I lunched with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Lodge, and a beautiful girl, his granddaughter. Although I hardly knew the Senator I feel as if he were a relation. He was, until recently, a trustee for the children under my mother-in-law’s6will. We talked at great length about Mother Mary, whom I loved as he also loved her. We discussed her sorrows, her courage, her sense of duty. Almost she played the role in life of a great tragedienne, but with no appeal to the gallery. Very silent, and very lovely and very reserved she was, and her face was the face of Our Mother of Sorrows.
Few people know about my “Mother Mary.” But Senator Lodge knew and it was like bringing her dear ghost-face back again to life. After lunch Colonel Harvey fetched the Senator for a drive, the future ambassador to Britain is not an imposing individuality. He has the American sense of humor which is seldom lacking, and much there may be inside him that is not evident on thesurface. I felt no impression of him at all. It seemed to me a pity that the United States should not be represented by one of the types of America, with a square jaw, and clear bright eyes, and forceful personality, such as I meet over and over again.
They dropped me at the Shoreham and from there I proceeded out into the country in an open car with.... Such a lovely afternoon, hot enough to motor without a coat. We drove for miles but it seemed impossible to get away from other cars and other people however far we went. Finally we stopped in front of a lane, left the car and went rambling through someone’s private woods. There were three kinds of wild flowers I had never seen before, and whole bushes of wild azalea in bloom. We gathered armfuls. It seems too wonderful when I think of our tender care in growing azaleas at home, that they should grow wild here. And there was a big yellow “swallowtailed” butterfly. I have seen it in Italy. In England it does not exist. I remember as a child buying one for my butterfly collection, it cost half a crown. (I wonder if the price has gone up since.) We passed by a pond, and the sound of frogs was like the sound of birds, and quite as loud. In England frogs never say a word. I suppose these are a different kind of frog, or else we haven’t enough heat to rouse a protest from them. It was a very heavenly afternoon, out into the stillness of the country, in the sun, in the spring.
I dined at the Medill McCormick’s. A big party at small tables in several rooms. I sat next to Mr. Richard Washburn Child on one side. He is talked of as a possible United States Ambassador to Japan.7He looks very young. He asked me why I was “here,” which I took to mean America, not Washington, and I found myself telling him everything that I haven’t told even some of my best friends. He seemed to understand my feeling about the adventure of life. Some people never awaken, others start with their eyes wide open. I began late, I feel as if I had only waked up when I got to Russia. Perhaps I was slowly stirring ever since I began to work five years ago. But those years were too laden with overwork and anxiety as to the future, and the effort of attaining. I was conscious then of belonging toaworld, but not totheworld. ButnowI know the world is all mine for the discovering. I belong to every bit of it, and it all belongs to me. What care I where I live, so long as I find work, and sunshine, and from out the crowd one hand extended towards me in friendship?
When I got to Russia, I realized a great big new country that was thinking and working in a way I had never dreamt of. It was a tremendous awakening.And now, what hazard has led me back to my mother’s country? I find it is another great big new world, working and thinking in just as new and different a way, and as differently as Russia. But the size of these countries is what appeals to me. In Russia I could have (but I didn’t) taken a train for days, and travelled to other parts and been still in Russia. Here I have not, but I will—go west, go south, go north. For days and days I shall be able to go. From a commercial provincial town out into the land of endless flowers where there are no seasons, and the land gives out two crops a year.
I have a great desire to see more, and more, and yet more. To see it all, in fact. But I am tired (already) of civilization, of the luxury of baths and telephones, and the overabundance of food. I am tired of people, even of people who are kind, and people who are brilliant. I want to take Dick and get away somewhere into the wilds. Whenever I ask if there is some village in the hills; with an Inn, as for instance, in Cornwall, or in Italy, I am recommended a primitive wood, where there is “a colony.” I want to get away from the colony! Can’t I live for a while, as at Lerici, seeing only peasant people? Even outside Rome, within half an hour by rail, I found myself in Arcadian groves, where it seemed that only Pan had lived. I am told that here it is impossible, however remotely one travel to get away from the telegraph,telephone and motor cars. From England I had visualized this country, as consisting of New York, Washington and Chicago and Boston, and for the rest, that one mounted a horse, and rode out over prairies towards mountains. And I mean to find it is so. The land of the Red Indian must still contain some primitive unreclaimed spots. Anyway, there it all is, and mine if I choose to go and look for it. The world is a great wonder-place with wonder-people in it. I am drunk with love of it, love of the beauty and the capriciousness, and the unexpectedness of it. I want to see it all—Mexico, China, Egypt, Greece and back again to Russia, working all the way, hunting heads, and reading people and never arriving at any understanding, but loving it always as one loves the person who is big, generous, elusive, full of moods, and never to be understood.
Sometimes, though, I wish I could learn something from it all. I wish I could understand some of the problems, and have a few convictions. As I sit here and ruminate in front of my open window I think of many things, in a kaleidoscopic way. It is the first time I have had leisure to think since I landed in America. I have heard so many varied opinions over here, and I just begin to wish I knew for example: whether the Soviet form of government is right, or even partly right, or on the right trail, and whether the majority of theworld which condemns it, is wrong, or frightened, or sensible.
I wish I knew if human nature on the whole is very grand and fine, or whether it is chiefly murky and ugly and very selfish.
I wish I knew if there is such a thing as love, apart from maternal love, or whether it is all only passion.
I wish I could make up my mind as to whether civilization is a very valuable evolution, or a very great curse.
I wish I could decide whether I want to live in America, France or Russia, and whether I should like my immediate headquarters to be in New York or Washington.
I wish I knew how much the people who are nice to me really like me, or how much I am a curiosity.
I wish I knew whether I am happier than anyone else or happy at all.
Tuesday, April 26, 1921.
