals of all time. He did all but become one of
the greatest generals of all time. Then it was discovered that he was
lavishing on war highly distinguished gifts which Heaven had meant for
the gaming saloon. He was indeed a very finished poker-player--who lost.
He showed a countenance calculated to persuade nearly everybody that
"three of a kind" was a "royal flush." Unhappily for him, someone, or
some mysterious force, said to him at the wrong moment: "I'll see you."
And that was the end of Ludendorff as one of the greatest generals of
all time.

  _5 October 1918._




  MISCELLANEOUS READING


My habit is to buy, _inter alia_, books with semi-reputations or with no
reputation at all, in the hope of discovering something good that the
public has missed. Lately, alarmed by the steady increase of these
unread and unassessed volumes in my library, I have taken to reading
"in" books instead of reading them, so as to get as quickly as possible
some adequate notion of the stock in hand--with results certainly
informative but otherwise not very satisfactory. It seems to me that few
really first-rate books can have failed to make a first-rate reputation
for themselves, and that "subterranean" reputations are not very well
justified. The public does not miss much. I got F. Manning's _Scenes and
Portraits_, on the strength of high praise of it from people who ought
to be able to judge. Well, I couldn't read it. The author is very clever
and original, and sometimes suggestive; but he does not know his job. He
is an amateur. He cannot hold the thing together, and his literary sense
is very defective. Similarly, I attacked several books of Bernhard
Berenson's which I have possessed for years. I suppose that Mr.
Berenson's competence as a critic of painting is entirely authentic. But
he too has failed to develop the talent for holding a thing together.
Nor can he express himself clearly. Nor, despite grammatical
correctitude, can he even manipulate a sentence for the reader's
benefit. He continually baffles the reader. And, still in the region of
art criticism, Mr. Herbert Furst's imposing and fully illustrated book
on Chardin is worse. Its literary amateurishness, shown as much in the
absence of general design as in detailed inefficiency, is acute. I hoped
for better satisfaction from Mr. Charles Ricketts' book on Titian.
Ricketts on Titian! The combination promised lusciously. I was not
wholly disappointed. Mr. Ricketts is an individuality with a definite
attitude towards both life and art, with unusual perceptions, with
originality and courage to match. His book, though confused and far too
allusive, is interesting. It would be more interesting, and less
irritating, if he had not set out to write with "style." He has achieved
one or two pretty good passages of "style," but as a rule he achieves a
mere delicate preciosity which is full of the maladroit. He just is not
sufficiently expert. I was disgusted with Baudrillart's rather
well-known work, _Histoire du Luxe_, and I wish I had never bought those
four buxom volumes. The subject is splendid, the treatment rotten. A
shocking example of shameless book-making--as bad (and this is saying a
lot) as Charles Vogel's "free translation" of Friedlander's _Moeurs
Romaines_. I suppose that these books are the sort of concoction that
Brunet's _Manuel du Libraire_ would amiably describe as "_ouvrages
estims_." My most successful quarry recently has been Gregorovius's
_History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages_. It may not be great,
but it is thoroughly good, and can be perused without fatigue for hours
at a stretch. I would put it a little below Ferrero's _The Greatness
and Decline of Rome_, of which it may be called in part a sequel.
Ferrero is more brilliant. Ferrero knows all about the craft of writing.
He has nothing to learn about the manipulation of sentences. Few authors
seem to realise that the first business of an author is to write, and
that, if an author cannot write, whatever his other qualifications may
be, he has no excuse for producing a book.




  PRAYER


I read on the walls of this city that religious bodies throughout the
country have interpreted recent events as an answer to prayer. In
accordance with such a view, further prayer-meetings were held at
Queen's Hall on Tuesday last, and it seems probable that these will
prove equally successful. They were certainly under careful management.
In large letters on the posters were the words: "Front reserved seats,
1s. to each meeting." People who will arrange to sell reserved seats at
a solemn appeal intended to influence the designs of an omnipotent and
inscrutable Deity concerning the destinies of mankind will probably have
the notion of making similar arrangements for the Day of Judgment. For
many years I have been going about saying that no manifestation of human
nature could shock me. I was wrong.

  _5 October 1918._




  RESPECT FOR BRAINS


A man with a long hooked nose (not a Jew), aged from forty to
forty-five, was talking with his wife to an older couple. He had charge
of the conversation. He said he liked walking. He would take long walks,
anything up to forty-eight miles, and enjoy them. He also liked driving.
Yes, he liked to be behind a pair of good horses. But he liked motoring
too; and his little boy knew the make of every motor at sight--even to
motor-cabs. Then about books. "If you were to see the books I buy. If I
live to be a thousand I shan't read half of 'em. Haven't read half
Dickens and Thackeray yet. I have a friend, a bookseller in Charing
Cross Road, and when there's a library for sale he always lets me know
and I go to the sale. I like light books myself. Now there's Wells's
_Tono-Bungay_. I read that. I lent it to men with minds, those brainy
people, two or three of them, and they were delighted with it--Oh! quite
enthusiastic. Well, of course it was good, but I couldn't see so much in
it myself because I haven't got the mind." (He was very frank and nice,
and I saw that there must be a large class of persons who frankly
recognise the existence of a brainy class intellectually above them.) He
named Frank Danby, Hichens, Mason, and several others as being specially
readable. "Of course they're not great--nothing _great_ in them; but
they pass the time. . . . I frankly admit to reading a lot of trash."
His wife, though she seemed rather a dull, common woman, said with
sincerity that she _did_ like Shakespeare. The older couple had no
interest in books whatever; but this fact did not apparently disturb the
bookworm in the least.




  EGYPTOLOGY


So far as I know, nothing has yet been said in the lay (as distinguished
from the specialist) Press about the importance of dealing with
archological excavations and kindred matters at the Peace Congress.
Some may wonder what on earth archology has to do with the felicity of
peoples, and how a nation with any sense of proportion can worry itself
about excavations at a time when the structure of society is being
recast. But the intelligent will not wonder, being well aware that
archology is a branch of study essential to the felicity of peoples. I
hope that some British statesmen, or at least one, will go to the Peace
Congress with a few clear ideas about the bearing of politics upon
archology. The French will certainly have a good deal to say on the
subject. Perhaps it may occur to the Prime Minister to take with him to
Paris Mr. Arthur James Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, among his other
luggage.

    *    *    *    *    *

The condition of archological affairs in Egypt, for example, is very
unsatisfactory. When the French, in the early eighties, left us to
manage Egypt, they arranged that the Director of the "Service des
Antiquits" should be a Frenchman. The idea was natural enough, for they
have a strong sentimental interest in Egypt, partly on account of
Napoleon, and partly on account of Champollion ("the Younger"), who, I
believe, is for good reason regarded as the founder of modern
Egyptology. Much has happened since the early eighties to strengthen the
British position in Egypt, but the Director of the Service des
Antiquits is still rigorously a Frenchman. Indeed, by the Treaty of
1904 it was expressly agreed afresh that he should be a Frenchman. There
have been great Frenchmen in the post. The last great one was Maspro,
who has been succeeded by a gentleman whose speciality is not
archaeology but philology. The whole question ought to be reopened. It
ought to be reopened for two reasons. The first reason is that the
French authorities are not properly looking after the aforesaid
antiquities, and, of course, we are getting the blame for the neglect
into which precious remains have fallen. Pierre Loti, in his dolorous
ecstasy, _La Mort de Phil_, chid the wretched barbaric English alone.
(Which is just what he would do.) The second reason is that antiquities
cannot be satisfactorily handled unless the direction of the matter is
under the control of the Government which is actually governing the
country where the antiquities lie. When the management of the
antiquities is in the hands of a subject of one Government, and the
country is run by another Government, little can be done at the instance
of the latter without a "diplomatic question" immediately arising. Be it
borne in mind that nothing can relieve us of our responsibility before
the world for Egyptian antiquities. The Director thereof ought plainly
to be an Englishman, and I doubt not that the Englishman can be
provided. We might then cut a better figure than we are cutting. We
might even try to catch up with the United States, which, as a nation,
is capable of far more excitement about antiquities than ourselves.

    *    *    *    *    *

And the Egyptian question is only a part of the much larger question of
the effect of military victory upon the study of archology.
Unimaginable new fields have been set free to the excavator and the
student. There are Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine--yes, and the Balkans.
All these fields ought to be systematically distributed, by a special
committee of the Peace Congress, among the Powers concerned; and the
principle upon which they ought to be distributed is plain.

  _30 November 1918._




  PLAY-LICENSING


There is serious news as to freedom of speech. The Lord Chamberlain has
refused to license Brieux's _Maternit_. I cannot imagine why, unless it
is that the play contains some references to abortion. I do not regard
Brieux as a great dramatist; but he is a considerable moralist, and the
worst of his plays is a million times better than any musical comedy
which might treat maternity in the bawdy manner, and which the Lord
Chamberlain would license without a murmur. I wonder what Lord Sandhurst
is about. He licensed _Les Avaris_. He may have done so at a hint from
the War Office, which at one time was much alarmed about venereal
disease. But he did license it. In _Maternit_ we have a play which has
been performed all over the world without protest. Protest against it
would indeed be absurd. Lord Sandhurst kills it, and of course he gives
no reason. The matter ought to be inquired into. Some time ago the Lord
Chamberlain used to be advised about debatable plays by a committee thus
wonderfully constituted: Sir Edward Carson, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord
Buckmaster, Sir Squire Bancroft, and Sir John Hare. The last named has,
I feel sure, retired. My information is that the Committee does not
meet, but that debatable plays are sent round for individual opinions
thereon. Were the individual opinions unanimous about _Maternit_? Or
were they not? Looking at the personnel of the Committee, I am ready to
wager that they were not. Indeed, I know they were not. And if they were
not, why did not the excellent Court official give the play the benefit
of the doubt instead of rendering his country ridiculous in the eyes of
the civilised world?

  _14 December 1918._




  ROSTAND


Edmond Rostand married young, made his success young, and died young. He
was only thirty when _Cyrano de Bergerac_ dazzled the critical and the
vast uncritical worlds. He became an Academician at thirty-four, and he
died at fifty. The triumph of _Cyrano_ furnished one of the most
extraordinary instances on record of the complete deception of an
audience of highly sophisticated experts. There is no doubt that Catulle
Mends was, for once in his life, absolutely sincere in his ecstasy when
he raved about this sadly fustian play. Everybody who was anybody agreed
with Mends. In four hours Rostand was transformed by magic into the
greatest genius of all time. _Cyrano_ could be better judged on its
merits at the rather mournful revival of it at the Gait in the early
nineteen hundreds, with Jean Coquelin in his father's part. Roxane was
then taken by Marguerite Morno, an exceedingly witty woman and the best
_diseuse_ in France. To hear Morno enunciate even such a simple
question as "_Qu'est-ce?_" was to receive light on the inexhaustible
question of stage diction. The revival failed. Rostand's next "great"
play was _L'Aiglon_, a work of immense length which failed in spite of
the universal determination that it should be a success. After
_L'Aiglon_ Rostand didn't mature another idea for a "great" play for ten
years. His period of gestation was enormous. The crowing of _Chantecler_
was engineered by the supreme theatrical advertiser of the earth, Henri
Herz. Herz in those days was not a man but a miracle. He familiarly
addressed all actresses, even the most distinguished, as "_ma belle
crature_." (They loved it.) Herz saw that _Chantecler_ offered the
opportunity of his life. The difficulties were extreme, for the younger
school had already discovered that Rostand had no genius; but the
possibilities were huge. Herz elaborated the boom for quite two years,
and reached his first climax with the arrival of Rostand and the Rostand
family in Paris for the rehearsals. The Rostands "descended" at the
Htel Majestic, just opened; and it was stated, whether truly or not I
cannot say, that Herz not only arranged that no hotel bills should be
presented, but exacted a daily payment to himself from the hotel. It is
certain that people stayed at the hotel for the sole satisfaction of
seeing Rostand. They saw him. _Chantecler_, if it did not fail, was not
a success; and the career of Rostand ended. He had a considerable sense
of the theatre; he could play with words and with conceits; he was full
of such pretty notions as the falling of dead leaves upon the body of a
dying man. But he was not a poet, and his gift was no more authentic
than the influenza which a few weeks ago prevented Marshal Joffre from
coming to London. I see that a London newspaper called Rostand modest.
He was retiring, but assuredly he was not modest. The entire family
versified. Madame Rostand has written many verses quite as good as her
husband's, and she is very highly esteemed by the readers of
_L'Illustration_. Maurice Rostand at fourteen was a marvellous boy,
handsome, mature, elegant, and already a somewhat accomplished
craftsman. His promise was altogether too brilliant; no one could have
fulfilled it, and he has not fulfilled it.

  _14 December 1918._




  THE CORNET AT ELECTIONS


The election was not everywhere quite so inexpressibly tedious as it
proved to be in central London. Indeed, it may live in the history of
elections as the cradle of a new form of electioneering. A certain
candidate in the industrial Midlands faced, and solved, the problem of
the woman voter in a scientific and original spirit, and with the most
startling and spectacular success. Being shorthanded, like all captains
of all peace industries in these days, he was confronted by the
impossibility of visiting each and every new voter in her home. He saw
that it simply could not be done, and that instead of going to the new
voter he must inveigle the new voter to come to him. An automobile by
itself was useless. Even the meanest streets are so accustomed to cars
at election time that no hooting and tooting will suffice to arouse the
serious sex from its domestic preoccupations. The enterprising fellow
hit on the combination of a motor-car and a cornet. Dashing down a
street and stopping, he put on a professional cornet-player to perform
his loudest. The whole street would rush out to see what on earth was
happening. Whereupon the candidate, having thus ingeniously collected
all the new voters within earshot, began his harangue. It is expected
that he will get in, and he deserves to get in. Of course you will
assume that he is a Coalitionist. But no! He is a mere uncouponed
libertine Liberal.

