24–30 April 1933

That’s all over—our ten days: and I wrote daily, almost, at Goldsmith—don’t much see the point of my Goldsmiths and so on—and read Goldsmith, and so on. Yes: I should now be correcting Flush proofs—I doubt that little book to some extent: but I’m in a doubting mood: the scrambled mood of transience, for on Friday 5th we go to Siena; so I can’t settle and make up my story, in which lies permanence. And as usual I want to seethe myself in something new—to break the mould of habit entirely and get that escape which Italy and the sun and the lounging and the indifference of all that to all this brings about. I rise, like a bubble out of a bottle. . . . But The Pargiters. I think this will be a terrific affair. I must be bold and adventurous. I want to give the whole of the present society—nothing less: facts as well as the vision. And to combine them both. I mean, The Waves going on simultaneously with Night and Day. Is this possible? At present I have assembled 50,000 words of “real” life: now in the next 50 I must somehow comment; Lord knows how—while keeping the march of events. The figure of Elvira is the difficulty. She may become too dominant. She is to be seen only in relation to other things. This should give I think a great edge to both of the realities—this contrast. At present I think the run of events is too fluid and too free. It reads thin: but lively. How am I to get the depth without becoming static? But I like these problems, and anyhow there’s a wind and a vigour in this naturalness. It should aim at immense breadth and immense intensity. It should include satire, comedy, poetry, narrative; and what form is to hold them all together? Should I bring in a play, letters, poems? I think I begin to grasp the whole. And it’s to end with the press of daily normal life continuing. And there are to be millions of ideas but no preaching—history, politics, feminism, art, literature—in short a summing up of all I know, feel, laugh at, despise, like, admire, hate and so on.

A mere note. We got out of the car last night and began walking down to the Serpentine. A summer evening. Chestnuts in their crinolines, bearing tapers; grey green water and so on. Suddenly L. bore off; and there was Shaw, dwindled shanks, white beard; striding along. We talked by a railing for 15 minutes. He stood with his arms folded, very upright, leaning back: teeth gold tipped. Just come from the dentist and “lured” out for a walk by the weather. Very friendly. That is his art, to make one think he likes one. A great spurt of ideas. “You forget that an aeroplane is like a car—it bumps—We went over the great wall— saw a little dim object in the distance. Of course the tropics are the place. The people are the original human beings. We are smudged copies. I caught the Chinese looking at us with horror—that we should be human beingsl Of course the tour cost thousands: yet to see us you’d think we hadn’t the price of the fare to Hampton Court. Lots of old spinsters had saved up for years to come. Oh but my publicity I It’s terrifying. An hour’s bombardment at every port. I made the mistake of accepting * invitation. I found myself on a platform with the whole university round me. They began shouting We want Bernard Shaw. So I told them that every man at 21 must be a revolutionary. After that of course the police imprisoned them by dozens. I want to write an article for the Herald pointing out what Dickens said years ago about the folly of Parliament. Oh I could only stand the voyage by writing. I’ve written 3 or 4 books. I like to give the public full weight. Books should be sold by the pound. What a nice little dog. But aren’t I keeping you and making you cold?” (touching my arm). Two men stopped along the path to look. Off he strode again on his dwindled legs. I said Shaw likes us. L. thinks he likes nobody. What will they say of Shaw in 50 years? He is 76 he said: too old for the tropics. Last night—to relieve myself for a moment from correcting that silly book Flush—oh what a waste of time—I will record Bruno Walter. He is a swarthy, fattish man; not at all smart. Not at all the “great conductor.” He is a little Slav, a little Semitic. He is very nearly mad: that is, he can’t get “the poison” as he called it of Hitler out of him. “You must not think of the Jews,” he kept on saying. “You must think of this awful reign of intolerance. You must think of the whole state of the world. It is terrible—terrible. That this meanness, that this pettiness, should be possible! Our Germany, which I loved, with our tradition, our culture. We are now a disgrace.” Then he told us how you can’t talk above a whisper. There are spies everywhere. He had to sit in the window of his hotel in Leipzig a whole day, telephoning. All the time soldiers were marching. They never stop marching. And on the wireless, between the turns, they play military music. Horrible, horrible! He hopes for the monarchy as the only hope. He will never go back there. His orchestra had been in existence for 150 years: but it is the spirit of the whole, that is awful. We must band together. We must refuse to meet any German. We must say that they are uncivilised. We will not trade with them or play with them. We must make them feel themselves outcasts—not by fighting them; by ignoring them. Then he swept off to music. He has the intensity—genius?—which makes him live everything he feels. Described conducting: must know every player.