Alice Longworth fetched me a little after twelve (a piping hot day). We drove to the Senate. For about half an hour before lunch we sat in the gallery of the Senate Chamber. By strange chance a Senator called LaFollette was holding forth upon Ireland, and demanding that the governmentof the U. S. recognize the Irish Republic. It was strange to come to the Senate to hear home politics. I listened to censorious remarks on Great Britain and I felt that everyone was agreeing, both on the floor of the Senate as well as in the galleries. Senator LaFollette, with his gray hair standing on end, and his face pink with passion, left his desk, strode up and down, around and about, the while he shook a formidable finger at the empty seats around him. They were not entirely empty, however, for Senator Reed was listening with attention and approval. I had met Senator Reed at Mrs. McCormick’s party on Sunday night, and the subject of Ireland had arisen between us then. He told me he was contemplating a journey to Detroit to speak at a meeting for “Funds for Ireland.” I said to him that night: “If you are going to ask for funds for Ireland you must needs abuse Great Britain.” He answered that the one did not absolutely necessitate the other. But I surmised he only said it out of politeness to an Englishwoman. I feel I have met the anti-British wave at last. It is here—and it is in the Senate! But what can one say in self-defense about Ireland? Senator LaFollette reiterated all the arguments that were asserted in Moscow, and to which I could not answer a word. Such as the war having been fought to protect the small nations, self-determination by the people,freedom of Poland, of Jugo-Slavia, of Czecho-Slovakia, of God knows what else.
In my own heart I think the small nationalities are the causes of war, but having insisted and proclaimed their rights we certainlymustbe consistent. The only objection I have heard yet to the Irish Republic is the notion that she would be a base for an enemy fleet in the next war. To which the reply is obvious. She is further away from us than France. Besides, she was a base for the enemy fleet in the last war. Our problems would on the whole have been lessened if Ireland as an independent nation had openly sided with the enemy. We could have declared war on her, instead of being hand tied in the face of her enmity, by pretending that she belonged to our cause. Other theories are, that Ireland would not be our enemy if we gave her independence. Of course Ireland should have her Republic. I say it not as an Irish patriot, or even as an Irish sympathizer, but just as an onlooker, it seems to me the only logical possibility. I suppose the British Empire would lose some revenue over it, money is always at the bottom of all these problems.
When LaFollette had finished, Senator Reed, who had once or twice interrupted (to ask for information, not to criticize) crossed the house and shook hands with Senator LaFollette. Senator Reed has a handsome, regular, rugged face; he isan oldish man, gray haired, but his individuality is full of fight and aggression. He surely must be of Irish origin. Senator Borah was pointed out to me. He has a curious, wide, crumpled-up, forceful face, and long hair. He has been held out to me as one of the heads that would be interesting to do. Henry Cabot Lodge was talking in a back row with the Mormon Senator Smoot. I remember the latter when I was here ten years ago. I met him one evening at a party, and papa introduced us. On that occasion the conversation drifted upon forms of government, and I believe I said (papa has often reminded me of the story) that I believed in feudalism, my idea being a castle surrounded by small huts, which at sight of the enemy eject their inhabitants into the castle for protection. Senator Smoot said in answer to this: “And I gather from this that you, Miss Frewen, would be living in the castle.” I have progressed since then! I feel as if it were not I who had advocated feudalism ten years ago, but some other person within me who is a stranger to me, who is neither mother nor child to me.
Senator Lodge joined us at lunch in one of the private offices. I sat next to Senator Curtis, who is one-eighth Indian, so he told me. The only trace of it was in his fine hawk nose. I told him of my hope about returning from Mexico through the National Parks and he told me a lot about it,and much that was interesting about the Indians and promised to help me in my scheme, if I will write and let him know, where and when I want to go. We discussed the psychology of mixed races, and I wondered whether the faint drop of Indian blood in my own veins could possibly account for my dislike of civilization, and my longing to get away into the wilds alone. He thought that even such a remote strain might account for this.
After lunch we went downstairs to Senator Medill McCormick’s office. I had not yet met him as he has been away. I dined at the McCormick’s again in the evening. I liked the Senator. They are both wondrously hospitable. I am overwhelmed by Washington and want to remain here or come back. Every day I put forth a deeper root. New York has been hospitable, but whereas in New York I feel I am asked because I am a curiosity, here there is real warmth in the hospitality. I like all the people I have met, and the women are intelligent and interested in politics, not like the society women in New York, who seem to affect the blasé aloofness about Washington and all concerned. As for Alice Longworth, she is magnificent—“one of us,” as an Englishman said to me, meaning it as the highest compliment he could pay! She is not “someone” merely because she is her father’s daughter. She has her ownvery forceful personality. I feel she is the woman who should have gotten into the precincts of Lenin and Trotzky, not me! And they would have appreciated her! She is the Madame Kolontai type.
May 7, 1921.New York.
I have had a good week, quite one of the best since I arrived here. I had an order from Mr. C. to do a bust of Miss Spence for the school. Mrs. C., when she came to talk to me about it, told me that Miss Spence had to be treated as Royalty. Royalty do not alarm me, and I expected Miss Spence would! But she was far more interesting than that.
Every morning except one Miss Spence had sat to me from 10:15 until 1 o’clock—and we have hardly stopped talking the entire time. I have enjoyed every moment of the sittings, and subconsciously our talks have helped to mature certain plans in my mind, plans as to the future, and the education of my children. Miss Spence is among the largest minded people I have met over here. I like her points of view. I like her big heart, her adoration of immature youth, her understanding, and her quick grasp of situations. Moreover her head is extremely interesting, although very difficult to do. Her mouth has a kindly sense of humor without being weak. Her eyes, when she talks, light up with inward vision and enthusiasm.
We have talked a great deal about America, and I find myself talking to the Scotchwoman in her, not to the American born. It becomes a very impartial discussion. The position of woman here as compared with England is an unworn-out subject. The attitude of Englishmen toward the marriage state, their sense of possession, their domination, the laws of divorce, the laws of custody of children, we have reviewed it and deplored it.
To-day there is an account in theNew York Heraldof Lady Astor in the House pleading for mothers, that they may have at least an equal right to their children, and as Miss Spence pointed out, how strange that a woman fromthiscountry should have to do it for the English women!
We discussed “Main Street,” which we are both in process of reading. I have already said that its author is the Thackeray of the United States, but Miss Spence said even more. She said: “It is Balsac-ian.”
Monday, May 16, 1921.Philadelphia.
In New York they told me Philadelphia was “slow.” I came to Philadelphia on Saturday. It has not been “slow.” It has been breathless. I am staying with friends outside Philadelphia, in an area which seems to be known as the “Chilten Hills.” Perhaps the Chilten Hills are more energeticthan Philadelphia, and that may explain the breathless haste. I do not know. I have not been given time to analyze it.