  _21 December 1918._




  TWO GENERALS


Said one Divisional General to another: "How should you define
Bolshevism?" Said the other Divisional General, with pained finality:
"I'll tell you what Bolshevism is, old thing. It's simply pure
Socialism! That's what Bolshevism is."




  AN OFFICER'S GRIEVANCE


The other day I met a British officer who had been wounded nine times,
captured by the Germans while in a state of unconsciousness, and in
England reported killed. He seemed to be perfectly well and perfectly
cheerful. But one matter had aroused his resentment. It was not that as
a prisoner he had received only six parcels out of thirty-nine
dispatched by his friends. It was not that on returning to life and
England he had had to pay for the advertisements of his own decease in
the _Times_ and the later advertisements contradicting the same. It was
that his solicitor had forwarded to him, among other bills, a bill thus
conceived: "To Memorial Service (fully choral), three guineas." Somehow
the words "fully choral" rankled in his mind.




  AT A PUBLIC DINNER


Few phenomena can be more conservative in tone than a public banquet.
Things pleasantly revive there that have been interred decades ago even
in club smoking-rooms. The affair last night was in honour of a famous
hotel proprietor, and a famous Alderman of the City of London was in the
chair. The chairman, remembering "commercial days," gave the old
adhortation: "May the tears of friendship crystallise as they fall, and
be worn as jewels by those we love." It was charming. It was received
with sincere enthusiasm. The chairman also, and with equal success, told
the old story of two Yorkshiremen on their respective Mayors. Said the
first: "Our Mayor wears a bl----y great chain." Said the second: "We let
our old beggar go loose." And finally, twitting a rival hotel, he told
the classic story, so full of ineffable implications, of the lady who
had forgotten both the number of her room and the name of her husband.
Beneath the general upper layers of jolly content with the world were
the usual bitter individual dissatisfactions. For example, at the same
table as my friend A and myself sat a young man, aged about thirty-one,
with bad teeth. He was depressed and peevish, and obviously preoccupied
by the labour situation. He said he had worked five years in an
engineering shop and knew what work was. The working man was spoiled,
and that was all there was to it. Spoiled! When A produced an opposing
argument, he merely replied: "Nonsense! Nonsense!" with a calm, peevish
superiority--and this after about five minutes' acquaintance! Then A
discreetly changed the topic and quite by accident tried music, in which
he happens to be interested. The young man's whole demeanour altered
immediately. He was an amateur oboe player, and quite keen. He really
knew very little about music, but he played the oboe, and he was a
different man from the moment of the introduction of the word
"orchestra."




  LIFE OF A GIRL


A friend sociologically interested in such records gave me this brief
biography of a girl. The girl's mother was a harsh woman. Her father was
a chemist, but he tippled, and in the end lost his business. Then the
mother came into a fairly substantial legacy. The father and mother
lived on this till they lost the entire capital in a bad investment. The
shock of the solicitor's letter informing him of the disaster killed the
father instantly. He died on the spot. The mother couldn't manage her
daughter. She said to the girl: "Here, I can't satisfy you. I can't get
you what you want. Here's twopence. Go out and buy your own dinner." And
the girl did so. Then the girl left home and met a young man who
persuaded his mother to let her come into the house to live. The pair
lived together maritally, the man's mother making no objection, as there
was mutual attraction. Later, the man went to Buenos Ayres. He wrote and
asked her to join him, but she wouldn't. She then ceased to be
interested in love. She had saved a bit of money and at last departed to
Leeds, took a room at a little temperance hotel, and decided to commit
suicide in a fortnight. At the end of the fourteen days she went to the
railway station and lay down before the London express. But she was seen
from a signal-box, and the signalman stopped the train. In the police
court she wouldn't give the magistrate any reason for the attempted
"rash act," and wouldn't promise not to try again. She was committed to
the Infirmary, and once again would promise nothing, either to the
matron or to the official visitors. She kept on good terms with the
nurses; she helped one nurse, and the nurse lent her money. She tired
the authorities out, and was eventually released. She declined to go
back to her mother, while admitting that she still loved her mother.
Instead she went to her married sister's. Then she passed through
various sentimental experiences with various men, and ultimately reached
London. She got an engagement as a mannequin at Sylviane's, near Hanover
Square, at 15s. a week. There she met an American journalist. Their
idyll lasted three weeks, whereupon he left her; afterwards he wrote to
her from the United States about her soul. Thenceforward the usual
adventures, each no doubt briefer than the last. She was only nineteen
when she tried to commit suicide.




  THE OCTOGENARIAN


At Madame R.'s in Paris I met Brunet Huart, the painter, aged
eighty-four. He wore light striped trousers, a waistcoat of black
velvet, a rather large tie, rather large and striking gloves, and
generally was dandiacal. He remembered Florence in 1858, and the
anecdotes of King Humbert's circus-like appearances in the Cascine. He
liked Kipling; also Wells; but he thought Wells didn't explain enough.
He remembered the fighting in the auditorium of the Thtre des
Varits, Paris, on account of a play which made fun of shop-assistants.
The theatre was full of shop-assistants and their sympathisers. When the
noise grew unbearable an actor came forward and thumped furiously on a
table. Everybody was so staggered by this impudence of an actor to his
public that silence ensued and the actor said: "No! Never shall a
counter-jumper bring this curtain down." The old gentleman was afraid of
motor-cars and in particular of his young cousin's driving. He had just
returned from a round of family visits, ending at Bourges. Then he
curved off into a long story of an adventure in the Palazzo Orsini in
Rome (when paper money as small as 5d. was issued--current in the city
only), where he got enormous attention from a concierge by two payments
of a franc each. "The concierge would have given me a bed in the Palace,
I think," said he. He had a curious and unusual knowledge of the
relative sizes of things, from St. Peter's downwards. He was certain
that a revolution would occur within six months, precipitated by losses
due to inundation and bad harvests, and consequent labour unrest. He
said that he had painted all his life, but had entered the studio of a
celebrated master only at the age of twenty-five. He now got his
military friends, colonels and so on, to send down a soldier with a
horse to serve as models for two or three hours daily. Here he explained
in detail how he taught the soldier to lift up the horse's leg so that
he could see how the light fell on the legs of a galloping horse. Even
recently he had painted in the rain, enjoying the pretty colours of
barley, oats, etc. He kindly offered to criticise my drawings. He was
full of various energy, and affirmed that he had not begun to feel old
until he was seventy. His chief subject was undoubtedly the Palais
Royal, and of course he said: "The Palais Royal was in all its splendour
in those days, and the plays given there were _really_ witty" (1850-60).
But the samples which he offered of Palais Royal wit in those great days
were feeble and flashy. He seemed to be able to remember in detail all
the Palais Royal burlesques of popular tragedy, and he quoted miles of
tirades in verse. He talked well, if too much.




  MORPHIA


The second-hand furniture dealer in the Boulevard du Montparnasse was
seated at his desk at the back of the shop when I went in, after dark. I
asked about his wife, and he came forward and leaned against a table,
and said she was really cured of her illness, but she would never be
well till she ceased taking morphia. He inveighed against the managers
of nursing-homes who gave their patients morphia merely to quieten them
and thus let them contract the habit of morphia. It then appeared that
his wife had definitely become a morphinomaniac. She now insisted on
having four to five injections a day, and would also often take during
the day fifteen to thirty drops of laudanum, and then veronal or
sulphonal to induce sleep. If he used the old device of an injection of
pure water she detected the trick at once. She would stop in bed for
three days and then get up for a few hours. At that moment she was out.
She would return at six, and would demand an injection instantly, and
another at 10 p.m. If there was no morphia in the house he simply had to
go out to the chemist's and get it, even in the night. Otherwise there
was a scene. And his wife's scenes were really noisy. She would cry:
"You are cruel. You have no feeling. If this wasn't the ground floor I'd
throw myself out of the window." Sometimes she would administer the
injection herself, and then there was much blood. She bought morphia
from four or five different chemists. Yes, he would admit frankly that
she was a morphinomaniac, and that there was nothing to be done. Sundry
doctors among their customers had warned her, and for a while she was
impressed and would stop, but she always began again. Then I bought a
brooch.




  PROPHYLAXIS


Another controversy has been reopened--the question of the propriety of
prophylactic treatment for syphilis. Sir William Osier and a number of
other medical eminences wrote to the _Times_ and openly advocated
prophylactic treatment, stating that it was simple and effective.
Thereupon the chief official opponents of prophylaxis, the National
Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease, under the chairmanship
of Lord Sydenham, replied with arguments against prophylaxis, the
principal of which seemed to be that certain Borough Officers of Health
did not agree with the views of Sir William Osier and his colleagues. In
the exchange, Sir William won easily. Later, a pseudonymous
correspondent, who was rightly given a place next to the leader columns,
and who must be some celebrated layman, completely finished off the
National Society with great epigrammatic brilliancy. Lord Sydenham, who
is apt to be egregious, tried once more, with lamentable results. That
the National Society is doing excellent work cannot be doubted, but its
thesis that prophylaxis will encourage irregular sexual intercourse
cannot be sustained, for it involves the complementary proposition that
men and women are kept virtuous by fear of disease; which is contrary to
all experience. Only one thing encourages irregular sexual
intercourse--and that is the existence of faculties for it. For example,
there is relatively far more irregular intercourse among the male
inhabitants of central London than among the male inhabitants of a small
provincial town. Underlying the thesis of the National Society is
another one, to the effect that it is immoral to try to preclude the
risks attendant upon immorality, while it is not immoral to try to
lessen the evil consequences of immorality after they have occurred.
Such themes could be debated for ever, but the man of average sagacity
is not likely to be interested in them. The man of average sagacity
would wish to know what is the nature of the simple and effective
prophylactic which is guaranteed and advocated by the highest
authorities in medical science. And if the general public through the
ordinary channels may not have this information, the man of average
sagacity would wish to know why. It may be asserted of all parties to
the controversy that whatever else they may be they are mystery-mongers.

  _11 January 1919._




  AT THE QUAI D'ORSAY TERMINUS, PARIS


It was three o'clock and already dusk. I ordered tea on the _terrasse_
of the Station caf within the station. It is a very good caf. You
could judge by the crystalline cleanness of the decanters. A middle-aged
man sat down, drank a red liquid, paid, and departed instantly. Two
workmen simultaneously ascended the two sides of a high ladder and began
to adjust an arc lamp up in the air. From the floor below there was such
a continuous rumbling of trains that it was a little difficult to hear
speech on the _terrasse_. All the big lamps lighted themselves, as it
were, clumsily and uncertainly; and there was a complicated change in
the values beneath the great arches of the roof. But the vast glazed end
of the station showed silvery light for a long time afterwards. Faint
clouds of steam rose occasionally from below, and through these the
electricity would shine like the sun through fog. The activities of the
station were very numerous. The Paris directory was constantly being
consulted; also the exceedingly foul _Chaix_ railway guide. The slot
machines for platform tickets functioned all the time. The latest
telegraphic news was pinned up at intervals; the meteorological news had
a separate board. The evening papers arrived at the two bookstalls, and
were separated and folded on special folding tables. Two tobacco
shanties, one in charge of a young girl and the other of a woman, did
ceaseless business. Similarly with bonbons at another booth. Game
licences were dispensed in still another booth. A wagon-buffet, with
chiefly flasks of liqueurs, trundled eternally to and fro. Luggage-lifts
full of luggage kept ascending and descending; and in the arrival
section luggage was shifted forward in an unending procession of trunks
and bags on a moving metal band. The bridge spanning the chasm in which
the trains were hidden led to a whole row of offices. Policemen and
other officials, uniformed and not uniformed, were always flitting
about. Some of them, not uniformed, would approach barriers and unlock
the barriers with magic keys. Lots of travellers stopped to study the
notice about floods. "The train for Nantes goes no farther than Angers,"
and so on.

    *    *    *    *    *

Towards five o'clock the place grew much busier. All the considerable
seating accommodation was taken up, and the waiting-rooms were fuller.
The entire acreage of the immense main hall became wet from the feet of
travellers. (Outside it never stopped raining.) The left-luggage office
was enormously patronised. A bell rang occasionally for the departure of
a _rapide_. Two Spanish women stood talking just outside in the rain. An
English nurse appeared in charge of a girl nearly as old as herself and
two young boys. The one regular phenomenon was the illuminated clock.
It functioned ruthlessly, and seemed rather like a sardonic deity
presiding over an apparatus that was extravagantly big for its purpose.




  STREET CRIES


After the 50,000 fire at Barker's, Kensington, in which four servant
girls were killed, crowds were standing about, for what purpose it was
impossible to guess, and hawkers with black-edged memorial cards were
crying: "_In_ loving memory of the victims! _In_ loving memory of the
victims." And the crowds were purchasing the cards.




  AFTER THE ARMISTICE


Into the country I went to do some work for a change after the
officialism which the war had imposed upon me. In this case the country
was a village of 1200 inhabitants on a main line out of London. At the
beginning of the war the superior, truly patriotic people in the village
had lamented that this village was less patriotic than surrounding
villages. (The superior, truly patriotic people in every village were
saying just the same of their village.) Nevertheless, this village sent
over 12 per cent. of its total inhabitants to the war even before
conscription, and something like 16 per cent. in all. And when I got
back there a nice young woman stepped across the road to me and said:
"Excuse me speaking to you, sir, but we're getting up a tea for our
returned prisoners." Among other things, I heard that a man who was
supposed to have perished in the hands of the Turks after Kut had
arrived safely at his mother's house. And a Battery which had enlivened
the village for two years had vanished except for a score of men. So
that the war was really over in the village. An Asquithian standing as a
champion of Labour had lost by a neck (owing to the overseas vote) in
the Election to the Coalition candidate. But nobody in the village
seemed to be interested in politics. At any rate, not in national or
international politics. As for the Kaiser's head, indemnities, Britain
for the British, and similar matters, I heard not a word, though German
prisoners armed with dangerous agricultural weapons and quite unguarded
were all over the place. Much less nonsense was talked in the village
than in Chambers of Commerce about making Germany pay. A roadmender said
to me: "I reckon her's got to eat first."

