Socialising

Friday, March 21st., Cadogan Square, London.

Ethel Sands

At Ethel Sands in Chelsea at tea yesterday - Norman Leslie, brother of Shane, sat next to me on the sofa. The brothers are from a wealthy Anglo-Irish land-owning family, and are first cousins to Winston Churchill. In a sense they are renegade to their class having converted to Roman Catholicism and embraced Irish home rule. Interesting. After a time Leslie said to me, "Are you interested in Russia at all?" After my reply he went on to say that he had been there last autumn, and I must say that he replied very intelligently and carefully to all my questions. But what struck me was the crudity of his gambit. He wanted to talk about Russia. He was full of Russia, and he opened in that way. Not much subtlety for a man with a public school education, Eton at that!

He left and Cynthia Noble took his place. A very fashionable young woman. Apparently she is the great grand-daughter of I.K.Brunel, engineer. She is probably only about 21 or 22, with a perfectly made-up face etc. I almost immediately began with her on my subjects of late hours, drugs (aspirin chiefly), cocktails, liqueurs, and salts; all of which I cursed. I was glad to find that she was prepared to talk about salts. She agreed with me as to cocktails, but not in much else. However what struck me a long time afterwards was that I had opened on my subject just as young Leslie had opened on his. What an old bore I must have seemed to her! I feel embarrassed to think about it.

Speaking of young women, I am trying to get Pauline Smith's short stories published and have written to Jonathan Cape recommending her. I am optimistic, given my personal celebrity, that they will give the go-ahead. Particularly if I offer to write an introduction. Pauline is a gifted writer, and is working on a novel at the moment. Sadly her work is not such as would be likely to catch the attention of publishers in the absence of a sponsor such as myself. She is rather ill at the moment. In fact her health is not good generally. I would like to do something for her.