CAMPAIGNING IN CUBA AND GREECE
In December, 1896, Richard and Frederic Remington, the artist, were
commissioned by the New York Journal to visit Cuba which was then at
war with Spain. It was their intention to go from Key West in the
Vamoose, a very fast but frail steam-launch, and to make a landing at
some uninhabited point on the Cuban coast. After this their plans seem
to have been to trust to luck and the kindliness of the revolutionists.
After waiting for some time at Key West for favorable weather, they at
last started out on a dark night to make the crossing. A few hours
after the Vamoose had left Key West a heavy storm arose--apparently
much too violent for the slightly built launch. The crew struck and
the captain finally refused to go on to Cuba and put back to Key West.
Shortly after this Remington and my brother reached Havana by a more
simple and ostentatious route. This was my brother's first effort as a
war correspondent, and I presume it was this fact and the very
indefiniteness of the original plan that caused his mother and father
so much uneasiness. And, indeed, it did prove eventually a hazardous
exploit.
way to Key West.
December 19, 1896.
DEAR MOTHER:
I hope you won't be cross with me for going off and not letting you
know, but I thought it was better to do it that way as there was such
delay in our getting started. I am going to Cuba by way of Key West
with Frederic Remington and Michaelson, a correspondent who has been
there for six months. We are to be taken by the Vamoose the fastest
steam yacht made to Santa Clara province where the Cubans will meet us
and take us to Gomez. We will stay a month with him, the yacht calling
for copy and sketches once a week, and finally for us in a month. I
get all my expenses and The Journal pays me $3,000 for the month's
work. The Harper's Magazine also takes a story at six hundred dollars
and Russell will reprint Remington's sketches and my story in book
form, so I shall probably clear $4,000 in the next month or six weeks.
I was a week in getting information on the subject so I know all about
it from the men who have just been there and I want you to pay
attention to what I tell you they told me and not to listen to any
stray visitor who comes in for tea and talks without any tact or
knowledge. There is no danger in the trip except the problem of
getting there and getting away again, and that is now removed by The
Journal's yacht. I would have gone earlier had any of the periodicals
that asked me to go shown me any way to get there-- THERE IS NO FEVER
THIS TIME OF YEAR and as you know fever never touches me. It got all
the others in Central America and never worried me at all. There is no
danger of getting shot, as the province into which we go, the Santa
Clara province, is owned and populated and patrolled by the Cubans. It
is no more Spanish than New Jersey and the Spaniards cannot get in
there. We have the strongest possible letters from the Junta, and I
have from Lamont, Bayard and Olney and credentials in every language.
We will sit around the Gomez camp and send messengers back to the
coast. It is a three days trip and as Gomez may be moving from place
to place you may not hear from us for a month and we may not hear from
you but remember it was a much longer time than that before you heard
from me when I went to Honduras. Also keep in mind that I am going as
a correspondent only and must keep out of the way of fighting and that
I mean to do so, as Chamberlain says we want descriptive stories not
brave deeds-- Major Flint who has arranged the trip for us was down
there with Maceo as a correspondent. He saw six fights and never shot
off his gun once because as he said it was not his business to kill
people and he has persuaded me that he is right, so I won't do anything
but look on-- I have bought at The Journal's expense a fifty dollar
field glass which is a new invention and the best made. I have marked
it so that you can see a man five miles off and as soon as I see him I
mean to begin to ride or run the other way--no one loves himself more
than I do so you leave me to take care of myself. I wish I could give
you any idea of the contempt the four returned correspondents who
talked to me, have for the Spaniards. They have seen them shoot 2,500
rounds without hitting men at 200 yards and they run away if the enemy
begins on them first. However, you trust to Richard-- We have a fine
escort arranged for us and Michaelson speaks Spanish perfectly and has
been six months scouting over the country.
DICK.
KEY West, December 26, 1896.
DEAR FAMILY:
I got your letters late last night and they made me pretty solemn. It
is an awfully solemn thing to have people care for you like that and to
care for them as I do. I can't tell you how much I love you. You
don't know how much the pain of worrying you for a month has meant to
me, but I have talked it all out with myself, and left it to God and I
am sure I am doing right. As Mrs. Crown said, "There's a whole
churchful up here praying for you," and I guess that will pull me
through. Of course, dear, dear Mother thought she was cross with me.
She could not be cross with me, and her letter told me how much she
cared, that was all, and made me be extra careful. But I need not
promise you to be careful. You have an idea I am a wild,
filibustering, hot-headed young man. I am not. I gave the guides to
understand their duty was to keep us out of danger if we had to walk
miles to avoid it. We are men of peace, going in, as real estate
agents and coffee-planters and drummers are going in on every steamer,
to attend to our especial work and get out again quick. I have just as
strong a prejudice against killing a man as I have against his killing
me.
Lots and lots of love. Don't get scared if you don't hear for a month,
although we will try to get our stories back once a week, but you know
we are at the convenience of the Cubans who will pocket our despatches
and money and not take the long trip back. Thank dear Dad for his
letter full of good advice. It was excellent. Remington and Michelson
are good men and I like them immensely. Already we are firm friends.
Love,
KEY WEST--January 1, 1897.
DEAR MOTHER:
As you will know by my telegram we are either off on a safe sea going
boat or waiting for one. There is no turning back from here and the
only reason I thought of doing so was the knowledge of the way you
would suffer and worry. I argued it out that it was selfish in me to
weigh my getting laughed at and paragraphed as the war correspondent
that always Turned Back against a month of uneasiness for you, but
later I saw I could not do it much as I love you for the element of
danger to me is non-existent; it is merely an exciting adventure and
you will have to believe me and not worry but be a Spartan mother. I
would not count being laughed at and the loss of my own self respect if
I really thought there was great danger, but I do not. You will not
lose me and if I go now I can sit still next time and say "I have done
better things than that." If I had not gone it would have meant that I
would have had to have done just that much harder a stunt next time to
make people forget that I had failed in this one. Now do cheer up and
believe in the luck of Richard Harding Davis and the British Army. We
have carte blanche from The Journal to buy or lease any boat on the
coast and I rocked them for $1000 in advance payment because of the
delay over the Vamoose.
I am so happy at thinking I am going, I could not have faced anyone had
I not, although we had nothing to do with the failure, we tried to
cross fairly in the damn tub and it was her captain who put back. I
lay out on the deck and cried when he refused to go ahead, we had
waited so long. The Cubans and Remington and Michelson had put on all
their riding things but fortunately I had not and so was spared that
humiliation. What I don't know about the Fine Art of Filibustering now
is unnecessary. I find many friends of my Captain Boynton or "Capt.
Burke." Tonight the officers of the Raleigh give me a grand dinner at
which I wear a dress suit and make speeches--they are the best chaps I
ever met in the Navy. Lots of love and best wishes to Dad and to Nora
for a happy, happy New Year. You know me and you know my conscience
but it would not let me go back in order to save you anxiety so you
won't think me selfish. God bless you.
DICK.
KEY WEST, January 2nd, 1897.
