Transgressions: Installment XCICII

January 1, 1939

Livia’s “Appeaser’s Ball” last night.? Jack, Franklin, Halifax, Cadogan, Lord Cecil, Fonsecca-Miller.? The PM was always about to arrive, but somehow never did.? A very unpleasnt few minutes cornered by Franklin, who pretended to believe that I was responsible for a secret policy of the President to detach India from the Empire.

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January 4, 1939, Wednesday

A new year at Hertford House.? Am I ready for clocks?? No, not yet (if ever).? Perhaps something less complicated than royal desks, more challenging than candlesticks.? The great Levasseur book cabinet?? I don’t think I’m ready for that.? But book cabinets are probably the right thing.? I’ll start with the small pair by Delorme, with their Pompeian marquetry central panels.? Then the Levasseur.

Lunch with Jack, who has been made Deputy Under-Secretary to Halifax.? “A step on the ladder, or, perhaps one should say, one’s first place at the table.? Far below the salt, of course, but from time to time one is allowed to taste the soup.”

I am to help him with writing chores as the press of business demands and my work at Hertford House allows.? Jack has heard that during the last war Sam Hoare had managed to bribe Mussolini, then a journalist, to help keep Italy in.? Hoare says that Il Duce is desperate to prevent the story from becoming widely known.? How to use this by letting the Italians know that we know and will tell unless . . . what?? Jack finally decides to hold the story in reserve.???

Back to Hertford House for a look at the Delorme bibliothèques basses.? They will do.? I sent a note upstairs about my intentions in this regard, not that I expect anyone will care much one way or another, as long as I appear to be doing the sort of thing that I am expected to be doing.

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January 5, 1939, Thursday

I spent the morning among the files at Hertford House, lunched in the cellar restaurant in St. James’s (decent Sole and a better than usual Hock).??? When I returned to Hertford House I found a note:? “Go ahead then.”? More than I expected.? Positively cooing.

At Livia’s, Jack gave an account of the grand party at Elveden.? “You must imagine, on the Suffolk-Norfolk borders, in the midst of the largest farm in England, behind a good late-Victorian neo-Georgian fa?ade, a kind of Arabian Nights palace.? There is the domed hall with a glass lantern, the white Carrara marble walls, arches and pillars as if carved in Delhi, but better, as the craftsmen were Italians and accustomed to the stone.? It is all as completely done as successively a Maharaja and a Guiness could make it.? This Anglo-Indian extravaganza”—a gesture signifying its immensity—“has been for the past few days the capital of the British Empire:? Lord Iveagh entertaining the PM and the inner Cabinet to a shoot of truly Imperial proportions.? The PM comported himself exactly as one would expect of the de facto ruler of the greatest empire the world has known.”?

Livia:? “Did he carry his own umbrella or did he have an umbrella wallah?”

January 6, 1939, Friday

Boulle marquetry!? We have an awe-inspiring wardrobe, absolutely armoured with two great panels of brass pierced to show the turtle-shell through the filigree, all topped with a clock pillowed in an orgy of brass cherubs.? The elements, then, common to any number of types of furniture:? a soft wood carcass, stained, nearly concealed by the marquetry—brass on turtle-shell, the design sensibility ultimately deriving from the delicate tracery of the Roman Augustan age, erupting here and there in masks and paws, rosettes and the like.? The virtue is in producing a design first conceived in terms of paint on plaster in such a resistant material as in-laid brass.

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By way of contrast, I took a copy of Tribune with me to read at lunch and, while eating, looked over a summary of activities by the hunger marchers these last few weeks:? the Oxford street demonstration, the invasion of the Ritz and so forth.? The article rather self-satisfied as journalism, but certainly these are brave actions in a good cause.? Also an article about taxation, better written, oddly enough.? Signed with a pseudonym.? Fiona?

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January 7, 1939, Saturday

I have been a bit apprehensive about Welbeck Street parties, after the scene at Christmas, but Violet has become attached to Tessa and says it would be odd if we did not make an appearance.? We compromised by arriving and leaving early:? drinks, general conversation (including the always wonderful sight of Guy Burgess lecturing Victor Rothschild on finance), dinner at a small Italian restaurant nearby with Tessa and one or two others, who returned to the party after dinner as we made our virtuous way home.

