THE MEDITERRANEAN AND PARIS
It was, I think, the year previous to this that my mother and father
had deserted Point Pleasant as a place to spend their summer vacations
in favor of Marion, on Cape Cod, and Richard and I, as a matter of
course, followed them there. At that time Marion was a simple little
fishing village where a few very charming people came every summer and
where the fishing was of the best. In all ways the life was most
primitive, and happily continued so for many years. In, these early
days Grover Cleveland and his bride had a cottage there, and he and
Joseph Jefferson, who lived at Buzzard's Bay, and my father went on
daily fishing excursions. Richard Watson Gilder was one of the
earliest settlers of the summer colony, and many distinguished members
of the literary and kindred professions came there to visit him. It
was a rather drowsy life for those who didn't fish--a great deal of
sitting about on one's neighbor's porch and discussion of the latest
novel or the newest art, or of one's soul, and speculating as to what
would probably become of it. From the first Richard formed a great
affection for the place, and after his marriage adopted it as his
winter as well as his summer home. As a workshop he had two rooms in
one of the natives' cottages, and two more charming rooms it would be
hard to imagine. The little shingled cottage was literally covered
with honeysuckle, and inside there were the old wall-papers, the open
hearths, the mahogany furniture, and the many charming things that had
been there for generations, and all of which helped to contribute to
the quaint peaceful atmosphere of the place. Dana Gibson had a cottage
just across the road, and around the corner Gouverneur Morris lived
with his family. At this time neither of these friends of Richard, nor
Richard himself, allied themselves very closely to the literary colony
and its high thoughts, but devoted most of their time to sailing about
Sippican Harbor, playing tennis and contributing an occasional short
story or an illustration to a popular magazine. But after the colony
had taken flight, Richard often remained long into the fall, doing
really serious work and a great deal of it. At such times he had to
depend on a few friends who came to visit him, but principally on the
natives to many of whom he was greatly attached. It was during these
days that he first met his future wife, Cecil Clark, whose father, John
M. Clark of Chicago, was one of the earliest of the summer colonists to
build his own home at Marion. A most charming and hospitable home it
was, and it was in this same house where we had all spent so many happy
hours that Richard was married and spent his honeymoon, and for several
years made his permanent home. Of the life of Marion during this later
period, he became an integral part, and performed his duties as one of
its leading citizens with much credit to the town and its people. For
Marion Richard always retained a great affection, for there he had
played and worked many of his best years. He had learned to love
everything of which the quaint old town was possessed, animate and
inanimate, and had I needed any further proof of how deeply the good
people of Marion loved Richard, the letters I received from many of
them at the time of his death would show.
In the early fall of 1892 Richard returned to his editorial work on
Harper's Weekly, and one of the first assignments he gave was to
despatch himself to Chicago to report the Dedication Exercises of the
World's Fair. That the trip at least started out little to my
brother's liking the following seems to show. However, Richard's moods
frequently changed with the hour, and it is more than possible that
before the letter was sent he was enjoying himself hugely and regarding
Chicago with his usual kindly eyes.
Chicago Club,
October 2, 1892.
DEAR FAMILY:
Though lost to sight I am still thinking of you sadly. It seems that I
took a coupe after leaving you and after living in it for a few years I
grew tired and got out on the prairie and walked along drinking in the
pure air from the lakes and reading Liebig's and Cooper's advs. After
a brisk ten mile walk I reentered my coupe and we in time drew up
before a large hotel inhabited by a clerk and a regular boarder. I am
on the seventh floor without a bathroom or electric button--I merely
made remarks and then returned to town in a railroad train which runs
conveniently near. After gaining civilization I made my way through
several parades or it may have been the same one to the reviewing
stand. My progress was marked by mocking remarks by the police who
asked of each other to get on to my coat and on several occasions I was
mistaken by a crowd of some thousand people for the P----e of W----s,
and tumultuously cheered. At last I found an inspector of police on
horseback, who agreed to get me to the stand if it took a leg. He
accordingly charged about 300 women and clubbed eight men--I counted
them--and finally got me in. He was very drunk but he was very good to
me.
Once back from Chicago Richard divided his time between his desk at
Franklin Square, his rooms on Twenty-eighth Street, and in quickly
picking up the friendships and the social activities his trip to
England had temporarily broken off. Much as he now loved London, he
was still an enthusiastic New Yorker, and the amount of work and play
he accomplished was quite extraordinary. Indeed it is difficult to
understand where he found the time to do so much. In addition to his
work on Harper's he wrote many short stories and special articles, not
only because he loved the mere writing of them, but because he had come
to so greatly enjoy the things he could buy with the money his labors
now brought him. His pleasures had increased as steadily as the prices
he could now command for his stories, and in looking back on those days
it is rather remarkable when one considers his age, the temptations
that surrounded him, and his extraordinary capacity for enjoyment, that
he never seems to have forgotten the balance between work and play, and
stuck to both with an unswerving and unceasing enthusiasm. However,
after four months of New York, he decided it was high time for him to
be off again, and he arranged with the Harpers to spend the late winter
and the spring in collecting material for the two sets of articles
which afterward appeared in book form under the titles of "The Rulers
of the Mediterranean" and "About Paris." He set sail for Gibraltar the
early part of February, 1893, and the following letters describe his
leisurely progress about the Mediterranean ports.
NEW YORK, February 3, 1893.
DEAREST MOTHER:
This is a little present for you and a goodby. Your packing-case is
what I need and what I shall want, and I love it because you made it.
But as YOU say, we understand and do not have to write love letters;
you have given me all that is worth while in me, and I love you so that
I look forward already over miles and miles and days and months, and
just see us sitting together at Marion and telling each other how good
it is to be together again and holding each other's hands. I don't
believe you really know how HAPPY I am in loving you, dear, and in
having you say nice things about me. God bless you, dearest, and may I
never do anything to make you feel less proud of your wicked son.
DICK.
Off Gibraltar,
February 12, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
Today is Sunday. We arrive at Gibraltar at five tomorrow morning and
the boat lies there until nine o'clock. Unless war and pestilence have
broken out in other places, I shall go over to Tangiers in a day or
two, and from there continue on my journey as mapped out when I left.
I have had a most delightful trip and the most enjoyable I have ever
taken by sea. These small boats are as different from the big
twin-screw steamers as a flat from a Broadway hotel.
Everyone gets to know everything about everyone else, and it has been
more like a yacht than a passenger steamer. When I first came on board
I thought I would not find in any new old country I was about to visit
anything more foreign than the people, and I was right, but they are
most amusing and I have learned a great deal. They are different from
any people I know, and are the Americans we were talking about. The
ones of whom I used to read in The Atlantic and Blackwood's, as
traveling always and sinking out of sight whenever they reached home.
