by Henry Green
Brown, a friend of mine, has hit Billing, who keeps the food shop where you get rat poison, in the stomach so that he crumpled up behind the counter: the best thing that has happened for years.
Billing had apparently hit Brown previously, and had sent him to the Headmaster for being rude, and he, instead of backing Billing up, had asked Brown why he had not hit him back: so when Billing hit Rockfeller today, Rockfeller being with Brown, Brown was rude to Billing, who attacked Brown, who laid Billing out. Meanwhile Brown has gone to his House master to ask that Billing’s shop may be put out of bounds, and Billing presumably is going to the Headmaster. There will be a fine flare-up.
6 OCTOBER
Rejoice, O land! My director on seeing my first essay, and a bad one at that, tells me I ought to do well with my writing. What fun it would be if I could write! I see myself as the English Anatole France, a vista of glory . . . superb!
I have fallen hopelessly in love with the ties in Bartlett’s window. I shall have to buy them all, even though they are quite outrageous: the most cunning, subtle and violent checks imaginable.
SUNDAY, 8 OCTOBER
This morning we had a howling dervish of a missioner who comes once a year. All his ghastly stories were there and his awful metaphors and his incredible requests. In this morning’s sermon he asked us to give his mission a vision; last time it was that we should pray for it, and before that, that we should give up our holidays to work there. Today we were told that even cabbages had visions, and God knows what else. He was upset by our laughing at him and he broke down several times, Chris crowning himself with glory by going out in the middle of the man’s discourse clasping a pink handkerchief to his nose which he said was bleeding. Really the pulpit is no place for self-revelation, but I am afraid the man has not learnt it yet.
9 OCTOBER
Two youths have been insolent to me in the Music Schools. Am I considered the school idiot? If so I am not surprised; any way I was most polite to them—next time measures will be taken. The best way with these people is to ask them their names; it generally shuts them up. I believe my appearance is too weak; I shall have to grow mustachios. I am always the person the lost Asiatic asks his way from, and French come to me as fly to fly-paper, ditto the hysterical matron. Such is fame.
12 OCTOBER
Guy Denver tells me the following: It is extremely cold, and he and Conway are walking together. Says Conway, “God, I am cold!” Guy: “Then why don’t you wear an overcoat?” “Oh! then I should be classed with the John Haye and Ben Gore lot.” That is what the fear of popular opinion drives the ordinary Public Schoolboy to; that sort of thing is constantly recurring like the plague.
15 OCTOBER
This afternoon a delicious six-mile walk with B. G. The weather was perfect, a warm sun and everything misty, with “the distances very distant,” as Kipling puts it. Though we did not rock the world with our utterances, it was very enjoyable indeed.
20 OCTOBER
Greene has ordered several chickens’ heads, lights, etc., to be sent up to White, which we hope will be a nice surprise. It is rather a good idea.
Have been painting a portrait of Napoleon, cubist and about three foot square, with B. G., who has got it as a punishment from a new master. He will soon lose that most refreshing originality. Moreover he said that B. G. was not to do anything comic, which showed that he was already beginning to lose it. It just depends how much the others have instilled into him to see his manner of receiving our glaring monstrosity.
New phrase I have invented: “To play Keating’s to someone else’s beetle.” Used with great success on Seymour who is enraged by it.
21 OCTOBER
This morning, so I am told, Seymour and B. G. dragged a toy tin motor car along the pavement on the end of a string. How I wish I had been there: it is quite unprecedented, and seems to have outraged the dignity of the whole school, which is excellent.
Seymour created another sensation by quoting his own poetry for today’s saying lesson, which caused much amusement. Everyone who matters athletically now thinks it is the thing to do to know Seymour, which is intensely funny, and into the bargain I feel I get a little reflected glory when I walk with him down the street. The Captain of the Rugger smiled at me the other day. I nearly spat in his face (but of course I really smiled my nicest).
Have written to several artists to ask them to talk to the Society. When we founded it we put in the rules that we must get men down to speak to it; it is the only way of keeping the thing alive. And I think if we can get someone down the Society will recover from its present rather dicky condition.
25 OCTOBER
Have just had a letter from the biggest swell I wrote to, saying that he will come down to the Society on 14 November. It really is too splendid: he is the most flaming tip-top swell who has written thousands of books, as well as his drawings, which are very well known indeed. All these people are so nice and encouraging about the Society, which is splendid.
31 OCTOBER
I am seventeen now—quite aged.
Last night was the gala invitation night of the Society, and was an immense success, where I had secretly feared failure.
All those invited came—all the boys, all the masters, and all today I have been hearing nothing but how pleased and interested they were. It was on Post-Impressionism, a subject which had the merit of being one which the Society knew more about than anyone else present. B. G. made the most gorgeous speech of pure invective which enthralled everyone. The Society is now positively booming, even T. R. C. having thawed into enthusiasm. I think it is a permanency now.
Fires on alternate nights now, which isn’t so very, very bad, and the weather is slowly improving. Extraordinary how the weather affects my spirits. I had a telegram from Mamma who had remembered my birthday, which is splendid, for somehow I hate its being forgotten. She never remembers till Nan reminds her. But the football, it is enough to kill one.