DEAR FAMILY:
I have learned here that the first quality needed to make a great
filibuster is Patience, it is not courage, or resources or a knowledge
of the Cuban Coast line, it is patience. Anybody can run a boat into a
dark bayou and dump rifles on the beach and scurry away to sea again
but only heroes can sit for a month on a hotel porch or at the end of a
wharf, and wait. That is all we do and that is my life at Key West. I
get up and half dress and take a plunge in the bay and then dress fully
and have a greasy breakfast and then light a huge Key West cigar, price
three cents and sit on the hotel porch with my feet on a rail-- Nothing
happens after that except getting one's boots polished as the two
industries of this place are blacking boots and driving cabs. I have
two boys to black mine at the same time every morning and pay the one
who does his the better of the two-- It generally ends in a fight so
that affords diversion-- Then a man comes along, any man, and says,
"Remmington's looking for you" and I get up and look for Remington.
There is only a triangle of streets where one can find him and I call
at "Josh" Curry's first and then at Pendleton's News Store and read all
the back numbers of the Police Gazette for the hundredth time and then
call here at the Custom House and then look in at the Cable office,
where Michaelson lives sending telegrams about anything or nothing and
that brings me back to the hotel porch again, where I have my boots
shined once more and then go into mid-day dinner. In the meanwhile
Remington is looking for me a hundred yards in the rear. He generally
gets to "Josh's" as I leave the Custom House-- In the afternoon I study
Spanish out of a text book and at three take a bicycle ride, at five I
call at the garrison to take tea with the doctor and his wife, who is
sweeter than angel's ever get to be with a miniature angel of a baby
called Martha. I wait until retreat is sounded and the gun is fired at
sunset and having commented unfavorably on the way the soldiers let the
flag drop on the grass instead of catching it on the arms as a
bluejacket does, I ride off to the bay for another bath-- Then I take
the launch to the Raleigh and dine with the officers and rejoice in the
clean fresh paint and brass and decks and the lights and black places
of a great ship of war, than which nothing is more splendid. We sit on
the quarter-deck and smoke and play the guitar and I go home again, in
time for bed. I vary this programme occasionally by spending the
morning on the end of a wharf watching another man fish and reading old
novels and the "Lives of Captain Walker" and "Captain Fry of the
Virginius," two great books from each of which I am going to write a
short story like the one of the Alamo or of the Jameson Raid-- The life
of Walker I found on the Raleigh and the life of Captain Fry with all
the old wood cuts and the newspaper comments of the time at a book
store here. I don't know when we shall get away but it is no use
kicking about it, Michaelson is doing all he can and the new tug will
be along in a week anyway. I shall be so glad to get to Cuba that I
will dance with glee.
DICK.
MATANZAS, January 15th, 1897.
DEAR MOTHER:
I sent you a note by Remington which he will mail in the States-- From
here I go to Sagua La Grande. It is on the northern coast. I think
from there I shall cross over to Cienfuegos on the Southern coast and
then if I can catch a steamer go to Santiago to see my old friends, at
the Juraqua mines and MacWilliams' ore road and "the Palms"--
Everywhere I am treated well on account of Weyler's order and I am
learning a great deal and talking very little, my Spanish being bad.
There is war here and no mistake and all the people in the fields have
been ordered in to the fortified towns where they are starving and
dying of disease. Yesterday I saw the houses of these people burning
on both sides of the track-- They gave shelter to the insurgents and so
very soon they found their houses gone. I am so relieved at getting
old Remington to go as though I had won $5000. He was a splendid
fellow but a perfect kid and had to be humored and petted all the time.
I shall if I have luck be through with this in a few weeks but it has
had such a set back at the start that I am afraid it can never make a
book and I doubt if I can write a decent article even. I am so anxious
not to keep you worrying any longer than is necessary and so I am
hurrying along taking only a car window view of things. Address me
care of Consul General Lee, Havana and confine your remarks to what is
going on at home. I know what is going on here. I don't believe half
I hear but I am being slowly converted. Remington is more excitable
than I am, so don't misunderstand if he starts in violently. I am
getting details and verifying things. He is right on a big scale but
every one has lied so about this island that I do not want to say
anything I do not believe is true. This is a beautiful little city and
after Jaruco, where we slept two days ago, it is Paris. There we slept
off the barnyard and cows and chickens walked all over the floor and
fleas all over us. It was like Honduras only filthier. Speaking of
Paris, tell the Kid I expect to go over to him soon after I return to
New York.
of love.
DICK.
CARDENAS--North Coast of Cuba.
January 16th, 1897.
DEAR MOTHER:
It is very funny not knowing what sort of a place you are to sleep in
next and taking things out of a grab bag, as it were-- In Europe you
can always guess what the well known towns will give you for you have a
guide book, but here it is all luck. Matanzas was a pretty city but
the people were awful, the hotel was Spanish and the proprietor
insolent, though I was spending more of Willie Hearst's money than all
of the officers spend in a week, the Consul could not talk English or
Spanish, he said he hadn't come there "to go to school to no Spaniard"
and he gloried in the fact he had been there three years without
knowing a word of the language. His vice-Consul was worse and
everything went wrong generally. Every one I met was an Alarmist and
that is polite for liar. They asked Remington if he was the man who
manufactured the rifles and gave us the Iowa Democrat to read. To
night I reached here after a six hours ride through blazing fields of
sugar cane and stopped on my way to the hotel to ask the Consul when
the next boat went to Saqua la Grande-- I had no letter of introduction
to him as I had to the Matanzas consul, but as soon as he saw my card
he got out of his chair and shook hands again and was as hearty and
well bred and delightful as Charley himself and unlike Chas he did not
ask me 14 francs for looking on him. He is out now chasing around to
get me a train for to-morrow. But I won't go to-morrow. My hotel
looks on the plaza and the proprietor and the whole suite of attendants
are my slaves. It is just as different as can be. My interpreter does
it, he calls himself MY VALET, although I point out to him that two
shirts and twelve collars do not constitute a wardrobe even with a
rubber coat thrown in. But he likes to play at my being a
distinguished stranger and I can't say I object. Only when you
remember the way I was invited to see Cuba and expected to see it, and
now the way I am seeing it from car windows with A VALET. What would
the new school of yellow kid journalists say if they knew that. For
the first time on this trip I have wished you were both with me, that
was to night. I never see anything really beautiful but that it
instantly makes me feel selfish and wish you could see it too. It has
happened again and again and to night I wish you could be here with me
on this balcony. The town runs down a slope to the bay and in the
middle of it is the Plaza with me on the balcony which lets out of my
sleeping room-- "the room" so the proprietor tells me, "reserved only
for the Capitain General." It is just like the description in that
remarkable novel of mine where Clay and Alice sit on the balcony of the
restaurant. I have the moonlight and the Cathedral with the open doors
and the bronze statue in the middle and the royal palms moving in the
breeze straight from the sea and the people walking around the plaza
below. If it was in any way as beautiful as this Clay and Alice would
have ended the novel that night.
