The Writer and his World

By ROBERT RHODES JAMES ACCORDING to one House of Commons ver- sion, the parliamentary failure of Harold Nicolson could be explained thus: For his maiden speech, the House filled and was charmed and impressed. When he made his second speech, an even larger audience gathered. But it was much the same speech. For the third, the House was less full, but full enough. Again, it was treated to virtually the same speech. Another s version blames the catastrophe of his hapless speech seconding the Address in November 1936. A parliamentary position, once lost, is very diffi- cult to recapture. Harold Nicolson might have partially recaptured it in 1938, when he remained seated while the House applauded Neville Chamberlain, and subsequently spoke with con- tempt of the 'hysteria' shown on that celebrated occasion; but he then ruined the effect by making a somewhat abject apology.

Perhaps these versions are too superficial. Mr Nigel Nicolson, pondering on his father's ad- mitted failure in politics, writes that 'he was politically rather soft, or, as a friend put it, "too fastidious and too critical to have the essential faculty of belief in democracy."' Harold Nicol- son himself wrote that 'I do not possess sufficient combatant instincts to impose my personality upon the House of Commons.' Perhaps the failure lay deeper than any of these explana- tions. As Nigel Nicolson observes of his father, 'the only England he knew was the world of weekend parties, exclusive luncheons, Blooms- bury and the Travellers' Club.' Perhaps also— and one detects this in Harold Nicolson's remarks about, and his attitude to, his constitu- ents—there was some arrogance, some conde- scension, and a good deal of prejudice, including an unexpected streak of anti-Semitism.

Harold Nicolson's political failure was unfor- tunate, for he brought to public life so much that was decent, admirable, shrewd and wise. In December 1932, for example, he told John Sparrow that 'nothing will content German opinion but "victory" and they will treat the Treaty of Versailles as an artichoke, pulling it to pieces leaf by leaf.' He was one of the very few to realise the grievous implications of the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. He told the Foreign Affairs Committee in March 1936 (and this speech is, curiously enough, not mentioned in this account) that war with Ger- many could be expected at the end of 1939 or the beginning of 1940. He was virtually the only MP to remain obstinately seated when the House cheered Neville Chamberlain on his way to Munich. If on some matters—as in his early support of Mosley—his political judgment can be regarded as naive to the point of total innocence, his judgment on the big things was absolutely right. But, by then, he had ceased to impress the House of Commons.

I find it difficult to convey with any adequacy the fascination of these diaries and letters.* Mr Nigel Nicolson's introduction is in itself a small masterpiece which must be read in the whole, for

s HAROLD NICOLSON: DIARWS AND LETTERS.

1930-39. Edited by Nigel Nicolson. (Collins, 42s.)

its perfection cannot be reflected in short ex- tracts. This is particularly true of his account of the relationship between his parents:

They were, on the face of it, wholly unsuited to each other. She was anti-social, passionate, romantic, secret and undomesticated. He was gay, immensely sociable, ambitious, phil- Hellenistic and profoundly interested in the ways and politics of the world. In a sense she was the stronger character of the two. When distressed, she would grow harder, he softer.

Their marriage was, Nigel Nicolson writes, 'a combination of the classic temperament with the romantic.' Everything in flit diaries and letters confirms this judgment.

Just as it is impossible to do justice to Nigel Nicolson's introduction by giving extracts, so is it with the diaries and letters themselves. The accounts of the anguish of the young Lindberghs, or the meetings with the family and friends of Dwight Morrow, are not only long but provide complete portraits that cannot be shortened without destroying their character and quality (a fact that was emphasised by the recent attempt to serialise this work in a Sunday newspaper). There are a few flashes of brief portraiture; Philip Sassoon, 'a slim Baghdadi figure, slightly long in the tooth, dressed in a double-breasted, silk-fronted blue smoking-jacket with slippers of zebra hide'; or T. S. Eliot, 'very yellow and glum. Perfect manners. He looks like a sacerdotal lawyer—dyspeptic, ascetic, eclectic. Inhibitions. Yet obviously a nice man and a great poet.' And there is a wonderful passage of pure Churchill, speaking of 'this great country nosing from door to door like a cow that has lost its calf, mooing dolefully now in Berlin and now in Rome—when all the time the tiger and the alligator wait for its undoing.' But the portraits of contemporaries are best seen when they are developed at length. Snap judgments tend to be less impressive, although some—for example, Neville Chamber- lain 'has the mind and manner of a clothes- brush,' or 'Anthony [Eden] does not wish to defy the Tory party and is in fact missing every boat with exquisite elegance'—lack neither tartness nor insight.