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January 9, 1939, Monday

Gales and floods in the countryside.?

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I spent the morning at the BM reading about Boulle.? Modern?? Renaissance?? Tipping somehow first one way, then another.? He was a servant of the King, and if not kept in livery, close enough (grace-and-favour workshop and living space in the Louvre, etc.), but sufficiently in demand and well-enough paid so as to set up on his own as a collector and connoisseur.? Then a bankrupt a few times and finally a fire destroyed his workshops and collections.? Something in the line of Rembrandt or Rubens (although further down the economic ladder than the first and much further down than the second).? In any case, he had a late-medieval feel for, and taste in, materials, with a high Renaissance eye for antique line.? He was a decorator, essentially, in an age that valued—above all else—decoration.

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Lunched with Watt, who mentioned that Runciman, lucky fellow, is touring French Indochina with his Cambridge friend Eddie Bates:? “Tropical nights, dancing boys, all the delights of Empire.”

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At dinner this evening I told V. how witty I had thought her when we met at Cassel’s.?

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“Yes,” she said, “That was something Nadine thought you would like.? She wrote out observations about each of the principal guests and had me memorize them.? It was rather like a school play.? Going to bed with you right away was Mother’s idea.? She said no man can resist a whore.? I’ve done my best to play the part.”

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And then she cried.? I couldn’t think of what to say or do except stand next to her and rub her back like a fool.?

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When she stopped crying:? “Sorry.? Not your fault. Tears are so stupidly middle class aren’t they?”

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January 10, 1939, Tuesday

Boulle—another sign of his modern outlook—produced a book of designs, which were mined by ebonistes for much of the next century. Nouveaux deisseins de meubles et ouvrages de bronze et de marqueterie includes engravings of a possibly new type of furniture, the low book cabinet, which was taken up by the following generations of suppliers of such to the King and his Court.? Meaning, among other things, that once the type was set, in those days, an original conception could generate further examples for a century or more.?

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“Nouveaux deisseins” is interesting.? Was there a cult of novelty, circa 1700?

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Jack has been to dinner with Nevile Henderson (whom, he says, is indeed dreadfully ill), and is planning a long piece for his constituency letter on “The Situation in Germany To-Day” based on Henderson’s (to be un-attributed) information:? 1. Without Munich Hitler would have attacked the Czechs; 2. The German people want peace and adore Chamberlain; 3. Hitler is less and less popular.? I’m to work up a draft.

On the other hand, Stafford Cripps has written a “Plan for a Progressive Government. Election Programme for Combination of Opposition Parties” for the Labour Party.? He says that the Labour Party should be the leader of the combined opposition, rather than stand alone.

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January 11, 1939, Wednesday

Why cover a piece of wooden furniture with pierced brass plate?? The technique seems more likely to come from the forge than the carpentry shop—a transfer of crafts developed for armour to the boudoir at just the point when the manufacture of armour ceases.? How very Rococo.? Now, is that true?? Or is it at least true enough to float as a line or two in the catalogue??? I suppose it is.? Boulle is worthy of his own set of studies, but that is beyond my capacity and I am only producing a catalogue entry.? It is time to return to M. Delorme and his book cabinets.

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Jack, in his new role as Parliamentary Secretary to Halifax, has gone with him and the PM to Rome, where they hope to solidify the Anglo-Italian agreement and, in general, pull Mussolini over to the British side.

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January 12, 1939, Thursday

It is sometimes so quiet at Hertford House that I walk down to Oxford Street and join the crowds for a block or two, simply to verify that there are crowds, if only in Oxford Street. Then I go back to my solitary desk or plunge into the Tube to go to the BM.

The last man producing royal armour was André Drouart, who ran up a nice suit for a five-year old Portuguese prince in 1712, which is an interesting date, if one is interested in Boulle.? In any case, I doubt if anyone will blame me for a sentence that simply juxtaposes that date and some comments on Boulle’s “armouring” of furniture.? One need not press a case for an adaptation of technique, only hint at a transfer of sensibility.

That said, how does one think about decoration, as such, or find the proper authorities on that subject?? Is there such a subject?