They, with the exception of a Boston couple, know none of my friends or
my haunts, and I have learned a great deal in meeting them. It has
been most BROADENING and the change has been SUCH a rest. I had no
idea of how tired I was of talking about the theater of Arts and
Letters and Miss Whitney's debut and my Soul. These people are simple
and unimaginative and bourgeois to a degree and as kind-hearted and
apparent as animal alphabets. I do not think I have had such a
complete change or rest in years, and I am sure I have not laughed so
much for as long. Of course, the idea of a six months' holiday is
enough to make anyone laugh at anything, but I find that besides that I
was a good deal harassed and run down, and I am glad to cut off from
everything and start fresh. I feel miserably selfish about it all the
time.
These Germans run everything as though you were the owner of the line.
The discipline is like that of the German Army or of a man-of-war,
everything moves by the stroke of a bell, and they have had dances and
speeches and concerts and religious services and lectures every other
minute. Into all of these I have gone with much enthusiasm. We have
at the captain's table Dr. Field, the editor of The Evangelist, John
Russell, a Boston Democrat, who was in Congress and who has been in
public life for over forty years. A Tammany sachem, who looks like and
worships Tweed, and who says what I never heard an American off the
stage say: "That's me. That's what I do," he says. "When I have
insomnia, I don't believe in your sleeping draughts. I get up and go
round to Jake Stewart's on Fourteenth Street and eat a fry or a
porterhouse steak and then I sleep good---that's me." There is also a
lively lady from Albany next to me and her husband, who tells anecdotes
of the war just as though it had happened yesterday. Indeed, they are
all so much older than I that all their talk is about things I never
understood the truth about, and it is most interesting. I really do
not know when I have enjoyed my meal time so much. The food is very
good, although queer and German, and we generally take two hours to
each sitting. Dr. Field is my especial prey and he makes me laugh
until I cry. He is just like James Lewis in "A Night Off," and is
always rubbing his hands and smacking his lips over his own daring
exploits. I twist everything he says into meaning something dreadful,
and he is instantly explaining he did not really see a bullfight, but
that he walked around the outside of the building. I have promised to
show him life with a capital L, and he is afraid as death of me. But
he got back at me grandly last night when he presented a testimonial to
the captain, and referred to the captain's wife and boy whom he is
going to see after a two years' absence, at which the captain wept and
everybody else wept. And Field, seeing he had made a point, waved his
arms and cried, "I have never known a man who amounted to anything who
had not a good wife to care for--except YOU--" he shouted, pointing at
me, "and no woman will ever save YOU." At which the passengers, who
fully appreciated how I had been worrying him, applauded loudly, and
the Doctor in his delight at having scored on me forgot to give the
captain his testimonial.
There are two nice girls on board from Chicago and a queer Southern
girl who paints pictures and sings and writes poetry, and who is
traveling with an odd married woman who is an invalid and who like
everyone else on board has apparently spent all her life away from
home. I have spent my odd time in writing the story I told Dad the
night before I sailed and I think it in some ways the best, quite the
best, I have written. I read it to the queer girl and her queer
chaperon and they weep whenever they speak of it, which they do every
half hour. All the passengers apparently laid in a stock of
"Gallegher" and "The West" before starting, and young women in yachting
caps are constantly holding me up for autographs and favorite
quotations. Yesterday we passed the Azores near enough to see the
windows in the houses, and we have seen other islands at different
times, which is quite refreshing. Tomorrow I shall post this and the
trip will be over. It has been a most happy start. I am not going to
write letters often, but am going head over ears into this new life and
let the old one wait awhile. You cannot handle Africa and keep up your
fences in New York at the same time. I am now going out to talk to the
Boston couple, or to propose a lion hunt to Dr. Field.
Since I wrote that last I have seen Portugal. It made me seem suddenly
very far away from New York. Portugal is a high hill with a white watch
tower on it flying signal flags. It is apparently inhabited by one man
who lives in a long row of yellow houses with red roofs, and populated
by sheep who do grand acts of balancing on the side of the hill. There
is also a Navy of a brown boat with a leg-of-mutton sail and a crew of
three men in the boat--not to speak of the dog. It is a great thing to
have a traveled son. None of you ever saw Portugal, yah!
I am now in Gibraltar. It is a large place and there does not seem to
be room in this letter, in which to express my feelings about Moors in
bare legs and six thousand Red-coats and to hear Englishmen speak
again. When I woke up Gibraltar was a black silhouette against the
sky, but toward the south there was a low line of mountains with a red
sky behind them, dim and mysterious and old, and that was Africa. Then
Spain turned up all amethyst and green, and the Mediterranean as blue
as they tell you it is. They wouldn't let me take my gun into
Gibraltar. They know my reputation for war.
DICK.
GIBRALTAR.
February 14th, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
The luck of the British Army which I am modestly fond of comparing with
my own took a vacation yesterday as soon as I had set foot on land. In
the first place Egypt had settled down to her sluggish Nile like calm
and cholera had quarantined the ship I wanted to take to Algiers,
shutting off Algiers and what was more important Tunis. The Governor
was ill shutting off things I wanted and his adjutant was boorish and
proud and haughty. Then I determined to go to Spain but found I had
arrived just one day too late for the last of the three days of the
Mardi Gras and too early for bull fights. Had I taken Saavedra's
letters I should have gone to Madrid and met the Queen and other proud
folks. So on the whole I was blue. But I have now determined to take
a boat for Tangier at once where I have letters to the Duke de Tnas who
is the Master of the Hounds there and a great sport and they say it is
very amusing and exciting. In a fortnight I shall go to Malta. I
called on Harry Cust's brother and told him who I was and he took me in
and put me at the head of the table of young subalterns in grand
uniforms and we had marmalade and cold beef and beer and I was happy to
the verge of tears to hear English as she is spoke. Then we went to a
picnic and took tea in a smuggler's cave and all the foxterriers ran
over the table cloth and the Captain spilt hot water over his white
flannels and jumped around on one leg. After which we played a
handkerchief game sitting in a row and pelting the girls with a knotted
handkerchief and then fighting for it-- During one of these scrimmages
Mulvaney, two others and Learoyd came by and with eyes front and hands
at their caps marched on with stolid countenances, but their officers
were embarrassed. It is hard to return a salute with your face in the
sand and a stout American sitting on your neck and pulling your first
lieutenant's leg. I am now deeply engaged for dinners and dances and
teas and rides and am feeling very cheerful again. I am also very well
thank you and have no illnesses of any sort. You told me to be sure
and put that in-- As you see, I have cut out half of my trip to avoid
the cholera, so you need not worry about THAT. To-day I am going over
the ramparts as much as they will allow and to-morrow I go to Tangier
where I expect to have some boar hunting. I would suggest your getting
The Evangelist in a week or two as Dr. Field's letters cover all I have
seen. I do not tell you anything about the place because you will read
that in the paper to the H. W. but I can assure you the girls are very
pretty and being garrison girls are not as shy as those at home in
England. I am the first American they ever met they assure me every
hour and we get on very well notwithstanding.