I came to Philadelphia because the “Arts Alliance” club offered me an exhibition and asked me to open it (to-night) with a lecture.
Sunday was one uninterrupted twelve-hour rush in which one met over and over again (at places miles apart!) the same friendly faces that I had learned to know on Saturday night. This is the way the overworked American rests on Sunday:
At 10 o’clock I was taken out riding. Only once before in my life—and that a year ago—had I ever ridden astride. I was mounted on a thoroughbred hunter, but mercifully it was as quiet as a lamb. We rode in the sun for two hours. Going through peoples’ private grounds seems to be no offense in this country. Some time ago—at Bernardsville, New Jersey, I walked for miles unmolested through peoples’ woods and gardens, enjoyed their fountains and their flowers and their lawns. Yesterday was much the same. We rode peacefully, not “across country,” but across property. Honorably sticking to the paths, of course.
People don’t surround their grounds with walls and hedges and ditches here as in England. There appear to be no lodges and gates, and furious people. A gateless entrance is a great temptation, itlooks to me like an invitation. No Communist could war against these conditions. It really gives one a sense of fraternity. I need no garden of my own, if I may walk in my neighbor’s. His azaleas look just the same as mine would look, and his fountain sings the same song.
Returning from our ride late, we jumped into a 12-cylinder two-seater, in our riding clothes, and drove at a speed of fifty to the house of friends who had invited us for cocktails at midday! I felt rather as if we were film playing! At the friend’s house I also got an order to do a bust. Thus stimulated, we returned at a speed of sixty. Got home barely in time to bathe and change and start off again for a luncheon party.
After luncheon the entire party motored over to Mr. Stotesbury’s house. This incident deserves comment. Mr. Stotesbury’s house is just completed. It is a sort of Versailles. In reply to comment I heard someone say: “It was not really built so very quickly. It was begun five years ago.” Five years in which to begin and complete an American Versailles! Complete and perfect inside as well as the shell. Five years ago the site on which it stands was a wild countryside which harbored the fox. To-day it is levelled, terraced, planted and planned. Fountains tumble and splash arrogantly. Neatly trimmed box hedging pursues its Italian design, big trees brought from a distancethrive. It seems that you can bribe quite aged trees to survive transplantation that otherwise would die, and altogether one realizes that money can remove mountains or create them. Only—I discovered one rebel. My friend the orange tree, recognizing no King but the sun, had refused to grow oranges to order, and had to submit to having these wired on, but had produced no blossom!
The house was immense; faultless in architecture, and full of beautiful pictures and furniture. Nothing seemed to have been omitted in the planning. There was nothing to criticise. But like those people one meets occasionally, whose souls are still very young, the house lacked everything that time alone could bring. But Versailles was new once.
I suppose it gave lots of employment, and I wonder who earned the most, the designer, the contractor or the worker.
To-night I did the really brave thing. I stood up to an audience in Rittenhouse Square and talked about Lenin and Trotzky!
Everyone listened most politely, but of course I could not expect them to be really sympathetic. They were cold, though attentive. I don’t believe they were really interested about Russia at all. However, they knew it was about Russia I was going to talk, and the room was crowded to overflowing. In the dim remoteness I caught sight ofKenneth’s keen archaic face. I met it while I was in the middle of my lecture. It rather paralyzed me. I was not talking my best, I cannot, to an unresponsive audience, and I felt ashamed that Kenneth should hear me for the first time, and in such a way. He told me afterwards that I had done all that was possible, but asked if I understood his reaction. He was bred in Rittenhouse Square!
Later someone in the crowd asked me rather excitedly if I had heard the news, that “the Soviet Representative was here among us this evening....” My informant said it half incredulously, not knowing in the least who the Soviet Representative could be, and wondering if I would not be rather frightened at the idea of having been listened to by an official!
Someone else said to me: “I know what your political views are, you’ve entirely given yourself away....” “Explain,” I said. “Why of course you are a Bolshevist, because at the end of your lecture when you offered to answer questions you said they must not be economic questions, because at the mere thought of economics your mind becomes a perfect blank. That is exactly the case with all Bolshevists!”
Tuesday, May 17, 1921.New York.
I dined with the G.‘s to meet Mr. Hearst. I have heard almost more about him than anyonein America, and I was curious to see him. Great was my disappointment when I was told that Hearst was not there. He had been called away suddenly to Boston.
Mrs. Hearst came, and I sat next to Mr. Brisbane. I did not feel he was amiably disposed towards me at first, but I was careful not to discuss Anglo-American relations or the Irish question, and when I told him I was contemplating educating my children over here Mr. Brisbane melted a little. We talked about the absent Hearst, whom I realize is a great storm centre in this country. I must meet him before my curiosity can be allayed. I want to get my own impression of him. Russia has taught me that individuals are not as the world says they are. Mrs. Hearst, who is very pretty, was treated like a queen. Men sat on the floor at her feet, admiringly, and social reformers sat at her elbow beseechingly, and she smiled and assented, and listened and promised, and did all that a perfectly good queen should do, and like a perfectly real queen, jewel crowned, she arose and left before anyone else. But not without my telephone number and address. Mr. Brisbane eventually dropped me home in his car, he too promised, in the name of the queen, that I should meet Hearst, and maybe—who knows? Meanwhile the mystery of Hearst is still unsolved for me, but I see that I shall now have to add to my daily’s theNew York Americanbecause of Brisbane. Already I read theHeraldon account of Frank Munsey,The Worldbecause of Herbert Swope, and theTimesbecause of—well, because it originally god-fathered me! As well as theNation,The New Republic, theFreeman,Liberator, andSoviet Russia, most of whom have given me “Luncheons”; alsoArts and Decorations, whose co-editor once told me in unmeasured terms exactly what he thought of me for attaching undue importance to the Soviet leaders by having the effrontery to go and portray them!
Thus, as my knowledge increases, my working time decreases!
Saturday, May 21, 1921.