Livia has become quite devoted to Philip, insisting that he appear at each of her “Thursdays” and conclude each with a partita or the equivalent.? Watt is included in the invitation, but only because of Philip—and attends only because of Philip—and tonight he seemed especially indifferent to the company.? One was reminded of Dr. Johnson at Dr. Burney’s dinner party, sitting before the fire, exploring the immense resources of his mind.? What does Watt think about at such—increasingly frequent—moments?? Probably not theology.

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January 13, 1939, Friday

Rather like a small desk in width, depth and height, with a marble top.? Book shelves behind glass doors where the drawers would be if it were a desk and a decorative central plaque instead of a kneehole.? Six stubby legs.? Such is the gross description.? There is hardly an inch of unworked wood visible.? The glass in the doors on each side is surrounded by gilt bronze and Boulle-work marquetry, separated by the “breastplate” of the central medallion.

We dined this evening with the Countess at a small, old-fashioned French restaurant in Belgravia.? What was she like as a young woman?? With what advice had her mother launched her into society?? I look from her to V. and cannot imagine the conversation V. recounted.

January 14, 1939, Saturday

Labour Party headquarters has rejected Cripps’s proposal and reaffirmed its opposition to any arrangement with other forces of the opposition, which must come as a relief to the PM.

Welbeck Street.? It is difficult to determine exactly whose salon this is.? The permanent inhabitants, as far as one can ascertain, are Fiona and Tessa, and our hearty landlord is the hearty V. Rothschild, but Burgess, Haxton, Watt & Co. are nearly always in residence and each of these often enough has a companion, also, for a time, more or less in residence.? Then there is another circle, typified by Nicolson and Jamie and a formidable American poetess and her lightly mustached English heiress protector.? Rather puzzlingly, these last two have between them, as it were, a rather attractive daughter, who appears to have no father.? In any case, “the Mothers” were there to-night, in the role of friendly visitors from a kindred nation.? (In the case of at least one of them, according to Haxton, closely connected with that of Tessa’s protector.)? Much scandal relayed, which would be of interest if one were able to work out exactly what was being said to have been done by who to whom.

Fiona is furious about the Labour Party’s rejection of Cripps.? “I know how it happened, or I can guess.”? I asked Watt what she meant.? “The question you should ask is not ‘what’” he said,? “But whom.? Not that anyone would name him, even—or especially—here.”

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January 15, 1939, Sunday

Jack, back in London, says that the Rome meetings were another triumph for the PM, who made an impression on Mussolini with his account of the scale of British rearmament.? Jack believes that Chamberlain was successful in acquiring sufficient influence over Il Duce to make the German leader uncertain as to the loyalty of the Italian in the event of a falling out between Germany and Britain.? “Otherwise, a bore.? Endless waiting in overly-ornamented and under-heated rooms while the great men conferred.? Dinners beginning after midnight and continuing for what seemed like days.? Tours of broken and unintelligible monuments of the old—and of the soon to be broken sanitary arrangements of the new—Roman Empire.”? An opportunity was found, however, to look up old friends, particularly the fellow who patronizes the pontifical tailor in the Via de Cestari.? “Some astonishing stories, and one or two delicious moments, not to be mentioned among the gentiles.”

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January 16, 1939, Monday

Of course there is a theory of decoration, “as such,” and hundreds of books about it and so forth and so on and mostly in Viennese German.? My desk at the BM is stacked high with it all.? I’ve made an appointment to lunch with Haxton tomorrow so as to implore him to lend me the key to the Warburg wisdom on the topic.

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January 17, 1939, Tuesday

Rain.? The Irish Republican Army are setting off bombs at power-stations here and Franco’s troops are moving toward Barcelona.

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Lunch with Haxton at an Italian restaurant near the Warburg, where everyone knows him and bows and scrapes, as do I, also, under the circumstances.? He responds as expected, condescending and generous in equal measure.? The place for it is (“or perhaps, ‘was’”)? the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, the Austrian V&A.? Wonderful publications series one can consult at the BM.? If I’m lucky, none of them will rise to the level of generality that concerns me.?

He has an article in each issue of the Warburg Journal these days (“They need filler”), and is thus the happiest person I have spoken with in months.