You can imagine what it is like when Spaniards, Moors and English
Soldiers are all crowded into one long street with donkeys and geese
and priests and smugglers and men in polo clothes and soldiers in
football suits and sailors from the man-of-war. Of course, the Rock is
the best story of it all. It is a fair green smiling hill not a
fortress at all. No more a fortress to look at than Fairmont Park
water works, but the joke of it is that under every bush there is a gun
and every gun is painted green and covered with hanging curtains of
moss and every promenade is undermined and the bleakest face of the
rock is tunnelled with rooms and halls. Every night we are locked in
and the soldiers carry the big iron keys clanking through the streets.
It is going to make interesting reading.
DICK.
GIBRALTAR.
February 23rd, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
Aeneas who "ran the round of so many chances" in this neighborhood was
a stationary stay at home to what I have to do. If I ever get away
from the Rock I shall be a traveller of the greatest possible
experience.
I came here intending to stay a week and to write my letter on Gib. and
on Tangier quietly and peacefully like a gentleman and then to go on to
Malta. I love this place and there is something to do and see every
minute of the time but what happened was this: All the boats that ever
left here stopped running, broke shafts, or went into quarantine or
just sailed by, and unless I want to spend two weeks on the sea in
order to have one at Malta, which is only a military station like this,
I must go off to-morrow with my articles unwritten, my photos
undeveloped and my dinner calls unpaid. I am now waiting to hear if I
can get to Algiers by changing twice from one steamer to another along
the coast of Spain. It will be a great nuisance but I shall be able to
see Algiers and Tunis and Malta in the three weeks which would have
otherwise been given to Malta alone. And Tunis I am particularly keen
to see. While waiting for a telegram from Spain about the boats, I
shall tell you what I have been doing. Everybody was glad to see me
after my return from Tangier. I dined with the Governor on Monday, in
a fine large room lined with portraits of all the old commanders and
their coats-of-arms like a little forest of flags and the Governor's
daughter danced a Spanish dance for us after it was over. Miss Buckle,
Cust's fiancee, dances almost as well as Carmencita, all the girls here
learn it as other girls do the piano. On Tuesday Cust and Miss B. and
another girl and I went over into Spain to see the meet and we had a
short run after a fox who went to earth, much to my relief, in about
three minutes and before I had been thrown off. There are no fences
but the ground is one mass of rocks and cactus and ravines down which
these English go with an ease that makes me tremble with admiration.
We had not come out to follow, so we, being quite soaked through and
very hungry, went to an inn and it was such an inn as Don Quixote used
to stop at, with the dining-room over the stable and a lot of drunken
muleteers in the court and beautiful young women to wait on us. It is
a beautiful country Spain, with every sort of green you ever dreamed
of. We had omelettes and native wine and black bread and got warm
again and then trotted home in the rain and got wet again, so we
stopped at the guard house on the outside of the rock and took tea with
the officer in charge and we all got down on our knees around his fire
and he hobbled around dropping his eyeglasses in his hot water and very
much honored and exceedingly embarrassed. I amused myself by putting
on all the uniforms he did not happen to have on and the young ladies
drank tea and thawed. This is the most various place I ever came
across. You have mountains and seashore and allamandas like Monte
Carlo in their tropical beauty and soldiers day and night marching and
drilling and banging brass bands and tennis and guns firing so as to
rattle all the windows, and picnics and teas. I am engaged way ahead
now but I must get off tomorrow. On Washington's birthday I gave a
luncheon because it struck me as the most inappropriate place in which
one could celebrate the good man's memory and the Governor would not
think of coming at first, but I told him I was not a British subject
and that if I could go to his dinner he could come to my lunch, so
that, or the fact that the beautiful Miss Buckle was coming decided him
to waive etiquette and he came with his A. D. C. and his daughter and
officers and girls came and I had American flags and English flags and
a portrait of Washington and of the Queen and I ransacked the markets
for violets and banked them all up in the middle. It was fine. I
turned the hotel upside down and all the servants wore their best
livery and everybody stood up in a row and saluted His Excellency and I
made a speech and so did his Excellency and the chef did himself proud.
I got it up in one morning. Helen Benedict could not have done it
better.
I had a funny adventure the morning I left Tangier-- There was a good
deal of talk about Field (confound him) and my getting into the prison
and The Herald and Times correspondents were rather blue about it and
some of the English residents said that I had not been shown the whole
of the prison, that the worst had been kept from us. Field who only
got into the prison because I had worked at it two days, said there was
an additional ward I had not seen. I went back into this while he and
the guard were getting the door open to go out and saw nothing, but to
make sure that the prison was as I believed an absolute square, I went
back on the morning of my departure and climbed a wall and crawled over
a house top and photographed the top of the prison. Then a horrible
doubt came to me that this house upon which I was standing and which
adjoined the prison might be the addition of which the English
residents hinted. There was an old woman in the garden below jumping
up and down and to whom I had been shying money to keep her quiet. I
sent the guide around to ask her what was the nature of the building
upon which I had trespassed and which seemed to worry her so much-- He
came back to tell me that I was on the top of a harem and the old woman
thought I was getting up a flirtation with the gentleman's wives. So I
dropped back again.
It will be a couple of months at least before my first story comes out
in The Weekly. I cannot judge of them but I think they are up to the
average of the Western stories, the material is much richer I know, but
I am so much beset by the new sights that I have not the patience or
the leisure I had in the West-- Then there were days in which writing
was a relief, now there is so much to see that it seems almost a shame
to waste it.
By the grace of Providence I cannot leave here until the 28th, much to
my joy and I have found out that I can do better by going direct to
Malta and then to Tunis, leaving Algiers which I did not want to see
out of it-Hurrah. I shall now return to the calm continuation of my
story and to writing notes which Chas will enjoy.
DICK.
GIBRALTAR--February 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
Morocco as it is is a very fine place spoiled by civilization. Not
nice civilization but the dregs of it, the broken down noblemen of
Spain and cashiered captains of England and the R---- L----'s of
America. They hunt and play cricket and gamble and do nothing to
maintain what is best in the place or to help what is worst. I love
the Moors and the way they hate the Christian and the scorn and pride
they show. They seem to carry all the mystery and dignity of Africa
and of foreign conquests about them, and they are wonderfully well made
and fine looking and self-respecting. The color is very beautiful, but
the foreign element spoils it at every turn. One should really go
inland but I shall not because I mean to do that when I reach Cairo.