I got a grand lot of letters to-day which Otto, my interpreter brought
back from Havana after having conducted Remington there in safety. I
must say you are writing very cheerfully now, but I don't wonder you
worried at first but now that I am a commercial traveller with an order
from Weyler which does everything when I find it necessary, you really
must not worry any more but just let me continue on my uneventful
journey and then come home. I shall have been gone so long and my
friends, judging from Russell and Dana and Irene's letters, will be so
glad to see me, that they will have forgotten I went out to do other
things than coast around in trains. As a matter of fact this is a
terribly big problem and most difficult to get the truth of, I find
myself growing to be the opposite of the alarmist, whatever that is,
although you would think the picturesque and dramatic and exciting
thing would be the one I would rather believe because I want to believe
it, but I find that that is not so, I see a great deal on both sides
and I do not believe half I am told. As we used to say at college, "it
is against history," and it is against history for men to act as I am
told they are acting here-- They show me the pueblo huddled together
around the fortified towns, living in palm huts but I know that they
have always lived in palm huts, the yellow kid reporters don't know
that or consider it, but send off word that the condition of the people
is terrible, that they have only leaves to cover them, and it sounds
very badly. That is an instance of what I mean. In a big way there is
no doubt that the process going on here is one of extermination and
ruin. Two years ago the amount of sugar shipped from the port of
Matanzas to the U. S. was valued at 11 millions a year. This last year
just over shows that sugar to the amount of $800,000 was sent out. In
'94, 154 vessels touched at Matanzas on their way to America. In '95
there were 80 and in '96 there are 16. I always imagined that houses
were destroyed during a war because they got in the way of cannon balls
or they were burned because they might offer shelter to the enemy, but
here they are destroyed, with the purpose of making the war horrible
and hurrying up the end. The insurgents began first by destroying the
sugar mills, some of which were worth millions of dollars in machinery,
and now the Spaniards are burning the homes of the people and herding
them in around the towns to starve out the insurgents and to leave them
without shelter or places to go for food or to hide the wounded. So
all day long where ever you look you see great heavy columns of smoke
rising into this beautiful sky above the magnificent palms the most
noble of all palms, almost of all trees-- It is the most beautiful
country I have ever visited. I had no recollection of how beautiful it
was or else I had not the knowledge of other places with which to
compare it. Nothing out of the imagination can approach it in its
great waterfalls and mossy rocks and grand plains and forests of white
pillars with plumes waving above them. Only man is vile here and it is
cruel to see the walls of the houses with blind eyes, with roofs gone
and gardens burned, every church but one that I have seen was a
fortress with hammocks swung from the altars and rude barricades thrown
up around the doorways-- If this is war I am of the opinion that it is
a senseless wicked institution made for soldiers, lovers and
correspondents for different reasons, and for no one else in the world
and it is too expensive for the others to keep it going to entertain
these few gentlemen-- I have seen very little of it yet and I probably
won't see much more, but I have seen all I want. Remington had his
mind satisfied even sooner--but then he is an alarmist and exaggerates
things-- The men who wear the red badge of courage, I don't feel sorry
for, they have their reward in their bloody bandages and the little
cross on their tunic but those you meet coming back sick and dying with
fever are the ones that make fighting contemptible--poor little
farmers, poor little children with no interest in Cuba or Spain's right
to hold it, who have been sent out to die like ants before they have
learned to hold a mauser, and who are going back again with the beards
that have grown in the field hospitals on their cheeks and their eyes
hollow, and too weak to move or speak. Six of them died while I was in
Jaroco, a town as big as Marion and that had been the average for two
months, think of that, six people dying in Marion every day through
July and August-- I didn't stay in that town any longer than the train
did-- Well I have been writing editorials here instead of cheering you
up but I guess I'm about right and when I see a little more I'll tell
it over again to The Journal-- It is not as exciting reading as deeds
of daring by our special correspondent and I haven't changed my name or
shaved my eyebrows or done anything the other men have done but I
believe I am getting near the truth. They have shut off provisions
going or coming from the towns, they have huddled hundreds of people
who do not know what a bath means around these towns, and this is going
to happen-- As soon as the rains begin the yellow fever and smallpox
will set in and all vessels leaving Cuban ports will be quarantined and
the island will be one great plague spot. The insurgents who are in
the open fields will live and the soldiers will die for their officers
know nothing of sanitation or care nothing. The little Consul has just
been here to see me and we have had a long talk and I got back at him.
He told me he had seen the Franco-German war as a correspondent of The
Tribune and I asked him if he had ever met another correspondent of The
Tribune at that time a German student named Hans who cabled the story
of the battle of Gravellote and who Archibald Forbes says was the first
correspondent to use the cable. The Consul who looks like William D.
Howells wriggled around in his chair and said "I guess you mean me but
I was not a German student, I was born and raised in Philadelphia and
Forbes got my name wrong, it is Hance." So then I got up and shook
hands with him in my turn and told him I had always wanted to meet that
correspondent and did not expect to do so in Cardenas, on the coast of
Cuba.
Thank you all for your letters. I am glad you liked the Jameson book.
I thought you knew I was a F. R. G. S. It was George Curzon proposed
me and as he is a gold medallist of the Society it was easy getting in.
Lots of love.
DICK.
Richard returned to New York from Cuba in February, 1897, but the
following month started for Florence to pay me a long-promised visit.
On his way he stopped for a few days in London and Paris.
ABASSADE DES ETATS-UNIS
59 Rue Galilee,
Paris, April 1st, 1897.
DEAR FAMILY:
I got over here to-day after the heaviest weather I ever tackled on
this channel. Stephen Crane came with me. I gave him a lunch on
Wednesday. Anthony Hope, McCarthy, Harold Frederic and Barrie came.
Sir Evelyn Wood instead of coming was detained at the war office and
sent instead a lance Sergeant on horseback with a huge envelope marked
"On Her Majesty's Service," which was to be delivered into my hands--
The entire Savoy was upset and it was generally supposed that war had
been declared and that I was being ordered to the front-- The whole
hotel hung over us until I had receipted for the package and the
soldier had saluted and clanked away. I gave Crane the letter as a
souvenir. I also saw Seymour Hicks' first night and recognized 15
American songs in it.
The London Times offered me the position of correspondent on the Greek
frontier. Every one in London thought it an enormous compliment and
Harold Frederic, Ralph, Ballard Smith and the rest were very envious.
I told them I could not go, but I was glad to have had the compliment
paid me. Barrie has made out a scenario of the "Soldiers" for dramatic
purposes and has asked the Haymarket management to consider it. So,
that I guess that it must be good--
So, I also guess I had better finish it-- I leave for Florence to
night. I am having a fine, fine time and I am so glad you are all well.
Lots of love,
DICK.
Of the many happy days we have spent together, I do not believe there
were any much more happy than the three weeks Richard remained with me.
It was his first long visit to Italy and from the day of his arrival he
loved the old town and its people who gave him a most friendly welcome.
He had come at a time when Florence was at its best, its narrow quaint
streets filled with sunshine and thronged with idling natives and the
scurrying tourists that always came with the first days of spring. The
Cascine and the pink-walled roads of the environs were ablaze with wild
roses and here, after his rather strenuous experience in Cuba, Richard
gave himself up to long days of happy idleness. Together we took
voyages of discovery to many of the little walled and forgotten towns
where the tourists seldom set foot. Once we even wandered so far as
Monte Carlo, where my brother tried very hard to break the bank and did
not succeed. But the Richard Harding Davis luck did not fail him
completely and I remember I greatly envied him the huge pile of gold
and notes that represented his winnings and which we did our very best
to spend before we left the land of the Prince of Monaco. However,
having had his first taste of war, Richard felt that he must leave the
peace and content of Florence to see how the Greeks, with whom he had
much sympathy, were faring with their enemies the Turks. As it
happened, this expedition proved but a short interruption, and in less
than a month he was once more back with his new-found friends in
Florence.
