Part 6

My thoughts were suddenly broken into by the unusual action of a man who skipped backwards in front of me, and before I realized it a huge kodak was aimed at me. A few paces further on a man of rather humble appearance addressed me as “Miss Sheridan.” He took his hat off and held it in his hand while he told me that he had heard me lecture, and had read everything I had written. “I am a Russian” he said--“and I felt that you had the good of Russia at heart ... I just wanted to thank you.” I thanked him, shook hands, and walked on. Queer place, Fifth Avenue!

SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1921.

Colonel William Boyce Thompson sent his car for me at twelve, and I drove out to his place in Yonkers on the Hudson. There I found a Russian gathering! Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Robbins, Colonel Thatcher and the Wardwells. The house is beautiful, full of pictures. I wonder if Botticelli could have had any premonition that he was painting to decorate the stately homes of America. I keep wondering why there are enough Botticelli’s to go round.

We lunched in a room that had six French Windows facing the garden that slopes down to the Hudson River. At least, so I discovered afterwards, but the windows were thickly and tightly and most carefully curtained so that one could not at all see out. All during lunch I longed to pierce the veil. Immediately afterwards we went out into the sun on the terrace, and I begged that we might sit out, and not in. Conversation on Russia was very stimulating, but as I was none too sure of my host’s exact sentiments, I talked rather guardedly. He may be labelled “the Bolshevik millionaire,” but it does not mean that he is Bolshevik. Almost any unprejudiced person is labelled Bolshevik in this country! Colonel Thompson told us that when he got back from Russia, the papers published his photograph between Lenin’s and Trotzky’s! When Thatcher got back, Col. Thompson told him there was might little difference between hero and zero, as it is understood here; and having experienced certain things, they went to meet Raymond Robbins on his arrival to prepare him.

Never had I heard three more hearty laughters, than these three men reminiscing over their reception in this country on their return from Russia. I said to them, “It’s all very well to laugh, but knowing what you do, mightn’t you go to the rescue of the floundering stranger, landing in equal plight on your shores?” They laughed the more, “We like to see it ... we like to watch, and then gather the sufferer to our fold!”

Later they talked about Wilson, to which I listened in silence with awe. It interested me to hear that Wilson is the author of a work entitled “The New Freedom” which was discovered at the headquarters of the I. W. W. and declared to be seditious literature! Lansing’s book did not pass unmentioned--there seems to be but one opinion about it. Someone in Washington described it as the “vituperations of an enraged white mouse.” Raymond Robbins gave an imitation of Lansing leaning forward in his chair, wiping his glasses, and with sly glances at the clock, whilst he, Robbins described in fifteen minutes what happened in Russia in one year. Col. Thatcher boasted that he had been given an audience of twenty-five minutes! But in either case the result was the same!

Raymond Robbins is a very ill man. He looked desperately tired, and he was, as I understood, going off to a rest cure somewhere. I like him and I liked very much Mrs. Robbins, she has a keen, searching, restless face, almost hawk’s eyes. She is head of a Women’s Labor Organization. She was awfully nice to me (everybody was), about my book, and about my adventure. It is overwhelming, and I feel undeserved. The book is so humble and unpretentious, the adventure so obviously worth doing.

I got home at six o’clock and an hour later dined with a compatriot, Frank McDermott, and having nothing planned we drove to Broadway. This is a marvelous place at night. The whole locality is illuminated with electric advertisements. They baffle description. The American advertiser, not content with lighting up his advertisement, must needs have movement in those lights. All of them dance, twinkle, rain, run, sparkle, circulate. It is metaphorically a shrieking competition. There are even a pair of dogs pulling a sleigh, the man in the sleigh flicks his electric whip in the air, and the dogs just gallop! Far fewer lights on a Coronation or a Peace night in London, bring forth crowds into the streets, walking arm in arm “to see the illuminations.” In Broadway it seems to be a perpetual Coronation Night!