Everybody goes inland from here and Bonsal has covered it already. He
is a great man here among all classes.
I have bought two long guns and three pistols three feet long and a
Moorish costume for afternoon teas. I shall look fine. My guide's
idea of pleasing me is to kick everybody out of the way which always
brings down curses on me so I have to go back and give them money and
am so gradually becoming popular and much sought after by blind
beggars. You can get three pounds of copper for a franc and it lasts
all day throwing it right and left all the time. I made a great tear
in Bonsal's record today by refusing to pay a snake charmer all he
wanted and then when he protested I took one of the snakes out of his
hands and swung it around my head to the delight of the people. I
wanted to show him he was a fakir to want me to pay for what I would do
myself. It was a large snake about four feet long. Then my horse and
another horse got fighting in the principal street in the city standing
up on their hind legs and boxing like men and biting and squealing. It
was awful and I got mine out of the way and was trod on and had my arm
nearly pulled off and the crowd applauded and asked my guide whether I
was American or English. They do not like the English. So with the
lower classes I may say that I am having a social success.
DICK.
Off Malta--March 1, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
I have been having a delightful voyage with moonlight all night and
sunlight all day. Africa kept in sight most of the time and before
that we saw beautiful mountains in Spain covered with snow and red in
the sunset. There were a lot of nice English people going out to India
to meet their husbands and we have "tiffin" and "choota" and "curry,"
so it really seemed oriental. The third night out we saw Algiers
sparkling like Coney Island. I play games with myself and pretend I am
at my rooms reading a story which is very hard to pretend as I never
read in my rooms and then I look up and exclaim "Hello, I'm not in New
York, that's Algiers." The thing that has impressed me most is how
absolutely small the world is and how childishly easy it is to go
around it. You and Nora MUST take this trip; as for me I think Willie
Chanler is the most sensible individual I have yet met.
All the fascination of King Solomon's Mines seems to be behind those
great mountains and this I may add is a bit of advance work for mother,
an entering wedge to my disappearing from sight for years and years in
the Congo. Which, seriously, I will not do; only it is disappointing
to find the earth so small and so easily encompassed that you want to
go on where it is older, and new. The worst of it is that it is hard
leaving all the nice people you meet and then must say good-bye to.
The young ladies and Capt. Buckle and Cust came down to see me off and
Buckle brought me a photo four feet long of Gib, an official one which
I had to smuggle out with a great show of secrecy and now I shall be
sorry to leave these people. Just as I wrote that one of the officers
going out to join his regiment came to the door and blushing said the
passengers were getting up a round robin asking me to stop on and go to
Cairo.
Since writing the above lots of things have happened. I bid farewell
to everyone at Malta and yet in four hours I was back again bag and
baggage and am now on my way to Cairo. Tunis and the Bey are
impossible. As soon as I landed at Malta I found that though I could
go to Tunis I could not go away without being quarantined for ten days
and if I remained in Malta I must stay a week. On balancing a week of
Egypt against a week of Malta I could not do it so I put back to this
steamer again and here I am. Tomorrow we reach Brindisi and we have
already passed Sicily and had a glimpse of the toe of Italy and it is
the coldest sunny Italy that I ever imagined. I am bitterly
disappointed about Tunis. I have no letters to big people in Cairo
only subalterns but I shall probably get along. I always manage
somehow with my "artful little Ikey ways." It was most gratifying to
mark my return to this boat. One young woman danced a Kangaroo dance
and the Captain wept and all the stewards stood in a line and grinned.
I sing Chevalier's songs and they all sit in the dining room below and
forget to lay out the plates and last night some of the Royal Berkshire
with whom I dined at Malta came on board and after hearing the Old Kent
Road were on the point of Mutiny and refused to return to barracks.
Great is the Power of Chevalier and great is his power for taking you
back to London with three opening bars. Malta was the queerest place I
ever got into. It was like a city, country and island made of cheese,
mouldy cheese, and fresh limburger cheese with holes in it. You sailed
right up to the front door as it were and people were hanging out of
the windows smoking pipes and looking down on the deck as complacently
as though having an ocean steamer in the yard was as much a matter of
course as a perambulator. There were also women with black hoods which
they wear as a penance because long ago the ladies of Malta got
themselves talked about. I was on shore about five hours and saw some
interesting things and with that and Brindisi and the voyage I can make
a third letter but Tunis is writ on my heart like Calais.
Today Cleveland is inaugurated and I took all the passengers down at
the proper time and explained to them that at that moment a great man
was being made president and gave them each an American cocktail to
remember it by and in which to toast him I am getting to be a great
speech maker and if there are any more anniversaries in America I shall
be a second Depew.
It is late but it is still the season here and it will be gay, but what
I want to do now is to go off on a little trip inland although Cairo is
the worst of all for it is surrounded by deserts and nothing to shoot
but antelope and foxes and those I SCORN. I want Zulus and lions. I
shall be greatly disappointed if I do not have something to do outside
of Cairo for I have had no adventures at all. It is just as civilized
as Camden only more exciting and beautiful although Camden is exciting
when you have to get there and back in time for the last edition. From
what I have already seen I am ready to spend a month in Cairo and then
confess to knowing nothing of it. But we shall see. There may be a W
A R or a lion hunt or something yet if there is not I shall come back
here again. I must fire that Winchester off at least once just for all
the trouble it has given me at custom houses. Something exciting must
happen or I shall lose faith in the luck of the British army which
marches shoulder to shoulder with mine. If I don't have any adventures
I shall write essays on art after this like Mrs. Van. Love and lots of
it.
DICK.
CAIRO, March 11, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
In a famous book this line occurs, "He determined to go to that hotel
in Cairo where they were to have spent their honeymoon," or words like
that. He is now at that hotel and you can buy the famous book across
the street. It is called "Gallegher." So--in this way everything
comes to him who waits and he comes to it. "Gallegher" is not the only
thing you buy in Egypt. You ride to the Pyramids on a brake with a man
in a white felt hat blowing a horn, and the bugler of the Army of
Occupation is as much in evidence as the priest who calls them to
prayer from the minaret. I left the people I liked on the Sultey last
Thursday in the Suez Canal and came on here in a special train. It is
very cold here, and it is not a place where the cold is in keeping with
the surroundings. You see people in white helmets and astrakan
overcoats. It is an immense city and intensely interesting, especially
the bazaars, but you feel so ignorant about it all that it rather
angers you. I wish I was not such a very bad hand at languages. That
is ONE THING I cannot do, that and ride. I need it very much,
traveling so much, and I shall study very hard while I am in Paris.