April 28, 1897
On the Way to Patras on a Steamer.
DEAR FAMILY:
It has been a week since I wrote you last, when I sent you the
Inauguration article. Since then I have been having the best time I
ever had any place ALONE. I have had more fun with a crowd, but never
have been so happy by myself. What I would have been had I taken some
other chap with me I cannot imagine. But the people of this part of
Greece have been so kind that I cannot say I have been alone. I never
met with strangers anywhere who were so hospitable, so confiding and
polite. After that slaughter-yard and pest place of Cuba, which is
much more terrible to me now than it was when I was there, or before I
had seen that war can be conducted like any other evil of civilization,
this opera bouffe warfare is like a duel between two gentlemen in the
Bois. Cuba is like a slave-holder beating a slave's head in with a
whip. I am a war correspondent only by a great stretch of the
imagination; I am a peace correspondent really, and all the fighting I
have seen was by cannon at long range. (I was at long range, not the
cannon.) I am doing this campaign in a personally conducted sense with
no regard to the Powers or to the London Times. I did send them an
article called "The Piping Times of War." If they do not use it I
shall illustrate it with the photos I have taken and sell it, for five
times the sum they would give, to the Harpers who are ever with us. As
I once said in a noted work, "Greece, Mrs. Morris, restores all your
lost illusions." For the last week I have been back in the days of
Conrad, the Corsair, and "Oh, Maid of Athens, ere We Part." I have
been riding over wind-swept hills and mountains topped with snow, and
with sheep and goats and wild flowers of every color spreading for
acres, and in a land where every man dresses by choice like a grand
opera brigand, and not only for photographic purposes. I have been on
the move all the time, chasing in the rear of armies that turn back as
soon as I approach and apologize for disappointing me of a battle, or
riding to the scene of a battle that never comes off, or hastening to a
bombardment that turns out to be an attack on an empty fort.
I live on brown bread and cheese and goat's milk and sleep like a log
in shepherds' huts. It is so beautiful that I almost grudge the night.
Nora and Mother could take this trip as safely as a regiment and would
see things out of fairyland. And such adventures! Late in life I am
at last having adventures and honors heaped upon me. I was elected a
captain of a band of brigands who had been watching a mountain pass for
a month, and as it showed no signs of running away had taken to dancing
on the green. I caught them at this innocent pastime and they allowed
me to photograph them and give them wine at eight cents a quart which
we drank out of a tin stovepipe. They drank about four feet of
stovepipe or thirty-six cents' worth, then they danced and sang for me
in a circle, old men and boys, then drilled with their carbines, and I
showed them my revolver and field-glasses and themselves in the finder
of the camera; and when I had to go they took me on their shoulders and
marched me around waving their rifles. Then the old men kissed me on
the cheek and we all embraced and they wept, and I felt as badly as
though I were parting from fifty friends. They told my guide that if I
would come back they would get fifty more "as brave as they" and I
could be captain. I could not begin to tell you all the amusing things
that have happened in this one week. I did not want to come at all,
only a stern sense of duty made me. For I wanted to write the play in
Charley's gilded halls and get to Paris and London. But I can never
cease rejoicing that I took this trip. And it will make the book, "A
Year from a Reporter's Diary," as complete as it can be. That was why
I came. Now I have the Coronation of the Czar, the Millennial at
Hungary, the Inauguration at Washington, the Queen's Jubilee, the War
in Cuba, and the Greco-Turkish War. That is a good year's work and I
mean to loaf after it. You will laugh and say that that is what I
always say, but if you knew how I had to kick myself out of Florence
and the Cascine to come here you would believe me. I want a rest and I
am cutting this very short.
Don't fail to cut anything Dad and Mother don't like out of the
Inauguration article. You will have me with you this winter on my
little bicycle and going to dances and not paying board to anyone.
Remember how I used to threaten to go to Greece when the coffee was not
good. It seems too funny now, for I never was in a better place, or
had more fun or saw less of war or the signs of war.
DICK.
May 7, 1897.
10 East Twenty-Eighth Street-NIT
Sponitza.
DEAR CHAS.
This is one of the places out of Phroso, but as you never read Phroso I
will cut all that-- I hate to say it so soon again but this is the most
beautiful country to travel over I have seen-- It is a fairy theatrical
grand opera country where everybody dresses in petticoats and gold
braided vests and carry carbines to tend sheep with-- I rode from Santa
Maura (see map) to a spot opposite Prevesa where they said there was
going to be bombarding-- There was not of course but I had I think the
most beautiful ride of my life. I was absolutely happy--little lambs
bleated and kids butted each other and peasants in fur cloaks without
sleeves and in tights like princes sat on rocks and played pipes and
the sky was blue, the mountains covered with snow and the fields and
hills full of purple bushes and yellow and blue flowers and sheep--
There was a cable station of yellow adobe. It was the only building
and it looked across at Prevesa but nobody bombarded. The general gave
me cognac and the cable operator played a guitar for me and the preyor
sang a fine bass, the corporal not to be out done gave me chocolate and
the army stood around in the sun and joined in the conversation
correcting the general and each other and taking off their hats to all
the noble sentiments we toasted. It was just like a comic opera.
After a while when I had finished a fine hunck of cheese and hard eggs
and brown bread I took a photograph of the General and the cable
operator and the officer with the bass voice and half of the army-- The
other half was then sent to escort me to this place. It walked and I
rode and there were many halts for drinks and cigarettes. They all ran
after a stray colt and were lost for some time but we re-mobilized and
advanced with great effect into this town. I was here taken in charge
by at least fifty sailors and as many soldiers and comic opera brigands
in drawers and white petticoats, who conducted me to a house on the
hill where the innkeeper brought me a live chicken to approve of for
dinner. Then the mayor of the town turned up in gold clothes and
Barrison Sister skirts and said the General had telegraphed about me
and that I was his-- The innkeeper wept and said he had seen me first
and the chorus of soldiers, sailors and brigands all joined in. I kept
out of it but I knew the Mayor would win and he did. Then we went out
to a man-of-war the size of the Vagabond and were solemnly assured
there would be bombarding of Prevesa to-morrow-- I go to sleep in that
hope. We leave here at seven crossing the river and ride after the
Greeks who are approaching Prevesa from the land side while the
men-of-war bombard it from the river. At least that is what they say.
I think it is the mildest war on both sides I ever heard of and I
certainly mean to be a Times correspondent next time I play at going to
war-- After being insulted and frightened to death all over Cuba, this
is the pleasantest picnic I was ever on-- They seriously apologized for
not bombarding while I was there and I said not to mention it-- With
lots of love, old man, and to the family
DICK.
FLORENCE
May 16, 1897.
DEAR FAMILY:
Here I am safe and sound again in the old rooms in Florence. I was
gone twenty-three days and was traveling nineteen of them, walking,
riding; in sailboats, in the cars, and on steamers. I have had more
experiences and adventures than I ever had before in three months and
quite enough to last me for years.
