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Journal Entry 3 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Friday, June 30, 2006
 The Acceptance World, the third in Powell's series A Dance to the Music of Time, is set in "the slump" of the early 1930s. Narrator Nick Jenkins, still working for a firm which specializes in art books, is now himself a published novelist and working on a second book. It's 1930 or 1931, and Jenkins is about twenty-eight years old and still single.
Following a chance encounter with Peter Templer at the Ritz in London, Jenkins agrees to spend the weekend with Peter, his sister Jean (now estranged from her husband, Bob Duport) and Peter's new wife Mona at their home in Maidenhead. He embarks upon an affair with Jean which carries on throughout Acceptance World, and Mona ends up leaving Templer to take up with J.G. Quiggin, who briefly becomes secretary to St. John Clarke (a major presence throughout the book). St. John Clarke becomes a Trotskyist, Charles Stringham becomes a drunk, and the backdrop is one of political protest, Hunger-Marchers (a feature of the economic depression in Britain during the late 1920s and early 1930s, marchers protested against widespread unemployment and inadequate welfare) and addled upper class minds preoccupied with modernism, esoteric political and religious movements and -- always -- lovely parties.
Jenkins' musing on "the Acceptance World":
When, in describing Widmerpool's new employment, Temper had spoken of "the Acceptance World," I had been struck by the phrase. Even as a technical definition, it seemed to suggest what we are all doing; not only in business, but in love, art, religion, philosophy, politics, in fact all human activities. The Acceptance World was the world in which the essential element -- happiness, for example -- is drawn, as it were, from an engagement to meet the bill. Sometimes the goods are delivered, even a small profit made; sometimes the goods are delivered, but the value of the currency is changed. Besides, in another sense, the whole world is the Acceptance World as one approaches thirty; at least some illusions discarded. The mere fact of still existing as a human being proved that. (p. 178)
Cast of characters: - Nick Jenkins: now twenty-eight years old and still working for a publishing house that specializes in art books, Jenkins is now himself a published novelist. In Acceptance World we learn Nick's astrological sign is "the Archer" (Sagittarius, meaning he was born in late November or December, like Anthony Powell himself).
- Uncle Giles Jenkins: living at the Ufford Hotel in Bayswater.
- Charles Stringham: in Acceptance World we learn Stringham's father is known to Dicky Umfraville and others as "Boffles" Stringham. Charles, formerly married to Peggy Stepney, is known to be drinking a lot and basically unemployed. He shows up late to the "Old Boys'" dinner at the Ritz, and has to be taken home to bed by Jenkins and Widmerpool.
- Myra Erdleigh: near fifty, widowed, with dark red hair piled high on her head and "huge liquid eyes". Wears an opal ring enclosed by a "massive gold serpent" and tells fortunes using cards. As Acceptance World begins she seems to be involved with Jenkins' Uncle Giles, but later in the book she's romantically linked to the Templer's ex-brother in law Jimmy Stripling.
- Barnby: Nick's friend, a painter who used to live in a flat above Mr. Deacon's and who has more recently designed murals for the Donners-Brebner building. Unmarried but adventuresome with women, he once had a love affair with Baby Wentworth (supposed mistress of Magnus Donners), and in Acceptance World seems to be getting involved with Anne Stepney. Wears his short, stubby hair en brosse.
- St. John Clarke: an elderly and well-known novelist "a few years younger than the generation of H.G. Wells and J.M. Barrie", for whom Mark Members works as a personal secretary (though there are unsubstantiated rumours that the relationship is more than just professional). In Acceptance World Clarke is supposed to be working on text for "The Art of Horace Isbister" being published by Nick's firm (Clarke is himself an old friend of Isbister's), but he never seems to get it done. By the end of the novel he has become first a left-wing activist under the tutelage of his new secretary J.G. Quiggin, and finally a Trotskyist with a new secretary, Guggenbuhl. (Clarke may have been modeled after novelist John Galsworthy, some of whose work was published by the firm for whom Anthony Powell worked under the pseudonym "John Sinjohn".)
- Mark Members: Members, who while in public school made a name for himself by publishing a poem which got noticed by Edmund Gosse, has now published several volumes of poems and made a name for himself as a critic. As Acceptance World begins, Members is working as St. John Clarke's personal secretary. When he misses a date to meet Jenkins at the Ritz to discuss Clarke's work on a book about Horace Isbister, J.G. Quiggin shows up to advise that he has replaced Members working for St. John Clarke. At the end of Acceptance World Members is working for Boggis & Stone, the publishing firm which used to be Vox Populi Press, a left-wing publishing house.
