Part 5

Lunched with Morris Korbel at the Ritz, and had an orgy of discussion. He is full of thoughts. He sees the world from the point of view of a looker-on. His analysis of the United States and its inhabitants was very illuminating. I am still watching, and undecided. He has his views. He thinks it is a great country and (with the exception of New York) more appreciative of Art and more encouraging than any other country. Moreover, it has developed its own Art. We compiled together a goodly list of American artists. He talked about the extraordinary advance of America in architecture, for instance--over any other country in the world today, and its efficiency in Science, and Hygiene. He described to me “the west,” the agricultural districts, the orchards--how they are planted, and drained. How the sluice gates open once a day and acres are watered systematically. How these people just “rape Nature,” as he expressed it, and get all there is to be had out of it. We reviewed the miracle of the race. How all the foreign peoples come into the melting pot and turn out an American type. He said, and truly, that with the exception of England, no country breeds women with such long legs and thin ankles and wrists. They are beautiful. And as for the men--where else do they rise from working men and become Kings? (“In Soviet Russia!” I murmured.)

Kenneth Durant fetched me at six-thirty and we took the over-head-railway and went to East Side. Where, making our way through a maze of playing children, we dined in the Roumanian restaurant. It was as though in a few minutes one had suddenly gone abroad to a foreign country. I have never had the sensation in New York that I was a foreigner, perhaps that is because I am half American, or because we all speak English.

In the East Side people talked Italian or else that other strange language that newspapers are printed in, and which looks like a mixture of Russian and Arabic! A newspaper boy brought in the evening papers to the Roumanian restaurant while we were there, and when I asked him if he couldn’t bring in something I could read, the other people laughed. We ordered some steak for our dinner, and when the waiter brought enough for a school treat I exclaimed, and he said, “In Broadway they serve the dishes--here we serve the food!” They did indeed; even sharing it with a starving cat I couldn’t get through with it. The restaurant was rather a good one and very clean. I reproached Kenneth for not having taken me somewhere with more local color. I hate being treated as a Bourgeoise.

The evening was very warm, and the restaurant door was open. East Side has its background of sound like any other place. In Pittsburgh it is the sound of the mills, like the roar of the sea. In New York it is the trams and the traffic and the overhead trains. In East Side (at night) it is the voices of laughing playing children. What heaps of children! The streets were full of them. One tumbled over them, one bumped into them, one dodged them, as in the side streets of Naples. Some of the smaller children, smaller than Dick, sat crumpled up in a doorway or leaning against a lamp-post, weary and sleepy. It was nearly ten o’clock at night, and they were not in bed. The streets were strewn with papers as after a picnic. I said to Kenneth, “Why aren’t the streets cleaned?” and he said because people were so busy cleaning the streets where I live. I said, “Why don’t the children go to bed?” and he said because there were twenty people to a room, and it was easier to leave the children out in the street as long as possible.

We walked and walked, a long way, through ill-lit side streets where women sat out on their door-steps, watching sleeping babies in perambulators, or suckling them at the breast. The main streets were brightly lit, and the stalls by the sidewalk were doing a busy trade in tawdry goods as in the Zucharefski Market of Moscow. We bought roast chestnuts and ate them as we walked along. I bought a pot of red tulips growing--for Dick. They were cheaper here, but they were heavy and Kenneth had to carry them, but he didn’t complain.

SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1921.

