I have had rather a wonderful morning. I was taken to the apartment of
a man who collects Italian primitives. He is young, as yet only about
twenty-seven, and one of the amazing products of this country. His
mother, they say, was a washer-woman, (why not?) and he determined to
go through college. At Harvard he paid his own way by buying up the
trouser press industry and syndicating it, and putting himself at the
head. He made a fortune by pressing the undergraduates’ trousers. This
is the “on-dit,” probably it is quite inaccurate, and he would tell a
very different story. Anyway it’s a good story, and the fundamental
thing is that he arose, from nowhere, out of the blue, so to speak.
What his work is now I didn’t hear, but he is collecting Italian
primitives. We saw them all before he came in. There were Botticelli’s,
Fra Angelico’s, Filippo Lippi, Bellini, and countless others. Each
one was lovely, and one felt much loved. The rooms were simply but
beautifully furnished with Italian pieces. In the dining-room the table
was laid, and next to the owner’s place was a book from which he reads
out a little prayer, for grace, before each meal. It sounded affected,
but I was assured it came from a deeply fervent spirit. I marvelled
much over this young man before I saw him. His bedroom was chaste and
hung with Madonnas, he had tall candles and things that suggested
holiness! There was only one personal note in the whole place, the
photograph of a very modern lovely girl.
Later, the owner arrived, a perfectly simple, unaffected, enthusiastic
boy, who knew all about his treasures and could tell about them. He
had the face of a Mantegna picture, and the stiff white modern collar
made him of today. Otherwise he was quite in keeping. There certainly
was no pose about him, and no suggestion of nouveau-riche.
Every day that I am in this country I am more amazed. What has produced
this curious type, that earns millions and prefers to spend on
pre-Raphaelites rather than on race horses?
I lunched with Emil Fuchs, who had a nice party, among whom Frank
Munsey, a curious personality. Intellectual but so, so cold. I managed
once to make him half smile. He came afterwards to Knoedler’s, he
looked at everything, silently, and left hurriedly without any
expression of opinion.
I dined with the Rosens, and Benjy Guiness and McEvoy and Purcell Jones
were of the party. While they went on to the box that Laurette Taylor
had given me for “Peg of My Heart” I went to the Town Hall and made a
Pacifist speech at a Disarmament meeting.