LITERARY GOSSIP FROM LONDON.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15655, 29 July 1916, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP FROM LONDON.

(.EY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, May 27

This week it is possible to make an interesting and exclusive theatrical Announcement. Arnold Bennett, it seems, is occupied in making a dramatisation of hij novel, "Sacrod and Profane Love/' for Doris Keane, in whichj if present plans hold, the transatlantic actress will bo seen hero after "Romance," one of the. biggest successes of tho present London season, which recently was performed for the 2ooth time, has exhausted its wonderful popularity.

I saw Bennett, the other day, at tie offices of the Wounded Allies' Relief Committee, one of whose most energetic members he is, and found him busy with one committee meeting' after another. The* author of* "Clayhanger" has done all the jjress-work in connexion with the big Fair which is to be held at tho Caledonian Market next month, in aid of the Wounded Allies' Relief Fund, and. at which a host of celebrities of society and tho stage are to have stalls and sell everything from diamonds to poptago stamps, and this press-work has meant columns upon columns of carefully-phrased matter.

Bennett still lives at quaintly named Thorp e-le-Soken, near Colchester, where he is housed in a fine old Georgian mansion containing many of the laboursaving devices that he described in the "perfect house" in his novel, "Tho Card," but ho comes ud to London once a week, and devotes this day to his work for the Wounded Allies' Belief Fund. He was one of the first members of this fine organisation which, in addition to befriending thousands of wounded Belgians,. has sent .out hospital unitg to iSerbia and Montenegro, provided millions of splints and" bandies, and established three hospitals in France. One of Bennett's pamphlets, "Wounded/' which was written to appeal. for funds, in tho early months of the war, brought in, I'm told," over £700 a week for months on end (principally from the United States), and is still resulting in welcome daily additions to tho fund's exchequer-. Mrs Bennett, who iB a charming Frenchwoman, is still carrying on the club-room for soldiers which she established on her husband's property, the best part of a year ago. She built and equipped it entirely, I am told, with funds contributed and raised by herself, and.hafe .devoted no end of time to it. The cheeriest of places, it is provided with all sorts of games, except gambling ones, and, orice a week, is the scene of rattling good concerts. From the beginning only one theft has occurred at Mrs Bennett's dub-room, which is a pretty good record considering that some thousands of men in khaki have been entertained there. The article "pinched" was only a pack of cards, but its loss nettled Mrs Bennett. She promptly had a notice posted up that, if the pack of cards were not returned, the club would close. Like ' the famous cat, the pack came back 1 i "The Orchard." at Eversley, which is the home of ''Lucas Malet" (otherwise Mrs Mary. St. Leger Harrison) has just been the. scene of' an except tionally charming romance. With Mrs Harrison, who is the author of "Sir Richard Calmady" and "The Wages of Sin," and incidentally the daughter of the late Charles Kingsley, lives a pretty girl named Gabrielle Vallings, who ,stands in the unusual relationship of cousin and adopted daughter to "Lu«is Malet." Miss Vallings has •long had the privilege of living at "The Orchard," Mrs beautiful place, which is cldso to the rectory which was the. home of her father, the famous author of "Hypatia" and "The Water Babies." In this pleasant literary atmosphere Sub-Lieutenant [Norman Sladden, of the Royal Naval ! Volunteer Service, has wooed the adopted daughter of the house, and their engagement has just been anrounced. "Lucas Malet's" husband, the Rev. William Harrison, was rector of Clovelly, but he died in 1897—six years before the death of his brother, Clifford Harrison, a popular London musical reciter in the eighteen-nineties. John Galsworthy, whose play, "Justice." seemed to have made so deep an ' impression in America, lfas been giving his views on the effect of the war on the stage and literature. With regard to the stage, he says: "We shall, most of us, "of course, be poorer; the propertied classes will scarcely again in our time have tho use of more than four-fifths of their incomes. The improper tied classes will find conditions harder and more uncertain—for, whatever may happen immediately after peaceful * trade gets going once more, there will surely come about two years or less after the conclusion of tho war a time of stress and dearth which may last many years. I think the effect* of this will be to force the great public more and more awav from theatres to music-halls. cinemas, revues, any form of cheap entertainment; and in the theatre itself incline them to fnrce and melodrama. Before the war there was already a cleavage in the public in regard to the theatre. I think this cleavage will be widened. "If you ask me whether I think the war will result in any particular de- i velopmcnt in the trend "of dramatic orj literary work. I should say yes. but not at once. I think the serious drama and literature of two or three years after the war will diverge more sharply j than before into two* streams, one re- | fleeting the revolutionary feelings, the ooignanf social interrogations of a period of stress, the other more deliberately than ever turnirg away from realism, criticism, and ideas to a refuge in beauty, which may or mav not bo according to the Quality of the men who happen to be writing.

But I don't think the great public will be much interested in either of these movements. In few words, I tninK. feelings, oppositions, everything will be starker and more uncompromising: the fat will have been pressed out of the nation, and it will take ten or fifteen years, perhaps a generation, to bring it back. Whether fat is a good thing or not I leave to individual taste. But all prophecy as to drama or literature is subject to the consideration that masterpieces are liable to crop out at any epoch favourable or unfavourable. and nobody can tell you why. And all speculation as to the future after this war is made rather futile bv the fact that we have nothing ? in the past huge enough to judge by."