Dick and I and Louise started off for the week-end, not knowing in the least where we were going to. Someone fetched us, our tickets were taken and we were put on a train for Philadelphia. At Philadelphia we were removed to a private car. The day was steaming hot, and Dick enjoyed standing out on the balcony at the end of the car. It reminded me of my journey to Moscow, the private car that met Kameneff was just like it, perhaps it was made in the U. S. At Harrisburg we had an hour to wait and went motoring in the town. First we visited the Capitol to see George Barnard’s sculpture groups. These are attached tothe building on either side of the entrance, and they do not seem rightly to belong to the place. Perhaps Barnard is too individualistic to be architectural. We then drove along the riverside to the Country Club, which was opening that day. I must say, that if Harrisburg happened to be one’s “home-town,” or if by accident of fate one’s father or husband’s work attached one there, I can imagine living very happily in one of those riverside residences, bathed in sunshine, and prefaced with a lawn and trees—overlooking the great wide river with its islands and rapids, and the mountains beyond. It was truly grandiose.
Having in one hour “done” Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, we then continued our journey until we fetched up in a place called Chambersburg. This seemed to me remote, and detached from the world.
That evening a dance made of me a total wreck, but the next day was heavenly, spent in sleeping on the grass in the shadow of a bush. Dick tossed hay and said it smelt of home, and there was a rivulet which engulfed his boat, but he did not cry, he climbed onto the sluice gate and made believe the wheel was steering a real ship, and that comforted him. It was real, wild, ragged country, and we were happy. But it was a long way to go for one night and one day. On Sunday night we travelled back on the private car, sleeping fitfully.Since then Dick’s toy trains are all private cars, and I had hoped to make a good Socialist of him. All my work and plans are ruined. He seems to have become so very exclusive!
Friday, May 27, 1921.Philadelphia.
Having deposited Dick in New York, and having had a second inoculation for typhoid (preparatory for Mexico) and feeling quite ill, I returned to Philadelphia on Tuesday. The place is becoming almost familiar to me. It is not unlike an English old-world town, there are parts of it that recall Winchester, or even remote bits of London. I have come to work. When I was here last someone commissioned me to do her husband. “If you can get him to sit for you,” she said. I have got him. It is true he made every effort to evade me, to escape me, to postpone me. But I was determined not to be beat, and I gave him no loophole. Dr. Tait McKenzie has lent me his studio, and my victim comes there every morning from 11 to 1. He says he hates it, and he arrives protesting and resentful. But I like him, and we talk quite pleasantly all the time without stopping. I think he resents it less than he imagines. He has a good head, typically American.
When I get back in the afternoon to my friends in the Chilten Hills, where I am staying, I work in the loggia, on the portrait of their little daughter.She is the same age as my Margaret, and makes me feel rather homesick. To-morrow I return to New York, my work completed.
Sunday, May 29, 1921.New York.
Dick and I with Kenneth, caught an 11:30 train for Croton. We lunched with Crystal Eastman and her husband, Walter Fuller, in a roadside cottage surrounded by roses. It was real country and, luxuriantly green, with the fresh immaturity of impending summer. In the orchard on the steep grassy hill behind the house the children climbed a cherry tree, and Dick brought me greenleafed branches hanging with ripe sweet cherries. After lunch we walked up the road to see the view from the top of the hill. There is a sort of Colony at Croton, and every other house is inhabited by someone one knows, or who knows the other. All work-worn journalists, artists and Bohemians generally, who come there with their children for a rest. The houses have no gardens, the grass grows long and the rose bushes are weed tangled. Now and then a bunch of peonies survives. The cottages have almost an abandoned look, for the town toilers are too weary to work in their gardens when they get there. Towards the hill summit I noticed a wooden veranda’d cottage, looking rather neglected and lonely, the ground sloped down to a stream where some yellow and some purple irisbloomed amid the waste. On the post box at the gate were inscribed the two names: Reed, Bryant, and sure enough it was the summer cottage of Jack Reed and his wife. My thoughts shot straight across to Moscow, and to the grave under the Kremlin wall. At the top of the hill we lay down in the long grass under the shadow of a giant tree, and felt like insects, with the butter-cups so much higher than ourselves, and the tall seed grasses like slender trees above our heads. Dick, who was unrestful, and looking for work, built a wall of loose stones between us, “to separate us,” he said, and that accomplished he proceeded to pull down a post and chain and dig up another. In my half somnolent state I was aware of much hammering and cracking and splitting but took no notice. After awhile Dick came running to me, and in some trepidation asked anxiously if he were likely to be put in prison.
“What on earth for?” I asked.
“Because I’ve been destroying the man’s property,” he said.
“What man?” I asked.
“The man whom this place belongs to.”
“Be happy,” I advised him; “be happy and enjoy whatever the work is you have undertaken even if it’s the destruction of the other fellow’s property.” And so Dick went back, and the sounds of hammering were mingled with a love song he’dlearned from the gramaphone and no man disturbed our peace.
Returning whence we came, after a time, we sauntered into the garden of Mr. and Mrs. Boardman Robinson, there on a slope, overlooking the tennis court and the wonderful distant view of the Hudson; a large party eventually foregathered. Quite apart from the fact that it was pleasant, conditions made it extremely attractive. It was as though Greenwich Village in summer array had been dumped down with almost deliberate pageantry upon the grass. There were men in open-necked shirts, and there was one in a green sweater, another in a butcher blouse shirt and corduroy trousers like a Frenchouvrier. Women in yellow, and orange, children in royal blue, or bare-armed and bare-legged in bathing suits; lovely splotches of color grouped among the tree stems. Boardman Robinson, looking like a primitive man, with his red unkempt beard, bushy eyebrows and hair standing on end, lay on his stomach in the grass listening intently to Walter Fuller’s little sister, who sang old English folk songs to us, and sang them gracefully without any self-consciousness. Floyd Dell, the author of “Moon-Calf,” was there, and a great many people I didn’t know. And all the children were good (by a strange coincidence there was not a girl-child among them...!) and all the people were happy.One or two mothers asked me (and I looked at them twice to see if they were serious) when in my opinion conditions in Russian would be sufficiently adjusted to enable them to take their children there for education.
That evening, about 8:15, the train disgorged us in New York, and Dick, looking truly proletarian, went triumphantly two hours late to bed.
Monday, May 30, 1921.
I spent all the afternoon sitting to Emil Fuchs. He painted me last 15 years ago. Since then much water has flowed under the bridge. He did me then in a big Gainsborough hat and a fashionable black dress. I had just emerged from the school-room and my ambition was to look like a widow. To-day he did me in my yellow working smock.