    *    *    *    *    *

Local politics, however, which after all are the basis of national and
international politics, did make a good second to the weather in topics
of real discussion. The absence of frost took prime place, for without
speedy frosts the land would never "work." Then the house-famine. Then
demobilisation. Then the proposed memorial to the fallen. A public
meeting was called to discuss the question of the memorial. The
clergyman began the proceedings by stating his decision that the
memorial must be associated exclusively with the Church of England. As a
fact, the clergyman wanted a new organ, and he was filled with the
notion that a new organ was the only conceivable, proper, or practicable
memorial to the fallen. Whereupon a Nonconformist arose in the meeting
(there are several chapels in the village), and started off by asserting
the arguability of the position that the memorial need not necessarily
be associated exclusively with the Church of England. (The clergyman
draws an average congregation Of about twenty to his services.)
Whereupon the clergyman beat the Nonconformist down and asserted that he
was out of order because he was trying to argue that which _ex
hypothesi_ was not arguable. Whereupon the Nonconformists departed from
the meeting, and it finished somewhat abruptly. Whatever happens, it is
fairly certain that the clergyman will not achieve his new organ. I
suppose that the prevalence of clergymen similar to this clergyman is
the origin of the term "The Church Militant." Anyhow, the village was
genuinely interested. And the tea to returned prisoners is going to be a
considerable success. Later on, it is hoped, a tea will be offered to
men returning from the British Army. But not yet!

    *    *    *    *    *

Meanwhile, round about, "shoots" are going on. Hounds are killing or
drawing blank. Estimates are being prepared for the refitting of yachts.
The merits of rival designs for new motor-cars are being discussed.
Dodges for enticing young women into domestic service are being
discussed. Plans are being made for world-travel. The wines of the
future, the price of season-tickets and of suits and millinery, the
decline of the poetry-boom, the fullness of restaurants, the prospects
for the theatre--these furnish topics of animated conversation. And the
necessity of a bathroom for each guest-room in the after-war house is
frankly admitted. It is all most astonishing; it is wildly funny, having
regard to the fact that millions of people are starving in Europe and
hundreds of millions are on the edge of starvation, and that anarchy is
more infectious than influenza. Still, deep in every heart is doubtless
the thought: "I wonder what _will_ happen?" For men and women in
beautiful and spacious homes are not such bland lunatics as they may
seem when they prattle of their historic ideals.

  _25 January 1919._




  ORTHODOXY


I cannot say that I was surprised to read a newspaper report of a
private in the Royal Engineers who was fined six days' pay because,
being very tired, he was fool enough to go to sleep in church. It was
the clergyman who noted his offence, and who thoughtfully and kindly
reported it to the commanding officer. This is the sort of thing that so
endears our ancient army system to the intelligent citizen.
Nevertheless, the ancient army system is not without merit, and
sometimes works both ways, as it did in the present case. For on the
next Sunday the company of Royal Engineers combined to boycott the
collection plate of the good clergyman and gave 30s. to the sleeping
sinner instead.

    *    *    *    *    *

But I really am somewhat surprised at a recent action of that vast
institution, the Camps Library, whose chairman is Sir Edward Ward
(forty-four years' military service), and whose honorary director is the
Honourable Dame Eva Anstruther. We are being specially urged just now to
remember that the soldiers still bound to the slack tedium of military
duty need literature for their diversion. I have supported the Camps
Library myself; but I shall hesitate about doing so in future--and I
imagine that many others will hesitate--until some satisfactory
explanation is given of the fact that the authorities controlling the
Camps Library obstinately refuse gifts of books by Darwin, Huxley,
Tyndall, Mill, Spencer, Matthew Arnold, Lecky, Ray Lankester, and other
illustrious champions of man's right to think for himself. In the autumn
of last year a clergyman named Nolloth protested in the _Daily Mail_
against the pernicious spread of rationalist literature in military
camps. The official ban on Darwin, Matthew Arnold, and Co. appears to
have been the result of this clerical protest. Messrs. Watts are the
publishers of the cheap reprints of the aforesaid improper authors, and
they had made a habit of presenting copies of their publications to the
Camps Library. It was intimated to them that the habit must cease.
Correspondence ensued. The following was the final epistle from the
Honourable Dame Eva Anstruther: "In reply to your letter of the 23rd
December, which I have shown to our chairman, Sir Edward Ward, I regret
that I have nothing to add to my letter of 19th November informing you
that, as we are reorganising this Library, we do not for the present see
our way to accepting your kind offer of the popular scientific
reprints." And so that's that. I should like to inquire whether the
Camps Library refuses, or has ever refused, orthodox Church of England
literature. I should also like to ask how long "for the present" is to
continue. As long as it continues we are fronted with the interesting
phenomenon that our "citizen army" is being officially deprived of an
opportunity of reading Darwin's _Origin of Species_ and Matthew Arnold's
_Literature and Dogma_.

  _1 February 1919._




  CARTOONISTS


The reproduction in the _Manchester Guardian_ of a political cartoon
from the _Sydney Bulletin_, illustrating Mr. Hughes in the act of
speechifying to the Australian Press delegates to this country, brings
one sharply up once more against the fact that there is no political
caricature in England worth three-halfpence. The _Bulletin_ cartoon is
really very funny; it is also well drawn; and its humour is in the
drawing and not in the letterpress. I do not know who the cartoonist
is,[1] but if the Press-lords of this country had any genuine
imagination, they would immediately begin to compete for the services of
that cartoonist and get him to London on the next steamer. When one
thinks of the melancholy and ridiculous efforts of _Punch_ in the domain
of political caricature, and of the tenth-rate drawings in the popular
dailies, one perceives that life in Sydney must have appreciable
compensations. But our Press-lords seem to be obsessed by a single
idea--the imitation of one another. I am still waiting for a popular
weekly illustrated in colour. We ourselves have cheap fashion papers and
boys' papers illustrated in colour. Our sole coloured monthly is an
established success. But no Press-lord has yet bethought himself to
inaugurate a popular coloured weekly. No doubt each is waiting for a
rival to start the thing.

 _1 February 1919._

[Footnote 1: The cartoonist was Mr. Low, and he has been induced to come
to London by the proprietors of the _Star_.]




  SUNDAY THEATRES


Mr. Arthur Bourchier has this week revived the "agitation" (as it is
certain to be called) for Sunday theatres. For myself I am in favour of
Sunday theatres. I accept Mr. Bourchier's description of the present
illegality of Sunday performances as "a stupid survival of the darkest
form of Puritanism." Sunday cinemas have squelched all the stock
arguments against Sunday theatres, and Mr. Bourchier scores effectively
when he points out that the other Sunday _Scandal_, which he could not
play at the Strand Theatre, was given on the film across the road. Here
my agreement with Mr. Bourchier ends. He wants to have the theatre open
on Sundays, but to stipulate that plays performed on Sundays shall not
be performed on weekdays. He sees in this device a chance for reviving
"serious and intellectual drama." He thinks that managers "would risk,
for a run of a few Sundays, experimental productions upon which they
could never depend to fill their theatres eight or nine times a week." I
don't. Nor do I assent to Mr. Bourchier's assumption that managers exist
who are hungering to produce "serious" plays, but who are prevented from
doing so by the dearth of theatres. I recall, for example, the recently
concluded joint management of the Haymarket Theatre, which had a free
hand if ever a management had, and which produced three plays, none of
which had the slightest interest for intelligent people. In my opinion,
the main reason why plays for intelligent people are not produced is
that such plays are not written. I have personally taken a hand in a
search for these fabled plays which are alleged to be awaiting
production, and I have not yet come across them in any quantity worth
talking about. Mr. Bourchier's notions, however, are decidedly more in
accordance with the tendency of human nature than Canon Adderley's.
Canon Adderley would agree to Sunday plays if they are serious, and he
suggests that the Sabbath should begin about 7 p.m. on Saturday and end
about 7 p.m. on Sunday. He sees here a device for getting people to bed
early on Saturday, and getting them to morning service on Sunday. Holy
simplicity!

  _22 February 1919._




  ROPS


Still more about the censorship. In June last a firm of picture-dealers
in London, very honourably known, ordered from Amsterdam fifteen
etchings by Felicien Rops at a total price of 127. Last month the
consignment had not reached these chaste shores, but the
picture-dealers, after long inquiry, had learnt that it had been held up
by the British Post Office, on the ground that some of the etchings were
"indecent." On the 24th ultimo the picture-dealers reasoned gently with
the Post Office. They pointed out that Rops was regarded by competent
authorities as one of the greatest modern etchers, that his works
(including many of those held up) had been publicly exhibited in London,
amid the plaudits of the most respectable journalistic critics, that all
the impugned etchings are to be found in the Public Library of
Washington, and that Rops is well represented in all the great
collections. Also that fully illustrated books about Rops, written by
first-rate authorities, can be bought from any good second-hand
bookseller in London. Hence the picture-dealers hopefully asked for the
release of the consignment. Fond picture-dealers! Four days later they
received the following epistle from the G.P.O.: "I am directed by the
Postmaster-General to inform you that as certain of the prints contained
in the packet in question were undoubtedly of an obscene character the
packet was properly stopped in the post under the regulation shown at
page 17 of the Post Office Guide. _Its contents have been destroyed in
ordinary course_" (my italics).

    *    *    *    *    *

What is to be said about the bureaucratic vandal responsible for the
absurd destruction of these valuable works of art except that he behaved
like an ignorant and barbarous ass? For, note that all the etchings were
destroyed, though only some of them were objected to. Probably he had
never heard of the illustrious Rops. And probably, if he had been called
upon to decide the fate of an injudicious selection of pictures from the
National Gallery, the Louvre, the Prado, the Hermitage, and the New York
Metropolitan, he would have commanded the destruction of these also. The
picture-dealers have in practice no remedy. Can you imagine a useful
discussion about a matter of artistic interest in the House of Commons?
90 per cent.--nay, 95 per cent.--of the Elect would ask, "Who the deuce
is Rops?" and would yawn till the next question. Nevertheless, the
Postmaster-General ought to blush for his subordinate; and some rule
ought to be made to the effect that Post Office officials shall not be
permitted to destroy works of art until the consignee has had an
opportunity to appeal to a body of experts whose decision is final. But
I doubt whether there is one member of this innumerable Government who
cares a fig, a bilberry, or a tinker's curse about either the dignity
of any art or the national dignity in regard to any art.

  _8 February 1919._

    *    *    *    *    *

A question was asked in the House about the destruction of Rops'
etchings. The Postmaster-General admitted all the facts, and stated that
he would do nothing to alter the system which permitted the highly
cultivated human products of our public schools to destroy at their own
caprice the works of genius. However, the present exposure has probably
accomplished some good, for even anonymous officials hate to be made
ridiculous in the public eye.

  _22 February 1919._

    *    *    *    *    *

The scandal of the destruction of a whole series of etchings by Felicien
Rops has not yet abated. Last week the Postmaster-General offered to the
House of Commons a new defence of his vandalistic subordinate, in which
he remarked _ex cathedra_ that it needed no special training to judge
whether or not a work of art was obscene. Wandering in what remains of
the National Gallery the other day, I paused in front of more than one
work and asked myself: "Would Mr. Illingworth's censor consider this
obscene or would he not?" And I could not decide upon the answer. The
Rops issue is being obscured in controversy. Some may deem Rops a poor
artist, and they may be right, though the great body of expert opinion
throughout the world is against them. Some may deem some of Rops'
designs obscene, and they may be right, though the said works are
allowed to enter freely into every other country. (Many admittedly great
artists have produced admittedly obscene works of art.) Thousands of
classic works would be condemned as obscene by the average official in
his own drawing-room, and thousands are only saved from general public
obloquy by the fact that they are protected by the prestige of a public
gallery. All this is beside the point. The point is that a Post Office
official without special training had the right to destroy on his own
responsibility works of art which are esteemed and shown in every
important capital. The point also is that the Post Office official
destroyed a number of works which he did not regard as obscene. So far
as Rops is concerned, those who say that his work is mainly obscene
simply do not know what they are talking about. Much of it is perverse,
but perversity is not obscenity. Cranach was perverse; but what a fuss
there would be if a Post Office person destroyed a picture by Cranach!
No exception can be taken on moral grounds to the bulk of Rops' output.
Finally, I am in a position to say that a very high official of the Post
Office and a very high official of the British Museum have both
expressed grave disapprobation of the Rops-Illingworth incident. As well
they might! But more than an expression of disapproval is needed. Action
is needed. And I wish that some British Museum or National Gallery
official of sufficient authority (preferably one with a title) would go
to the excellent Mr. Illingworth and tell him gently, but firmly, that
in asserting that it needs no special training to decide the question of
obscenity Mr. Illingworth was making himself and his department totally
ridiculous.

  _8 March 1919._




  SEX EQUALITY


London is really a very remarkable city. The other day, according to the
papers, there was trouble in a London restaurant because a lady smoked
therein. A waiter asked her to desist. She refused. Then, according to
his own account, the waiter knocked the cigarette out of her mouth. Who
would have thought such an incident possible, if it had not occurred?
Nothing is commoner in truly fashionable restaurants than smoking by
ladies. But apparently restaurants of a more bourgeois type have a
different code; also the waiters thereof have a different code. The sad
fact is that the fight for sex equality is not yet over. It is won, but
not finished, and a "sort of war" persists in odd corners of the
battlefield. And there are still public places where even daring and
desperate women do not venture to smoke. A duchess might smoke in a
restaurant-car of a train, but she would never smoke on the top of an
omnibus. Still, evolution proceeds. I can remember the time when a lady
who travelled at all on the top of an omnibus risked her reputation in
doing so.