Our consul-general here is a very young man, and he showed me a Kansas
paper when I called on him, which said that I was in the East and would
probably call on "Ed" L. He is very civil to me and gives me his
carriages and outriders with gold clothes and swords whenever I will
take them.
It is so beastly cold here that it spoils a lot of things, and there
are a lot of Americans who say, "I had no idea you were so young a
man," and that, after being five years old for a month and playing
children's games with English people who didn't know or care anything
about you except that you made them laugh, is rather trying. I am
disappointed so far in the trip because it has developed nothing new
beyond the fact that going around the world is of no more importance
than going to breakfast, and I am selfish in my sightseeing and want to
see things others do not. And if you even do see more than those who
are not so fortunate and who have to remain at home, still you are so
ignorant in comparison with those who have lived here for years and to
whom the whole of Africa is a speculation in land or railroads, it
makes you feel like such a faker and as if it were better to turn
correspondent for the N. Y. Herald, Paris edition, and send back the
names of those who are staying at the hotels. That is really all you
can speak with authority about. When you have Gordon and Stanley
dishes on the bill-of-fare, you feel ashamed to say you've been in
Egypt. Anyway, I am a faker and I don't care, and I proved it today by
being photographed on a camel in front of the Pyramids, and if that
wasn't impertinence I do not know its name. I accordingly went and
bought a lot of gold dresses for Nora as a penance.
As a matter of fact, unless I get into the interior for a month and see
something new, I shall consider the trip a failure, except as a most
amusing holiday for one, and that was not exactly what I wanted or all
I wanted. After this I shall go to big cities only and stay there.
Everybody travels and everybody sees as much as you do and says nothing
of it, certainly does not presume to write a book about it. Anyway, it
has been great fun, so I shall put it down to that and do some serious
work to make up for it. I'd rather have written a good story about the
Inauguration than about Cairo.
I am well, as usual, and having a fine loaf, only I don't think much of
what I have written--that's all.
DICK.
CAIRO, March 19th, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
I went up the Pyramids yesterday and I am very sore today. It sounds
easy because so many people do it, but they do it because they don't
know. I have been putting it off, and putting it off, until I felt
ashamed to such a degree that I had to go. Little had never been
either, so we went out together and met Stanford White and the Emmetts
there, and we all went up. I would rather go into Central Africa than
do it again. I am getting fat and that's about it--and I had to half
pull a much fatter man than myself who pretended to help me. I finally
told them I'd go alone unless the fat man went away, so the other two
drove him off. Going down is worse. It's like looking over a
precipice all the time. I was so glad when I got down that I sang with
glee. I hate work like that, and to make it worse I took everybody's
picture on top of the Pyramid, and forgot to have one of them take me,
so there is no way to prove I ever went up. Little and I hired two
donkeys and called them "Gallegher" and "Van Bibber" and raced them.
My donkey was so little that they couldn't see him--only his ears.
Gallegher won. The donkey-boys called it Von Bebey, so I don't think
it will help the sale of the book.
Today we went to call on the Khedive. It was very informal and too
democratic to suit my tastes. We went through a line of his bodyguard
in the hall, and the master of ceremonies took us up several low but
wide stairways to a hall. In the hall was a little fat young man in a
frock coat and a fez, and he shook hands with us, and walked into
another room and we all sat down on chairs covered with white muslin.
I talked and Little talked about me and the Khedive pretended to be
very much honored, and said the American who had come over after our
rebellion had done more for the officers in his army than had anyone
else, meaning the English. He did not say that because we were
Americans, but because he hates the English. He struck me as being
stubborn, which is one side of stupidness and yet not stupid, and I
occasionally woke him to bursts of enthusiasm over the Soudanese. His
bursts were chiefly "Ali." Little seemed to amuse him very much, and
Little treated him exactly like a little boy who needed to be cheered
up. I think in one way it was the most curious contrast I ever saw.
"Ed" Little of Abilene, Kansas, telling the ruler of Egypt not to
worry, that he had plenty of years in which to live and that he would
get ahead of them all yet. Those were not his words, but that was the
tone, he was perfectly friendly and sincere about it.
This place appeals to me as about the best place with which to get
mixed up with that I know, and I've gone over a great many maps since I
left home and know just how small the world is. So, I sent the Khedive
my books after having asked his permission, and received the most
abject thanks. And as Cromer called on me, I am going to drop around
on him with a few of them. Some day there will be fine things going on
here, and there is only one God, and Lord Cromer is his Prophet in this
country. They think that Mohammed is but they are wrong. He is a very
big man. The day he sent his ultimatum to the Khedive telling him to
dismiss Facta Pasha and put back Riaz Pasha, he went out in full view
of the Gezerik drive and played lawn tennis. Any man who can cable for
three thousand more troops to Malta and stop a transport full of two
thousand more at Aden with one hand, and bang tennis balls about with
the other, is going in the long run to get ahead of a stout little boy
in a red fez. It is getting awfully hot here, almost hot enough for
me, and I can lay aside my overcoat by ten o'clock in the morning.
Everyone else has been in flannels and pith helmets, but as they had to
wear overcoats at night I could not see the advantage of the costume.
DICK.
I open this to say that ALL of your letters have just come, so I have
intoxicated myself with them for the last hour and can go over them
again tomorrow. I cannot tell you, dearest, what a delight your
letters are and how I enjoy the clippings. I think of you all the time
and how you would love this Bible land and seeing the places where
Pharaoh's daughter found Moses, and hearing people talk of St. Paul and
the plagues of Egypt and Joseph and Mary just as though they had lived
yesterday. I have seen two St. Johns already, with long hair and
melancholy wild eyes and bare breasts and legs, with sheepskin
covering, eating figs and preaching their gospel. Yesterday two men
came running into town and told one of the priests that they had seen
the new moon in a certain well, and the priest proclaimed a month of
fasting, and the men who pulled us up the Pyramid had to rest because
they had not eaten or drunk all day. At six a sheik called from the
village and all the donkey--boys and guides around the Sphinx ran to
get water and coffee and food. Think of that--of two men running
through the street to say that they had seen the new moon in a well,
when every shop sells Waterbury watches and the people who passed them
were driving dogcarts with English coachmen in top-boots behind. Is
there any other place as incongruous as this, as old and as new?
DICK.
ATHENS, March 30, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
I am now in Athens, how I got here is immaterial. Suffice it to say
that never in all my life was I so ill as I was in the two days
crossing from Alexandria to Piraeus, which I did with two other men in
the same cabin more ill than I and praying and swearing and groaning
all the time. "It was awful."