I have known him since I was twelve years old, in the days when he worked in London and Edward VII was his patron. Success leaves no imprint on Fuchs. He is one of those modest ever-dissatisfied-with-himself, over-sensitive beings. He has never grown the extra skin which is one’s armor in dealing with the world. Fuchs is almost too sensitive, too deep feeling to be able to live at all. All his thoughts are beautiful thoughts, and if the world is not as beautiful as he demands it should be he feels almost suicidal with depression. He is the most generous-souled, pure-visionedperson I have ever known. He likes very few people, and makes few friends, but those he does make are more devoted to him than other people’s friends are to them!
The picture began awfully well, I have great hopes and he was wildly enthusiastic. It was one of the few occasions on which I have seen him happy.
June 2, 1921.New York.
Yesterday I went downtown to the Mexican Consulate. As soon as I walked in, Tata-Nacho saw me, and this strange looking descendant of Montezuma, in a musty office, showed me every possible attention. It was not his fault that the acting consul sent me word that he was not sure if he could give me a visé, or not, as Bolsheviks are not wanted in Mexico! Think of Mexico becoming so respectable! I was asked to return the next day for my answer. This morning, feeling disinclined for a downtown journey on chance, I telephoned, demanding my visé by post or my refusal by phone. “There are other places to go to for the summer,” I explained, “and I don’thaveto go to Mexico!” The answer was that everything was in order.
I dined on the Astor roof in Broadway with M., who sails for Europe in the morning en route for Moscow. It is a delightfully planned place suchas I have never seen before, and mixed with our talk of Russia, making a fitting background, “Macy’s” Scarlet Star, the communist emblem, stood defiantly illuminated against the sky.
Monday, June 13, 1921.New York.
We stayed with our cousins, the Jerome Lawrences, at Rye, for the week end. It is on “the Sound.” We motored to the yacht club and lay on rocks in the sun, getting more and more burned. Dick, after paddling for some time, demanded to bathe. To my amazement, I was told that not only must he put on a bathing suit, but he must undress in the bathing house. Dick asked “why?” He is accustomed every year in England to be sunkissed, either in the sea or in the woods—whenever there is a warm enough sun. I have taken many photographs of him and Margaret naked on the hillside and among the flowers. There is nothing on earth more beautiful than the body of a child.
I recall my horror when a nun at Margaret’s Convent told her that she must never look at herself because the human body is “disgusting” (she used the term), and Margaret asked her, “Who made our bodies? and who made our clothes?” Such an attitude of mind in a nun is perhaps not unexpected, but one is surprised at the lack of simplicity in a great primitive country. But in the United States the Puritan origin has dominatedover all other races with which it has eventually become amalgamated; stronger than the Latin is the Puritan—stronger than the German, the Dutch, the Irish, or the Jew. In this amazing country even the mature foreign element is bent, broken, molded, forced into an American! And in a very short space of time—it is this standardization that suppresses individuality. In this particular instance I suppose it is good that the masses should bathe in suits, it is good for the masses that the bathers should undress under cover, and so it goes on from little to larger things, from unimportant details to larger issues. Some day perhaps, when there is time to stop to take a breath a few individualities will be allowed to live among the standardized—at present those few slip off abroad, and live there! But I am not complaining, I am only wondering why with all its restrictions, I like living in it better than I like living in the freest country on earth—England!
On Sunday night I had one of the great surprises of my life. It will be as memorable as any of the big events that have come to me. We were sitting on the piazza at dusk, and I asked, pointing to the bushes: “Am I mad? What is that?” “That is a firefly.” I had heard vaguely of fire-flies, but no one had ever described to me what a June night in America could be like. W. B. Yeats has written of Ireland that “the night was full ofthe sound of linnets’ wings,” but I have not read the poet who has sung about the fireflies. As the night became darker, the world became full of small, twinkling, winking, dancing lights, from the highest tree-tops down to the grass. I ran upstairs. Dick was asleep. I hoisted him on to my back and carried him, still sleeping, out into the wild orchard across the road. Presently Dick lifted a sleepy head from my shoulder and looked around him. “It’s the Germans shootin’,” he said. “No,” I corrected, “it’s fairies.” He gave a little giggle of delight and exclaimed: “Fairies! To guard us?—” And as I walked towards the dark trees in the distance he clung around my neck. “Don’t let’s get lost in fairyland.” The crickets were making an unholy and flippant noise. It was all very merry and happy. There were darting lights all around us, in the long grass at our feet, in the bushes overhead, against the darkness of the distance, exactly like the scene of the treetops in Peter Pan. On our way home Dick said, “I don’t think they’re fairies, I think it’s the stars have come down to play.”
I looked up at the sky. It was full of stars—stable, serious, solemn stars. What star would not, if it could, drop down to earth and play hide and seek with the moon shadows and mischievously rouse all the crickets on a June night. Yes, I think I agree with Dick, they were young baby stars,making merry. In two minutes from the time his head touched the pillow Dick was fast asleep again. I went in search of Mary Brennan, the Irish maid, who is Dick’s friend. “Mary!” I said, “when you see Dick in the morning, remember he has been playing to-night with stars.” “Not with firebugs?” Mary answered with perfect understanding.
Friday, June 17.New York.
My last night before sailing, and I was taken to dine on a roof in Brooklyn. It was the roof of a hotel, and it was very cleverly made to look like the deck of a ship. From that deck one had a most superb view of one bit of New York—a monumental group of buildings which included the Woolworth Tower and seemed to rise up out of the sea. In the distance was the Statue of Liberty holding up her torch for the ships at sea. We watched the sun set behind the tall buildings, and the lights and shadows seemed to produce a cubistic picture. But I was silenced by so much beauty. Is it my artist eyes, I wonder, that make me so appreciative of the world? How strange that the Earth is always beautiful, and Man’s buildings sometimes are, especially with surroundings and background of color and light and shade. It is only in the human mind and the human body that God seems to have failed sometimes.
Sunday, June 19, 1921.
S. S. Monterey. En route for Vera Cruz.
Dick and I are so happy. It is calm as a lake and gets better every hour.
The first day the color of the sea was a deep Prussian blue. The next day it was pure sapphire. To-day it has been the same color as the sky, so you could not tell where they met on the horizon. and so transparent that one could see the fishes deep down. There were flying fishes too. They rose up at our ship’s prow and skimmed over the sea surface like little silver aeroplanes!
The ship seems so small and the sea so large and we seem to be going so slowly, so leisurely, as if all the time in the world were at our disposal and we simply didn’t care where or when we fetched up.