  _29 March 1919._




  FRENCH JURIES


I do not know anything about the inwardness of the mysterious acquittal
of the murderer of Jean Jaurs; and probably if there is any inwardness,
and if I knew it, I should not be able to print what I knew. But, in
spite of the usual rumours, I am inclined to think that there is no
inwardness worth talking of, and that the mystery resides solely in the
mentality of the French jury. Justice and juries are not among the
things which they manage better in France. Balzac, strangely, had a
great admiration for the French judicial system (criminal department),
but he did not hesitate to show its weakness, as in the celebrated scene
in which Madame de Serizy snatched the dossier of Lucien de Rubempr
from the hands of the _juge d'instruction_ and threw it into the fire in
the very room of the _procureur-gnral_. There are modern examples of
Madame de Serizy, and it is not surprising that there should be, in a
country where a judge of the Supreme Court earns less than a Sheffield
steel-roller hand. Such details of Villain as have reached London are
sparse and unenlightening. One would like especially to know something
about the class-composition of the jury. But whatever this may have been
I do not hesitate to say that the jury was less judicial than the least
judicial English jury that ever sat. English juries, like English
committees, have a quality of fundamental common sense that is entirely
unknown in similar French bodies in France. And they can keep to the
point. In fact, they are often more judicial than English judges. French
juries are always under the illusion that they are taking part in a
drama by Henri Bernstein, and no travesty of a trial that was ever seen
on the English emotional stage could approach in sheer fustian the
realities of an ordinary French trial. Indeed, a good French actor is
merely a French barrister who has missed his vocation. The jury that
acquitted Villain no doubt thought that it was accomplishing a _beau
geste_. The whole thing is a most disquieting symptom of French nerves
at the present time.

  _5 April 1919._




  IN THE TUBE


To-day I had three journeys in the Tube railway. Coming from
Hammersmith, the carriage being not full, there were seven or eight
women, and I had the opportunity of examining all of them. The Tube is
much better than a bus for these inquisitions, because you are not so
close to the people opposite you, and can therefore spy with more
freedom. Curious how one can see one's own traits (as one ought) in all
the people one meets! (Compare Emerson's essay on "History," where the
idea is treated with the finest philosophic grandeur.) I was specially
attracted, and repelled, by a fat young woman. I only knew she was young
by the beauty of her fair complexion. She was amorphous, and in the
matter of clothes her chief idea seemed to be to make herself look as
old as possible. Her boots were sound, but all wrinkles and creases, and
unevenly laced. She must have thought very highly of herself, and she
must have been very narrow-minded. Also, incapable of tender
emotion--unless over a baby. She was the sort of girl who while being
made love to would calmly reflect that to-morrow was the day for
cleaning the parlour. Every woman has charm somewhere, but this one had
as little as it is possible for a young woman with a good complexion to
have. She must be always quite sure of herself. She would never give
way--until she had to--and when giving way she would be forcibly-feeble,
as we almost all are. I could not help thinking of Mr. Bonar Law who in
the Commons last night said with forcible-feebleness that the Government
had counted the cost of letting the hunger-strike at Mountjoy prison run
its course--to death if necessary--and that nothing would make them
alter their decision. . . . And all the time he and the Government were
trembling at the spectacle of a whole nation raging against them and a
whole nation on strike against the Mountjoy rgime, and to-day the
papers are full of reports of Governmental concessions to the
hunger-strikers. The Government appeared to me to be comically like that
fat, obstinate, repellent, self-satisfied girl. I don't know why, but it
was so. I would lay anything that the fat girl had sized up all the
other women in the carriage unfavourably, and set them down as the silly
woman, the namby-pamby woman, the powdered woman, the
no-better-than-she-should-be woman, the irresponsible woman, the untidy
woman, the grinning woman, etc. In that fat girl I could decipher all my
own baser prejudices and my unshakable good-conceit of myself.




  RITUALISM


Just as I was arriving at my tailor's yesterday morning an automobile
stopped at the door. The owner jumped out--he looked young, but I could
only see his back--and he was followed by a valet bearing a suit-case.
In addition to the chauffeur the automobile carried a footman dressed to
match the chauffeur. Three grown-up men, and a machine weighing a ton
and three quarters, to move another grown-up man from his house to his
tailor's! I had a natural curiosity to see that customer, but though I
entered the establishment immediately after him, he had already
vanished, together with the valet and the suit-case. When I asked for
Mr. Melchizidek--Mr. Melchizidek being the expert who fits the upper
part of my body--I was apologetically told that Mr. Melchizidek was
engaged, but hoped to be free in a few moments. I sat on the cushioning
of the club-fender and beheld the shop. In the middle a bookstand
holding the _Morning Post_, the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Illustrated
London News_, and beneath these such grave tomes as Burke's _Landed
Gentry_, _Debrett_, the _Post Office Guide_ (in a leather case). On the
walls, no water-colours by Brabazon or Conder, no fashion-plates, but
gold-framed royal patents authentically signed by private secretaries
and grand chamberlains. The shop seemed to be full of an atmosphere of
unrest and excitement, even of apprehension. The dignified employees who
neither cut out nor fit nor stitch, but merely attend, moved somewhat
feverishly and mysteriously to and fro. I saw a court coat of black
velvet whisked on a menial arm through the shop. The valet from the
automobile passed through, outwards, hat in hand. I feared I might have
to wait a long time. But no. In a very few moments Mr. Melchizidek
appeared and led me into a trying-on cubicle. Mr. Melchizidek had
"succeeded" with me. Nevertheless he was nervous. At the end of the
sance, he said, with an uneasy laugh: "Very busy this morning, sir.
King's leve. First since the beginning of the war." All was explained.
A quite simple explanation, only I had never thought of it. I recalled
that a detachment of cavalry with orchestra and colours had gone down
George Street at 10.30 o'clock. Mr. Melchizidek added: "I have to dress
Sir Blank Blank." "Who's he?" I asked casually. "Well, sir, all I
rightly know is he's just been made a knight." "Never heard of him!" I
said, still more casually. Not a tactful remark on my part. Mr.
Melchizidek simply didn't know what to say.

    *    *    *    *    *

The following is part of the official account of the Leve, which I read
to-day in the _Times_:

    "His Majesty also received Colonel Sir Henry Fletcher and
    Colonel St. John Gore, Standard Bearer and Clerk of the Cheque
    and Adjutant of His Majesty's Bodyguard of the Hon. Corps of
    Gentlemen at Arms, and presented them with the respective
    Sticks of Office. These Officers were introduced into His
    Majesty's presence by Lord Colebrooke, the Captain of the
    Gentlemen at Arms, and having been named to the King by the Lord
    Chamberlain, kissed hands on their appointments."

One has sometimes the most unexpected glimpses of interesting unknown
worlds.




  THE PRIZE FIGHT


During the last stage of the dinner the host came round to you and said,
in that politely casual tone of a man who knows more than you do, but
who would not like the fact to appear: "Got your ticket safe? Might be
as well to keep an eye on it till you're inside." You then divined that
you were about to enter another world, a world where the eruptive
potentialities of the social organism may show themselves more
disconcertingly than in yours. And the inflections of your reply tried
to prove that you were an accustomed citizen of that other world. Later,
the host said: "I brought a knuckle-duster with me." He presented the
steely instrument for inspection. "You can do some useful work with that
on your fingers," he said, and added fatalistically: "But, of course, it
wouldn't be any good if half a dozen of 'em set on you at once." In
answer to the nave inquiry: "How do you get there?" he said: "Oh!
That'll be all right. I've got fifteen taxis at the door!" Fifteen taxis
at the door! It indeed is another world, and one which the taxi driver
comprehends and approves. Could anybody get fifteen taxis at any door
for an excursion to the Albert Hall for a League of Nations meeting, or
to Lowndes Square to hear Robert Nichols recite at Mrs. Kinfoot's?
Nobody could.

    *    *    *    *    *

The crowds began long before the Stadium was reached. The street was
narrow and dark, and in an empty space scores of huge policemen were
watching the eruptive potentialities. You clutched your ticket, for,
after all, it bore the figures 10, 10s. Still, there was no difficulty
about entering. You noticed the thick solidity of the barriers panelled
with barbed wire, but they opened quickly for you, and the strong
attendants had none of the geographical indecisions which characterise
nonchalant programme-girls in fig-leaf white aprons over short black
frocks. As you squeezed into the central enclosure of the auditorium
close to the ring (a squared circle), where one of the preliminary bouts
was in progress, the final attendant said quickly: "Sit down here until
the end of the round, sir." Ferocious homicidal yells from behind
reinforced him: "Sit down! Sit down!" You sat down quickly--anywhere.
The attendant crouched on his haunches. (This was not _Tristan_, of
which ten or twenty bars don't in the least matter. This was pugilism,
the most holy and impassioning sacrament of its world.) A few seconds
more and you were in your seat, one of four or five thousand. You
realised that the affair had been wonderfully organised and rehearsed.

    *    *    *    *    *

In came Mr. Cochran, the mysterious organiser, escorting the Prince of
Wales, the Prince holding a cigar just in the manner of his grandfather,
and Mr. Cochran looking rather like one of the Antonines. Mr. Cochran
gazed around at the vast advertisements of his own theatres, and at the
cinema operators precariously suspended over balconies. Mr. Cochran had
thoughtfully provided loops of rope for them to rest their feet in. Mr.
Cochran had forgotten nothing. It was his hour. He deserved it. It pains
me as a professional observer that I cannot recall whether the Prince
and Mr. Cochran wore smoking-jackets or swallow-tails. Opinion was
divided as to the sartorial proprieties. Some star-actors and some
millionaires wore smoking-jackets; some star-actors and some
millionaires wore swallow-tails. The millionaires were richly
represented. There they were, dotted about, the genial wizards who have
removed Arlington Street from the map, who are said to have the
Government in their pockets, and who assert with calm conviction that
"Lloyd George can't put it over _them_." Women were certainly too few;
some had sought to atone for the paucity by emulating the attire of the
gladiators in the ring. They made futile spots of sex on ten guineas'
worth of plush in an environment where Aphrodite had no status whatever.

    *    *    *    *    *

The raised ring was already well illuminated, but soon many lamps that
had been unlit fizzed into activity, and dazzling torrents of bluish
light rained down a treble-X radiance on the battleground. The cinema
men prepared themselves. The last of the preliminary bouts finished. An
M.C. climbed into the ring and besought the audience to stop smoking, so
that the champions about to dispute the mastery of a continent might
breathe more easily. The celebrated Mr. B. J. Angle, whose word was to
be law to the champions, climbed into the ring and delivered a short
homily. Mr. B. J. Angle was evidently a man who knew his own mind, and
who also knew his world. Some persons were pained because he wore a grey
suit and brown boots at 10 p.m. in the presence of the Prince of Wales,
and they did not hesitate to express their narrow-mindedness. A little
box, covered with advertisement, was deposited in the centre of the
ring. It contained the gloves. The sublime moment approached. You had a
unique sensation; you admitted to yourself that it was well worth ten
guineas, and also that the subject of the reconstruction of Europe
lacked actuality.

    *    *    *    *    *

Beckett and train appeared first, and the train was so numerous as to be
bewildering. For a moment you thought that both boxers and both trains
must be in the ring. You understood better the immense costliness of a
really great fight, and the complexity of the machinery which is
necessary to perfect it. You perceived that though 8,000 was to be
divided between the combatants, neither would be overpaid when he had
reckoned his time and discharged his expenses. When Carpentier and train
appeared, the ring was like a market-place. One figure, Carpentier,
stood out astonishingly from all the rest. All the rest had the faces
and the carriage of bruisers. Nobody could have taken Carpentier for a
boxer. He might have been a barrister, a poet, a musician, a Foreign
Office attach, a Fellow of All Souls; but not a boxer. He had an air of
intellectual or artistic distinction. And long contact with the very
physical world of pugilism had not apparently affected his features in
the slightest degree. In the previous six years he had matured, but not
coarsened. He seemed excessively out of place in the ring. You could not
comprehend what on earth he was doing there. Surely he must have lost
his way! Beckett, a magnificent form, with a countenance from which you
would not infer much power of ratiocination, gazed long at Carpentier
from under his forehead, whereas Carpentier scarcely glanced at Beckett.
At one moment Beckett appeared to you like a dumb victim trying to
penetrate the secrets of a higher and inscrutable power; at another
moment you were persuaded that grim Beckett was merely contemplating his
poor destined intellectual victim with the most admirable British
detachment. At one moment you felt that Carpentier must inevitably be
crushed; at another moment you were convinced that if Carpentier was not
too many for Beckett, then the course of civilisation had been very
misleading.

    *    *    *    *    *

I know nothing about boxing; my opinion on boxing would be worth about
as much as Beckett's on Scriabin. But I had seen Carpentier, in 1913,
when he was a boy, knock out Bombardier Wells at the National Sporting
Club in less than two minutes, and the performance was so brilliant, so
easy, so natural, that I could not believe that anybody else would ever
knock out Carpentier. Now, however, I was overborne by the weight of
expert prophecy. All the experts were certain that Beckett must win.
Some of them murmured something perfunctory about the million-to-one
chance of an early knock-out by Carpentier, but none of them had in
reality any fear of such a chance. I surrendered, and privily told
myself what a simpleton I had been to imagine for a single instant that
Carpentier would not be smashed. (I forgot the peculiar accents in which
Lord Fisher said to me in 1915, that _his_ life then was "nothing but
one damned expert after another.") Further, the experts killed
Carpentier immediately they saw him. They said he was not in condition;
they liked not the colour of his skin; they said he had gone right off;
they said he was a dead man. And I submissively persuaded myself that
this was so. The ritualistic prologue to the encounter seemed to take a
very long time. But it served excellently its purpose of heightening the
excitement of expectation. When the bell at length rang, and Beckett and
Carpentier approached each other lonely in the ring, beneath a million
candle power of radiance, and the whole barbaric Stadium was stilled,
and hearts knocked remindingly under waistcoats--in that moment, even
those who had paid twenty-five guineas for a ten-guinea seat must have
felt that they had got a bargain.