"I have crossed in many ships upon the seas
And some of them were good and some were not;
In German, P & O's and Genoese,
But the Khedive's was the worst one of the lot.
We never got a moment's peace in her
For everybody'd howl or pray or bellow;
She threw us on our heads or on our knees,
And turned us all an unbecoming yellow."
Athens is a small town but fine. It is chiefly yellow houses with red
roofs, and mountains around it, which remind you of pictures you have
seen when a youth. Also olive trees and straight black pines and the
Acropolis. There is not much of it left as far as I can see from the
city, but what there is is enough to make you wish you had brushed up
your Greek history. I have now reached the place where Pan has a cave,
where the man voted against Aristides because he was humanly tired of
hearing him called the Just and where the Minotaur ate young women.
What was in the Isle of Crete but the rock from which the father of
Theseus threw himself--is still here! Also the hill upon which Paul
stood and told the Athenians they were too superstitious. You can
imagine my feelings at finding all of these things are true. After
this I am going to the North Pole to find Santa Claus and so renew my
youth.
I regret to say that it is raining very hard and Athens is not set for
a rainstorm. It is also cold but as I have not been warm since I
crossed the North River with Chas. amid cakes of ice that is of no
consequence. When I come here again I come in the summer. The good
old rule that it is cold in winter and warm in summer is a good enough
rule to follow. You have only to travel to find out how universally
cold winter is. last night I was in Cairo, I got in a carriage and
drove out alone to the Pyramids. It was beautiful moonlight. I got a
donkey and rode up around them and then walked over to the Sphinx. I
had never understood or seen it before. It was the creepiest and most
impressive thing I ever had happen to me, I do believe. There was no
one except the two donkey-boys and myself and the Sphinx. All about
was the desert and above it the purple sky and the white stars and the
great negro's head in front of you with its paws stretched out, and the
moonlight turning it into shadows and white lines. I think I stood
there so long that I got sort of dizzy. It was just as if I had been
the first man to stumble across it, and I felt that I was way back
thousands of years and that the ghosts of Caesar and Napoleon and
Cleopatra and the rest were in the air. That was worth the entire trip
to me. This place promises to be most exciting, the New York artists
are all here, they are the most jauntily dull people I ever met. Do
you know what I mean? They are very nice but so stupid. I don't let
them bother me. Who was the chap who wrote about the bottle of
Malvoisie? because I got a bottle of it for BREAKFAST and it is NO
GOOD. It is like sweet port. But on account of the poem and its being
vin du pays I got it.
Dear Mother, I wish you were here now and enjoying all these beautiful
things. I got you a present in Cairo that will amuse you. Had I
stayed on in Cairo I should have had much and many marks of distinction
from the English. Lady Gower-Browne, who found out from them that I
had called and that they had done nothing except to be rude, raised a
great hue and cry and everything changed. What she said of me I don't
know but it made a most amusing difference. General Walker galloped a
half mile across the desert to give me his own copy of the directions
for the sham battle, and I was to have met Cromer at dinner
tete-a-tete, and General Kitchener sent apologies by two other generals
and all the subalterns called on me in a body. That was the day before
I left. I don't know what Lady Gower-Browne said, but it made a change
which I am sorry I could not avail myself of as I want politics as well
as memories.
The next time I come I shall go to even fewer places and see more
people.
If the Harpers don't look out our interests will clash. I look at it
like this. I can always see the old historical things and take my
children up the Nile, but I want now to make friends with the Mammon of
unrighteousness and the men of the hour. I may want to occupy an hour
or two myself some day and they can help me. If America starts in
annexing islands she will need people to tell her how it is generally
done and it is generally done, I find, by the English. I may give up
literature and start annexing things like Alexander and Caesar and
Napoleon. They say there will be another crisis in Cairo in a month or
so. If that be true I am all right and solid with both parties. But
it has got to be worth while of course or I won't go back. There is a
king living in a fine palace across the square from my window, one of
his officers is now changing the guard in the rain. I hope to call on
the king because I like his guard. They wear petticoats and toes
turned up in front. Don't you mind what I say about liking politics
and don't think I am not enjoying the show things. I have a capacity
for both that is so far unsatisfied, and I am now going out in the rain
to try and find the post-office. Lots of love.
DICK.
I am well and have been well (except sea sick) since February
P. S.--A funeral is just passing the window with the corpse exposed to
view as is the quaint custom here, to add to its horror they rouge the
face of the corpse and everybody kisses it. In the Greek church they
burn candles for people and the number of candles I have burnt for you
would light St. Paul's, and you ought to be good with so much war being
expended all over Athens for you. You buy candles instead of tipping
the verger or putting it in the poor box, or because you are
superstitious and think it will do some good, as I do.
Orient Express. Somewhere in Bulgaria on the way to London.
April 14th, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
Tuesday I wrote you a letter in the club at Constantinople telling you
how glad I would be to get out of that City on April 17th on the Orient
Express which only leaves twice a week on Thursdays and Mondays. So
any one who travels by the Orient is looked upon first as a millionaire
and second, if he does not break the journey at Vienna, as a greater
traveller than Col. Burnaby on his way to Khiva. Imagine a Kansas City
man breaking the journey to New York. After I wrote you that letter I
went in the next room and read of the Nile Expedition in search of
Gordon--this went through three volumes of The Graphic and took some
time, so that when I had reached the picture which announced the death
of Gordon it was half past five and I had nothing more to do for four
days-- It was raining and cold and muddy and so I just made up my mind
I would get up and get out and I jumped about for one hour like a
kangaroo and by seven I was on the Orient with two Cook men to help me
and had shaken my fist at the last minaret light of that awful city.
So, now it is all over and it is done-- I have learned a great deal in
an imperfect way of the juxtaposition of certain countries and of the
ease with which one can travel without speaking any known languages and
of the absolute necessity for speaking one, French. I am still
disappointed about the articles but selfishly I have made a lot out of
the trip. You have no idea how hard it is not to tell about strange
things and yet you know people do not care half as much for them as
things they know all about-- No matter, it is done and with the
exception of the last week it was F I N E.
"I'm going back to London, to 'tea' and long frock coats
I'm done with Cook and seeing sights
I'm done with table d'hotes
So clear the track you signal man
From Sofia to Pless, I'm going straight for London
On the Orient Express.
I'm going straight for London O'er Bulgaria's heavy sands To Rotten Row
and muffins, soles, Chevalier and Brass Bands Ho' get away you bullock
man You've heard the whistle blowed a locomotive coming down the Grand
Trunk Road."