We have been here nearly two months, and in those two months we have learnt that American ideas are on the whole, good ideas. There is usually reason in most things that Americans do, and good reasons, as for instance, in prohibition. But there is another prohibition quite different from the one that most people talk about, and it’s unexplained. It concerns Dick. When I say that it concerns him I do not mean that it affects him alone. He is merely voicing the great “why?” of a million children, who may not walk on the grass in Central Park. “Keep Off”--“Keep Off” is written everywhere. It takes a great many men in, uniform to enforce this prohibition. Strong men, vigilant men, diligent men, too. Just as the policemen seem to be picked for Fifth Avenue traffic, policemen who seem to be entirely friendly towards children, whose one idea is to help them across the street and to laugh and joke with them as he does so (Dick has several friends on the Avenue) just so the parkmen seem to be picked for their job. They are hard men, cold men, they smile not neither do they joke. They are like people who have been too long with children. I learnt my lesson a few days ago when for a great treat Dick took me for a walk in Central Park. With the perfect courage of an ignorant person, I tossed my head, drank in deep breaths of fresh spring air, and strode out across the open. It was the first day of spring, and how good it seemed. Suddenly Dick seized my arm and pointing to a distant blot in the landscape said to me, “That is for you--don’t you hear the whistle?” I confessed I heard a whistle, but I thought someone was calling a dog. “That is for you to get off the grass--.” But I was a long way on the grass. I seemed to be in the middle of a sea of green. True, no one was on it but myself, but that had not seemed to me peculiar. If I thought about it at all I just thought Americans were too busy to loaf like me, in the sun.

“Are you sure we mayn’t walk on the grass?” I asked Dick. He was quite sure, and made some signal to the whistleman to the effect that we would remove ourselves to the far distant path.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him. And then I learnt what prohibition means; that you do the thing that is prohibited just as often as you can, until you are found out. What a game for one’s early days--to dodge the law, and deliberately break it on every possible occasion.

I asked a park-keeper whom I met later on what the regulations were and learnt that towards May there are certain places in the park that may be walked on, in turn. This will be indicated by a flag flying high or a flag lying low, I couldn’t quite make out. The children had been unlucky this year, the keeper said, because there had been so little snow, which enables them to go anywhere.

Dick is unlucky, because he arrived in New York in February, and will leave before May, so he has missed and will miss any chance of walking on the grass!

This afternoon we were lent a car, so I drove him, with Louise, to a part of Central Park that he has talked of for days. It was not the grassy part (the view of that green space was enjoyed very much. It was most gratifying and pleasing to the eye as we sped by luxuriously in our limousine!). I dropped him at the wooded hillside which is like the country. You can see no houses, just wooded slopes and streams and waterfalls and ponds. He took his submarine and his steamer with him, and I left him there. When he came home in the evening I asked him if he had enjoyed it. He said, “The park men wouldn’t let me sail my ships--but I did!” He went on to explain that whenever he put his ships in the water a whistle was blown. Finally he and Louise got under a bridge, and under cover succeeded in breaking the prohibition rule for some time.

“Some day--,” and there was a gleam in Dick’s eye that was something more than just the naughty look of a mischievous boy--“someday when I am a man, I shall have a gun, and I shall shoot every man with a whistle.” “Oh, Dick,” I protested. “Yes I shall--I shall be a Revolutioner!”

And that is surely the effect on the young of a prohibition that cannot be explained. Dick knows of no reason why he should not walk on the grass, nor sail his ships in the streams; what is grass for? Why is there a park at all? There is one pond in Central Park for children’s ships, and there is a playground for children’s balls. But one small pond and one dusty playground, what is that among so many children? In such a big park?

On St. Patrick’s Day, Dick and I came back through the Park from the Metropolitan Museum, and the procession was still passing by. People might not even stand on a rocky eminence to look over the wall. A parkman stood there, whistle in mouth, proudly, defiantly, king of all he surveyed. Over the wall came the sound of the bands, and the marching feet, but only the park-keeper could see the procession. Big-eyed children stood there, open-mouthed, at the sound of the “Wearing of the Green.” Truly he was not an Irishman, that park-keeper. And now I feel sad, and rather anxious, as spring is coming. I have work that keeps me a while longer in the city. Should I send Dick to a boarding-school in the country, so that he may enjoy the spring? So that he should not have daily to endure the sight of green grass viewed from a narrow gravel path, a path in which he may not even dig, or build sand castles. Must I send him away so that he shall not grow into a law-breaker and a “Revolutioner”?