    *    *    *    *    *

There had been some grand fighting before the big event, particularly
between Eddie Feathers and Gus Platts, and experts had said: "This will
be the best fighting of the evening. You'll see. A championship match is
never any good." The devoted experts were wrong again. In five seconds
the championship fighting stood plainly in a class apart, thanks solely
to Carpentier. Carpentier caught Beckett on the nose at once. Beckett
positively had to rub his nose, an act which made the strong men around
me shudder. Beckett was utterly outclassed. He never had a chance. . . .
The Stadium beheld him lying prone on his face. And the sight of Beckett
prone, and Carpentier standing by him listening to the counting of
allotted seconds, was the incredible miraculous consummation of all the
months of training, all the organisation, all the advertising, all the
expenditure, all the frenzy. Aphrodite, breaking loose in the shape of a
pretty girl _bien maquille_, rushed to the ring. Men raised her in
their arms, she raised her face; and Carpentier bent over the ropes and
kissed her passionately amid the ecstasies of joy and disillusion that
raged round them. That kiss seemed to be the bright flower of the
affair. It summed up everything. Two minutes earlier Beckett in his
majestic strength had been the idol of a kingdom. Now Beckett was a sack
of potatoes, and Carpentier in might and glory was publicly kissing the
chosen girl within a yard of the Prince of Wales.

We left the Stadium immediately, though the programme of boxing was by
no means concluded, and in Red Lion Square found our taxi-driver, whose
claim to distinction was that his grandfather had been a friend of Mr.
George R. Sims. All the streets of the vicinity were full of people
abroad for the event. They were all aware of the result, for at the very
doors of the Stadium, on our emerging, a newspaper boy offered us the
news in print. They all stood or moved in attitudes of amaze, watching
with rapt faces the long lines of departing motors. You perceived that
the English race was profoundly interested and moved, and that nothing
less than winning the greatest war could have interested and moved it
more profoundly. This emotion was no product of a Press campaign, but
the Press campaign was a correct symptom of it. It was as genuine as
British fundamental decency. Not Beckett alone had been stunned. The
experts were stunned. Their prime quality of being ever cheery had gone
from them. They could scarcely speak; there was naught to say; there was
no ground for any argument. They were bowed with grief. Fate had heavily
smitten them. One of them murmured: "I consider it's a disgrace to Great
Britain." Another: "It's the champion of Great Britain that's been
beaten. . . . This--after Mdlle Lenglen!" Where to go in these
circumstances of woe? Obviously to the Eccentric Club. We went, and were
solaced and steadied with an aged Courvoisier brandy. Sipping the
incomparable liquid, and listening to the exact reconstitution of the
battle by the experts, I reflected, all solitary in my own head, upon
what, with such magnificent and quiet hospitality, I had been taken to
see. Was the show worthy of the talents and the time lavished on its
preparation and accomplishment, worthy of the tradition, of the prowess,
of the fostering newspapers, of Mr. Cochran? It was. Was it a moral
show? It was--as moral as an Inter-University Rugger match. Was it an
sthetic show? It was. Did it uplift? It did. Did it degrade? It did
not. Was it offensive? No. Ought the noble art to continue? It ought. I
had been deeply interested.




  PATRONS OF THE OPERA


The social aspect of Sir Thomas Beecham's very agreeable grand opera
season at Drury Lane has interest. A phenomenon that cannot have escaped
the notice of the less gaudy elements of the audience is the presence on
the principal nights of hordes of persons whose notorious faces are the
innocent joy of readers of the _Tatler_ and the _Sketch_. These hordes
occupy boxes, usually many boxes, and I see no reason why they
shouldn't. But they all know each other; indeed, apparently they are all
bosom friends. And they seem all to suffer from an uncontrollable desire
to impart their sensations to each other at the earliest possible
moments. No sooner does the curtain begin to fall on an act than they
rush out to impart sensations, and they keep on imparting sensations
until the curtain has been lifted for a minute or two on the next act,
when the doors of boxes fly open, waves of babble sweep across the
auditorium (for they have not finished imparting sensations), and
gradually they settle down, with nods and smiles and glances of mutual
esteem, into comparative silence. Further, they have, doubtless quite
unconsciously, the air of owning the entire enterprise. It is understood
that the more prominent among them are "supporters" of Sir Thomas
Beecham. If, indeed, this is so, I look forward to the time when Sir
Thomas will no longer need such supporters. Sir Thomas's season at
Manchester was an immense success. In his witty valedictory speech
there he said that though Manchester was the last place at which he
would have expected miracles, a miracle had happened in Manchester.

  _16 June 1917._




  THE GUITRYS


The average successful Sacha Guitry play--there are numerous examples of
it--is a confection for the boulevard. But one may say at any rate that
it is immensely less tedious than the _machines_ of those
boulevard-purveyors who are taken with such absurd seriousness in
England--Donnay, Hervieu, Lavedan, Bernstein. I hate to class Sacha
Guitry with the purveyors, but I cannot class him with serious people
like Georges de Porto Riche and Franois de Curel. I would put him in an
intermediate group with Georges Courteline and Tristan Bernard. I wonder
whether Sacha Guitry will ever write anything so classically comic as
the best Courteline or the best Bernard! Let us be thankful that he has
absolutely no pretentiousness. He was born gracious and adroit and
successful, but he is not puffed up, even artistically; and I doubt
whether he is often worried about the relation of his plays to the truth
of life. His average play is cynical, but at the same time it is
sentimental--combination adored by all the best publics throughout the
world. It is exceedingly, deliciously, witty in spots; parts of it are
dramatically very good on their plane; but the goodness of the parts is
not such as to conduce to the goodness of the whole. In other words
Sacha Guitry is wasteful, too nonchalant, in the use of his material.
Though often very adroit over details, he not seldom fails in large
constructional skill. I cannot criticise _Nono_, for I have not seen it
for years, and my memory of it is very vague. But a striking example of
the author's constructional negligence is the last act of _La Prise de
Berg Op Zoom_, which tumbles terribly from the level of the third act.
While it is impossible not to be amused and to be grateful for plays of
this stamp, it is also impossible wholly to respect them. In fact, one's
reservations are grave.

    *    *    *    *    *

As an actor Sacha Guitry wins sympathy at once by youthfully recalling
his tremendous father. He is a good actor, and in cynical-sentimental
scenes more than good--distinguished. But if he had not been a brilliant
playwright and the son of Lucien Guitry, I doubt whether his reputation
as an actor would have got beyond France. His wife has the charm of
authentic and unquestionable youth; she possesses technique, but her
method is apt to be a trifle monotonous, and sometimes she might, I
think, advantageously display more softness. Yet now and then she is
exquisitely soft. Be as judicial as you will, you have to admit that her
performance gives at moments keen pleasure.

    *    *    *    *    *

There was a great deal of _snobisme_ (the French word) in the reception
of the first two productions of the Guitry season at the Aldwych Theatre
in 1919. An idea seemed to be abroad that they constituted first-rate
theatrical art; and this idea, which was gushingly fostered, no doubt
sprang from the fact that Sacha Guitry is a prodigy. Well, he is a
prodigy all right. It is indeed notable that he should be such an
entertaining, lovable, and prolific dramatist and simultaneously such a
clever actor. But no profusion of varied non-first-rateness piled
together can amount to the first-rate. The opening plays were not
first-rate and the acting was not first-rate--and the setting of _La
Prise de Berg Op Zoom_ was sinful. What was first-rate in the
productions was the _ensemble_ of the acting. Further, the work of the
producer was admirable. The French can produce us and act us clean off
the stage. They have in them an innate superiority. Let us grant it
candidly.

    *    *    *    *    *

When Lucien Guitry made his _dbut_ in _Pasteur_, he created the
greatest artistic sensation, apart from the Russian ballet, that the
London stage has had for many years; and he put Sacha Guitry into a true
perspective. _Pasteur_ is neither better nor worse than Sacha Guitry's
other successful plays. It seems better, but that is because the subject
is a noble subject. Sacha Guitry shows in it that he can treat a noble
subject quite as sympathetically and as engagingly as a hackneyed
adulterous imbroglio. The material extracted by him from Pasteur's
biography is magnificent, and he has handled it with much dignity. He
has not, however, fused it into a dramatic entity. I heard that he wrote
the play in five days, and I can believe it. Upon what principle he
selected the episodes I could not divine, nor could I detect in the
piece either solid construction or dramatic climax, or even development
of character. The development of Pasteur's character was indicated not
by Sacha, but by Lucien Guitry. The play was episodically very
effective, and it reinforced _Abraham Lincoln_ in its lesson to
dramatists who are ready to follow new paths. But I seriously doubt
whether it will be considered effective twenty years hence. Neither is
it consistently even adroit. The oration of the President of the
Republic in the last act, in itself tedious and unconvincing, seemed to
stop the action dead. And if the author was here being ironic at the
expense of Presidents, then his irony was out of key with the situation.
Lucien Guitry as Pasteur was sublime. He was just that. What a lesson in
sobriety, in economy of means, and in the employment of overwhelming
individual force! The greatness and the personal distinction of Pasteur
came over the footlights unfailingly for two hours and a half. It seems
a great deal to say, but every moment was perfect; not the least note
jarred. The long scene with the child who was the first person to be
saved by Pasteur's methods from hydrophobia stands out among many very
beautiful scenes. It was ravishing. The author had slightly
sentimentalised this nevertheless finely written scene; the actor
purified it of all sentimentality. And Lucien Guitry is a humorist, too.
In the last act (apotheosis), when his disciples were telling him in
vague grandiose phrases of the acclamation awaiting him in the great
hall, the suspicious tone in which the hater of "the big bow-wow"
stopped them with the simple words, "Je voudrais savoir exactement ce
qui va se passer"--this tone brought the house down by its sardonic and
benevolent humour. The evening passed in a crescendo of enthusiasm which
was highly creditable to the audience. Personally, in an experience of
over thirty years, I can remember no acting equal to Lucien Guitry's
Pasteur. I said to one of the most brilliant performers on the London
stage--and especially brilliant in a Sacha Guitry rle: "What do you
think of it?" He said: "I'll tell you what I think of it. I think I've
never seen any acting before."




  WOMEN'S EDUCATION IN 1920


The daughter of a rich friend of mine came to see us yesterday. Her age
is sixteen, and she is at a French "finishing-school" in Mayfair. This
school, which moved over here from Paris during the war and will shortly
move back again, counts among the most fashionable establishments of the
kind, and is, I suppose, an example of the best and costliest that the
rich have managed to get organised for the education of their daughters
in the medival year 1920. It has twenty-eight pupils. Miranda told us
that there were no rules. I discovered, however, that there was at any
rate one. Namely, that pupils, out alone, may not acknowledge salutes
from male acquaintances in the street. I asked Miranda whether if I met
her she would cut me. She replied that she would not. Mistresses and
pupils rise at about 8.30 a.m., but Miranda rises an hour earlier in
order to practise the piano, of which she is very fond. She "learns"
nothing but music and French. Nothing. She shares a bedroom with three
other girls. All the pupils are English; but only French may be spoken
in the presence of mistresses, who nevertheless are beloved. I should
say that such a school would "finish" any girl unless she happened to
have a very powerful and unfinishable personality. The Renaissance seems
nearly due.




  BIOGRAPHY


The English craze for biography has been the subject of much sarcasm and
straight complaint during recent years, but it continues to flourish
like golf. The reading public alone is to blame, for if it refused to
buy biography by the ton, biography would not be written by the ton. The
latest example, and one of the supreme examples, of the wrong way to be
biographical is to be found in Sir George Arthur's Life of Lord
Kitchener. We used to resent two thick volumes for one man's brief span,
but now we have three--super-thick. (We have even six--the Disraeli
biography.) It seems seldom to occur to biographers that in the first
place a biographer should know how to write. Sir George Arthur is an
amateur writer; probably he could paint just as well as he can write;
but if he painted a portrait of Kitchener and exhibited it there might
be trouble. Not only he cannot write--he cannot compose, nor arrange,
nor select, nor sift, nor discriminate, nor exercise impartiality. It
may be that he knows more about his subject than any other man; the
qualification does not suffice. The great fact is that he simply does
not know his job. He has done perhaps half his job--and the easier
half--and has left his readers to do the other half. Very few readers
could, or would if they could, do the other half. Nevertheless, Sir
George Arthur has received very high praise and the praise is worth less
than nothing at all. He can at any rate take credit to himself that he
has not written the worst and most misleading biography of a great man
in the English language. I surmise that that distinction belongs to the
author of the official Life of Lord Tennyson, or possibly to the
authoress of the official Life of G. F. Watts (another trifle of three
volumes). The Life of Kitchener of course had to be written, but many
biographies are published the justification for which is undiscoverable.
Continental nations seem to manage without an annual plague of some
scores of biographies. Why does the British public continue to make
incompetent and unnecessary biography so remunerative? Conceivably the
reason is that the British public is more interested than any
Continental nation in politics and public life, and also--may one
say?--more interested in literature. Hence it is more interested in the
figures of politics and literature. This interest is creditable, unless
it becomes morbid; there are those who assert that it has definitely
become morbid.