After my happy ride through Turkey and the retreat of the Greek army in
Arta, of which I wrote you last, I have been in Thessaly where I saw
the two days' battle of Velestinos from the beginning up to the end.
It was the one real battle of the war and the Greeks fought well from
the first to the last. I left Athens on the 29th of April with John
Bass, a Harvard graduate, and a most charming and attractive youth who
is, or was, in charge of the Journal men; Stephen Crane being among the
number. He seems a genius with no responsibilities of any sort to
anyone, and I and Bass left him at Velestinos after traveling with him
for four days. Crane went to Volo, as did every other correspondent,
leaving Bass and myself in Velestinos. As the villagers had run away,
we burglarized the house of the mayor and made it our habitation while
the courier hunted for food. It was like "The Swiss Family Robinson,"
and we rejoiced over the discovery of soap and tablecloths and stray
knives and forks, just as though we had been cast on a desert island.
Bass did the cooking and I laid the table and washed up and made the
beds, which were full of fleas. But we had been sleeping on chairs and
on the floor for a week so we did not mind much.
The second day we were awakened by cannon and you can imagine our joy
and excitement. We had it all to ourselves for eight hours, as it took
the other correspondents that long to arrive. It was an artillery and
infantry battle and about 20,000 men were engaged on both sides. The
Greeks fought from little trenches on the hills back of the town and
the Turks advanced across a great green prairie. It was very long
range and only twice did they get to within a quarter of a mile of our
trenches. Bass and I went all over the Greek lines, for you were just
as safe in one place as in another, which means that it wasn't safe
anywhere, so we gave up considering that and followed the fight as best
we could from the first trench, which was the only one that gave an
uninterrupted view of the Turkish forces. It was a brilliantly clear
day but opened with a hail storm, which enabled the Turks to crawl up
half a mile in the sudden darkness. It also gave me the worst attack
of sciatica I ever had. Fortunately, it did not come on badly until I
reached Volo, when it suddenly took hold of me so that I could not
walk. The trenches were wet with the rain and we had no clothes to
change to, and two more showers kept us more or less wet all day. We
had a fine view of everything and I learned a lot.
We were under a heavy fire for thirteen hours and certainly had some
very close escapes. At times the firing was so fierce that if you had
raised your arm above your head, the hand would have been instantly
torn off. We had to lie on our stomachs with our chins in the dirt and
not so much as budge. This was when the Turkish fire happened to be
directed on our trench. At such times all the other trenches would
fire so as to draw the attack away, and we would have to wait until it
was over. The shells sounded like the jarring sound of telegraph wires
when one hits the pole they hang from with a stone; and when the shells
were close they sounded like the noise made by two trains passing in
opposite directions when the wind is driven between the cars. The
bullets were much worse than the shells as you could always hear them
coming, and the bullets slipped up and passed you in a sneaking way
with a noise like rustling silk, or if some one had torn a silk
handkerchief with a sharp pull. One shell struck three feet from me
and knocked me over with the dirt and stones and filled my nose and
mouth with pebbles. I went back and dug it out of the ground while it
was still hot and have it as a souvenir. I swore terribly at the
bullets and Bass used to grin in a sickly way. It made your hair creep
when they came very close. One man next me got a shot through the
breast while he was ramming his cleaner down the barrel, and there were
three killed within the limits of our fifty yards. We could not get
back because there was a cross fire that swept a place we had to pass
through, just about the way the wind comes around the City Hall in the
times of a blizzard. We called it Dead Man's Curve, after that at
Fourteenth Street and Union Square, because it was sprinkled with dead
ammunition, mules and soldiers. We came through it the first time
without knowing what we were getting into and we had no desire to go
back again. So we waited until the sun set. I took some of the finest
photographs and probably the only ones ever taken of a battle at such
close range. Whenever the men fired, I would shoot off the camera and
I expect I have some pretty great pictures. Bass took some of me so if
there is any question as to whether I was at the Coronation, there will
be none as to whether I was at Velestinos.
Our house was hit with two shells and bullets fell like the gentle rain
from heaven all over the courtyard, so we would have been no safer
there than behind the trenches. We sent off the first account of the
battle written by anybody by midday, and stayed on until the next day
at four when the place was evacuated in good order because, as usual,
the Crown Prince was running away--from Pharsalia this time.
They say in Greece "Lewes, the peasant, won the race from Marathon, but
Constantine the prince, won the race from Larissa."
I was all right until I got to Volo when my right leg refused
absolutely to do its act and I had to be carried on a donkey. A Greek
thought I looked funny sitting groaning on the little donkey; which I
did--I looked ridiculous. So he laughed, and Bass and a French
journalist batted him over the face and left me clinging to the
donkey's neck and howling to them to come back and hold me up. But
they preferred to fight, and a policeman came along and arrested the
unhappy Greek and beat him over the head, just for luck, and marched
him off to jail, just for laughing.
They took me to the hospital ship which was starting, and I came to
Athens that way with one hundred and sixteen wounded; the man on my
right had his ankles gone and the man on the left had a bullet in his
side. They groaned all night and so did I. Then when the sun rose
they sang, which was worse. I never saw anything more beautiful than
the red-cross nurses, and I guess that is the most beautiful picture I
shall ever see--those sweet-faced girls in blue and white bending over
the dirty frightened little peasant boys and taking care of their
wounds. I made love to all of them and asked three to marry me. I was
in bed for two days after I got to Athens but had a fine time, as all
the officers from the San Francisco, from the admiral down, came to see
me, and the minister, consul and the rest did all that could have been
done. I am now all right and was bicycling in the dear old Cascine
this morning. On the whole it was a most successful trip. Sylvester
Scovel and Phillips of The World arrived just as it was all over, and
so Bass and I are about the only two Americans who were in it.
The train from Brindisi stopped at Rome on the way back and I went to
see the Pages. They took me out and showed me Rome by moonlight in one
hour. It was like a cinematograph. They are here now and coming to
dinner tonight. Last night the consul had all our friends to dinner to
welcome me back, and maybe I was not glad. I had been living on cheese
and brown bread and cold lamb for two weeks, with no tobacco, and
sleeping five hours a night on floors and sofas. Sometimes the
officers and men fought for food, and we never got anything warm to eat
except occasionally tinned things which we cooked in my kit. It was
the most satisfactory trip all round I ever had. I have been twenty
years trying to be in a battle and it will be twenty years more before
I will want to be in another.
On the eighteenth I start for London, stopping one day in Paris to see
the Clarks and Eustises. It is going to be bigger than the Coronation
for crowds, and Mother need not worry, I shall keep out of it. The
Minister to Russia sent me word that the Czar's prime minister has
given him my article and that the Czar said thank him very much. So
that is all right. Also Hay is to present me to the Prince at the
levee on the 31st of May, and I shall send him a copy, too. I am
looking forward to London with such joy. Tell Mother to send me the
Bookbuyer with her article in it. I have only read the reviews of it,
and they are so enthusiastic that I must have the whole thing quick.
It was such a fine thing to do about Poe, and to give those other two
fetishes the coup de grace. It reads splendidly and I want it all.
