*****
To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris:
Feb.--.
Livy dear, last night I played billiards with Mr. Rogers until 11, then
went to Robert Reid's studio and had a most delightful time until 4
this morning. No ladies were invited this time. Among the people present
were--
Coquelin;
Richard Harding Davis;
Harrison, the great out-door painter;
Wm. H. Chase, the artist;
Bettini, inventor of the new phonograph.
Nikola Tesla, the world-wide illustrious electrician; see article about
him in Jan. or Feb. Century.
John Drew, actor;
James Barnes, a marvelous mimic; my, you should see him!
Smedley the artist;
Zorn the artist;
Zogbaum the artist;
Reinhart the artist;
Metcalf the artist;
Ancona, head tenor at the Opera;
Oh, a great lot of others. Everybody there had done something and was in
his way famous.
Somebody welcomed Coquelin in a nice little French speech; John Drew did
the like for me in English, and then the fun began. Coquelin did some
excellent French monologues--one of them an ungrammatical Englishman
telling a colorless historiette in French. It nearly killed the fifteen
or twenty people who understood it.
I told a yarn, Ancona sang half a dozen songs, Barnes did his darling
imitations, Harding Davis sang the hanging of Danny Deever, which was
of course good, but he followed it with that most fascinating (for what
reason I don't know) of all Kipling's poems, “On the Road to Mandalay,”
sang it tenderly, and it searched me deeper and charmed me more than the
Deever.
Young Gerrit Smith played some ravishing dance music and we all danced
about an hour. There couldn't be a pleasanter night than that one was.
Some of those people complained of fatigue but I don't seem to know what
the sense of fatigue is.
Coquelin talks quite good English now. He said:
“I have a brother who has the fine mind--ah, a charming and delicate
fancy, and he knows your writings so well, and loves them--and that is
the same with me. It will stir him so when I write and tell him I have
seen you!”
Wasn't that nice? We talked a good deal together. He is as winning as
his own face. But he wouldn't sign that photograph for Clara. “That? No!
She shall have a better one. I will send it to you.”
He is much driven, and will forget it, but Reid has promised to get the
picture for me, and I will try and keep him reminded.
Oh, dear, my time is all used up and your letters are not answered.
Mama, dear, I don't go everywhere--I decline most things. But there are
plenty that I can't well get out of.