Harold Nicolson described his diary as 'a mere record of activity put down for my own reference only.' One always treats such remarks with caution. In this case the caution would seem to be even more justified, since he appears to have looked at it very rarely after each entry had been typed and carefully filed away. Nevertheless, in the case of a writer the habit of a daily record is one that contains many more impli- cations than that of preserving a personal ver- sion of events for posterity. As Nigel Nicolson

says, 'The diary was an anthology of his daily experience; but it also traced the oscillations of an unusually active and sensitive mind.'

The diaries and letters, therefore, have a double interest. For the light shed by them falls both on Harold Nicolson himself and on the world outside. To a remarkable extent we have a portrait of the writer himself and of the great events of which he was an observer. Some readers, bored by politics—and particularly the politics of the 1930s—will find rich pleasure in the passages dealing with Nicolson's private life and thoughts, and particularly those dealing with the creation of Sissinghurst. Nigel Nicolson is surely right to give prominence to Sissinghurst, and to discern in the building of that world— 'garden' or 'estate' seem so inadequate words to describe Sissinghurst—a reflection of their marriage, in which the colours were of a tapestry colour and texture and in which there was nothing harsh or garish, and in which studied

formality of design was combined with infor- mality of execution and the element of the

totally unexpected. Sissinghurst, like the marriage of its creators, is full of depths, lights, shades, and surprises.

Even those historians of the period who con- sider that Harold Nicolson was a politician of little significance, will find much of interest in the passages dealing with the early days of Mosley's New Party, in the anti-Government movements in 1937-38 ('Don't be worried, my darling. I am not going to become one of the Winston brigade. My leaders are Anthony and Malcolm') and in the post-Munich cabals. But, again, the diaries must be read as a whole, for the re-creation of atmosphere is remarkable. This is the supreme historical interest of the diaries. Historians, and particularly political historians, too often under- estimate the vital importance of contemporary atmosphere, attitudes and prejudices. These are recaptured in the diaries. Thus, why did hardly anyone make a move about the Rhineland? 'The country will not stand for anything that makes for war. On all sides one hears sympathy for Germany. It is all very tragic and sad. . . . The feeling in the House is terribly "pro-German," which means afraid of war.'

This is where the sensitive, perceptive and well-informed diarist is of such value. He hears things, he notes the existence of a feeling. The historian who demands documentary proof for everything fails to appreciate the vital impor- tance of feelings, atmosphere, prejudices, gossip and fallible human judgments on men and events. We have good cause to be grateful to Sir Harold Nicolson for these letters and diaries, and to his son for editing them with such skill and care.

If I were to be pressed to give one extract that conveys the character of the diaries, I would select this one, written when Harold Nicolson became fifty :

I have dispersed my energies in life, done too many different things, and have no sense of reaching any harbour. I am still very promising and shall continue to be so until the day of my death. But what enjoyment and what interest I have derived from my experi- ence! I suppose that I am too volatile and fluid. But few people can have extracted such happiness from fluidity, and when I look back upon my life, it is as gay as an Alpine meadow patinated with the stars of various flowers. Would I feel happier if I had stuck to a single crop of lucerne or clover? NO.

When discussing political diarists there is a temptation to refer to predecessors and to make comparisons. This is a mistake, for all such works closely reflect the qualities and limitations of the author. Harold Nicolson loathes the word 'urbane,' yet it seems the most appropriate description of the diaries and the diarist. And perhaps it also explains the political failure of this distinguished, acute, and witty man. It is good that this is only the first of what should eventually be a deeply fascinating and significant trilogy, to be savoured by all who appreciate the value of the testimony of the keen-eyed observers of the maelstrom that we call life.