Dear ----,--We got here safely, with the usual submarine scares _en
route_, but apparently no real danger. Vessels going westward from
England are not much the U-boats' concern, nor are the U's, I guess,
particularly keen on wasting torpedoes on passenger ships. What they
want to sink is the goods.
Anyway, we got here safely. It is all very wonderful and novel, and the
interest in the War is unmistakable; but what I want to tell you about
is an experience that I have had in the house of one of the leading
picture collectors here--and the art treasures of America are gradually
but surely becoming terrific. If some measure is not passed to prevent
export, England will soon have nothing left, except in the public
galleries. Of course, for a while, America can't be so rich as if she
had not come into the War, but she will be richer than we can ever be
for a good many years, while the steel people who make the implements of
destruction at Bethlehem will be richest of all. What my man makes I
cannot say, but he is a king of sorts, even if not actually a Bethlehem
boss, and the Medici are not in it! I have introductions to all the most
famous collectors, but, hearing of his splendours, I went to him first.
Well, I sent on my credentials, and was invited to call and inspect the
Plutocrat's walls. You never saw anything like them! And he refers to
his collection only as a "modest nucleus." He has agents all over the
world to discover when the possessors of certain unique works are
nearing the rocks. Then he offers to buy. As his wealth is unlimited,
and sooner or later all the nobility and gentry of England, France,
Italy and Russia will be in Queer Street, his collection cannot but grow
and become more and more amazing. He even had the cheek to send the
Trustees of the National Gallery a blank cheque asking them to fill it
up as they wished whenever they were ready to part with TITIAN'S
"Bacchus and Ariadne." Though he calls himself a patriot, directly the
War is done he will make overtures to Germany. There is a Vermeer in
Berlin on which he has set his heart, and another in Dresden.
I could fill reams in telling you what he has. But I confine myself to
one picture only, which he keeps in a room by itself. I am not so
foolish as to pretend to _know_ anything, but to my eyes this picture
was nothing whatever but the Louvre's "Monna Lisa."
That being of course impossible, "What a wonderful copy!" I said.
"You may indeed say so," replied my host.