Motored with Admiral and Mrs. Grayson to some place outside Washington
to see Barney Baruch’s race horses. The stable is by the side of the
race course, but the District of Columbia has legislated against
racing, so now the track is used for a training ground. Queer form
of government this! How strange it would be if the County of Surrey
suddenly decided by a local County Council to suppress racing, there
would be no more Ascot, or if Liverpool suddenly decided to have no
more Grand National. I wonder if the English would stand it or rebel.
Americans seem to me to be a strangely well-disciplined community;
there will never be a revolution in this country!
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’s[6] will. 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 the surface. 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.[7] He
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 to _a_ world, but not to _the_ world.
But _now_ I 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 the world 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.