    *    *    *    *    *

Practically all our biographies are too ponderous; most of them are
amateurishly done. About half of them, and perhaps three-quarters, are
quite unnecessary, being begotten by family conceit out of
undiscriminating public taste. Now and then an unnecessary biography
enters into the domain of righteous and sane literature by reason of its
intrinsic excellence. Instances of this phenomenon are Carlyle's Life of
Sterling, and Mr. Winston Churchill's Life of his father. If the
British have a special racial gift for biography, some born biographers
might advantageously turn to and till fields that even in Britain are
neglected. The greatest of all Christians, and one of the greatest men
in history, whose life was astoundingly picturesque, varied, and
eventful, was St. Paul. There is no first-rate full Life of St. Paul in
the English language. F. W. Farrar and Thomas Lewin are, I suppose, his
chief modern biographers. Farrar is well known, and one need not insist
that his fifty-year-old biography is of a popular and impermanent
nature. Lewin, his predecessor, is forgotten. And yet I much prefer
Lewin to Farrar. Lewin is delicious; he can still be read if he is read
in the right spirit. Here is a specimen of Lewin: "More than eighteen
hundred years have elapsed since the hearts of all on board have ceased
to beat; but imagination still pictures to itself the alternations of
hope and fear which must then have agitated each anxious breast, as they
waited impatiently for the dawn of day to disclose to their straining
sight the features of the coast on which they were cast. The shore was
close at hand, but between them and it lay a yawning gulf." Etc., etc.
It is a nice question whether modern biographies are more or less
sublimely ridiculous than the Lewins amid the yawning gulfs of the
seventies.




  THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS IN 1920


The following extracts from a public schoolboy's letters show what
progress is being made in really influential circles by the idea of the
League of Nations. The second extract incidentally shows also how the
Staff methods of 1914, 1915, and 1916 still persist. First extract: "On
Tuesday there is a colossal field day; 2200 schoolboys, 1500 attacking,
700 defending, Hemel Hempstead. Oundle provides the largest contingent
of the attack, 350; next is Harrow with 300. We are hiring the
Northampton Volunteer Band for the day. We also take a Signalling
Section, of which I am a member, and specially trained scouting
parties." Second extract: "The field day was quite a success as far as
exercise was concerned. It was a great rag. But considered from the
point of view of learning the rudiments of attack it was a failure,
because Harrow and Mill Hill--among others--arrived nearly an hour late,
and thus rather spoilt affairs! The Signalling Section did run out over
a mile of wire; it did set up three signalling stations; it did
communicate by flag. But the officers of other schools did not appear to
understand that simply by speaking with a mouthpiece they would be
talking with G.O.C. attack. So we got very few important messages."

    *    *    *    *    *

It is perhaps unfair, perhaps unrealistic, to be sarcastic about public
school authorities because they deliberately teach the favoured
youngsters of the nation to indulge in imitations of the activities
which have laid waste central Europe and which even at the present
moment are responsible for the starvation and death of innumerable
children. (At any rate we may be thankful that Hemel Hempstead was not
put to the sack, its library burnt, its girls deported, its old men shot
in batches, etc., etc.) If the Government proposed to-day the abolition
of the War Office, public opinion would overthrow the Government, and
rightly. On the other hand, if the War Office persists it must have its
human material, and so long as the existing social system remains
unmodified it must have its human material from the public schools.
Therefore the public school authorities can make a very plausible case
for themselves. But if they inculcate the romance and glory of war--"a
great rag"--surely they ought to give equal prominence to the rival
conception of a world-peace. Do they, does any one of them, devote a
whole day, or even half a day or an hour (to say nothing of preliminary
study and training), to formal spectacular propagandism on behalf of the
League of Nations? The answer is No. If all the best public schools were
annihilated and their traditions annihilated, the consequences would be
evil, but evil appreciably diluted with good.




  THE DESIRE FOR FRANCE


When one looks back one sees that certain threads run through one's
life, making a sort of pattern in it. These threads and the nature of
the pattern are not perceived until long after the actual events
constituting them. I now see that there has been a French thread through
my life. Of its origin I can form no idea, for neither my forbears nor
the friends of my youth displayed the slightest interest in France or
the French. Yet when I was eighteen or nineteen, and a clerk in my
father's law office in the Five Towns, I used to spend my money on
French novels--in English translations. I was obliged to be content with
English translations because I could not read French without a
dictionary, a book of idioms, and intense weariness. I had been studying
French almost daily for nine years. I had passed the London
Matriculation in French--and let me say that the London Matriculation
French paper is, or was, among the silliest and most futile absurdities
that the perverse, unimaginative craftiness of the pedagogic mind ever
invented. I knew an immense amount of French grammar. And all my labour
was, in practice, utterly useless. In such wise are living languages
taught on this island. Nevertheless, I deeply enjoyed these secret
contacts with French thought and manners, as revealed in French novels.
The risks I had to run in order to procure them were terrific. Talk
about leading a double life under the paternal roof! I had no need to
inquire whether modern French novels would be permitted at home. I very
well knew that they would not. Victor Hugo alone would have been
permitted, and him I had already gulped down in three huge doses. Still,
my father was a very broad-minded man for his epoch and situation. But
there are limits--anyhow, in the Five Towns!

    *    *    *    *    *

I used to order these perilous works from a bookseller who was not the
official family bookseller; and I used to say to him, as casually as I
could: "Don't send it up; I'll call for it." One Saturday afternoon I
reached home earlier than my father. This was a wonder, for it was no
part of my business to leave the office before the head thereof. I was
supposed to remain at the office until he had thought fit to go, and
then to follow him at a decent interval. However, on that day I preceded
him. Going into the dining-room, I saw on the corner of the sideboard
nearest the door--exactly where my father's parcels and letters were put
to await him--a translation of a novel by Paul Bourget which I had
ordered. I have never been more startled than I was in that instant. The
mere thought of the danger I was courting overwhelmed me. I snatched the
volume and ran upstairs with it; it might have been a bomb of which the
fuse was lighted. At the same moment I heard on the glass panel of the
front door the peculiar metallic rap which my father made with his
ringed finger. (He would never carry a latchkey.) Heaven had deigned to
save me! Distinguished as Paul Bourget is, respectable as he is, there
would have been an enormous and disastrous shindy over his novel had my
father seen it. Whether the bookseller had sinned through carelessness
or whether, suspecting that I was ultimately bound for the inferno of
Paris, he had basely hoped to betray me to my father, I do not know. But
I think the kindest thing I can, though to send forth a French novel
without concealing it in brown paper was perfectly inexcusable at that
period in the Five Towns.

    *    *    *    *    *

Later I seemed to lose interest in French literature. It was not until I
had been in London for a year or two that I turned towards it again. I
remember making the delightful discovery that a French novel could,
after all, be read in the original without a dictionary, provided one
was content with a somewhat vague idea of the sense. The first French
book I ever read in this way was Daudet's _Fromont Jeune et Risler
Ain_. I was then about twenty-three or twenty-four. Thenceforward I
never ceased to read French, and, by a well-known mental process, I was
continually learning the meaning of new words and phrases without
consulting the dictionary. I used to buy a French newspaper nearly every
day at a shop in Coventry Street. What I made of it all I cannot now
conceive. Gradually the legend grew up around me that I was an authority
on French literature, and when I became a reviewer French books were
very frequently sent to me for criticism, because of my alleged special
competence. I would go to French plays in London. When indiscreet
persons demanded, "But do you understand?" I would reply, "Not all, of
course." It was the truth; I did not understand all. It was also in
essence a dreadful life, for I understood nothing.

    *    *    *    *    *

Strange detail; I began to take private lessons in German (in which
language also I had satisfied the University of London). I chose German
because I thought I knew enough French! Another strange detail; I used
often to say to my friends, "As soon as I am free enough I shall go and
live in Paris." And yet I had no hope whatever of being able to go to
Paris as a resident. I doubt if I had any genuine intention of going.
But it was my habit to make such idle forecasts and boasts; seemingly
they convinced everybody but me. I think now that something subconscious
must have prompted them. They have all been justified by events. Chance,
of course, has aided. Thus, from about the age of twenty-five onwards I
used to say: "I shall marry at forty." I had absolutely no ground of
personal conviction for this prophecy. But, by a sheer accident, I did
happen to marry at forty. And everyone, impressed, went about remarking,
"He always does what he says he'll do."

    *    *    *    *    *

Similarly, I did go to live in Paris. A remarkable group of
circumstances left me free from all local ties to earn my living where I
chose. I was then thirty-five. Did I fly straight to Paris? Not a bit. I
could not decide what to do. I went to Algeria first. On my way home I
lingered in Paris. I question if I was very powerfully drawn towards
Paris at the moment. I had to come to England to fulfil a social
engagement, and then I returned to Paris for a few days, with the notion
of establishing myself at Tours for a year or two, to "perfect" my
French. I remained in Paris for five years, and in France for over nine
years, liking and comprehending the French more and more, and feeling
more and more at home among them, until now I do believe I have a kind
of double mentality--one English and the other French. Naturally, when I
settled in Paris, all my friends said again, "He always said he would do
it, and he has done it." My reputation as a man of his word was made
indestructible. But to me the affair presents itself as chiefly
accidental.

    *    *    *    *    *

I had awful difficulties with the language. Somehow, very illogically, I
thought that the mere fact of residence in Paris would mysteriously
increase my knowledge of the French tongue to a respectable degree. I
remember I was advised to haunt the theatre if I wished to "perfect" my
French. The first play I saw was Edmond Se's _L'Indiscret_ at the
Thtre Antoine. I entered the theatre hoping for the best. I had read
the play in advance. I did not, however, succeed in comprehending one
single word--not one. I had been studying French for nearly twenty-six
years. The man in me who had written scores of "authoritative" articles
on French literature was deeply humiliated. I at once arranged to take
lessons. Three or four nights a week I was to be seen in the first row
of the stalls (so as to hear well) of the little _thtres de quartier_
round about Montmartre. I seemed to make no progress for six months.
Then, enchantingly, I began to understand bits of phrases heard in the
street. I had turned the corner! Heavenly moment!




  PARIS FLATS


The world revolves very rapidly under its appearance of stability. Only
yesterday it seems that I was settling in Paris. And yet then I could
buy Empire chairs (_croises_) at sixteen shillings apiece; I could buy
an Empire bedstead for a couple of pounds; and a beautiful
dressing-table, whose mirror was supported by the curved necks of the
Imperial swans, for three pounds! If I went to Paris now and asked
dealers for Empire furniture at such prices, I should be classed as a
lunatic. I had lived in an hotel overlooking the Seine for some time,
and I was taking possession of a flat and furnishing it. I chose the
Empire style for the furniture because I wanted a French style, and the
Empire style was the only style within the means of a man who had to
earn his living by realistic fiction. Louis Quinze and Louis Seize are
not for writers; neither is Empire, any more! To acquire some real
comprehension of a nation's character it is necessary to fit out a home
in its capital. The process brings you at once into direct contact with
the very spirit of the race. Especially in the big shops, which are so
racy a feature of Paris life, do you encounter the French spirit,
traditions, and idiosyncrasy. At some of the big shops you can buy
everything that makes a home--except of course the second-hand. But you
must not traverse the immemorial customs of home-making in France. Try
to depart from the rule, even as to servants' aprons, and you will soon
see that mysterious powers and influences are arrayed against you. The
Republic itself stands before you in the shape of the shop-assistant.
France is a land of suave uniformity. It is also at once the paradise
and the inferno of bureaucracy. There the bureaucracy is underworked and
underpaid. All which has been said before, uncountably often. Every
Englishman is aware of it. And yet no Englishman is truly aware of it
who has not set up a home in France.

    *    *    *    *    *

For example, I wanted the gas to be turned on in my flat. A simple
affair! Drop a post card to the Company telling the Company to come and
turn it on? Not at all! I was told that it would be better to call upon
the Company. So I called.

"What do you desire, monsieur?"

"I am the new tenant of a flat, and I want the gas turned on."

"Ah! You are the new tenant of a flat, and you want the gas turned on.
M. Chose, here is the new tenant of a flat, and he wants the gas turned
on. Where should he be led to?"

About a quarter of an hour of this, and then at last I am led by a
municipal employ, sure of his job and of his pension, to the
far-distant rooms of the higher employ appointed by the City of Paris
to deal with such as me. This room is furnished somewhat like that of a
solicitor's managing clerk.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, sir."

"It appears, sir--M. Bennay, fourth floor, No. 4 Rue de Calais, sixth
arrondissement, is it not?--that you want the gas turned on. Will you
put yourself to the trouble of sitting down, M. Bennay?"

I sit down. He sits down.

"Ah! So you want the gas turned on! Let us see, let us see----"

Hundreds of such applications must be made every day. But the attitude
of this ceremonious official might be put into words thus: "A strange
and interesting application of yours--to have the gas turned on! Very
remarkable! It attracts me. The case must be examined with the care and
respect which it deserves."

The next moment the official astonishingly rises and informs me that the
papers will arrive in due course. I depart. The papers do arrive in due
course, papers of all colours and all complexities. One or two tips, and
I get the gas. Electricity was not so easy. The Treaty of Berlin did not
demand more negotiations and diplomacy than my electricity.

    *    *    *    *    *

On the other hand, I had no trouble with the police. Every foreign
resident must report himself to the police and get a permit to exist.
The machine for preventing the unwelcome from existing in France is a
beautiful bit of engineering. I ignored the police and just went on
existing. Nothing happened. Yet sundry men must have been bringing up
families and providing dowries for their daughters on salaries which
they received for duties which included looking after me.

    *    *    *    *    *

I said that it was necessary to fit out a home in a country in order to
comprehend the national character. Perhaps that is not enough. You must
get married in that country. Let none say that he knows his Paris until
he has persuaded the mayor of some arrondissement to unite him in
matrimony to a woman. By the time the ceremony is over, and the
certificate issued, he will be a genuine expert in the niceties of the
French temperament.




  PARIS STREETS


When from London I look back at Paris, I always see the streets--such as
the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, the Rue des Martyrs, the Rue Fontaine,
and the Rue d'Aumale (one of the most truly Parisian streets in
Paris)--which lie on the steep slope between the Rue de Chateaudun and
the exterior boulevard where Montmartre begins. Though I have lived in
various quarters of Paris on both banks of the Seine, it is to these
streets that my memory ever returns. And though I have lived for many
years in London, no London street makes the same friendly and intimate
appeal to me as these simple middle-class streets of little shops and
flats over the shops, with little restaurants, little cafs, and little
theatres here and there at the corners. The morning life of these
streets was delightful, with the hatless women and girls shopping, and
the tradesmen--and, above all, the tradeswomen--polite and firm at their
counters, and the vast omnibuses scrambling up or thundering down, and
the placid customers in the little cafs. The waiters in the cafs and
restaurants were human; they are inhuman in London. The _concierges_ of
both sexes were fiends, but they were human fiends. There was everywhere
a strange mixture of French industry (which is tremendous) and French
nonchalance (which is charmingly awful). Virtue and wickedness were
equally apparent and equally candid. Hypocrisy alone was absent. I could
find more intellectual honesty within a mile of the Rue d'Aumale than
in the whole of England. And, more than anything whatever, I prize
intellectual honesty.