Last night it was agreed that Dick should stay up late as a great treat. He wanted to see how night comes on the ocean. Almost as if it were for Dick’s appreciation, night played up in the most dramatic fashion. From behind a cloud bank there appeared a tiny speck of orange. It grew in as short a space as could be counted in seconds into a big round moon, a cloud that drooped over it was lit up like a human face by firelight. Dick asked: “Who is the figure in the sky?” It looked like a giant Destiny gazing into an orange crystal. The reflection made a golden rippling pathway straightacross the sea to us. Dick, who was sitting on the ship’s bow with his legs dangling over and one arm tightly clinging round my neck, suddenly kissed me, fervently, which was exactly what I felt about it! On the opposite side there was a lightning display for our benefit. It came from one point, always from behind the same cloud bank. It turned the sky into the most perfect Valkyric background. When Dick asked me what the stars were like to touch: “Are they soft, or do they burn?” I had to tell him they were great big worlds like ours. Dick felt very small—we both did.
Whatever Mexico may or may not have in store for us, the journey alone is well worth while. The contrast after four bewildering months in New York is extreme. The peace and the beauty are reviving and one gets back one’s sense of judgment, which one is apt to lose in the crowd.
How unimportant it is, whether anyone thinks I am or am not Bolshevik, how little it matters if someone has turned their back on me at dinner, or unduly praised whatever work I’ve done. How completely nothing matters except to be on speaking terms with oneself, and one cannot be unless one is living one’s own life, and not playing a part. All of which sounds very pedantic. I believe one is apt to get pedantic if one is alone.
No one on board is the least interesting, but oneyoung man has insisted on attaching himself. He is a Mexican architect, who has just graduated from the University at Philadelphia. He will be very useful at Vera Cruz with the luggage. There is a middle-aged American who inspires that unfailing American reliability. When I told him what I had heard of Mexico and Mexicans: “Forget it!” he said; and so I am facing my destination with a blank mind.
My feelings at leaving New York were conflicting. In a sort of way I felt I was leaving home. The compliment (for it should be a compliment) has two sides: Home of course is Home; but one is always rather pleased to get away. The U. S. is so conventional and comfortable, so proper and business-like, so well regulated, so absolutely just what it should be, it is like married life! To leave it, to launch out into the blue unknown is exciting and stimulating. It seems to me I belong to two rather prosaic countries. I, who love color, song, romance! There is no reason why one should have to choose between them, each supplies something the other lacks, and I might as well own them both. ButOld Worldandtraditionhave become museum preserves. They are no longer working concerns; and the word “Imperialism” gives me a pain in my head. So much for my father’s land. In my mother’s country I find a heap of things that irritate me, but it’s a “live-world,”efficient, and infinitely large. There is space, without Imperialism, a new world, without decadence, and without tradition. Although it is reactionary and conservative on the surface, it is at heart young and progressive and opens wide areas to new ideas.
Thursday, June 23, 1921.
We arrived in Havana and went ashore about 10 A.M. Not having so far made friends with anyone on board, Dick, I and Louise went off alone. From the tugboat that brought us off our ship we stumbled on the quay into the arms of a guide, who stood in wait. Unable to speak a word of Spanish, we allowed him to attach himself to us. We were to have his guideship and the services of a Ford car for three hours, $10 complete. They were suffocating hours. The sun beat down on the canvas hood of the little car which bumped and rattled through the uneven, narrow streets. The guide, true to type (it recalled old days in Italy!) was boring and garrulous. I wanted to get a general impression of Havana, and my contemplation was rudely broken into when the Y. M. C. A.‘s building was insistently pointed out to me, and similarly other buildings of no interest.
The Cathedral where Columbus was buried alone stands out in my memory as a thing of beauty, but we got no further than an inner courtyard—theCathedral itself was closed for repairs. The town seemed to have innumerable, modern marble monuments, each one more in ill taste than the other and each Cuban patriot thus commemorated had to be described at length by our unshaven guide. As for the living Havanians, they seemed to me to be a people asleep. Everywhere they slept at full length on the ground in the squares; in the avenues or leaning in doorways—even our chauffeur was asleep in the car when we came out from stamping letters at the post office! People who walked in the street looked at us wonderingly and sleepily, open-mouthed and heavy-eyed. It may have been the siesta hour of the town. After lunching at the Hotel Ingleterra we made for the quay, and there chartering a motor boat explored the harbor before returning on board. That was the part Dick liked best. He had been very bored with the town, and was greatly relieved to hear that Havana was not Mexico, as he has great expectations of our ultimate destination.
A few new passengers joined the ship in the evening, a few old ones having left. Those that have been on board from New York, seem to have done the usual ship trick, which is to break up into couples and walk round the ship’s angles at dusk, arm round waist. One looks on almost cynically, the thing is so inevitable. My cynicism and aloofnessmakes me feel old. Dick, however, knows the whole ship—the youngest and the oldest passengers are his devoted friends; the officers, the stewards and the ship hands are his intimates. The captain, who teases him with great earnestness, is taken very seriously and more respected by Dick than loved. But the little girl passengers he treats with almost silent contempt!
The only friend I have on board is the “reliable American,” and he proves to be of the type that confirms all my views about American men. He justisreliable, and thoughtful and infinitely kind. Nor is he a negligible personality. He is the president of an important company—and was arrested and condemned to death by Villa during one of the revolutions. Why he is alive to tell the tale is just a case of luck. He has the simplicity and the national pride of the usual American, but he can speak French, Spanish and Italian, and even read them. It is he, and not the young Mexican architect, who promises to be useful with the luggage at Vera Cruz!
We paused five miles out from Progresso, to unload some cargo and take on some new passengers, all of which was done with infinite labor by steam tug and barge. One of our fellow travelers is a Syrian Jew going ashore at Progresso and invited me to go with him to see the town, but the reliable American assured me the Syrian would delay mesightseeing until after the departure of our ship, and he thought my adventures need not begin quite so soon. Accordingly I remained on board.
I have learned something on the journey already, and that is, to appreciate the sallow ivory complexions of the South Americans; both in the men as in the women it seems to be infinitely more beautiful than the best admired pink and white to which one is accustomed. I noticed it particularly when a fresh fair complexioned man was talking with the olive-skinned Syrian, the fair man looked so pink in comparison, that one felt he had been skinned.
