Battle of (Nude) Flowers

Cannes. Battle of Flowers yesterday. Five sisters (secretly bored) in a  carriage, all dressed alike. American imitation of a rowboat. Mother as a sailor. Habit of thinly dressed and sometimes quite nude  women standing up in carriages all the time and exposing themselves. Rapacity of two young shop girls or something who placed themselves in the wrong seats in front of us and snatched in the most shameless manner at all the bouquets that were thrown our way. They worried us to death. Astonishing the joy one took in a really pretty woman in white, when there happened to be one. 

                                                                       Arnold Bennett Journals - Wednesday, March 6th, 1912

Certainly not virgins

The other day a vendeuse and an essayeuse [salesgirl and fitter] came up from the Maison Blanc with a robe d’intérieur for M. and another for Mrs Selwyn. A porter of the Maison Blanc carried the box.  The general tableau – the two employées, young and agreeable, but certainly not virgins. With soft, liquid, persuasive voices, speaking chiefy English; the frothy garments lying about on chairs and in the box, Selwyn, Alcock, and me lounging on chairs, and M. and Mrs S. playing the mannequin, and the porter waiting outside in the dark corridor – this tableau produced a great effect on me. Expensive garments rather – and I felt that for my own personal tastes, I would as soon earn money in order to have such a tableau at my disposition, as for a lot of other seemingly more important and amusing purposes. A fine sensuality about it. There was something in the spectacle of the two employees waiting passive and silent for a few moments from time to time while we talked.

                                                                    Arnold Bennett's Journals - Tuesday, January 23rd., 1911

Renoir

Cannes. Hôtel Californie – Georges d’Espagnat came for lunch yesterday; we drove  to Maugin’s – he with us – and we deposited him at station at 4.15. He had come from Renoir’s villa at Cagnes. He reported how Renoir’s pictures 15 years ago were admitted by dealers to be unsalable. Now the slightest sketch fetches 4 or 5000 francs. And pictures which formerly had a theoretical price of 5000 frs sell for 70 or 80,000. Dealers came down from Paris while d’Espagnat was at Renoir’s, and bought and paid for everything Renoir would let them take away. He had been a terrific worker, and in spite of very large sales, still has 2 or 300 pictures to be disposed of. He now lives luxuriously. Formerly dans la dèche, d’Espagnat had known him rent splendid houses in which he could not put furniture. He is 71, and scarcely able to move a limb. Cannot rise without help. Has to be carried about. Yet manages to paint, even large canvases. He said to d’Espagnat that were it not for ill health, old age would be a very happy time, as it has all sorts of pleasures special to itself. Although so old, he has a son aged only about ten. This child came as a surprise, and Renoir was furious.

                                                                                         Arnold Bennett Journals, January 6th 1911

The White House - 'very nice'

   Arrival at fine station at Washington.

   Apparently a long drive to Shoreham Hotel, across avenue after avenue. Still, all the air of a provincial town. Had to get out of bed to extinguish final light, otherwise good hotel.

   Congress chamber. Old Congress Chamber is a sort of rule-chamber. Its astounding collection of ugly statues. Whispering point, where Adams fell. I was exhausted after this. Declined to visit Library of Congress. Saw Washington monument. Phallic, Appalling. A national catastrophe – only equalled by Albert Memorial.         

   Sub-guide said, pointing to a portrait in oils: ‘Henry Cay – quite a good statesman,’ in a bland, unconsciously patronizing way. Guide also said of picture, ‘Although painted I  1865, notice the flesh tints are quite fresh.’

   General effect of Washington. A plantation of public edifices amid a rather unkempt undergrowth of streets. Pennsylvania Avenue the great street. Cheapness of its buildings (old private houses tuned into business) as the thoroughfare approaches the Capitol.

   The White House very nice architecture. Rather small. Distinguished.

   Overflow of Capitol into huge buildings at either side rather to front of Capitol. Dome too big for sub-structure. The wings rather fine.

   Badness of saddle of mutton at breakfast. Finger bowls after every damn snack.

\                                                                           Arnold Bennett Journals, Tuesday, October 17, 1911

An inferno, and Paddy the terrier

   Well may all this powerful machinery be encaged, just like wild beasts in a menagerie.

   Up and down steel ladders. Climbing over moving chain (like a bike chain) of steering gear, through stray jets of steam, in a forest of greasy machinery, guarded by steel rails, grease on floor; all apparently working alone under electric lights, but here and there a  man in brown doing nothing in particular. Dials everywhere, showing pressures, etc.

   Then to stokehold. Vast. Terrible. 190 colossal furnaces, opened and fed every 10 minutes, and coal flung in. Mouths of furnaces seemed to me very high for coal to be flung into them. The effect was like that of a coal mine with the addition of hell.

   This was the most impressive part of this ship. It stretched away with occasional electric lights into infinite distance. 1000 tones of coal a day. Finest coal. Very hot. An inferno, theatrical. Above, confectioners making petit fours, and the lifts going for 1^st class passengers.

   Invited into Captain’s room. He showed us his photograph after being invested C.B.[Companion of the Order of the Bath] by King.

   Talk of Royal Family. The Englishman’s reverence for his old institutions, of all kinds, and his secret sentimentality (according F.R. the King was a fine fellow, and the Queen a woman of really unusual brain-power) comes out all over the ship all the time.

   At dinner, the purser on his Airedale terrier, Paddy. So comprehending that when his wife and he wanted to say something they did not want the dog to understand, they had to spell out the important word, instead of pronouncing it.

                                          Arnold Bennett's Journal - Lusitania. Monday, October 9th 1911  7.30 a.m.

High Seas

Went out at 10.30. High seas. Whole surface of sea white with long marmoreal lines of foam. Through the mistiness the waves on the horizon looked as high as mountains; or as high as a distant range of hills. Curious that distant waves should seem sio much higher than those close to. Ship rolling enormously, and her bow yawing about. Yet forward sheltered by deck-houses from following gale, one had no sensation that the boat was moving forward. Waking backward, from stem to stern, the following gale struck one sharply in the face, though one was running away from it at about 30 miles an hour.

   Big squall gradually overtook us. All sunshine clouded out for 15 minutes and snow came down almost horizontally/, and much faster than the ship in the same direction. The wind . blew spray fiercely off the water in clouds. The screws half raced from time to time.

                                  Arnold Bennett's Journals - Sunday, December 2nd 1911, en route for America.

Kids

   Entire company interested in children.

   Talking of kids, I must not forget 2 stories of Cobb’s. Elizabeth Cobb, when her parents began to spell: ‘Too much damn education here for me.’ And of another girl, when her parents began to whisper, ‘What’s the good of being educated, anyway? When I’ve learnt to spell, you whisper.’ 

                                                                            Arnold Bennett's Journal - November 15, 1911.