What did Dad think of the Inauguration article? I send you all my
dearest love and will have lots to tell you when I get back this time.
God bless you all.
DICK.
Richard left Florence the latter part of May, and went to London where
he had made arrangements to report the Queen's Jubilee. He began his
round of gayeties by being presented at Court. The Miss Groves and
Miss Wather to whom he refers in the following letter were the clerks
at Cox's hotel.
LONDON, June 2nd, 1897.
DEAR FAMILY:
I was a beautiful sight at the Levee. I wore a velvet suit made
especially for me but no dearer for that and steel buttons and a
beautiful steel sword and a court hat with silver on the side and silk
stockings that I wore at Moscow and pumps with great buckles. I was
too magnificent for words and so you would have said. I waited a long
time in a long hall crowded with generals and sea captains and
highlanders and volunteers and cavalry men and judges and finally was
admitted past a rope and then past another rope and then rushed along
into the throne room where I saw beefeaters and life guardsmen and
chamberlains with white wands and I gave one my card and he read out
"R. H. D. of the United States by the American Ambassador" and then I
bowed to the Prince and Duke of York, Connaught and Edinburgh and to
the American Ambassador and then Henry White and Spencer Eddy, the two
Secretaries and the naval attache all shook hands with me and I went
around in a hansom in the bright sunshine in hopes of finding some one
who would know me. But no one did so I went to Cox's Hotel and showed
myself to Miss Groves and Miss Wather. I went on the Terrace yesterday
with the Leiters and at O'Connor's invitation brought them to tea.
Labouchere was there and Dillon just out of jail and it was most
interesting. I am very, very busy doing nothing and having a fine
time--
DICK.
LONDON, June 21, 1897.
DEAR MOTHER:
Words cannot tell at least not unless I am well paid for it what London
is like to-day. In the first place it is so jammed that no one can
move and it is hung with decorations so that no one can see. Royal
carriages get stuck just as do the humble drayman or Pickford's Van and
royalties are lodging in cheap hotels with nothing but a couple of
Grenadier's in sentry boxes to show they are any better blooded than
the rest of the lodgers. I also added to the confusion by giving a
lunch to the Ambassador and Miss Hay in return for the presentation.
Lady Henry and Mrs. Asquith sat on either side of him and Mrs. Clark
had Asquith and Lord Basil Blackwood to talk to-- There was also
Anthony Hope, the beautiful Julia Neilson and her husband Fred Terry
and Lady Edward Cecil and Lord Lester-- It went off fine and the Savoy
people sent in an American Eagle of ice, decorated with American flags
and dripping icy tears from its beak. It cost me five shillings a head
and looked as though it cost that in pounds-- To night I dine with the
Goulds and then go to a musical where Melba sings, Padewreski plays and
then walk the streets if I can until daybreak as I think of making the
night before the procession the greater part of the story. I send you
a plan showing my seat which cost me twenty-five dollars, the
advertised price being $125. but there has been a terrible slump in
seats. Love to dear Dad and Nora.
DICK.
LONDON.
89 Jermyn Street,
June 25th, 1897.
DEAR MOTHER:
The Jubilee turned out to be the easiest spectacle to get at and to get
away from that I ever witnessed. Experience in choosing a place and
police regulations made it so simple that we went straight to our seats
and got away again without as much trouble as it would have taken to
have gone to a matinee. The stage management of the thing almost
impressed me more than anything else. For grandeur and show it about
equalled the procession of the Czar and in many ways it was more
interesting because it was concerned with our own people and with our
own part of the world. Next to the Queen, Lord Roberts got all of the
applause. He rode a little white pony that had been with him in six
campaigns and had carried him on his march to Candahar. It had all the
campaign medals presented to it by the War Department and wore them in
a line on its forehead, and walked just as though he knew what a great
occasion it was. After Roberts came in popularity a Col. Maurice
Clifford with the Rhodesian Horse in sombrero's and cartridge belts and
khaki suits. He had lost his arm and was easily recognized. Wilfred
Laurier the French Premier of Canada and the Lord Mayor were the other
favourites. The scene in front of St. Paul's was absolutely
magnificent with the sooty pillars behind the groups of diplomats,
bishops and choir boys in white, University men in pink silk gowns, and
soldiers, beef eaters, gentlemen at arms and the two Archbishops. The
best moment was when the collected troops; negroes, Chinamen, East
Indians, West Indians, African troopers, Canadian Mounted Police,
Australians, Borneo police and English Grenadiers all sang the doxology
together in the beautiful sunshine and under the shadow of that great
facade of black and white marble. Also when the Archbishop of
Canterbury without any warning suddenly after kissing the Queen's hand
threw up his arm and cried out so that you could have heard him a
hundred yards off "Three Cheers for Her Majesty" and the diplomats, and
foreign rajahs and bishops and Salvation Army captains waved their hats
and mortar boards and the soldiers ran their bearskins and helmets on
their bayonets and spun them around in the air. The weather was
absolutely perfect and there were no accidents. Last night the
carriages were allowed to parade the streets and for hours the route
was blocked with omnibuses hired by private parties, coster carts,
private carriages, court carriages and the hansoms. The procession
formed by these was two hours in going one mile. They passed my
windows in Jermyn Street for three hours and a party of us sat inside
and guyed the life out of them until one in the morning. We got very
clever at it finally and very impudent and as the people were only two
yards from us my windows being on a level with the tops of the buses
and as we had a flaring illumination that lit up the street completely
we had lots of fun with them especially with the busses, as we
pretended to believe that the advertisements referred to the people on
the top, and we would ask anxiously which lady was "Lottie Collins" and
which gentleman had been brought up on " Mellin's Food"-- We had even
more fun with the swells coming home from the Gala night at the opera
and hemmed in between costers and Pickford's vans loaded down with
women and children.
They called on us for speeches and matches and segars and we kept the
procession supplied with food and drink. Nobody got mad and they
answered back but we were prepared with numerous repartees and they
were apparently so surprised by finding a party of ladies and gentlemen
engaged in chaffing court officials that they would forget to reply
until they had moved on. One bus driver said "Oh, you can larff, cause
your at 'ome. We are 'unting for Jensen on a North Pole Expedition.
We won't be home for three years yet--" Charley seems very happy and he
got a most hearty welcome. I shall follow him over. I do not think I
shall go when he does as that would mean seeing people and getting
settled and I must get the Greek war done by the 12th of July and the
Jubilee by the 15th of August. I know you will not mind, but I have
been terribly interrupted by the Jubilee and by so many visitors. They
are running in all the time, so I shall try to get the Greek war
article done before I sail and also have a little peaceful view of
London. I have seen nothing of it really yet. It has been like living
in a circus, and moving about on an election night. I am well as can
be except for occasional twinges of sciatica but I have not had to go
to bed with it and some times it disappears for a week. A little less
rain and more sun will stop it. I hope you do not mind my not
returning but we will all be together for many months this Fall and I
really feel that I have not had a quiet moment here for pleasure and
work. It has been such a rush. I do wish to see dear Dad. I am so
very sorry about his being ill, and I hope he is having lots of
fishing. Love to all at Marion--and God bless you.
RICHARD.
LONDON
July 13, 1897.