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January 18, 1939, Wednesday

The Boulle marquetry on my book-cabinets is premiere-partie, that is, the tortoise-shell is on top of the brass (therefore: black matte design with yellow shining through).? The usual chased and gilt bronze mounts in the usual places—probably pulled from stock left by Boulle.? The cupboard door in the middle of book-cabinet number one has a complicated marquetry design, foliage bottom left and right surrounding a mount:? a female figure on a pedestal and cornucopia in the lower center, clusters of trumpets and other horns depicted as hanging from hooks on either side, the remainder filled with lighter marquetry foliage tracery.? The cornucopia is to label the figure as Pomona, who is, I suppose, a good enough choice for a decorative motif.

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January 19, 1939, Thursday

Thinking (there’s a novel activity!) that the style of the book-cabinet is in fact terribly close to Boulle, I went to the BM this morning and found in the Louvre catalogue one just like it from the Boulle atelier, but in contre-partie (yellow on black) and with a figure of Mars, rather than Pomona.? The next entry is for a second of the set of six from the Chateau de Saint-Cloud, this in première-partie, mounted with a figure of Pomona and stamped by Delorme!? That is a lucky break!? It is terribly easy to make a fool of oneself in this musty corner of learning.?? “Resembling the Louvre’s . . .”

At Livia’s, Lord Cecil:? “The German economy’s a mess; the Army is of doubtful loyalty; um, ah, the moderates, the moderates have all been driven out of the German government; Hitler himself is a megalomaniac and those closest to him are worse.? Not a set of circumstances that point toward a lasting peace.? A couple of weeks ago Schacht submitted, um, ah, a report, a report to Hitler, signed by the Directors of the Reichsbank, urging a drastic reduction in armament expenditures and a balanced budget in order to prevent inflation.? Today we learn that Hitler has responded by dismissing Schacht as President of the Reichsbank. All our sorcerers have been casting their spells, constructing horoscopes, examining cat feces and have concluded that Hitler might at any moment launch an attack in the West, or do any other damn fool thing, um, ah, as he, as he is quite mad and what is worse has come to hate the British Empire.”?

Jack says that the Foreign Office believe that Hitler actually does mean to move west, not east, and are therefore advocating high-level staff talks with the French and warnings to the U.S.A.?

He talked more about Rome, how well Chamberlain had played Il Duce’s court, particularly Count and Countess Ciano.? Fonseca-Miller commented that many, when first introduced to the court of the Borgias, found them charming.

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Philip appeared without Watt.? He brought instead a new acquaintance, the composer Charles Percy (“very distantly related to the Alnwick proprietors”), who was recently referred to in the Times as “Our new Mozart”.? Slightly pudgy, curly hair, nervously polite.? While V. sat in a corner with Philip, I was on duty with Percy.? We thrashed about for something to say to one another and finally settled on institutional back-stabbing.? I offered a few incidents about Gifford (un-named); he a few about the B.B.C., concerning which, one neither knew whether to laugh or weep at the terrible narrative of what had been Reith’s Calvinist empire.

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January 20, 1939, Friday

The layering is suggestive.? At bottom, simply good oak.? Then ebony, to produce a chic black background.? Then the pyrotechnics of foliated Boulle brass on tortoise-shell marquetry.? Finally, bronze mounts, chased and gilt.? Something of a morality tale in that.?

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The mounts were probably made in quantity, shop items, to be applied at will.? And the marquetry?? That, too, I imagine—made up by specialists and kept on hand to use as needed.? Or not?? In any case, one can make the argument that in order to fully understand the object, this book cabinet, say, one must know about the world from which it emerged:? the workshop, its tools, materials, bits ready to hand, house traditions, etc.? Which might mean that the object is, as it were, simply a materialization of an intense realm of activity—frozen labour, as Haxton would say.? But much more than that.? A bubbling cauldron of labour relationships; materials obtained through the slow-moving international trade of that time; ideas about design going back millennia; dynamics of the Court; vanity; ambition; apprentices fucking one another in lumber rooms, etc., etc.

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January 21, 1939, Saturday

At Welbeck Street this evening Watt seemingly only a bit unhappy about Philip and Percy.? “Not suited to monogamy, I’m afraid, nor jealous scenes.? Percy will better accept his devotion.”? Fair enough, but, as V. pointed out, it was Edmund who was alone to-night.?

