A TEMPTING OFFER--THE THURSDAY CLUB--BILL NYE--VISIT TO YOUNG LADIES'
SCHOOLS--THE PLAYERS' CLUB.
_New York, January 9._
On returning here, I found a most curious letter awaiting me. I must
tell you that in Boston, last Monday, I made the following remarks in my
lecture:
"The American is, I believe, on the road to the possession of all that
can contribute to the well-being and success of a nation, but he seems
to me to have missed the path that leads to real happiness. To live in a
whirl is not to live well. The little French shopkeeper who locks his
shop-door from half-past one, so as not to be disturbed while he is
having his dinner with his wife and family, has come nearer to solving
the great problem of life, 'How to be happy,' than the American who
sticks on his door: 'Gone to dinner, shall be back in five minutes.' You
eat too fast, and I understand why your antidyspeptic pill-makers cover
your walls, your forests even, with their advertisements."
And I named the firm of pill-makers.
The letter is from them. They offer me $1000 if I will repeat the
phrase at every lecture I give during my tour in the United States.
[Illustration: WHERE INDIGESTION IS MANUFACTURED.]
You may imagine if I will be careful to abstain in the future.
* * * * *
I lectured to-night before the members of the Thursday Club--a small,
but very select audience, gathered in the drawing-room of one of the
members. The lecture was followed by a _conversazione_. A very pleasant
evening.
I left the house at half-past eleven. The night was beautiful. I walked
to the hotel, along Fifth Avenue to Madison Square, and along Broadway
to Union Square.
What a contrast to the great thoroughfares of London! Thousands of
people here returning from the theaters and enjoying their walks,
instead of being obliged to rush into vehicles to escape the sights
presented at night by the West End streets of London. Here you can walk
at night with your wife and daughter, without the least fear of their
coming into contact with flaunting vice.
* * * * *
Excuse a reflection on a subject of a very domestic character. My
clothes have come from the laundress with the bill.
Now let me give you a sound piece of advice.
When you go to America, bring with you a dozen shirts. No more. When
these are soiled, buy a new dozen, and so on. You will thus get a supply
of linen for many years to come, and save your washing bills in America,
where the price of a shirt is much the same as the cost of washing it.
* * * * *
_January 10._
I was glad to see Bill Nye again. He turned up at the Everett House this
morning. I like to gaze at his clean-shaven face, that is seldom broken
by a smile, and to hear his long, melancholy drawl. His lank form, and
his polished dome of thought, as he delights in calling his joke box,
help to make him so droll on the platform. When his audience begins to
scream with laughter, he stops, looks at them in astonishment; the
corners of his mouth drop and an expression of sadness comes over his
face. The effect is irresistible. They shriek for mercy. But they don't
get it. He is accompanied by his own manager, who starts with him for
the north to-night. This manager has no sinecure. I don't think Bill Nye
has ever been found in a depot ready to catch a train. So the manager
takes him to the station, puts him in the right car, gets him out of his
sleeping berth, takes him to the hotel, sees that he is behind the
platform a few minutes before the time announced for the beginning of
the lecture, and generally looks after his comfort. Bill is due in Ohio
to-morrow night, and leaves New York to-night by the Grand Central
Depot.
"Are you sure it's by the Grand Central?" he said to me.
"Why, of course, corner of Forty-second Street, a five or ten minutes'
ride from here."
You should have seen the expression on his face, as he drawled away:
"How--shall--I--get--there, I--wonder?"
* * * * *
This afternoon I paid a most interesting visit to several girls'
schools. The pupils were ordered by the head-mistress, in each case, to
gather in the large room. There they arrived, two by two, to the sound
of a march played on the piano by one of the under-mistresses. When
they had all reached their respective places, two chords were struck on
the instrument, and they all sat down with the precision of the best
drilled Prussian regiment. Then some sang, others recited little poems,
or epigrams--mostly at the expense of men. When, two years ago, I
visited the Normal School for girls in the company of the President of
the Education Board and Colonel Elliott F. Shepard, it was the
anniversary of George Eliot's birth. The pupils, one by one, recited a
few quotations from her works, choosing all she had written against man.
When the singing and the recitations were over, the mistress requested
me to address a few words to the young ladies. An American is used from
infancy to deliver a speech on the least provocation. I am not. However,
I managed to congratulate these young American girls on their charming
appearance, and to thank them for the pleasure they had afforded me.
Then two chords were struck on the piano and all stood up; two more
chords, and all marched off in double file to the sound of another
march. Not a smile, not a giggle. All these young girls, from sixteen to
twenty, looked at me with modesty, but complete self-assurance,
certainly with far more assurance than I dared look at them.
Then the mistress asked me to go to the gymnasium. There the girls
arrived and, as solemnly as before, went through all kinds of muscular
exercises. They are never allowed to sit down in the class rooms more
than two hours at a time. They have to go down to the gymnasium every
two hours.
I was perfectly amazed to see such discipline. These young girls are the
true daughters of a great Republic: self-possessed, self-confident,
dignified, respectful, law-abiding.
I also visited the junior departments of those schools. In one of them,
eight hundred little girls from five to ten years of age were gathered
together, and, as in the other departments, sang and recited to me.
These young children are taught by the girls of the Normal School, under
the supervision of mistresses. Here teaching is learned by teaching. A
good method. Doctors are not allowed to practice before they have
attended patients in hospitals. Why should people be allowed to teach
before they have attended schools as apprentice teachers?
I had to give a speech to these dear little ones. I wish I had been able
to give them a kiss instead.
In my little speech I had occasion to remark that I had arrived in
America only a week before. After I left, it appears that a little girl,
aged about six, went to her mistress and said to her:
"He's only been here a week! And how beautifully he speaks English
already!"
* * * * *
I have been "put up" at the Players' Club by Mr. Edmund Clarence
Stedman, and dined with him there to-night.
[Illustration: "HOW BEAUTIFULLY HE SPEAKS ENGLISH."]
This club is the snuggest house I know in New York. Only a few months
old, it possesses treasures such as few clubs a hundred years old
possess. It was a present from Mr. Edwin Booth, the greatest actor
America has produced. He bought the house in Twentieth Street, facing
Gramercy Park, furnished it handsomely and with the greatest taste, and
filled it with all the artistic treasures that he has collected during
his life: portraits of celebrated actors, most valuable old engravings,
photographs with the originals' autographs, china, curios of all sorts,
stage properties, such as the sword used by Macready in _Macbeth_, and
hundreds of such beautiful and interesting souvenirs. On the second
floor is the library, mostly composed of works connected with the drama.
This club is a perfect gem.
When in New York, Mr. Booth occupies a suite of rooms on the second
floor, which he has reserved for himself; but he has handed over the
property to the trustees of the club, who, after his death, will become
the sole proprietors of the house and of all its priceless contents. It
was a princely gift, worthy of the prince of actors. The members are all
connected with literature, art, and the drama, and number about one
hundred.
[Illustration]