DEAR MOTHER:
Today Barrie gave a copyright performance of "The Little Minister"
which Maude Adams is to play in the States. It was advertised by a
single bill in front of the Haymarket Theater and the price of
admission was five guineas. We took in fifteen guineas, the audience
being Charley Frohman, Lady Craig and a man. Cyril Maude played the
hero and Brandon Thomas and Barrie the two low comedy parts--two
Scotchmen of Thrums. I started to play one of them, but as I insisted
on making it an aged negro with songs, Barrie and Frohman got
discouraged and let me play the villain, Lord Rintoul, in which
character I was great. Maude played his part in five different ways
and dialects so as to see which he liked best, he said. It was a bit
confusing. Then one of the actors went up in the gallery and pretended
to be a journalist critic who had sneaked in, and he abused the play
and the actors with the exception of the man who played Whamond
(himself) whom he said he thought showed great promise. Maude
pretended not to know who he was and it fooled everybody. Mrs. Barrie
played the gipsy and danced most of the time, which she said was her
conception of the part as it was in the book. Her husband explained
that this was a play, not a book, but she did not care and danced on
and off. She played my daughter, and I had a great scene in which I
cursed her, which got rounds of applause. Lady Lewis's daughters in
beautiful Paquin dresses played Scotch lassies, and giggled in all the
sad parts, and one actress who had made a great success as one of the
"Two Vagabonds" made everybody weep by really trying to act. At one
time there were five men on the stage all talking Scotch dialect and
imitating Irving at the same time. It was a truly remarkable
performance. Ethel Barrymore goes back on Saturday with Drew to play a
French maid in "A Marriage of Convenience." She is announced to be
engaged to Hope, I see by the papers. They are not engaged, of course,
but the papers love to make matches. Look for me as sailing either on
the 31st on the St. Louis or a week later. With lots and lots of love.
DICK.
In the late summer Richard returned to Marion and from there went to
New York. However, at this time, the lure of England was very strong
with my brother, and early December found him back in London.
LONDON, December 29th, 1897.
DEAR MOTHER:--
I had a most exciting Christmas, most of which I spent in Whitechapel
in the London Hospital. I lunched with the Spenders and then went down
with them carrying large packages for distribution to the sick. I
expected to be terribly bored, but thought I would feel so virtuous
that I would the better enjoy my dinner which I had promised to take
with the McCarthys-- On the contrary, I had the most amusing time and
much more fun than I had later. The patients seemed only to be playing
sick, and some of them were very humorous and others very pathetic and
I played tin soldiers with some, and distributed rich gifts, other
people had paid for, with a lavish hand. I also sat on a little girl's
cot and played dolls for an hour. She had something wrong with her
spine and I wept most of the time, chiefly because she smiled all the
time. She went asleep holding on to my middle finger like the baby in
"The Luck of Roaring Camp." There were eighty babies in red flannel
nightgowns buttoned up the back who had pillow fights in honor of the
day and took turns in playing on a barrel organ, those that were strong
and tall enough. In the next ward another baby in white was dying--
Its mother was a coster girl, seventeen years old, with a big hat and
plumes like those the flower girls wear at Piccadilly Circus. The baby
was yellow like old ivory and its teeth and gums were blue and it died
while we were watching it. The mother girl was drinking tea and crying
into it out of red swollen eyes, and twenty feet off one of the red
nightgowned kids was playing "Louisiana Lou" on the barrel organ. The
nurse put the baby's arms under the sheets and then pulled one up over
its face and took the teacup away from the mother who didn't see what
had happened and I came away while three young nurses were comforting
the girl. Most of the nurses were very beautiful, and I neglected my
duties as Santa Claus to talk to them. They would stop talking to get
down on their knees and dust up the floor, which was most embarrassing,
you couldn't very well ask to be let to help. There was one coster who
had his broken leg in a cage which moved with the leg no matter how
much he tossed. He was like the man "who sat in jail without his
boots, admiring how the world was made," he spent all his waking hours
in wrapt admiration of the cage-- He said to me "I've been here a
fortnight now, come Monday, and I can't break my leg no how. Yer can't
do it, that's all-- Yer can twist, and kick, and toss, and it don't do
no good. Yer jest can't do it-- Now you take notice." Then he would
kick violently and the cage would run around on trolleys and keep the
broken limb straight. "See!" he would exclaim, "Wot did I tell you--
Its no use of trying, yer just can't do it. 'ere I've been ten days a
trying and it can't be done."
We had a very fine Christmas dinner just Ethel, the McCarthy's and I.
Fanny, tell Charles, brought in the plum pudding with a sprig of holly
in it and blazing, and after dinner I read them the Jackall-- About
eleven I started to take Ethel to Miss Terry's, who lives miles beyond
Kensington. There was a light fog. I said that all sorts of things
ought to happen in a fog but that no one ever did have adventures
nowadays. At that we rode straight into a bank of fog that makes those
on the fishing banks look like Spring sunshine. You could not see the
houses, nor the street, nor the horse, not even his tail. All you
could see were gas jets, but not the iron that supported them. The
cabman discovered the fact that he was lost and turned around in
circles and the horse slipped on the asphalt which was thick with
frost, and then we backed into lamp-posts and curbs until Ethel got so
scared she bit her under lip until it bled. You could not tell whether
you were going into a house or over a precipice or into a sea. The
horse finally backed up a flight of steps, and rubbed the cabby against
a front door, and jabbed the wheels into an area railing and fell down.
That, I thought, was our cue to get out, so we slipped into a well of
yellow mist and felt around for each 'other until a square block of
light suddenly opened in mid air and four terrified women appeared in
the doorway of the house through which the cabman was endeavoring to
butt himself. They begged us to come in, and we did-- Being Christmas
and because the McCarthy's always call me "King" I had put on all my
decorations and the tin star and I also wore my beautiful fur coat, to
which I have treated myself, and a grand good thing it is, too-- I took
this off because the room was very hot, forgetting about the
decorations and remarked in the same time to Ethel that it would be
folly to try and get to Barkston Gardens, and that we must go back to
the "Duchess's" for the night. At this Ethel answered calmly "yes,
Duke," and I became conscious of the fact that the eyes of the four
women were riveted on my fur coat and decorations. At the word "Duke"
delivered by a very pretty girl in an evening frock and with nothing on
her hair the four women disappeared and brought back the children, the
servants, and the men, who were so overcome with awe and excitement and
Christmas cheer that they all but got down on their knees in a circle.