This is a great country and I want to ask all the natives if they know
"Stenie" Bonsal. They are all his friends and so are the "Balkans,"
and all the little Balkans. Nobody wears European clothes here. They
are all as foreign and native and picturesque as they can be, the women
with big silver plates over their stomachs and the men in sheepskin and
tights and the soldiers are grand. We have been passing all day
between snow covered mountains and between herds of cattle and red
roofed, mud villages and long lakes of ice and snow-- It is a beautiful
day and I am very happy. (Second day out) 15th---We are now in Hungary
and just outside of Buda Pesth "the wickedest city in the world," still
in spite of that fact I am going on. I am very glad I came this way--
The peasants and soldiers are most amusing and like German
picture-papers with black letter type-- I shall stop a day in Paris now
that I have four extra days.
DICK.
In sight of Paris--April 16, 1893.
DEAREST MOTHER:
has been the most beautiful day since February 4th. It is the first
day in which I have been warm. All through I have had a varnish of
warmth every now and again but no real actual internal warmth--I am now
in sight of Paris and it is the 16th of April, in the eleven weeks
which have elapsed since the 4th of February I have been in Spain,
France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey,
Greece, Egypt and Morocco. I have sat on the Rock of Gibraltar, sailed
on the Nile and the Suez Canal and crossed through the Dardanelles,
over the Balkans, the steppes of Hungary and the Danube and Rhine. I
have seen the sphinx by moonlight, the Parthenon and the Eiffel Tower
and in two days more I shall have seen St. Paul's. What do you think I
should like to see best now? YOU. I have been worrying of late as to
whether or not I should not come home now and leave Paris for another
time because it seems so rough on you to leave you without either of
your younger sons for so long. But I have thought it over a great deal
and I think it better that I should do Paris now and leave myself clear
for the rest of the year. I promise you one thing however that I shall
not undertake to stay away so long again; it is too long and one grows
out of things. But nothing I feel, will be so easy or so amusing as
Paris and I intend to get through with it soon and trot home to you by
the middle of August AT THE VERY LATEST. So, please write me a
deceitful letter and say you do not miss me at all and that my being so
near as Paris makes a great difference and that I am better out of the
way and if Chas goes to London I shall be near him in case he forgets
to put on his overshoes or involves us in a war with G. B. Now, mother
dear, do write me a cheerful letter and say that you do not mind
waiting until the middle of August for me and when I come back this
time I shall make a long stay with you at Marion and tell you lots of
things I have not written you and I shall not go away again for ever so
long and if I do go I shall only stay a little while. You have no idea
how interesting this rush across the continent has been. I started in
snow and through marshes covered with ice and long horned cattle and
now we are in such a beautiful clean green land with green fields and
green trees and flowering bushes which you can smell as the train goes
by. I now think that instead of being a cafe-chantant singer I should
rather be an Austrian baron and own a castle on a hill with a red
roofed village around it. I have spent almost all of the trip sitting
on the platform and enjoying the sight of the queer peasants and the
soldiers and old villages. Tonight I shall be in "Paris, France" as
Morton used to say and I shall get clean and put on my dress clothes
but whether I shall go see Yvette Guilbert or Rusticana again I do not
know. Perhaps I shall just paddle around the fountain in the Place de
la Concorde and make myself thoroughly at home. With a great deal of
love to Dad and Nora and Chas and all.
DICK.
At the time that Richard's first travel articles appeared some of his
critics took umbrage at the fact that he was evidently under the
delusion that he had discovered London, Gibraltar, Athens, Paris, and
the other cities he had visited, and that no one else had ever written
about them. As a matter of fact no one could have been more keenly
conscious of what an oft-told tale were the places that he had chosen
to describe. If Richard took it for granted that the reader was
totally unacquainted with the peoples of these cities and their ways,
it was because he believed that that was the best way to write a
descriptive article, always had believed it, and believed it so long as
he wrote. And whatever difference of opinion may have existed among
the critics and the public as to Richard's fiction, I think it is safe
to say that as a reporter his work of nearly thirty years stood at
least as high as that of any of his contemporaries or perhaps as that
of the reporters of all time. As an editor, when he gave out an
assignment to a reporter to write an article on some well-worn subject
and the reporter protested, Richard's answer was the same: "You must
always remember that that story hasn't been written until YOU write
it." And when he suggested to an editor that he would like to write an
article on Broadway, or the Panama Canal, or the ruins of Rome and the
editor disapproved, Richard's argument was: "It hasn't been done until
_I_ do it." And it was not because he believed for a moment that he
could do it better or as well as it had been done. It was simply
because he knew the old story was always a good story, that is, if it
was seen with new eyes and from a new standpoint. At twenty-eight he
had written a book about England and her people, and the book had met
with much success both in America and England. At twenty-nine, equally
unafraid, he had "covered" the ancient cities that border the
Mediterranean, and now Paris lay before him! This thought--indeed few
thoughts--troubled Richard very much in those days of his early
successes. He had youth, friends, a marvellous spirit of adventure,
and besides there are many worse fates than being consigned to spending
a few months in Paris, having a thoroughly joyous time, taking a few
mental notes, and a little later on transferring them to paper in the
quiet of a peaceful summer home at Marion.
Chief among his friends in Paris at this time was Charles Dana Gibson,
who was living in a charming old house in the Latin Quarter, and where
the artist did some of his best work and made himself extremely popular
with both the Parisians and the American colony. In addition to Gibson
there were Kenneth Frazier, the portrait-painter, and Tina, Newton, and
James Eustis, the daughter and sons of James B. Eustis, who at that
time was our ambassador to France, a most genial and kindly host, who
made much of Richard and his young friends.
PARIS, May 5, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
It is a narrow street with apartment houses of gray stone and iron
balconies along either side of it. The sun sets at one end of the
street at different times during the day and we all lean out on the
balconies to look. On the house, one below mine, on the other side of
our street, is a square sign that says:
ALFRED DE MUSSET
EST MORT DANS CETTE MAISON
A great many beautiful ladies with the fashionable red shade of hair
still call there, as they used to do when the proper color was black
and it was worn in a chignon and the Second Empire had but just begun.
While they wait they stretch out in their carriages and gaze up at the
balconies until they see me, and as I wear a gold and pink silk wrapper
and not much else, they concentrate all their attention on the wrapper
and forget to drop a sigh for the poet. There are two young people on
the sixth floor opposite, who come out on the balcony after dinner and
hold on to each other and he tells her all about the work of the day.
Below there is a woman who sews nothing but black dresses, and who does
that all day and all night by the light of a lamp. And below the
concierge stands all day in a lace cap and black gown and blue, and
looks up the street and down the street like the woman in front of
Hockley's. BUT on the floor opposite mine there is a beautiful lady in
a pink and white wrapper with long black hair and sleepy black eyes.