The journey has been perfect, only one night was it too hot, and I had to carry Dick on deck to sleep. For the rest it has been cool and calm, until about two hours from Vera Cruz when we ran into a storm. Then my beautiful jeweled sea became angry and white capped and opaque, and spat forth spray, but it had not long in which to do its worse, and at four P.M. on Monday, June 27th, we landed.
Tuesday, June 28, 1921.Vera Cruz.
I find I am always justified in not fussing beforehand as to the ultimate unravelling of details. In Russia, wherever I needed help, the necessity of the occasion created a friend, and so it is this time: The reliable American, friend of a few days only,could not have done more for me if I had been his sister. He helped me through the customs with my baggage, was joined by his partner, another reliable American who, having known me not more than twenty minutes, gave up his room at the hotel to me, because there was not another to be had. If ever a poet were required to sing praises the American man deserves his poet.
The hotel bedroom was high, floor tiled and almost empty of furniture except for two double beds. Long windows opened on to a balcony overlooking the square, full of green tropical trees and flowering shrubs. A great gnarled fire-tree, with its scarlet blossom dominated all other trees, and in the background was the old Spanish Cathedral, its dome covered with buzzard birds, and its tower full of bells. I could have spent hours at my window, feasting my eyes on this scene. I had to share this one and only precious room with Louise and Dick. We had planned to stay for two nights. I have come to Mexico in the same frame of mind with which I went to Russia, prepared for every adventure and discomfort. At bedtime I said to Louise: “I suppose we ought to draw lots as to which sleeps with Dick, but I don’t mind telling you that you can have him!” (I have vivid recollections of the terrible kicks administered by Dick all through the only night I ever spent with him!) Louise replied that she would bear it and we wentto bed congratulating ourselves that we had coincided with a storm at Vera Cruz, which was less unpleasant than being baked alive. I had not been long asleep, however, when the rain leaking through the roof over my bed waked me, I pushed my bed into another part of the room. No escape, however, before long the entire ceiling was dripping, and there was only one small dry corner of the room. Into this corner I pushed Dick and Louise. Then, barefooted, I paddled about on the streaming floor, rescuing luggage and clothes. Finally I retired to my damp bed, wrapped in my rug, and with an umbrella open over my head. It seemed but a few minutes before the dawn broke and with it, awakened all the buzzards and all the blackbirds in the square. They shrieked, they whistled, they sang shrill tunes like noisy canaries. It was as if one had one’s bed in the parrot house at the Zoo, and the parrot house leaked. Dick thoroughly awakened, got the giggles and my irritation accentuated the absurdity. What a night! No further sleep being possible, we dressed and went down to breakfast on the sidewalk under the arcade. Here native boys came hovering round with their shoe-shining paraphernalia, which is quite a flourishing trade. Vendors with baskets full of native wares, postcard sellers and newspaper boys; blind beggars and deformities, all were part of our kaleidescopic “entourage,”besides the sombrero’d Mexicans of every type, who walked by us in the street, as spectacular as any passing show.
At the neighboring and opposite tables, men stared glad-eyed and even signaled: one hardly dared to let one’s eyes rest anywhere except on the birds in the trees!
When the rain cleared we engaged a Ford car and told the driver we would start in a quarter of an hour; but when we were ready to start our car was surrounded by a crowd and a policeman arrested the driver and led him away. Another was substituted. My Spanish being nil, I was unable to ascertain what had happened. Our drive was rather like going across country, and for the first time in my life I realized the value of a Ford car. No other car could or would have driven through the ponds and streams, over the boulders and rocks and negotiated the bumps and ruts that we did! This native drove his car as though it were accustomed to go anywhere; in fact, there was no direction that one pointed to, that he was not prepared to go to, road or no road! No wonder we finally punctured a tire, but happily we were near home and so walked. At tea time the two reliable Americans fetched us and we went by tramway to the bathing beach. The waves were high and the sea was warm and only the Americans knew how to swim. Dick got wildly excited and almostpanic-stricken as each big wave rose up and came towards him. That night, my bed being soaking wet from the drips that had fallen all day, I threw off the mattress and slept soundly wrapped in my rug on the bare wire springs; also it was cooler.
Wednesday, June 29, 1921.Mexico City.
Those blighted birds in the square waked us again before 5 A.M., so I got up immediately, and we were down on the sidewalk at 5:30 having breakfast. Later we were joined by our Americans and together drove to the station for the 6:20 A.M. Mexican train. On arrival we were refused a ticket, being informed by the office that already more tickets had been sold than they had accommodations for. We pushed by the barrier, and boarded the train, it was obvious we must get there somehow. Many of our fellow shipmates were on the train and kindly offered to take turns, sharing their seats. Heaps of people were standing. The compartment was like a tramcar, even with the luxury of a seat it was not a 15-hour journey that promised any comfort. As the day grew hotter, I found the best place was to sit on the platform of the last coach and dangle my feet overboard. Dick and Louise joined me. Three or four men stood up behind us and on the steps of the platform right and left sat armed guards, rifle in hand. Rumor had it that the train had been known to be attackedby bandits in lonely places. Most of the time our armed guard slept, and one of them fell off, but run as he would he could not catch up the train. We climbed and climbed up through the mountains to a height of 10,000 feet until we were cloud enveloped—the train couldn’t go very fast, and some of the youths of the party did actually jump off and run behind.