What we really want to know, is: Who does the green grass grow for, in Central Park?

MONDAY MARCH 28, 1921.

Have spent the Easter week-end in bed. I slept almost on end for sixty-eight hours, mentally and physically perfectly exhausted. It was heaven being in bed, and I didn’t attempt to read nor write, or even think.

Today I arose, slightly rested, and lunched with Emil Fuchs. Louis Wiley was the only other presence. I like seeing him, I always discover which way the wind is blowing. We talked about England’s trade agreement with Russia, and I said--rather provokingly perhaps, “I suppose America is waiting to see if Russia really has anything to trade with. It would be a great joke if she has, and if England gets it all.” Mr. Wiley answered rather maliciously, “England can have it--she needs it, and it may help her to pay us back--.”

So! That’s the undercurrent, is it?

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 1921.

I dined in Brooklyn and spoke afterwards at the Twentieth Century Club. This had been arranged for me by Mr. Keedick. I asked what sort of audience I should have to talk to, (meaning would it be radical, reactionary, artistic, or semitic--) and was told they were “ladies and gentlemen!” Thus illuminated I trimmed my sails accordingly. I dined with some charming people first, and to my astonishment, there was a most beautiful Sir Joshua in the drawing-room. It was a lovely nude bacchante, and at her feet a little faun playing the flute. I asked incredulously, “Is that a real Sir Joshua?” My hostess answered, “Yes, and I confess I am very fond of it, though I never should have thought I could have a nude in my drawing-room, especially with a daughter growing up.”

FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1921.

I have had rather a wonderful morning. I was taken to the apartment of a man who collects Italian primitives. He is young, as yet only about twenty-seven, and one of the amazing products of this country. His mother, they say, was a washer-woman, (why not?) and he determined to go through college. At Harvard he paid his own way by buying up the trouser press industry and syndicating it, and putting himself at the head. He made a fortune by pressing the undergraduates’ trousers. This is the “on-dit,” probably it is quite inaccurate, and he would tell a very different story. Anyway it’s a good story, and the fundamental thing is that he arose, from nowhere, out of the blue, so to speak. What his work is now I didn’t hear, but he is collecting Italian primitives. We saw them all before he came in. There were Botticelli’s, Fra Angelico’s, Filippo Lippi, Bellini, and countless others. Each one was lovely, and one felt much loved. The rooms were simply but beautifully furnished with Italian pieces. In the dining-room the table was laid, and next to the owner’s place was a book from which he reads out a little prayer, for grace, before each meal. It sounded affected, but I was assured it came from a deeply fervent spirit. I marvelled much over this young man before I saw him. His bedroom was chaste and hung with Madonnas, he had tall candles and things that suggested holiness! There was only one personal note in the whole place, the photograph of a very modern lovely girl.

Later, the owner arrived, a perfectly simple, unaffected, enthusiastic boy, who knew all about his treasures and could tell about them. He had the face of a Mantegna picture, and the stiff white modern collar made him of today. Otherwise he was quite in keeping. There certainly was no pose about him, and no suggestion of nouveau-riche.

Every day that I am in this country I am more amazed. What has produced this curious type, that earns millions and prefers to spend on pre-Raphaelites rather than on race horses?

I lunched with Emil Fuchs, who had a nice party, among whom Frank Munsey, a curious personality. Intellectual but so, so cold. I managed once to make him half smile. He came afterwards to Knoedler’s, he looked at everything, silently, and left hurriedly without any expression of opinion.

I dined with the Rosens, and Benjy Guiness and McEvoy and Purcell Jones were of the party. While they went on to the box that Laurette Taylor had given me for “Peg of My Heart” I went to the Town Hall and made a Pacifist speech at a Disarmament meeting.

SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 1921.

Dined with the Swopes, it being Mrs. Swope’s birthday party.

