America and jealousy

Ullman came down yesterday, fresh from U.S.A. I said, ‘What is your general impression? Is the U.S. a good place to get away from?’ He said: ‘On the whole, yes. But for a visit, I am sure it would interest you enormously.’ He said that I could form no idea of the amount of drinking that went on there. I said I could, as I had already heard a good deal about it. He said, ‘No, you can’t.’ He stuck to it, though I tried to treat the statement as exaggeration, that in the principal clubs everybody got fuddled every night.

Noticed in myself: A distinct feeling of jealousy on reading yesterday and today accounts of another very successful production of a play by Somerset Maugham – the third now running. Also, in reading an enthusiastic review of a new novelist in the Daily News today, I looked eagerly for any sign that he was not, after all, a really first-class artist. It relieved me to find that his principal character was somewhat conventional, etc. Curious!
Journals of Arnold Bennett, April 29th 1908