- J.G. Quiggin: Jenkins first met him at a tea party at Sillery's at college, and Quiggin next shows up at Mr. Deacon's birthday party in Buyer's Market. In Acceptance World he meets Jenkins at the Ritz, in Mark Members' place, to advise he has taken over as St. John Clarke's personal secretary. A professional reviewer of "some notable ability", Quiggins still speaks with a grating North Country accent, and during a Planchette session at the Templer's in Maidenhead, Quiggin comes out as a "practicing Marxist".
- Horace Isbister: an artist about whose work Jenkins' firm is publishing a book in Acceptance World and a friend of St. John Clarke's. Isbister dies after catching pneumonia, and is described in one of his obituaries as "the British Franz Hals".
- Kenneth Widmerpool: doesn't show up in the first part of Acceptance World, but Jenkins learns from another character that Widmerpool is leaving Donners-Brebner to join "the Acceptance World", the world of finance companies or bill brokers who "accept" the debt for the period it takes a business transaction between two distant parties to be completed. Jenkins learns Widmerpool was responsible for getting Bill Truscott sacked from Donners-Brebner, following which Magnus Donners decided he didn't want Widmerpool around any more, either. Widmerpool shows up in the flesh near the end of Acceptance World, at the "Old Boys'" dinner at the Ritz. Now just over thirty years old, Jenkins reports he is getting "steadily fatter", the arms of his glasses becoming "increasingly embedded in wedges of fat below his tempoles".
- Peter Templer: Jenkins' great friend from their public school days, the two run into one another at the Ritz (where Jenkins has been stood up by Mark Members). Templer tells Jenkins he now owns a house in Maidenhead, and invites him to come for the weekend.
- Mona Templer: a model who was present in Buyer's Market at Mr. Deacon's birthday party (she formerly worked as an artist's model for Barnby), at the beginning of Acceptance World she is Peter Templer's wife. Later in the book she leaves Templer to take up with J.G. Quiggin, with whom she takes up political activism. The two rent a cottage in Sussex.
- Jean Templer Duport: a love interest of Jenkins' since they were teenagers, Jean comes back into Jenkins' life in Acceptance World through her brother Peter (the last time Jenkins saw her was at Stourwater during the luncheon with the Walpole-Wilson's in Buyer's Market) Jean is now estranged from her husband, Bob Duport, though they have a three year old daughter, Polly.
- Jimmy Stripling: Peter and Jean Templer's brother in law, formerly married to their sister Babs. Had an accident in one of his racing cars several years ago, and it seems to have affected his mind. Now works for Lloyd's as an underwriter, has taken up astrology and theosophy, and is romantically involved with the fifty-something Myra Erdleigh, though he is not yet forty himself (Jenkins notes he looks "prematurely old").
- R.H.J. "Dicky" Umfraville: slim, horsey and now in his forties, Stringham first met Umfraville while visiting his father in Kenya at the end of Upbringing. Three times married (one of the wives poisoned herself), Umfraville ends up married a fourth time to Anne Stepney (Jenkins learns this from Tolland at the "Old Boys'" dinner at the Ritz).
- Anne Stepney: Lord Eddie Bridgenorth's daughter and Peggy's sister, now almost totally dropped out of society circles and living the life of an artist. Ends up married to Dicky Umfraville.
- Tolland: a former classmate of Dicky Umfraville's in Le Bas' house at public school, Tolland tells Jenkins "Umfraville was my fag". Uncle of Norah Tolland, Eleanor Walpole-Wilson's close friend.
- Fettiplace-Jones: a Member of Parliament and former member of Le Bas' house, Jenkins runs into him at the "Old Boys'" dinner at the Ritz. Tall, dark and good looking, Fettiplace-Jones made an impression with his maiden speech in the House of Commons, but has been unimpressive ever since.
- Le Bas: the unmarried housemaster from the boys' public school Jenkins attended with Stringham, Tampler and Widmerpool. Tall, clean shaven and bald with chronically red, sore eyes and large rimless spectacles "like a German priest", he has difficulty with the letter "r". In Acceptance World he is in his sixties, and has a stroke at the "Old Boys'" dinner during a particularly tiresome speech delivered by Widmerpool.
- Milly Andriadis: known to have been "some King's mistress" (King George V was King of England between 1910 - 1936, but wouldn't have been spoken of in the past tense in 1931), this affair had already ended by the time of Buyer's Market (around 1924 - 1925) when she had a brief affair with Charles Stringham. Now living in a large block of flats in Park Lane, Milly is having an affair with a younger German anarchist called Werner Guggenbuhl (who later shows up as St. John Clarke's secretary, replacing Mark Members and J.G. Quiggin).
- Eleanor Walpole-Wilson: Jenkins runs into Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson at the Isbister show, who tells him Eleanor is now living permanently in the country, where she continues to breed dogs and "sees quite a lot of her friend, Norah Tolland".
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The Acceptance World