Would you believe it—but J. W. P. gave me a long jaw on the “hopelessness” of my having a bad circulation, because I habitually wore a sweater underneath my waistcoat: it’s a filthy habit, I know, but he drives one on to it with his allowance of fires, and then he tries to blame one: it is an outrage.
1 NOVEMBER
It is freezing again, bad luck to it.
B. G. and I in the morning went up to Windsor and got some electioneering pamphlets from the Committee Rooms, and have posted them all over Noat, including the Volunteers’ Notice Board and the School Office and the Library. Later I put them up all over the House notice boards, which scored a glorious rise out of “those that matter.” These people are really too terribly stodgy; they have no sense of humour, though they did faintly appreciate the pamphlet on the maids’ door which said that Socialism was bent on doing away with marriage.
This afternoon I had to read fifty pages of medieval history, which has left my brain reeling and helpless: it is too absurd making one learn all about these fool Goths and Vandals: they ceased to count in practical politics some time ago now, so why revive them?
11 NOVEMBER
Have just conceived the idea of having a gallery of all the people I loathe most at Noat to be pasted up on the door of my room, which has been denuded of the rules of the Art Society since I spent a frenzied afternoon changing the room slightly.
Smith, the master, crosses his cheques with a ruler. One comes across something amazing every day here.
This is the coldest day I have ever met at Noat, and a very thick fog thrown in, greatly conducive to misery, but strangely enough I am most cheerful, having written a tale called Sonny, which is by far the best I have done so far.
15 NOVEMBER
Quite the most wonderful day of my life. It was polling day, so after two o’clock (a saying lesson so we got out early), B. G., Seymour and I went to Strand caparisoned all over with Conservative blue and with enormous posters.
When we reached Strand, we found all the Socialist working-men-
God-bless-them drawn up in rows on either side of the street, so we three went down the rows haranguing. We each got into the centre of groups, and expected to be killed at any moment, for there is something about me that makes that type see red. However, they contained themselves very nicely while we talked nonsense at them.
Then we went to the station and got a cab, and with B. G. on the box and Seymour and I behind we set off, B. G. with posters stuck through his umbrella, and dead white from excitement. We went by the by-ways shouting and screaming till we came to the top of the High Street. We then turned down this; by this time all of us were worked up and quite mad, and eventually came to the Cross again, where we passed the Socialists who were collected in a meeting. They cheered and hooted, and we went round the same way only shorter, and after going down the High Street, turned down towards Noat, where we soon picked up six or so Noatians. With them we returned, some running, with a rattle making a deafening din. We passed the Labour and Socialist meeting on the “Out” road of the railway station, and went over the railway bridge, where we paid off the cab. We then returned in a body past the meeting, which broke up and followed across the crossroads, pelting us with rolled-up rags, etc. Then at the corner of the road to Noat we formed a meeting. I was terrified at moments, and wildly exhilarated the rest. The meeting lasted twenty minutes, questions being asked the whole time. B. G. did most of the speaking; Seymour and I did a little too. Woodville harangued the women; he was very good with them. They had their spokesman, an old labourer, very tub-thumpy, and the whole of this part of the entertainment is a blur. Looking round in the middle of it I saw that all the Conservative men and women were formed up behind us, which was touching. All this time messages were coming from the fellows on the outside that the people there were talking lovingly of murder (on us), and matters did look very nasty at one time, but it worked off. The police came at the end with an inspector and marched us off, I shaking every man’s hand that I could see. So we returned shouting madly. It was too wonderful; never to be forgotten.
16 NOVEMBER
I now understand why men were brave in the war; it was because they were afraid of being cowards, that fear overcoming that of death. The crowd in Strand and having to go back into it again and have things thrown at one—it was terrifying at first for so great a coward as myself, but great fun when one got hotted up. The women were by far the worst. One old beldame screamed: “You dirty tykes, you dirty tykes!” continuously.
Later—Another wonderful time. I went with Seymour up to the market-place of the town of Noat, outside the Town Rooms, and there we had another stormy meeting. I talked a very great deal this time; Bronsill and I went on the whole time to rather an excited crowd. Then he and I were dragged off and put on a balcony where the Press photographed us, and he addressed the crowd and I prompted him and hear-heared, etc. I would have spoken had there been time, but lunch arrived and we departed. It was too wonderful; it is tremendous fun being above a crowd, about 150 this time, and I wasn’t a bit nervous. Nor was I terrified when the crowd became nasty again as on the previous day; it is the most exhilarating thing I know—far better than hunting. Meanwhile, a master saw me and J. W. P. knows. What will happen?
17 November
Nothing happened with J. W. P.; he didn’t mind, and was vastly amused.
Have written another story all about blood; not impossibly bad but sadly mediocre. If only I could write! But I think I improve. Those terrible, involved sentences of mine are my undoing.
Fox was pleased at my admiring Carlyle.
18 NOVEMBER
Harington Brown asked me for an MS. for the magazine he is producing: gave him Sonny, but don’t suppose it will be suitable, though I am sure it has some worth. The thing is only about 1400 words, and when he refuses it I am going to send it up to some London magazine which will take very short stories, and at present I don’t know of one.