    *    *    *    *    *

And then the glimpses of domestic life in the serried flats, poised
story beyond story upon butchers' and grocers' and confectioners' and
music-dealers' and repairers' and drapers' and corset-makers' and
walking-stick-makers' and "bazaars"! Thousands of half-visible interiors
within ten minutes' walk! And the intense mystery that enwrapped one's
own house, reposing in the immense discretion of the _concierge_--who,
by the way, was not a fiend. I never knew anything about the
prodigiously genteel house of which I rented a fragment in the Rue de
Calais, except that a retired opera singer lived over my head and a
pianoforte professor at the Conservatoire somewhere under my feet. I
never saw either of them, but I knew that the ex-opera singer received
about a yard of bread every morning and one and a half litres of milk.

    *    *    *    *    *

Every afternoon and sometimes in the evening a distant violin used to
play, very badly, six bars--no more--of an air of Verdi's over and over
again; never any other tune! The sound was too faint to annoy me, but it
was the most melancholy thing that I have ever heard. This phenomenon
persisted for years, and I never discovered its origin, though I
inquired again and again. Some interior, some existence of an infinite
monotonous sadness, was just at hand, and yet hidden away from me,
inviolate. Whenever I hear that air now I am instantly in Paris, and as
near being sentimental as ever I shall be. My ambition had long been to
inhabit the Rue d'Aumale--austere, silent, distinguished, icy, and
beautiful--and by hazard I did ultimately obtain a flat there, and so
left the Rue de Calais. I tell you, I missed the undiscoverable and
tragic violin of the Rue de Calais. To this day the souvenir of it will
invariably fold me in a delicious spleen. The secret life of cities is a
matter for endless brooding.

    *    *    *    *    *

The sole disadvantage of the ability to take an equal delight in town
life and in country life is that one is seldom content where one happens
to be. Just when I was fully established in my Parisian street I became
conscious of a powerful desire to go and live in the French provinces.
And I went. I sacrificed my flat and departed--in order to learn about
the avarice, the laboriousness, the political independence, and the
tranquil charm of the French peasant, and about the scorn which the
countryside has for Paris, and about certain rivers and forests of
France, and about the high roads and the inns thereon, and what the
commercial travellers say to one another of a night in those excellent
inns; in short, to understand a little the fabric of the backbone of
France. I often desired to be back again in Paris, and, of course, in
the end I came back. And then I had the delightful sensation of coming
back to the city, not as a stranger, but as one versed in its
deviousness. I was able to take up at once the threads which I had
dropped, without any of the drudgery and tedium incident to one's first
social studies of a foreign capital. I was immediately at home, and I
never felt more satisfaction in my citizenship of Paris than at this
period. It was also at this period that I carried my Parisianism as far
as I am ever likely to carry it.




  GRAPHIC ART IN PARIS


After an interval of a quarter of a century, I had resumed, by some
caprice, my early practice in water-colour painting. One of my
school-girlish productions hung framed in the drawing-room of a Parisian
friend, whose taste was, at any rate in this instance, unduly influenced
by his affections, but who had a large and intimate acquaintance among
the most modern French artists--by which I mean among the school known
in England as the Post Impressionists, the school which was guffawed at
a dozen years ago in England, was treated with marked respect by the
_Times_ ten years ago; and which in a few years more will be worshipped
in England as ignorantly as it was once condemned. I had a particular
admiration for the water-colours of Pierre Laprade, a light of this
school, and I told my friend I should like to meet my hero. Nothing
easier! We met without delay at lunch. Before the lunch I had said to my
friend: "On no account let him see my water-colour."

My friend answered: "I shall most assuredly show him your water-colour."

    *    *    *    *    *

I pretended to be desolated; but, naturally with the nave hopefulness
of the rank amateur, I was secretly pleased. My hero was led to my
water-colour, and gazed thereat with indifferent disapproval.

"Monsieur," he said to me, "you have three times too much cleverness,
and your work is utterly without interest."

It is scarcely credible, but I felt flattered. I was enchanted that I
had three times too much cleverness. M. Laprade and I grew friendly; I
visited his studio. We discussed art.

"The only advice I can offer to you," he said, "is to wait until you are
conscious of an emotion before an object, and then paint what you feel."

Shortly afterwards I happened to be conscious of an emotion before an
object--namely, the courtyard of the old house in Paris where I was
living. So I painted what I felt one December afternoon. I then invited
M. Laprade to lunch, and left the water-colour lying about. He spied it
quickly enough.

"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried, too amiably excited. "You've done it! Oh, you've
done it this time! _Trs bien! Trs bien!_ Very interesting! Veritably
interesting!"

(I should have kept this masterpiece as a sort of milestone in my swift
career as a Post Impressionist, had not my American publisher caught
sight of it and walked off with it, unintimidated by its
post-impressionism. "I shall use this as a 'jacket' [paper covering] for
one of your books," he said. And he did. He had it reproduced in
colours, and calmly placed it on the bookstalls of the United States. I
learnt afterwards that it was considered by trade experts as among the
best commercial "jackets" of its season. Such can be the fruits of an
emotion!)

    *    *    *    *    *

My hero suggested that if I wished to take painting seriously I might
attend the Post Impressionist Academy of which he was a professor. I was
afraid; but, being ashamed of my timidity, I said I would go with the
greatest pleasure. He took me. I entered the studio under his majestic
gis as his _protg_. It was a fearful moment. I was ten times more
nervous than I have ever been when called before the curtain of a
theatre. I trembled, literally. It seemed absurd that I, a
school-girlish amateur, should be there in that most modern of Parisian
studios as a serious student of art. However, I had burnt my boats. I
had to summon my manhood and begin a charcoal drawing of the model, a
young Italian girl. I scarcely knew what I was doing. I glanced
surreptitiously at the other students--about a dozen or so. The other
students glanced surreptitiously at me. They were all young,
extraordinarily young when compared with myself. I knew then that I was
middle-aged. The studio was large and of irregular shape, and the stove
was red-hot. Two young men in yellow smocks were painting, close
together, and two other men sat behind, smoking, restlessly getting up
and sitting down again. Silence. Dusk (3.50 p.m.). I looked about me.
There were large photographs of modern masterpieces on the walls, a
table with reviews on it, dumb-bells on the floor close to a fiddle-case
and a volume of Mozart on a shelf. At the second "rest" I persuaded
myself that it was absurd to be discountenanced by a pack of boys. So I
joined a group of them in the jauntiest manner I could assume and made
artistic small-talk.

"Come and have a look at my drawing," I said, in a humorous tone.
"Criticise it." (M. Laprade had disappeared.)

They came, politely. They gazed at the thing and said not a word.

"Of course, the head's too small," I remarked airily.

"In effect," said one of them gravely, "the head is rather small."

Nobody said anything else. The sitting was resumed.

    *    *    *    *    *

Going home M. Laprade advised me to paint a water-colour of the
Tuileries gardens from the Pavilion des Arts Dcoratifs. Also to go and
examine carefully the Delacroix at St. Sulpice, and then get a
photograph of it, and do a water-colour interpretation of it from memory
at home. We called at a colour-maker's to buy sketch-books, etc. His
demeanour towards the respectful and somewhat intimidated students had
been quite informal, or nearly so. He told me that when _he_ first came
to Paris, there would be a great crowd of students in a large atelier; a
professor (of German aspect) would come in; all the students would stand
up; and the professor would march about curtly from one canvas to the
next, making such remarks as, "That leg is too short."

    *    *    *    *    *

It might be thought that after this baptism into a cult so acutely
Parisian, I should have felt myself more than ever firmly rooted in the
soil of France. But it was not so. For several years there had been
gradually germinating in my mind the conviction that I should be
compelled by some obscure instinct to return to England, where,
unhappily, art is not cherished as in France. I had a most disturbing
suspicion that I was losing touch with England, and that my (literary)
work would soon begin to suffer accordingly. And one day I gave notice
to my landlady, and then I began to get estimates for removing my
furniture and books. And then I tried to sell to my landlady the
fittings of the admirable bathroom which I had installed in her house,
and she answered me that she had no desire for a bathroom in her house,
and would I take the fittings away? And then I unhooked my pictures and
packed my books. And, lastly, the removers came and turned what had been
a home into a litter of dirty straw. And I saw the tail of the last van
as it rounded the corner. And I gave up my keys so bright with use. And
I definitely quitted the land where eating and love are understood,
where art and learning are honoured, where women well dressed and
without illusions are not rare, where thrift flourishes, where
politeness is practised, and where politics are shameful and grotesque.
I return merely as a visitor. I should probably have enjoyed myself
more in France, only I prefer to live in England and regret France than
to live in France and regret England. I think the permanent exile is a
pathetic figure. I suppose I have a grim passion for England. But I know
why France is the darling of nations.




  PLAYERS AND AUTHORS


I saw on a bus an advertisement of a play called _Come Out of the
Kitchen_. Above the title was the name in very prominent characters of
Miss Gertrude Elliott. Below the title was a line in characters so tiny
that I could not decipher them. However, the bus stopped. I went close,
and read the name of Alice Duer Miller, known only to me from the fact
that I had often seen it in the American papers attached to the
question: "Are women people?" It may be, on the other hand it may not
be, that Miss Alice Duer Miller has a clause in her play-contracts, as I
have in mine, obliging the theatrical manager producing the play to
print the name of the author on all advertising matter. In either case,
the appearance of Miss Alice Duer Miller's name on that particular
advertisement was as nearly perfectly futile as makes no matter, for not
one person in a thousand would read it or notice it at all. There can be
no doubt that in Great Britain the name of Miss Gertrude Elliott has
incomparably more advertising value than that of Miss Alice Duer Miller.
But even so the disproportion between the types of the two names was
excessive. I am not, however, among those playwrights who kick angrily
against the great importance given to players in theatrical
advertising. Theatrical advertising is mainly under the control of
players, who are human. If it was under the control of authors, players
would not have much of a show, authors being equally human. And there is
a good reason for the players' advantage; the public is more interested
in players than in authors. It sees players; it likes them, loves them,
worships them. Players feast the eye. Authors are seldom seen; discreet
authors never. And when authors are seen they amount to nothing at all
as a spectacle. I once lately "appeared," against my will, after a first
performance. Some said maliciously that the unwillingness was unreal.
This was nothing. But one reporter stated that I was wearing a blue
shirt--naughty fabrication which I felt compelled to contradict.

    *    *    *    *    *

Nevertheless, although I fully admit the superior advertising value of
players' names--Barrie himself has never got more than even with his
interpreters in size of type--I do not think that players are more
important than authors to the success of a play. A good play may and
sometimes does triumph over bad players; but the greatest player cannot
make the public go to see a play that it has decided it doesn't want to
see--at any rate in sufficient numbers to put money into the purse of
the manager. Some managers are, if possible, more human than either
actors or authors, and here (reproduced with typographical exactitude)
are two examples of their humanness:

  =ALDWYCH THEATRE.=   Cent. 7170.  Gerr. 2315.
  Sole Lessee and Licensee, Charles B. Cochran.
  MONDAY, AUGUST 9th, at 8.30.
  By arrangement with R. E. Jeffrey.

  _MISS VIOLA TREE_

  presents a new play in Three Acts,

  _THE UNKNOWN_,

  By W. Somerset Maugham.

    *    *    *    *    *

  APOLLO. Gerrard 3243.

  Lessees and Managers, Geo. Grossmith and Ed. Laurillard.
  NIGHTLY, 8.15. MATS., WED., SAT., 2.30.
  CHARLES B. COCHRAN'S

  _CHERRY._

  A Musical Comedy in Three Acts.
  By Edward Knoblock. Music by Melville Gideon.

Not Mr. Knoblock's _Cherry_, nor Mr. Gideon's, but Mr. Cochran's! . . .
Nay, sometimes managers entirely suppress all names save their own. This
may be business, but I do not think it is. I hesitate to call it
megalomania, but it is nearer megalomania than business. I have thought
of inserting a clause in my contracts to the effect that my name shall
be printed at least half as large as that of any player or manager. This
would coincide fairly well with my idea of a good subtle joke.




  HENRY JAMES


Henry James's _Letters_ are the talk of the moment. I think they are
taken too solemnly and that the editor has taken them too piously. The
fault of the editor, if it is one, may be excused. Very many of the
letters are admirable, but very many of them grate on the sensibility by
reason of the tone of ecstatic friendship, and of the ecstatic
appreciation of the work of friends, which abound in them. It would be
almost cruel to give quotations, for some of the phrasing borders on the
grotesque. Several of the correspondents in whom James apparently
delighted were or are mediocrities of an exacerbating kind. His
affections often overbore his unquestionable critical faculty. Thus he
spoke highly of E. A. Abbey's decorations for the Boston Public Library.
Now these decorations are merely and acutely ugly, as anyone may
perceive by going out on to the staircase of the said Library and
comparing them with the lovely frescoes of Puvis de Chavannes. The
explanation of this sad shortcoming in the letters is perhaps to be
found in a sentence written to Mr. A. C. Benson: "I respond to the
lightest touch of a friendly hand." He evidently did. I should not care
to insist unduly on the amiable weakness; for a fine, distinguished, and
lovable personality emerges from the general body of the letters; and
the justness of the man's powerful, even ruthless, critical faculty is
manifest again and again. He is admirably discriminating, for example,
on the books of his friend Paul Bourget; and he saw through the charming
speciousness of Stevenson's letters immediately he read them in bulk. It
is possible that he was a better critic than a creative artist. His
famous verdicts on the younger generation of British novelists, though
naturally they showed that his ageing eye had blind spots, struck me as
really first-rate criticism. I read them twice, with great care, for
personal reasons, and I was more impressed the second time than the
first.