I had a long talk with Barney Baruch who came in afterwards. I had not seen him since that bewildering night when I first arrived, and thought he was Mr. Brooke! I’ve never forgotten him, he has a dominating personality, and a nose and a brow that I keep modelling in my mind while I am talking to him. But he is “the king with two faces,” he can look hard and Satanic one minute, kind and gentle the next. He has a great love of Winston, and a loyalty to Wilson. His ideas about life and the world in general are fine. He has the dynamic force of a Revolutionary, but his idealism is to get the world straight sanely, calmly and constructively, not violently, bitterly and destructively. He believes in an ideal League of Nations, and in reasoning rather than arming. The answer to all that is, that nothing gets done at all except by force, bitterness and violence, and so Russia is the only one among us who has gotten something done! Perhaps if there were more Barney Baruchs in the world something might evolve, who knows. I don’t really know enough about him and his life, and to what purpose he puts his activities.

He talked to me a good deal about his father and mother, especially his mother. He has that Jewish love of family. I always like to hear a man eulogise his mother, it makes me realize my own responsibility towards Dick. If a man can remember the things his mother said to him in early life, then my talking to Dick is not as vain as it would seem.

Jews are wonderful parents, and wonderful children. Moreover they are the cultured people in the world. They chiefly are our Art patrons. It always amuses me in this country when people ask me if Russia is entirely run by Jews. I didn’t meet half as many there as I have met here!

TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1921.

Dined with Mr. Otto Kahn at his house, a small party, and went on afterwards to Carnegie Hall to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra which was heavenly.

At dinner we discussed the psychology of men and women here. He has a fine analytical mind. We talked of the American woman being starved emotionally. He said about the position of women in different countries, “Here they are an ornament, in England they are an object, in France they are a passion.” It is a good summing up.

We talked about Bolshevism. He had an amusing point of view, so different from the usual “foaming-at-the-mouth” reactionary. He said that the Russians are naturally an anarchistic and rebellious people incapable of self-government. That Bolshevism was a form of self-expression that would pass, as everything would pass--but why, he said, take it so tragically? It was none of our business! The world had lost its sense of humor. Our attitude towards the Russian experiment should be that of interested spectators. But the idea of getting cross about it, of exchanging furious notes, of sending soldiers to “walk up the hill and down again.” It was ridiculous! He talked of Bolshevism as a great play, and the Bolsheviks as being living actors, fulfilling their part dramatically, but that play acted in French, or English, or Italian, was another thing. What would succeed in Russia would fail in translation....

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 1921.

A Heaven-sent day. As warm as the best summer day in England. I went out without a coat. They tell me it is a cold day in comparison to what we will get. Never yet have I found anything warm enough. Rome in June was just satisfying. If I might only go down into Hell and sculp the Devil, how happy I would be.

Ever since March 21st, I have spent almost every afternoon at Knoedlers, but today, I jibbed, it was too good a day to stay in. Besides, I feel as if I can’t bear compliments and praise another moment. It was wonderful at first, one felt flattered, pleased, amused. The various remarks were entertaining, but they are almost without variety, and in the end one longs not to have to smile the smile of appreciation that will not come off, there seems so little to say in reply to “How wonderful! How clever you are, how living they are, how brave you were, what brutes they look-- -- --” I just stand first on one leg and then on the other and look silly and feel worse. If anyone bought anything, or wanted to be done, it would be different, but I feel that Knoedlers have generously taken a great deal of trouble and been awfully kind, and gained nothing. People treat my exhibition as a sort of free “Madame Tussaud’s,” and there the thing ends.

I’m told it has been a great success. If success is measured by the quantities of people who visit it, then “Yes”--the critics have certainly been splendid to me. For the rest, if I have any complaint to make, it is due, I suppose, to the “slump” that I am told prevails. A slump is prosperity compared to Europe, and I have not been here in normal times, so can make no comparison.