I rather hope that H. B. won’t accept the thing. The ephemerals are always putrescent, and nobody with any sense reads them. There have been about three editions of it so far, one a term.
19 NOVEMBER, AFTER LUNCH
Have been accepted by H. B., with mixed feelings on my part. However, his thing is a cut above the usual ephemeral and is quite sensible, but there is a sense of degradation attached to appearing in print. But I hope this means that I can write; it’s not bad work as I’m only just seventeen. Perhaps it is too good, and I shan’t do anything again.
Carlyle’s flight to Varennes in his Revolution is almost too painful to read, so exciting is it to me. It is all untrue, of course, they did not go half as slow as he would make out, nevertheless it is superb.
Thank God there are only a few more weeks of this football.
NOAT, 26 JANUARY
What a long interval, and what a very little has happened! The holidays were enlivened by two deaths in the village, which much excited Mamma, and one or two scandals in the neighbourhood, which she followed carefully without taking up sides.
The bulldog died, which was very sad; he was such a dear old thing. Mamma was very much upset about that too, in her funny way. She seems to spend more and more time in the village now, and to see less and less people. One comes back here looking forward to the fullness of the place.
We came back yesterday, and I feel absolutely lost without B. G. and Seymour, who have both left. They do make a gap, for we three understood each other, and we ladled out sympathy to each other when life became too black. And now I am alone, in a hornets’ nest of rabid footballers.
At the moment I am reading Gogol’s Dead Souls. His word-pictures are superb: better than Ruskin’s or Carlyle’s, and his style is so terse and clean-cut, at least it is in the translation, but it shines through that. I am an absolute slave. I shall keep this book for ever by me if I have enough cash to buy it with. He is wonderful.
He is at his best, I think, in description; I have met nothing like it. Almost he ousts Carlyle; not quite, though. He is a poet through and through.
29 JANUARY
But surely this is most beautiful:
The trills of a lark fall drop by drop down an unseen aery ladder, and the calls of the cranes, floating by in a long string, like the ringing notes of silver bugles, resound in the void of melodiously vibrating ether.
He is a poet: and his book is in very truth a poem. It is Gogol.
30 JANUARY
Am reading Winston Churchill’s biography of his father, which is very wonderful.
I hardly remember B. G. as having existed now. That doesn’t mean to say that I don’t answer his letters, but life goes on much the same.
Did I say that I had become the budding author at home? No, I think not. I have written in all three things, so that I am hailed as a Napoleon of literature. Such is fame. I only wish I deserved these eulogies, and must set seriously to work soon. Mrs. Conder most of all seems impressed. Talks at tea of nothing but where she can take me to get “copy”—which means Brighton, I suppose; not that horrid things don’t happen there, though. But she is the limit. Since Conder died she has blossomed. At least, when he was alive, one could make allowances for her, because he was so foul, but now there is nothing to say. She is so gay, so devilish gay! But all this is very untrue, unkind and ungrateful. In all she has given me £5 in tips, and a cookery book for Boy Scouts.
17 FEBRUARY
In a moment of rash exuberance I bought a cigarette-holder about eight inches long. Have been smoking it all the afternoon. Caused quite a sensation in the middle-class atmosphere of the tea shop chez Beryl.
Am delivering an oration to the Arts Society on Japanese Art. I am going to speak it and not read it, which is bravery carried to foolhardiness. But it is good to get a little practice in speaking.
22 FEBRUARY
Just been to dinner with the Headmaster. I was put next him and occupied his ear for twenty minutes. In the course of that time I managed to ask for a theatre for the school to act in, and for a school restaurant whe
re one could get a decent British steak with onions, and, if possible, with beer. I also advanced arguments in favour of this. The only thing we agreed on was the sinfulness of having a window open. He listened to it all, which was very good of him.
On Monday I got off my speech on Japanese Art all right, I think, save for the very beginning, which was shaky to a point of collapse. Tomorrow I go to tea with Harington Brown. Meanwhile at the tea Dore gave we arranged that the Art Society should give a marionette show. The authorities agreed the next day and gave us the Studio. Someone is busy writing the scenario, about lovers thwarted whose names end in io. Then we shall paint scenery. It will be such fun. Of course the figures will be stationary.
The only modern Germans who could paint are Lembach and Boechel.
24 FEBRUARY
Had tea with H. B. I have sent him a story for this term’s Noat Days. It won’t be accepted, I suppose. It is an experiment in short sentences. He read me the libretto of the marionettes as far as he had got, and it really was remarkably good. He is producing it in his ephemeral.
10 MARCH
This morning occurred one of those incidents which render school life at moments unbearable to such as myself. I was raising a spoonful of the watered porridge that they see fit to choke us with, when someone jerked my arm—The puerility of it all, yet a wit which I, for my years, should enjoy according to nature. Of course there was a foul mess, as of one who had vomited, mostly over me. However, it only took an hour or so to regain my equanimity. Incidentally I had a little ink-throwing exhibition in the fool’s room. I had always wanted to see the exact effect of throwing a paint brush at the wall to appreciate Ruskin’s criticism. It was most interesting.