So, we fled out into the night followed by minute directions as to
where "Your Grace" and "Your Ladyship" should turn. For years, no
doubt, on a Christmas Day the story will be told in that house,
wherever it may be in the millions of other houses of London, how a
beautiful Countess and a wicked Duke were pitched into their front door
out of a hansom cab, and after having partaken of their Christmas
supper, disappeared again into a sea of fog. The only direction Ethel
and I could remember was that we were to go to the right when we came
to a Church, so when by feeling our way by the walls we finally reached
a church we continued going on around it until we had encircled it five
times or it had encircled us, we were not sure which. After the fifth
lap we gave up and sat down on the steps. Ethel had on low slippers
and was shivering and coughing but intensely amused and only scared for
fear she would lose her voice for the first night of "Peter"-- We could
hear voices sometimes, like people talking in a dream, and sometimes
the sound of dance music, and a man's voice calling "Perlice" in a
discouraged way as if he didn't much care whether the police came or
not, but regularly like a fog siren-- I don't know how long we sat
there or how long we might have sat there had not a man with a bicycle
lamp loomed up out of the mist and rescued us. He had his mother with
him and she said with great pride that her boy could find his way
anywhere. So, we clung to her boy and followed. A cabman passed
leading his horse with one of his lamps in his other hand and I turned
for an instant to speak to him and Ethel and her friends disappeared
exactly as though the earth had opened. So, I yelled after them, and
Ethel said "Here, I am," at my elbow. It was like the chesire cat that
kept appearing and disappearing until he made Alice dizzy. We finally
found a link-boy and he finally found the McCarthy's house, and I left
them giving Ethel quinine and whiskey. They wanted me to stay, but I
could not face dressing, in the morning. So I felt my way home and
only got lost twice. The Arch on Constitution Hill gave me much
trouble. I thought it was the Marble Arch, and hence-- In Jermyn
Street I saw two lamps burning dimly and a voice said, hearing my
footsteps "where am I? I don't know where I am no more than nothing--"
I told him he was in Jermyn Street with his horse's head about twenty
feet from St. James-- There was a long dramatic silence and then the
voice said-- "Well, I be blowed I thought I was in Pimlico!!!"
This has been such a long letter that I shall have to skip any more. I
have NO sciatica chiefly because of the fur coat, I think, and I got
two Christmas presents, one from Margaret Fraser and one from the
Duchess of Sutherland-- Boxing Day I took Margaret to the matinee of
the Pantomine and it lasted five hours, until six twenty, then I
dressed and dined with the Hay's and went with them to the Barnum
circus which began at eight and lasted until twelve. It was a busy day.
Lots of love.
DICK.
LONDON, March 20, 1898.
DEAR MOTHER:
The Nellie Farren benefit was the finest thing I have seen this year
past. It was more remarkable than the Coronation, or the Jubilee. It
began at twelve o'clock on Thursday, but at ten o'clock Wednesday
night, the crowd began to gather around Drury Lane, and spent the night
on the sidewalk playing cards and reading and sleeping. Ten hours
later they were admitted, or a few of them were, as many as the
galleries would hold. Arthur Collins, the manager of the Drury Lane
and the man who organized the benefit, could not get a stall for his
mother the day before the benefit. They were then not to be had, the
last having sold for twelve guineas. I got TWO the morning of the
benefit for three pounds each, and now people believe that I did get
into the Coronation! The people who had stalls got there at ten
o'clock, and the streets were blocked for "blocks" up to Covent Garden
with hansoms and royal carriages and holders of tickets at fifty
dollars apiece. It lasted six hours and brought in thirty thousand
dollars. Kate Vaughan came back and danced after an absence from the
stage of twelve years. Irving recited The Dream of Eugene Aram, Terry
played Ophelia, Chevalier sang Mrs. Hawkins, Dan Leno gave Hamlet,
Marie Tempest sang The Jewel of Asia and Hayden Coffin sang Tommy
Atkins, the audience of three thousand people joining in the chorus,
and for an encore singing "Oh, Nellie, Nellie Farren, may your love be
ever faithful, may your pals be ever true, so God bless you Nellie
Farren, here's the best of luck to you." In Trial by Jury, Gilbert
played an associate judge; the barristers were all playwrights, the
jury the principal comedians, the chorus girls were real chorus girls
from the Gaiety mixed in with leading ladies like Miss Jeffries and
Miss Hanbury, who could not keep in step. But the best part of it was
the pantomime. Ellaline came up a trap with a diamond dress and her
hair down her back and electric lights all over her, and said, "I am
the Fairy Queen," and waved her wand, at which the "First Boy" in the
pantomime said, "Go long, now, do, we know your tricks, you're Ellaline
Terriss"; and the clown said, "You're wrong, she's not, she's Mrs.
Seymour Hicks." Then Letty Lind came on as Columbine in black tulle,
and Arthur Roberts as the policeman, and Eddy Payne as the clown and
Storey as Pantaloon.
The rest of it brought on everybody. Sam Sothern played a "swell" and
stole a fish. Louis Freear, a housemaid, and all the leading men
appeared as policemen. No one had more than a line to speak which just
gave the audience time to recognize him or her. The composers and
orchestra leaders came on as a German band, each playing an instrument,
and they got half through the Washington Post before the policemen beat
them off. Then Marie Lloyd and all the Music Hall stars appeared as
street girls and danced to the music of a hand-organ. Hayden Coffin,
Plunkett Greene and Ben Davies sang as street musicians and the clown
beat them with stuffed bricks. After that there was a revue of all the
burlesques and comic operas, then the curtain was raised from the
middle of the stage, and Nellie Farren was discovered seated at a table
on a high stage with all the "legitimates" in frock-coats and walking
dresses rising on benches around her.
The set was a beautiful wood scene well lighted. Wyndham stood on one
side of her, and he said the yell that went up when the curtain rose
was worse than the rebel yell he had heard in battles. In front of
her, below the stage, were all the people who had taken part in the
revue, forming a most interesting picture. There was no one in the
group who had not been known for a year by posters or photographs:
Letty Lind as the Geisha, Arthur Roberts as Dandy Dan. The French Girl
and all the officers from The Geisha, the ballet girls from the
pantomime, the bareback-riders from The Circus Girl; the Empire
costumes and the monks from La Poupee, and all the Chinese and Japanese
costumes from The Geisha. Everybody on the stage cried and all the old
rounders in the boxes cried.
It was really a wonderfully dramatic spectacle to see the clown and
officers and Geisha girls weeping down their grease paint. Nellie
Farren's great song was one about a street Arab with the words: "Let
me hold your, nag, sir, carry your little bag, sir, anything you please
to give--thank'ee, sir!" She used to close her hand, then open it and
look at the palm, then touch her cap with a very wonderful smile, and
laugh when she said, "Thank'ee, sir!" This song was reproduced for
weeks before the benefit, and played all over London, and when the
curtain rose on her, the orchestra struck into it and the people
shouted as though it was the national anthem. Wyndham made a very good
address and so did Terry, then Wyndham said he would try to get her to
speak. She has lost the use of her hands and legs and can only walk
with crutches, so he put his arm around her and her son lifted her from
the other side and then brought her to her feet, both crying like
children. You could hear the people sobbing, it was so still. She
said, "Ladies and Gentleman," looking at the stalls and boxes, then she
turned her head to the people on the stage below her and said,
"Brothers and Sisters," then she stood looking for a long time at the
gallery gods who had been waiting there twenty hours. You could hear a
long "Ah" from the gallery when she looked up there, and then a "hush"
from all over it and there was absolute silence. Then she smiled and
raised her finger to her bonnet and said, "Thank'ee, sir," and sank
back in her chair. It was the most dramatic thing I ever saw on a
stage. The orchestra struck up "Auld Lang Syne" and they gave three
cheers on the stage and in the house. The papers got out special
editions, and said it was the greatest theatrical event there had ever
been in London.
DICK.