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I spent most of the evening talking with Mrs. Butterworth, the poetess, about America.? She is from Indiana and was once paired at a dance with Cole Porter when she was at Vassar and he at Yale.? “People thought we might have a common language.? I knew that Peru, Indiana, is pronounced Pie-roo, and could appreciate his rhymes, but he had no interest in me at all, lacking, as I was—as I am—a fortune, in his sense, and, in his view, perhaps more importantly, the proper equipment.”

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Tessa says that there will not be a war between the UK and Germany:? “Kindred peoples, as Winston and Hitler agree.”?

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“Or kindred governments, as Cripps and Stalin agree.”? Watt.? “Churchill’s ambition, for the past twenty years, has been the destruction of the Soviet state.? He will do anything to achieve that.”

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January 22, 1939, Sunday

Admonitions in the papers to buy extra food and store jugs of water.? Auden and Isherwood have gone to the U.S.?? The poets are leaving the ship?? The poets are abandoning the Empire??? V.:? “They’ve just buggered off.”

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January 23, 1939, Monday

But I can not at the moment write the mature masterpiece demanded by the clever reflections on a book-cabinet with which I ended last week.? And I must—something like must—write a simple catalogue entry.? First:? “Pomona.”? Why her image?? An hour in the BM turned up nothing useful:? old Italian goddess of abundance, cornucopia, etc.? I suppose for Delorme’s purposes it was simply a classical image, one from the shelf to be used in alternation with others used for reasons equally vague.

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Jack says that Chamberlain was very pleased with his visit to Rome, especially the friendly crowds.? Halifax was less pleased, saying the talks led nowhere, as Il Duce made demands (Egypt, for one) that “neither could—nor should” be met.? If Halifax’s disdain could kill, the dictatorships soon would be in want of dictators.

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January 24, 1939, Tuesday

N.B.:? The idea of classical images as merely decorative motifs, no more significant in the civilization of the day than, say, chinoiserie:? pace Warburg.? Especially chinoiserie.

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January 25, 1939, Wednesday

Having accomplished a reasonable version of the basic catalogue description, I spent the morning at the BM working on provenance and Delorme.? He was from another family of ma?tres-ébénistes:? father and two brothers.?? One could work, in one direction, on a sociology of ma?tres-ébénistes:? where they lived; where they came from; what became of their descendents; their inter-marriages and (good or bad) fortunes; their position in the society of the ancien régime.? Or, in another direction, on the transmission of motifs and such (including what Haxton might call the material nexus of that transmission, for example, the Boulle mounts).? All giving rise to an artistic tradition that was, in the end, rather precarious, as we know from the disasters following Iconoclasm in the 9th and 16th centuries.?

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T. S. Eliot is retiring from The Criterion, which therefore ceases publication.

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January 26, 1939, Thursday

Revisions and exhibition history from our own records.

Cripps has been expelled from the Labour Party for advocating the Popular Front.

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Barcelona has fallen.

At Livia’s to-night’s lion is Herschel Johnson, brought from the American Embassy by Fonseca-Miller, who says that the FO have sent the U.S. Department of State an appraisal of German intentions.? In brief, a massive attack in the West in the Spring, most probably through Holland.? Johnson says it makes him feel quite sick.

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Jack says that the Cabinet have agreed to fight for Holland, “if it comes to that.” Fonseca-Miller, on Livia’s left, said that is all very well, but Treasury remains opposed to sufficiently funding the Army.? “As if they think, in the end, that we will repel the Panzers with ingots.”

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Philip and Percy played a duet for cello and violin that Percy said he had “thrown together” during the week.? Percy is, as far as I can tell, a first-class violinist, which is remarkable as he is generally known as one of the better young concert pianists.? The duet was built up from very short note sequences and with much plucking of strings and striking of the bodies of the instruments with the bows.

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January 27, 1939, Friday

More revisions.? It should be finished in a day or perhaps two.? Say, Tuesday.

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The Anglo-German Coal Agreement has been signed.? “One hopes the first of many such,”? Jack.? “We will bind them to us with a web of trade.”? I am to work that up as either an article or part of a speech.