    *    *    *    *    *

I have seldom been able to enjoy his novels, no doubt because I simply
could not read them. I was bogged finally half-way through _The
Ambassadors_ (or was it _The Golden Bowl_?), and that was the end of
James's fiction for me. I can recall only two that I enjoyed--_In the
Cage_ and _The Other House_. I really did enjoy these. I could surmount
the excessive elaborateness of the style, its multitudinous folds and
pleats, its determination never to say anything crudely positive.
Various great writers have been difficult. For instance, Doughty. But I
want some reward for my trouble, and from James I too rarely got any
reward. He said somewhere that the fault of the English novel was lack
of subject. This is just the fault that I should charge him with. His
novels did not seem to me to be _about_ anything. And when the subject
was perceptible it was usually a very obvious subject--as in most of the
short stories. And did he in fact create characters? Do we remember his
characters as we remember the characters of Balzac, Dostoievsky,
Fielding, Dickens, Hardy, George Moore? Do we even remember their names?
I don't, at any rate. I have a vague souvenir of only one character, the
Post Office girl in the cage. I do not remember her name; to the best of
my recollection the author took care never to mention her name. A pretty
trick, but immensely unpractical. I once told a common friend that _A
Small Boy and Others_ was rather difficult to read. (Had I been generous
of the truth I should have said that I had absolutely failed to read
it.) The friend passed on my remark to James, and I afterwards learnt
that he was considerably perturbed by it--couldn't understand it.

    *    *    *    *    *

The theatrical interlude in James's literary career is very strange; and
in the light of the letters it must be as disagreeable to his admirers
as it was to him. He thought he was hard up and precariously situated,
though assuredly he never was--judged by the standard applicable to an
artist. He always lived in a good quarter and in comfort, and he always
travelled a lot. Still, he thought he was hard up, and so he sat down to
write plays for money. The votaries of the cult try to gloss over this
fact. But it cannot be glossed over. "My books don't sell, and it looks
as if my plays might. Therefore, I am going with a brazen front to write
half a dozen." And then, after the definite failure: "The money
disappointment is of course keen as it was wholly for money I
adventured." I reckon this to be pretty bad; but nobody animadverts upon
it. Strange how one artist may steal a horse while another may not look
over a hedge. Somebody of realistic temperament ought to have advised
James that to write plays with the sole object of making money is a
hopeless enterprise. I tried it myself for several years, at the end of
which I abandoned the stage for ever. I should not have returned to it
had not William Lee Mathews of the Stage Society persuaded me to write a
play in the same spirit as I was writing serious novels. It was entirely
due to him that I wrote _Cupid and Commonsense_. Since then I have never
written a play except for my own artistic satisfaction.

    *    *    *    *    *

James asserts several times that he had mastered the whole technique of
the drama. He never had. Not long since I saw _The Reprobate_. It
contained some agreeable bits; but the spectacle it provided of an
unusually able and gifted man trying to do something for which his
talents were utterly unfitted was painful; it was humiliating. Half the
time the author obviously had not the least idea what he was about. It
may be said that _The Reprobate_ was not his best play. It was not. But
he committed it to print. I daresay his best play was _Guy Domville_.
Its rehearsals and production by George Alexander at the St. James's
Theatre form the tragedy of the _Letters_. I was present as a dramatic
critic at the first night of _Guy Domville_. One perceived and admitted
the fineness of the author's intentions; I know that I felt sympathetic
towards the play; but it had a fatal fault; it was not dramatic. The
house was full of votaries of the cult, and the reception as a whole was
very favourable. The gallery behaved roughly; but in those days there
was nothing at all unusual in that. The gallery booed Henry James. Of
course this was sacrilege, but the gallery didn't know it was sacrilege.
The gallery had probably never heard of Henry James until that night. My
memory is not clear for details, but I have a kind of recollection that
George Alexander made a speech which annoyed me far more than the
behaviour of the gallery--a speech somehow apologising for the play and
admitting that it was a mistake. (I will not vouch for this, but I do
not see how my memory could have invented it.) The whole of the first
night, and especially its culmination, was horrible torture for the
sensitive James. But if he had known thoroughly the technique of the
drama he would have saved himself the torture. Part of the technique of
a thoroughly equipped dramatist is never to go to his own first nights.
Having failed to make money out of plays--and not, according to his own
account, having failed to write a good play, James abandoned the drama.
This also I think was pretty bad. I must further point out that James
once for commercial purposes altered the ending of a play from sad to
happy. Tut-tut!

    *    *    *    *    *

I met Henry James twice. First in the office of Mr. J. B. Pinker. I was
amused in secret, because he was so exactly like the (quite
good-humoured) caricatural imitations of him by H. G. Wells. But I was
also deeply impressed, not to say intimidated. Although I was nearer
fifty than forty I felt like a boy. He had great individuality. And
there was his enormous artistic prestige, and his staggering technical
skill in the manipulation of words. He asked me if I ever dictated. I
said that I could dictate nothing but letters; that I had once dictated
a chapter of a novel, but that the awful results decided me never to try
it again. He said I might yet come to it. (I never shall.) He said he
knew just how I felt, and that he had felt the same, but had got into
the habit of dictation. (Certainly some of his dictated letters are
complex masterpieces of dictation--unless he revised the copy
afterwards.) He expressed stupefaction when I said that I knew nothing
about the middle classes, and indicated that the next time he saw me he
would have recovered from the stupefaction and the discussion might
proceed. Talking about the material for novels, he maintained that there
was too much to say about everything, and that was what was most felt by
one such as himself, not entirely without--er--er--perceptions. When I
told him that sometimes I lay awake at night, thinking of the things I
had forgotten to put into my novels, he said that my novels were
"crammed," and that when something was "crammed" nothing else could be
put in, and so it was all right. He spoke with feeling about his recent
illness: "I have been very ill."

    *    *    *    *    *

At a later date, in the coffee room of the Reform Club he came up to me
and said: "You probably don't remember me. I'm Henry James." I blushed.
(Just as I blushed when in the stalls of a theatre someone tapped my arm
from behind and said: "You don't know me, Mr. Bennett, but I know you.
I'm Ellen Terry." I think that great legendary figures really ought not
to make such remarks to their juniors.) I have a most disconcerting
memory. I once met a man in St. James's Street and he stopped and I
stopped. I said: "You must excuse me. I remember your face, but I can't
think who you are." He replied: "You and I dined together last night
with our friend ----" But this man was not a Henry James. And with all
its faults my memory was incapable of forgetting a Henry James. He asked
me if I was alone. I said I had two guests. He said: "May I join your
party upstairs?" I blushed again. It seemed to me incredible that Henry
James should actually be asking to join my party. We received him with
all the _empressement_ that he desired. He talked. He did all the
talking, and he was exceedingly interesting. He said that to him the
Reform Club was full of ghosts. He told us about all the ghosts, one
after another. There was no touch of sentimentality in his
recollections. Everything was detached, just, passionless, and a little
severe--as became his age. His ghosts were the ghosts of dead men, and
his judgments on them were no longer at the mercy of his affections. He
was not writing to them or to their friends. I doubt whether Henry James
ever felt a passion, except for literature. I doubt whether he was, in
life, more than a dilettante. And, if it was so, that is what is the
matter with his novels. They lack ecstasy, guts.

    *    *    *    *    *

I append here, exactly as it was printed, the criticism which I wrote of
the first performance of _Guy Domville_.

    The behaviour of the pit and gallery at the production by Mr.
    George Alexander, at the St. James's Theatre, of Mr. Henry
    James's play _Guy Domville_ was to me quite inexplicable. The
    piece is assuredly not faultless--far from it; but it is so
    beautifully written, it contains so many exquisite scenes, it is
    so conscientiously and artistically acted, and so lavishly
    staged, that the _longueurs_ of the second act, one would have
    thought, might have been either forgiven or endured in
    respectful silence. I avoided coming to any hasty conclusions,
    and therefore deferred my notice until this week. The period of
    the play is 1780. In the first act we find ourselves in the
    garden of Porches, where dwell Mrs. Peverel (Miss Marion Terry),
    a beautiful widow, her little son, and the boy's tutor, Guy
    Domville (Mr. George Alexander). Guy, though the bearer of an
    ancient name, is poor; we see him upon the point of taking Holy
    Orders. Everything is, in fact, arranged, when enter Lord
    Devenish, a messenger from Mrs. Domville, Guy's cousin's wife,
    to say that through a hunting accident Guy is the last male of
    his line, and heir to rich, though encumbered, possessions. Lord
    Devenish (Mr. Elliot) urges Guy that it is his duty now to give
    up the Church and marry, in order to carry on the great family
    traditions. The conflict between Church and family is movingly
    displayed. The family wins, and Guy sets off for London with
    Lord Devenish, whose interest in him, by the way, may be
    attributed to the fact that the aristocratic and rascally old
    _viveur_ is in love with Mrs. Domville, and has obtained her
    promise to marry him if he can bring about a marriage between
    Guy and Mary Brasier, Mrs. Domville's daughter by her first
    husband.

    Guy goes to London, half aware that he is in love with Mrs.
    Peverel, who is undoubtedly in love with him, though she has
    almost promised herself to Frank Humber (Mr. Herbert Waring), an
    excellent young squire in the neighbourhood, whose suit Guy has
    himself pleaded. The second act is tedious. We meet Guy gaily
    dressed, in the full enjoyment of life and betrothed to Mary
    Brasier (Miss Evelyn Millard). But Mary is in love with a young
    naval lieutenant, George Round (Mr. H. V. Esmond), and when,
    through plot and counterplot, and after much mock drunkenness
    between himself and Round, Guy gets to know of this, he assists
    the pair to make an entirely preposterous and impossible
    elopement, and sets off to return to Porches with a heart full
    of hatred for Lord Devenish and his scheming paramour, Mrs.
    Domville. Lord Devenish suddenly discovers that it will suit his
    and Mrs. Domville's plans just as well if Guy marries Mrs.
    Peverel. So he posts to Porches, gets there first, and advises
    Mrs. Peverel to marry Guy. While they are conversing Guy is
    announced, and Lord Devenish hides in the library. There is a
    beautiful scene between Mrs. Peverel and the returned wanderer,
    and Guy is just making open love to her when he sees Lord
    Devenish's glove on the table. So Devenish has his finger in
    this pie also! If Devenish wants him to marry Mrs. Peverel then
    he will not marry her. The claims of his deserted Church rush in
    upon him, and he goes away to seek ordination, his last words
    being a request to Mrs. Peverel to accept Frank Humber.

    Such, brief and imperfectly, is the plot. The defects of its
    motivation will be only too apparent. The whole business of Lord
    Devenish and his schemes is quite "too thin." Why should a man
    of his habits, admittedly a guilty lover, and, indeed, the
    father of Mary, wish to marry Mrs. Domville at all? And, his
    plan for the bartering of his daughter having failed, how comes
    it about that it will suit him equally well if Guy marries Mrs.
    Peverel? The answer is clearly: These things are so in order
    that the play may not come to a dead stop. In the first act, the
    absurdity of Lord Devenish's interference in the Domvilles'
    affairs is not completely apparent, and consequently it is the
    best act of the three: natural, impressive, and studded with
    gems of dialogue--gems, however, of too modest and serene a
    beauty to suit the taste of an audience accustomed to the
    scintillating gauds of Mr. Oscar Wilde and Mr. H. A. Jones. The
    second act is invertebrate, long-winded, and impossible; and it
    clearly shows that either of the aforenamed gentlemen, though
    they may be vastly inferior to Mr. James as literary artists,
    could yet give him some valuable lessons upon plot-weaving. When
    one considers the unrivalled work which Mr. James has produced
    in fiction, one marvels that he should have allowed this second
    act to get outside his study. For the elopement of Mary and the
    lieutenant, arranged in a moment, and, we are to suppose,
    carried out with complete success, is really childish; there is
    neither rhyme nor reason in it. The third act is fitfully
    beautiful, and the closing scene, did we not suspect that it was
    quite unnecessary, most touching.

    As for the acting, Mr. Alexander carried off the honours. His
    performance was probably the best thing he has done; it need
    only be pointed out that his budding priest was more artistic
    than his man of the world. Miss Marion Terry, with the Terry
    voice and movement, could not fail to be charming as the widow,
    and she showed a fine intellectual grasp of the part. Mr.
    Herbert Waring, not a villain this time, was admirable as Frank
    Humber. Miss Millard had small scope, appearing only in one act,
    as the eloping maiden, but what she did she did meetly. Miss
    Irene Vanbrugh worked marvels with the little part of Mrs.
    Peverel's maid; while Mrs. Edward Saker, as the despicable Mrs.
    Domville, was far, far from successful. Mr. Elliot as Lord
    Devenish, and Mr. Esmond as the lieutenant, were neither good
    nor bad. A final word of appreciation for the scenery. The
    setting of the last act, the "white parlour" at Mrs. Peverel's
    home, Porches, was one of the most perfect stage interiors I
    have ever seen.




  PRINTED BY
  MORRISON AND GIBB LTD.
  EDINBURGH


  =Transcriber's Notes:=
  hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original
  Page 35, state of public opinon ==> state of public opinion
  Page 86, in effect: We tried ==> in effect: "We tried
  Page 223, sincere in his esctasy ==> sincere in his ecstasy
  Page 305, close to, a fiddle-case ==> close to a fiddle-case
  Page 319, (Mr George Alexander) ==> (Mr. George Alexander)




[Things That Have Interested Me, by Arnold Bennett]