She does not take any interest in my pink wrapper, but contents herself
with passing cabs and stray dogs and women with loaves of bread and
bottles in their hands who occasionally stray into our street. At six
she appears in another gown and little slippers and a butterfly for a
hat and says "Good-by" to the old concierge and trips off to dinner.
Lots of love to all.
DICK.
PARIS, May 11th, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
I am still somewhat tentative as regards my opinion of the place, what
it will bring me in the way of material I cannot tell. So far, "Paris
Decadent" would be a good title for anything I should write of it. It
is not that I have seen only the worst side of it but that that seems
to be so much the most prominent. They worship the hideous Eiffel
Tower and they are a useless, flippant people who never sleep and yet
do nothing while awake. To-morrow I am going to a pretty inn
surrounded by vines and trees to see a prize fight with all the silly
young French men and their young friends in black and white who ape the
English manners and customs even to "la box." To night at the
Ambassadeurs the rejected lover of some actress took a gang of bullies
from Montmartre there and hissed and stoned her. I turned up most
innocently and greatly bored in the midst of it but I was too far away
to pound anybody-- I collected two Englishmen and we went in front to
await her re-appearance but she had hysterics and went off in a cab and
so we were not given a second opportunity of showing them they should
play fair. It is a typical incident of the Frenchman and has made me
wrathy. The women watching the prize fight will make a good story and
so will the arms of the red mill, "The Moulin Rouge" they keep turning
and turning and grinding out health and virtue and souls.
I dined to night with the C-----s and P----s, the Ex-Minister and
disagreed with everybody and found them all very middle class as to
intellect. An old English lady next to me said apropos of something
"that is because you are not clever like Mr. ---- and do not have to
work with your brains." To which I said, I did not mind not being
clever as my father was a many times millionaire," at which she became
abjectly polite. Young Rothenstein is going to do a picture of me
to-morrow morning. There is nothing much more to tell except that a
horse stood on his fore legs in the Bois the other day and chucked me
into space. I was very sore but I went on going about as it was the
Varnishing day at the new salon and I wished to see it. I am over my
stiffness now and if "anybody wants to buy a blooming bus" I have one
for sale and five pairs of riding breeches and two of ditto boots. No
more riding for me--- The boxing bag is in good order now and I do not
need for exercise. The lady across the street has a new wrapper in
which she is even more cold and haughty than before. "I sing Tarrara
boom deay and she keeps from liking me."
DICK.
PARIS, May 14th, 1893.
DEAR NORA:
Things are getting more interesting here and I shall probably have
something to write about after all, although I shall not know the place
as I did London. Will Rothenstein has drawn a picture of me that I
like very much and if mother likes it VERY, VERY much she may have it
as a loan but she may not like it. I did not like to take it so I
bought another picture of him, one of Coquelin cadet and now I have
two. Coquelin gave him his first commission when he was nineteen, two
years ago, and then asked him to do two sketches. After these were
done Coquelin told him by letter that he would give him half what they
had agreed upon for the big picture for the two sketches and begged the
big picture as a gift. So Rothenstein cut the head and shoulders out
of the big one and sent him the arms and legs. It is the head he cut
out that I have. When Rothenstein and I and Coquelin become famous,
that will make a good story. I have also indulged myself in the
purchase of several of Cherets works of art. They cost three francs
apiece. We have had some delightful lunches at the Ambassadeurs with
Cushing and other artists and last night I went out into the Grande
Monde to a bal masque for charity at the palace of the Comtesse de la
Ferrondeux. It was very stupid and the men outnumbered the women 30 to
1, which are interesting odds. To-day we went to Whistler's and sat
out in a garden with high walls about it and drank tea and laughed at
Rothenstein. The last thing he said was at the Ambassadeurs when one
of the students picking up a fork said, "These are the same sort of
forks I have." Rothenstein said "yes, I did not know you dined here
that often." Some one asked him why he wore his hair long, "To test
your manners" he answered. He is a disciple of Whistler's and Wilde's
and said "yes, I defend them at the risk of their lives." Did I tell
you of his saying "It is much easier to love one's family than to like
them." And when some one said "Did you hear how Mrs. B. treated Mr.
C., (a man he dislikes) he said, "no, but I'm glad she did." It was
lovely at Whistler's and such a contrast to the other American salon I
went to last Sunday. It was so quiet, and green and pretty and
everybody was so unobtrusively polite.
Rothenstein wore my rosette and made a great sensation and I was
congratulated by Whistler and Abbey and Pennell. Rothenstein said he
was going to have a doublebreasted waistcoat made with rosettes of
decorations for buttons. Tomorrow Lord Dufferin has asked me to
breakfast at the Embassy. He was at the masked ball last night and was
very nice. He reminds me exactly of Disraeli in appearance. It is
awfully hot here and a Fair for charity has asked me to put my name in
"Gallegher" to have it raffled for. "Dear" Bonsal arrives here next
Sunday, so I am in great anticipation. I am very well, tell mother,
and amused. Lots of love.
DICK.
PARIS, June 13, 1893.
DEAR MOTHER:
There is nothing much to say except that things still go on. I feel
like one of those little India rubber balls in the jet of a fountain
being turned and twisted and not allowed to rest. Today I have been to
hear Yvette Guilbert rehearse and thought her all Chas thinks her only
her songs this season are beneath the morals of a medical student. It
is very hot and it is getting hotter. I had an amusing time at the
Grand Prix where Tina won a lot of money on a tip I gave her which I
did not back myself. In the evening Newton took me to dinner and to
the Jardin de Paris where they had 10 franc admittance and where every
thing went that wasn't nailed. The dudes put candles on their high
hats and the girls snuffed them out with kicks and at one time the
crowd mobbed the band stand and then the stage and played on all the
instruments. The men were all swells in evening dress and the women in
beautiful ball dresses and it was a wonderful sight. It only happens
once a year like the Yale-Princeton night at Koster and Bials except
that the women are all very fine indeed. They rode pig-a-back races
and sang all the songs. I had dinner with John Drew last night. I
occasionally sleep and if Nora doesn't come on time I shall be a
skeleton and have no money left. As a matter of fact I am fatter than
ever and can eat all sorts of impossible things here that I could never
eat at home. I lunch every day with the Eustises and we dine out
almost every night. I consort entirely with the poorest of art
students or the noblest of princesses and so far have kept out of
mischief, but you can never tell for this is a wicked city they say, or
it strikes me as most amusing at present only I cannot see what Harper
and Bros. are going to get out of it. I said that of London so I
suppose it will all straighten out by the time I get back.
DICK.