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Jack says that the Deuxième Bureau think that the Germans have an army of over a million men, with five Panzer divisions, etc.? And that the Luftwaffe has three thousand modern airplanes.? And that the Germans will hurl all this at the Netherlands.? Or at least so say the French.? These reports, according to Jack, may be part of an effort of the French and British general staffs to get British troops onto the Continent earlier rather than later in anticipation of a German offensive. In any case, the French are quite certain that in the event of war they will be able to defeat the Germans in a matter of weeks.

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A “Manifesto” from H. A. L. Fisher, Montagu Norman, John Masefield, Kenneth Clark and such, appealing to Germany for friendship and mutual efforts to avoid war.? This instantly broadcast by the Germans.? There are rumors that the manifesto had been arranged by the F.O.? In collaboration with the Wilhelmstrasse, no doubt.

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On the other hand (or perhaps not), Chamberlain has given a radio address, warning the Germans that Britain’s military program is “impressive” and growing.? He spoke only of defensive arrangements, making no mention of bombers.? Jack says that Halifax is advocating a tripling of the British Expeditionary Force, a doubling of the Territorials and full military conscription.

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Someone writing in New Verse says that Spender would do less harm to the Left if he frankly admitted that he was in the other camp.

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January 28, 1939, Saturday

At Welbeck Street Fiona usually claims a wing-backed chair to the left of the fireplace as her station these evenings.? Watt habitually stands beside and slightly behind her, resting his glass of Scotch whiskey on the back of the chair.? He said:? “Guy has taken the King’s shilling.”

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“Guards?”

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“He would find them familiar.? No.? A group we mayn’t discuss.? They do something about broadcasting.”

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Fiona said, apparently to the fire:? “We have to face facts.”

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“Denn, die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen bestimmt, was der Fall ist und auch, was alles nicht der Fall ist.”? Watt.

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“We can all recite those verses.? It is a peculiarly cynical philosophy, worthy of Lord Baldwin.”? Fiona.

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“And the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case.? Therefore, the facts in logical space are a world.”

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“Surely it is that the facts in logical space are the world?”? Fiona.

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“Yes, Ludwig says “die Welt,” but I am not sure that the meaning—and certainly not the utility—of the statement is carried by the definite pronoun.? He was an engineer before he was a philosopher.? I find it useful to think what he was doing in those days as constructing a sort of utopia, a logical machine for conducting certain operations.”

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“I would prefer that interpretation to my own.? Have you asked him about that?”

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“Hmm.? No.? I assume he would answer with his rule about silence.? In any case, he is no longer interested in mathematical logic.”

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“But you are?”

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“To a certain extent.? To the extent that it helps one construct a certain world.”? Watt looked in my direction:? “Pour me some more of that whiskey, won’t you, love?”

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I did.? Watt then read out a letter from Runciman describing New Year’s at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.? At midnight they lowered a young woman from the ceiling.? She got entangled in the ropes and came down head first, screaming, with her skirts over her head.? “Serves them right for using a girl.”

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January 30, 1939, Monday

Hitler’s speech in the Reichstag:? “In what way do the interests of Great Britain and Germany clash?? I have stated often enough that there is no German and above all no National Socialist, who even in his most secret thoughts has the intention of causing the British Empire any kind of difficulties.”

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He then demanded the return of the lost German colonies.

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Chamberlain says that the only people who want war between Germany and Britain are the Americans and the Jews, thus linking Hitler’s hatreds in a phrase.? Nonetheless, he has finally agreed to joint staff talks with the French, who have been saying that the Germans are about to launch a pre-emptive attack against Western Europe.

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All work on the book-cabinets derailed by a letter this morning from the Burlington Magazine:? “Some revisions, must understand can’t guarantee schedule, etc.”? Accepted!

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V. said she was too tired to go to the Café Royal to celebrate the Burlington letter.? In the end I went there by myself, finding companionship in a bottle of Haut-Brion somewhat older than me.?

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January 31, 1939, Tuesday

Back to work then.? Finished (?) the first book-cabinet entry and sent it upstairs for comment.? Now what next?? Something more ambitious?? Perhaps, after another book-cabinet catalogue entry, another essay, this on the type, rather than an individual piece.

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