– a great deal. The first thing of Richard Strauss that I have heard.
Twelve thousand five hundred words written this week.
Arnold Bennett
1970
Last night in Birmingham, giving a political speech to the local Monday Club. They were professional people, the chairman a very able young barrister of twenty-seven, one of the women a doctor, another a solicitor. The woman who sat on one side of me at dinner told me she busied herself collecting money for the Conservative Party and it was made clear to her that the businessmen of Birmingham looked to Powell more than to Heath. One man said she could have a cheque for £5 for the Conservatives but £1,000 if it was for Enoch. She said the racial feeling in Birmingham is very ugly. She had a small accident because she was driving while painting her nails! The car she ran into was driven by a coloured man and immediately about twenty people collected including a policeman and accused the coloured man of causing the accident. She had some difficulty in convincing them that she was entirely to blame.
Cecil King
1989
I finished Roy Jenkins’s European Diary. An entertaining picture of the EEC world. There are some convincing portraits, notably Giscard [d’Estang], a somewhat unattractive figure, who, one feels, could well be accommodated in fiction. At first I was unable to put a finger on which novelist (for Giscard) when I wrote to Roy. Giscard’s alleged affair with the Sorbonne student suggests perhaps a potential Stavrogin [character in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed], tho’ clearly he is without Stavrogin’s (characteristically Russian) willingness to throw everything overboard according to mood. On reconsideration, Giscard is essentially a French figure, Stendhal or Balzac. Giscard’s apparently phoney claims to noblesse is typical of characters in novels of either of the last. Proust less so. One certainly does not see Giscard in Proust’s grand circles, nor Marcel’s family, nor for that matter the Verdurins, where he would essentially have been regarded as a ‘bore’. Perhaps M. de Norpois might have made some revealing comment on him as an ambitious young politician.
Roy’s self-portrait is amusing, his taste for the arts, good living, smart society, appreciating such things as being given the Spanish Order of Charles III, because its blue-and-white riband often figures in Goya pictures of Spanish royalities and notabilities. That is absolutely the right reason for wanting the decoration. One recognizes that Roy was born into the purple of the Labour Party, even so his ease, unaffected pleasure in the beau monde is remarkable in its total lack of strain, to which I can think of no parallel on the Left; often missing in those of a higher bracket. At one point Roy’s Diary records going to the loo with James Callaghan, then Prime Minister, after some dinner. Callaghan ‘made me a most fanciful offer’. I think Roy deliberately worded the entry so that one would think Callaghan suddenly gasped in a broken voice: ‘Roy, have you never guessed after all these years what I feel for you?’ It was, in fact, proffer of the Governorship of Hong Kong. Interesting that appointments are made in such circumstances.
Anthony Powell
22 February
1855
We saw 26 of the sick and wounded of the Coldstreams . . . There were some sad cases; – one man who had lost his right arm at Inkermann, was also at the Alma, and looked deadly pale – one or two others had lost their arms, others had been shot in the shoulders and legs, several, in the hip joint . . . A private, Lanesbury, with a patch over his eye, and his face tied up, had had his head traversed by a bullet, penetrating through the eye, which was gone, – through the nose, and coming out at the neck! He looked dreadfully pale, but was recovering well. There were 2 other very touching and distressing cases, 2 poor boys. I cannot say how touched and impressed I have been by the sight of these noble brave, and so sadly wounded men and how anxious I feel to be of use to them, and to try and get some employment for those who are maimed for life. Those who are discharged will receive very small pensions but not sufficient to live upon.
Queen Victoria
1944
Go for the day to Montepulciano and help to serve lunch at the communal kitchen started by Bracci, the Mayor, at which four hundred people are given lunch daily in two shifts. They usually get soup or macaroni, followed by vegetables or chestnuts, with a piece of bread of fifty grammes, and meat once or twice a week – all for half a lira – and a glass of wine for an extra half lira. To-day, being Shrove Tuesday, there was a slice (smallish) of roast beef in a plate of macaroni, followed by a small slab of chestnut-cake – and a glass of wine free. All this in addition to the usual scanty food ration, which thus remains available for the evening meal. The food was well cooked, and hot, the rooms clean and cheerful. Everyone who has applied – whether evacuees or the poor of the district – has been admitted. An admirable enterprise.
Iris Origo
1962 [San Francisco]
Coley [his secretary/manager] saw me off in Kingston on Tuesday, and I sped off through the bright skies at approximately the same moment that John Glenn Junior sped off in his capsule into outer space. He had been round the world three times before I landed at Miami airport. I did a little shopping and had my hair cut, and while this was going on I heard over the radio that Glenn had landed safely. It was a tremendously exciting moment, ruined for me by a blonde manicurist with a voice like a corncrake who made it almost impossible to hear what had happened.
Noël Coward
23 February
1938
I wonder every now and then, whether it is really worth it – this endless poverty, borrowing, uncertainty, frustration – all for the sake of a possibility that I may one day write something that will have value. Is my talent big enough to justify my leading this sort of life? If I were never to become a writer of very much importance, what would be the sense of my making this attempt to live on nothing but what each day brings, to devote myself to nothing but trying to understand the sense of existence and to make words live on paper – this prolonged refusal to submit to everyone else’s way of life? What small excuse, then, would there be for not coming to terms with the world, and gaining the security of an income earned in an ordinary way. How far more sensible it would be to work in a regular job, as everyone else has to who has no means of support and no other raison d’être – if I do not succeed, if I end by having nothing to show for all this struggle, the disgrace will be twofold, I shall be doubly raté, and the responsibility for a wasted life will be all my own.
David Gascoyne
1970 [Tangier]
On undressing, I discovered the infestation again! So I had to get dressed and procure the taxi and he knew where I wanted to go, and he waited for me! The all-night chemist in the Rue de Fez gave me the Benzyl Benzoate & I returned to the hotel. Put it all on and lay in bed with my balls on fire. Really it can’t be an accident! This happened last time I was here! All these boys must be dirty. The only one who I’ve known with no mishap is Mohammed Halimi and he seems to have left Tangier. One thing is certain – it puts one off for years as far as I’m concerned! All the attraction flies out of the window and one just feels total revulsion.
Kenneth Williams
1977
I really had to pee. Fred [Hughes] came back from the bathroom and I asked him if there was anybody in there and he said no, that it was empty. I went in and was peeing and