I feel rather with the policeman in the Avenue, Dick’s friend, who said to Louise, “Look at them! Look at them!” pointing at the motors, “all day long they pass back and forth. Gee! How rich people must be, no wonder the world comes and asks us for relief funds--!”

I dined with Kenneth Durant and Ernestine Evans, Crystal Eastman and a young Art critic from Boston. We went afterwards to see “Emperor Jones.” This is practically a one man play, and its success is due to the genius of Gilpin, the colored actor. It is a grim and powerful representation, that the “grand Guignol” might well produce. The only thing is that it deals so entirely with the psychology of the colored race that no European would quite understand it. I would have lost a lot of it if Kenneth hadn’t explained here and there. I see the negro in a new light. He used to be rather repulsive to me, but obviously he is human, has been very badly treated, and suffers probably a good deal from the terrific race prejudice that prevails here. It must be humiliating to an educated colored man, that he may not walk down the street with a white woman, nor dine in a restaurant with her. I wonder about the psychology of the colored man, like the poet, Mackaye, who came to see me a few days ago and who is as delightful to talk to as any man one could meet. In this play the civilized negro adventurer, who has established himself Emperor of an island, has to fly to the woods in the face of a rebellion. He grows weak from hunger, and finally, overcome by superstitious fears, goes slowly mad, and scene after scene in which he is practically alone on the stage, shows the man going back further and further towards his origin. It is terribly interesting, and at the end I felt the colored actor had scored a triumph, and that the white audience could not be feeling very proud.

FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1921.

Mr. Villard asked me to lunch down town with the staff of THE NATION. We were nine people and conversation was general. I heard a good deal of American politics which it interests me to absorb and not have to take part in. They also discussed the English Labor Party, and the strike that is going on at this moment. England is threatened with a “Triple Alliance” strike, (miners, railwaymen and transport workers). It has never happened yet though it has been attempted. We all agreed in believing it will not be accomplished this time either. Some day, perhaps--yes, and then look out! But the time has not come. Meanwhile, as Mr. Villard prophesied, if the worst comes to the worst, Lloyd George will call a general election and will be re-elected with flying colors.

I heard a certain amount about the treatment by the United States of the native Indians on the settlements. Apparently there is not a country anywhere that has not its skeletons in its cupboards.

In the afternoon I went for the last time to Knoedlers. The exhibition closes tomorrow. Mr. Purcell Jones, who has an exhibition of decorative water-colors upstairs, was very amusing, relating to me some of the remarks of people who came in yesterday when I was away.

Apparently two or three women came on after a lecture about Russia. One of them, looking at Lenin, announced in a loud voice, “It’s not the murdering that I resent, but it’s the destruction of the finest collection of butterflies in the world.” Another, looking at the bust of Krassin (whose pure Siberian features, so full, as I think, of dignity and character) said that he reminded her of a Chinese Jew--it was the first time I had heard of there being any in existence--as one lives one learns.

Concerning the marble baby on a very low pedestal in the middle of the room, he said, “All the women who come here just stand over it and shower it with hairpins.” I laughed, and to prove his assertion he went and looked on the carpet at the base of the pedestal. Sure, he picked up several straight away!

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1921.

Lunched with Emil Fuchs, and walked home by Fifth Avenue. In front of the Public Library a meeting was going on. A woman was speaking, and it seemed to be an appeal for funds for “suffering Ireland.” I mingled with the crowd in hopes of hearing something startling. But I only heard a jumbled mix-up about Women’s Suffrage, and then Belgium, and about the Queen of Belgium being a full-blooded German, “but that didn’t stop you going to help Belgium,” the speaker said. I couldn’t wait long enough to see the connection with Ireland. As I walked away I revolved in my mind the letter I had from papa this morning in which he told me that Stenning, our Scotch game-keeper, who had lived on our Irish estate ever since I was a small child, has just been murdered in his house.