_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 straight across 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 one young 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. But _Old
World_ and _tradition_ have 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.