During the first part of our journey we passed through a chaotic riot of tropical vegetation. Everything grew everywhere, under giant trees were dense bushes, and on the tree trunks and branches grew countless other species of plant, as though a gardener had grafted one onto another in profuse experiment. There were banana, cocoanut, coffee, maize and so many new and bright-colored flowers that I was bewildered. There is not a flower or a fruit of any color or shape that any Futurist could invent, that does not grow in Mexico. We stopped at wayside stations, where the villages were built of grass huts and the natives in bright colors were like flowers among the green. Mexicans on bucking ponies, over which they had perfect control, were all part of what seemed almost a stage scene. As we climbed higher, however, the luxuriant vegetation ceased, but the effects of sunlight and shadow as we looked down from the damp clouds onto the sunlit valleys below, really was grandiose. After that it became socold we were forced to return inside the coach. For hours we endured closed windows, over-crowded seats, smoking and spitting, and eventually the smell of primitive oil lamps. Outside one looked for miles and hours onto plains covered with cactus. One’s back ached and one’s head was heavy, but no sleep was possible, and there was nowhere to rest one’s head. Dick sat on my knee, and was astonishingly good. I have, in fact, never known him so before. He seemed to realize that our nerves were as tense as possible. He stroked my cheek and said he could see by my eyes that I was tired, he was caressing and gentle.... Oh! those miles and miles of cactus, how one grew to hate them, and the Chinaman who would spit and the Mexican who would stare, and the baby who would cry, and the man who would smoke a cigar, and the woman who would close the last window! At 8:30 P.M. the lights of Mexico City proclaimed our journey ended, and just in time, for there comes at last a moment when one’s courage and sense of adventure just crumple and one has to cry. I was terribly near it, when our American friends came and joined us. I declare if there had been more room I would have laid my head on the shoulder of one. They were gallant to the end, and saw us safely installed in the Imperial Hotel, before saying good-bye, and then: We slept, we slept, we slept....
Thursday, June 30, 1921.Mexico City.
We awoke, very late, in a town that is wide avenued, full of motors, and disappointingly civilized. The civilization may be only skin deep, and may not extend beyond the town limits, who knows...? But for people who looked for and hoped for something primitive, disordered and tropical, to find order, dullness and coolness, is ridiculous. Louise and I, comparing notes as to our expectations and realizations, simply laugh. Vera Cruz wasn’t very civilized, and the journey yesterday was as primitive as one could look for, but Mexico City appears to be cosmopolitan and up to date. In the morning, on our way back from shopping, we passed through a very pretty little garden, called “Alameda,” and there a band was playing. “Who’d work?” said Louise, as we seated ourselves on comfortable chairs under an awning, with matting under our feet. Certainly the people could have worked, who preferred, like us, to loaf and listen! Dick sailed an improvised boat in a fountain pond. The man who sat opposite came and sat next to us, otherwise all was harmony.
After lunch we drove to Chapultepec, a more beautiful or well-cared-for park I have never seen. It positively outdoes the Bois de Boulogne. In comparison with Central Park, where one is so aggressively over-guarded by men with whistles, inspite of which the place is littered with paper, this park is as neat as a private garden. Everyone seems to behave with taste and decorum, and there seem to be no guards to keep order. One or two mounted police in gray and red, wearing large sombreros and riding gaily caparisoned ponies, added to the picturesqueness. We hired a boat for an hour and rowed on the lake, but the effort of rowing made one’s breath short, and one’s heart did a variety of irregular movements. I had heard that the high altitude effected one this way. On a hill close to us stood the castle of Chapultepec, with its distant background of mountains. A beautiful situation to live in, but the most unenviable of positions. I think I would prefer almost any fate on earth except that of President of Mexico. Like the Roman Rulers, one after another, doomed to destruction.
Friday, July 1, 1921.Mexico.
In the morning I delivered my letter of introduction from Mr. Fletcher to Mr. Summerlin. In the afternoon I was asked to go and see him. He at once handed me a cable which had arrived the day before, and addressed to me under his care. It contained news that I read and re-read before my numbed brain could take it,—the announcement of Aunt Jennie’s8death. I tried to pull myselftogether and talk of things Mexican with Mr. Summerlin, who was very charming to me, but the weight of my news was overwhelming. I drove out to San Angel Inn, in the country with Dick and we had tea in the patio, where blue plumbago and magenta bougainvillia mingled together from the verandah to the roof. Dick played in a fountain. It was wondrously peaceful, and good to look at.
I have left England to “make good” and of all the people I love, and who love me, and whose eyes have followed me across the sea, Aunt Jennie’s were among the keenest. I would have liked to do my best work for her appreciation. Her praise, her approval, her advice, her love was something that counted. The loss of her, and the contemplation of years to face without ever seeing her again is difficult to grasp. I cannot imagine returning to an England that does not contain her. My second mother, my loyallest friend. She had the rarest qualities, and the largest heart, which made her loveable. She was “worldly-wise,” yet neither wise nor worldly. She loved passionately and generously as her heart dictated, and always she gave out more than she received. She married three times, and twice in a wayward and unworldly fashion. Partly what I am today is the result of her early influence. I used to admire and love her in a rather awe-struck way when I was a child, andwhen I was 17 I believed she could do no wrong. Her judgment seemed to me infallible. In those days we lived exactly opposite, in great Cumberland Place, London, and I used to sit with her every morning and while she dressed I was made to read the leading articles in theTimes. I was very shy, having ran wild for years in Ireland. Aunt Jennie took the raw and untamed girl, taught her how to do her hair; made her put on her clothes with care, and scolded her into a civilized woman. She used to say to me: “While you are dressing, put your mind to it, and do the best you can with yourself. After that, never give your appearance another thought.” She would scold me unmercifully if I did not make an effort to talk to whatever man I sat next to at luncheon or dinner: “Remember you are asked, not for your amusement, but to contribute something to the party....” The letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son were as nothing compared to the worldly advice of Jennie Churchill to her niece. She frightened me, but I loved her, because I knew she was just, and I knew she was right. For years she took me out into the world and did with me the best she could. It became an accepted thing with me, that she had all the attention, and her admirers were kind to me on her account. I used to wonder whether I would have to wait to attain her age in order to have my own success. I never resented it, my admirationfor her was too great, I just took for granted that things were so. In later years my awesome fear ebbed away, and we became confidential friends on a mature basis. I seemed after marriage to catch up to her, and in my widowhood we had a perfect understanding. There was nothing then that we would not tell one another and I bowed to her superior experience and judgment. Her understanding, her tolerance and her love had made her very precious. When I returned from Russia, she was my loyallest friend, and championed me. My last evening before sailing for New York, was a reunionde familleat her house for dinner. After dinner she took me aside and talked to me intimately, and advisedly. She made me promise that if I did not like being in America I was to return at once, “You have a loving, a loyal and a powerful family,” she said, and hoped I was not going to be lonely or unhappy in a strange new world which she had known and left. At eight the next morning she surprised me by being at the station to wish me godspeed, I was deeply touched, but saddened by a rather wistful look in her face. God bless her, she was a splendid independent woman. She disregarded public opinion, and her own was very strong. She was beautiful and brilliant; never banal, never conventional, always a great personality.