8 March 1926 – 14 March 1926

As for Mary’s* party, there, save for the usual shyness about powder, paint, shoes and stockings, I was happy, owing to the supremacy of literature. This keeps us sweet and sane. George Moore—me I mean. He has a pink foolish face; blue eyes like hard marbles; a crest of snow-white hair; little unmuscular hands; sloping shoulders; a high stomach; neat, purplish well-brushed clothes; and perfect manners, as I consider them. That is to say he speaks without fear or dominance; accepting me on my merits; everyone on their merits. Still in spite of all uncowed, unbeaten, lively, shrewd. As for Hardy and Henry James, though, what shall one say? “I am a fairly modest man; but I admit I think Esther Waters a better book than Tess. But what is there to be said for that man? He cannot write. He cannot tell a story. The whole art of fiction consists in telling a story. Now he makes a woman confess. How does he do it? In the third person—a scene that should be moving, impressive. Think how Tolstoi would have done it!” “But,” said Jack,* “War and Peace is the greatest novel in the world. I remember the scene where Natalia puts on a moustache and Rostov sees her for the first time as she is and falls in love with her.” “No, my good friend, there is nothing very wonderful in that. That is an ordinary piece of observation. But, my good friend (to me—half hesitating to call me this) what have you to say for Hardy? You cannot find anything to say. English fiction is the worst part of English literature. Compare it with the French —with the Russians. Henry James wrote some pretty little stories before he invented his jargon. But they were about rich people. You cannot write stories about rich people; because, I think he said, they have no instincts. But Henry James was enamoured of marble balustrades. There was no passion in any of his people. And Anne Brontë was the greatest of the Brontës and Conrad could not write,” and so on. But this is out of date.