Pepys ?
The Journals of Arnold Bennett, 1921-1928. Edited by Newman Flower. (Cassell. 10s. 6d.)
THE reasons why so many people will eagerly read this new volume of Arnold Bennett's Journals is simply that he thought it worth while to write it ; it is his appreciation of and his curiosity about almost everything that he encountered which infects us.- He goes to bed early in a Victorian hotel, he sees a film of the Grand National, he observes two men in a train and feels that they are all subjects-on which he could write an article. And does. The index givo a wonderfully good idea of the book, and who could resist being intrigued by such entries as these ? Swaffer, Hannen, blue undershirts of " ; " Colefax, Arthur, capacity for sleep of " ; " Kahn, Otto, accepts challenge to bathe " ; "Campbell, Mts.. Patriek, smokes a cigar"; C., Lady, and O.M. for George Moore " ; "South -Kensington Museum, accosted by admirer in " ; "Barth, bad grammar of " ; "Actors, stupidity of, childishness of " ; "Chewing-gum, workman's use of " ; " Ashfield, Lord, on sleep and asthma." Such delicacies have to be tasted at once, and then it is time to settle down to the book.
We have now had four volumes of these Journals; that for 1929 he brought out himself during his lifetime, and the other three covering the years between 1890 and 1929 were brought Out after his death. It is safe to say that, owing to them, we know more about the general conduct of his days and the less intimate thoughts that occupied his mind than we know about those of any other man in the whole history of the world with the possible exception of Samuel Pepys. The comparison is inevitable, and we may feel quite sure that Arnold Bennett, when he wrote, had that other diarist in his mind, in the sense that he was conscious that a masterpiece may result from setting dawn, without any attempt to be literary, everything, however trivial, which that day had interested him. His gusto Is what renders it all so readable, but of introspection there is practically nothing, nor did he mean there to be. In that -admirable -index we find "Bennett, Enoch Arnold, analyses hiniself," but when we turn up the passage, we read merely,. " I began to analyse_ myself for Dorothy's distraction. She was very interested." So no doubt should we be, if he would only do so, but that was not his plan. When he speaks of his work it is to tell us how much he writes (his aim was to
write 865,000 words a year) or how much, in cash, he reeeives -for it. One -year, after a month in Italy, he found h had written more words than he had spent liras ; that was satis- factory becalise he received more than a lira for each word. Quantity and marketable value are his chief pre-occupations, and most sensible pre-occupations they are ; Lord 13eaver. brook offered him 12,000 for the serial rights of Accident. but he screwed him up to £2,250. Just so does Pepys add up at the end of every year what he has put by, and how clever he 'as about it. He is most noticeably Pepysian in his account of sheer trivialities when they affect him personally ; the tragic consequences of taking anti-fat pills, his sleeping for two hours in the afternoon from 5.15 to 7.15, his lunch with 11. G. Wells (" a fine lunch, three ducks and a hot apple tart the chiropodist who complimented him on his strong toe-nails, his trying on of his new trousers, the magnificent kipper (6d.) that he ate at the Garrick Club, his beating Gardiner at lawn.. tennis when the betting was against him, that bore Feueht- wanger who talked about himself, till Dorothy came in and would not suffer him to talk about anything but A. B., his drinking beer without suffering for it afterwards, for the first time for eighteen years, the charm. of M. Maurois who told him that Old W ives' Tale was one of the finest works in English literature. The gusto does it ; who would not be thrilled when he reads : "X said he worked harder than I did. I said,
'You don't.' 'Don't? ? ' said he. Don't,' said I. Don't ? ' said he. 'Don't,' said I. I gazed at him. His eye fell."
It is all trivial, telt the triviality is its importance ; each 4:letail is like a stitch on some immense tapestry, from the innumerable multitude of which the picture emerges, and shows us a man to whom nothing human was alien, and who had the supreme quality of enjoying himself enormously. Of just such quality was Pepys, who "has chattered himself into the circle of the immortals" by reason of it. Arnold Bennett was-already the author of a masterpiece, Old Wires' Tale, but who shall say whether these jottings do not confirm his right ' there more than all the 365,000 words that he wrote every
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