I had settled down in my studio, with the desire that overcomes one
after awhile to atone for infidelity. I had firmly resolved never
more to write nor speak, and to cleave only to the one art that is
in my heart. My mind was full of new creative work, dancing figures,
fantasies and portraits, when suddenly I was asked to go to Boston and
address a meeting for Russian relief.
I accepted the offer, not because I presumed that any effort of mine
could help much towards the starving Russian babies, but I wanted to
see Boston.
I had heard of Boston almost more than of any town in the United
States. Henry James whom I’d loved from childhood, had come from there,
and my mother-in-law who used to say to me: “I am not American, I am
Bostonian.” Henry Adams I had known, and Cabot Lodge, the friend of my
father, they too came from there. I had heard of the child who recited
the Lord’s prayer saying: “... Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as
it is in Boston,” and so I started off with curiosity, and expectations.
I got there on Friday night just in time to speak at Ford Hall, which
was fitted with a motley crowd (and some Motleys among the crowd, who
had come out of curiosity to see their unknown in-law, and who would
never otherwise have dreamt of going to such a meeting!)
The audience were responsive and sympathetic, but I knew they had to
be cajoled, entertained, amused. I made them laugh. So they stayed and
listened. I made an appeal, and brought in a few hundred dollars.
But I despise the methods that have to be used to induce sympathy
for starving babies. People have to be bribed to give, bribed by the
possibility of amusement--endless vitality is exhausted in organising
balls, theatre performances, concerts, or entertaining lectures that
will draw the otherwise apathetic. I have seen in a little fifth story
room on the East Side, the voluntary efforts of skilled workers, who
are giving up their Saturday afternoons and holidays and giving their
labor free and making garments for the children of Russia from the
lengths of woolen material donated by various mills. There I saw some
of the garment workers who have been so long out on strike, not only
contributing their work, but a dollar a month besides towards the rent
of their premises. These were the “Tailors’ Technical Aid Society” for
Russian children. These were the people whose services brought a lump
to my throat as I watched the zeal and earnestness with which they
worked. Theirs was the real blessedness of giving.
To the people of leisure and means I hate to appeal, telling them my
personal narrative lightly for their entertainment. Even as I did it,
I vowed it should be the last time. On Saturday I was invited to lunch
and speak at the Harvard Liberal Club. I went, thinking it would be
pleasant and liking immature youth, and having thoughts full of the
remote future possibilities of Dick’s education.
As it turned out they were not liberal at all but rather prejudiced,
and I was assailed with economic questions and problems. Very erudite
indeed were these young men. But they seemed to believe in human nature
working only for gain, ignoring completely the existence of enthusiasms
and beliefs, and sacrifices for ideals, which made those skilled
workers, just referred to, work for no gain at all, as they never would
have worked for an employer. I put up the best fight I could, but in
the end, feeling exhausted and battered, I thanked God that I had no
education but at least an open heart.
After lunch Harry Dana rescued me and took me to his aunt’s house
where he lives, and which is called “Longfellow House.” It is of
historic interest as having been the residence of Washington and also
of Longfellow whose grandson Harry Dana is. The house was quaintly
and attractively Georgian and full of dead memories, marble busts and
musty laurel wreaths. We retired to his book lined sanctum and with us
was an Indian, a follower of Gandhi, who was lecturing at Harvard. We
lit a fire and sat before it on the floor while the follower of Gandhi
talked to us of Eastern philosophy and oriental serenity. He was not
calm in spite of all he said about it, but his restlessness was not the
impatient unrest of the West, it had the dignity of the tiger. As he
paced back and forth, talking the while, his talk was full of poetry
and imagery. I realised what had been lacking in the composition of
one’s days: Here there is no poetry (with apologies to Johnny Weaver!).
There is not time, they say, and dreams are not for practical people.
But the follower of Gandhi combined all the practicability and all the
activity, restlessness and humor of the West with the force of Eastern
imagery. They are great artists, the descendants of a great culture.
They, not we, know how to live, and how to love life.
Incidentally I gathered that a hot place to be in, next December, is
India! This Indian revolution interests me very much. I believe that
before long all eyes will be turned on India.
If Gandhi’s methods of passive resistance are successful, and India
is liberated by a comparatively bloodless revolution, it may mark the
epoch of a new era and a new religion.
To-day, the majority of people one meets are expressing the desire
that Jews and Bolsheviks, and Germans, too, should be wiped out.
The Christian peoples whose religion is based on forgiveness, love
and tolerance, have been killing each other mercilessly. It is just
possible that Christianity is over, that it “went out” in blood and
war. Maybe the renaissance of the world will come in the Orient.
Spirit is unquenchable and inextinguishable. When crushed in one
part of the world it will reappear elsewhere. I make no pretense of
prophecy. I only say: Watch India!
I spent the week-end in the family circle and was overwhelmed with
kindness and hospitality. I, who have grown socialistic and Bohemian,
suddenly went back to being a perfect lady, and as a novelty enjoyed
it. What beautiful manners they had, the Bostonians I met, just
naturally beautiful old world manners. They seemed like those well bred
people one knows in Europe who are so absolutely “placés,” so deep
rootedly aristocratic, that they can afford to be tolerant without fear
of losing caste.
I have wondered a good deal about America and Americans during the
year I have spent here. They have amused, surprised and bewildered
me, but it was not until I came to Boston that I felt I was at home.
Even the town is English. There was Beacon Street with its long row of
individual small houses just as in London, and every one had a street
door. I never went into an apartment. Peoples’ rooms seemed to be full
of books instead of American beauty roses. It was in one of these
houses, after luncheon one day, that the women left alone together
discussed the immortality of the soul without any semblance of effort
or affectation.
On Sunday afternoon my host took me to the Public Library as I wanted
to see the Sargent mural paintings. Crowds were pouring in. The reading
rooms were packed full of silent studious figures. People came,
apparently not to look at the Sargent’s and few of them lingered over
the Puvis de Chevannes that lined the staircase walls. They came, as
people long accustomed to their own, and went straight for the reading
rooms. This interested me more even than the paintings I went to see. I
felt that all my expectations of Boston were being fulfilled, as if it
had been staged for me. Boston could not have been more magnificently
Bostonian. Here resplendent in the winter sunlight stood the imposing
Library Building, and people kept pouring into it from every direction.
It seemed emblematical of all that Boston stands for.
I am glad I have been to Boston, it seems to complete one’s great
perplexity concerning the United States. Here is a country that is
composed of such widely different towns as Washington, Philadelphia,
San Francisco, Los Angeles, all as different from one another as they
are different from New York, and as different as New York is from
Boston.
I wonder there is any co-ordination of movement or feeling at all in
such a country. I wonder there is any political unity, any fraternity,
and yet there is more than all that; there exists a national patriotic
spirit.
Well--I have finished wondering, it brings one nowhere, it solves
nothing. I will return where I belong, to the world of line and form,
a world of one’s own imaginings where there are fewer perplexities and
more harmonies.