We went into the “Capitol” film palace. The first time I had been to one. It is gigantic, and the house was packed. An opera sized orchestra started off by playing Wagner to us. The house listened intently. The American public is very musical, even if it has gone expecting to see a film, it will listen to Wagner without whispering. I believe the American people are as appreciative of music as the Russian people.

After that, the orchestra accompanied a choir that sang southern songs. There is great character and a good deal of romance in these songs, one never fails to be stirred. When “Dixie” was sung a large proportion of the audience burst forth into spontaneous applause. I have never heard “Dixie” played in this country without its arousing applause. Finally we sat through a rather dull film play--they can be dull sometimes!

THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1921. _Washington, D. C._

I arrived in Washington at six this morning. I don’t know what I’ve come for, I didn’t really plan it. Soukine[4] it was who suggested my coming, and clinched it by writing to Countess Gizycka to tell her so. This elicited a telegram from Countess Gizycka asking me to dine on Friday. Furthermore my letter to Sir Auckland Geddes produced a telegram asking me to lunch at the British Embassy on Thursday. Therefore, I came when I did. I have lunched and I have tea’d at the Embassy, I have walked round the town instead of dining. It is very warm and very lovely. The trees are in full leaf, there is a wind but it is a warm wind--Washington is a pleasant contrast to New York, it is large and airy and leisurely and dignified. It looks like a new town that is incomplete. As one drives outside, one does not get into slums and suburbs as with any other town, but suddenly one is in green pastures, it is like the boundaries of a village.

I feel very lonely, Dick is in New Jersey.

FRIDAY APRIL 22, 1921.

Paul Hanna, a friend of Kenneth Durant’s, asked me to lunch, he and Mrs Hanna (everyone is married in America--however young) came to fetch me. We went to a restaurant near by where we found our party, among whom, with his wife, was Sinclair Lewis, the author of the much-discussed “Main Street.” The restaurant we lunched in was rather cleverly decorated, so that one had the impression of having a tent awning overhead, and being surrounded by Italian stone walls with vases, and a peacock was silhouetted against a sapphire blue sky. The proportions of the room, and the height of the roof lent themselves to this treatment. I was informed that it had been recently converted from a Baptist Chapel! How strange we Christians are! No oriental would thus desecrate his temple. The party amused themselves at my expense, telling American humor stories, which I couldn’t laugh at. I said I didn’t think the American paper LIFE was funny, they admitted they didn’t think so either, but that twenty out of a hundred jokes in PUNCH compensated for the other eighty. It was a funny party--I knew what train of thought Paul Hanna represented, but I wonder if the others did.

After lunch most of us went off to the bookshop and I exchanged “Mayfair to Moscow” for “Main Street,” duly autographed.

I went to tea with Mrs. William Hard where a great many people drifted in and out. Among them Alice Longworth, with whom I made a date, and Mrs. Brandeis and her daughter, who invited me to go to tea on the morrow to meet Mr. Justice Brandeis. I have a great curiosity to see him, I have heard his name over and over again. Everyone says to me, “You should do a head of Brandeis.” I am told he looks like Lincoln. Innumerable people tell me also that I should do a head of Mr. Baruch. “The replete eagle with a kindly eye” as someone here described him to me. If he were only poor, and nobody, he would probably consent to sit to me, and be quite happy doing so. This lack of vanity in man is new to me. I have never met it before, I do not understand it. There are types in this country not only fine physically, and interesting, but there is the brain, the force and the power of achievement behind it.

Soukine fetched me for dinner at Countess Gizycka’s. Senator Edge took me in to dinner--I was sent in first as the guest of honor. On my other side was Mr. Lowry, whom I had met at tea at Mrs. Hard’s. We stumbled in the course of conversation on a mutual friendship with Henry James. It happened by chance, but it was a happy chance. He loved Henry as all Henry’s friends did. He nursed him through his last illness. Mr. Lowry had not guessed that I was the Sheridan to whom the best of Henry James’ letters are written in the last volume. That tag of Soviet Russia which is tied tightly round my neck had obliterated any idea of my being anyone else! We talked of Rye, and of my own home, and the mention of Brede Place recalled to my vision spring in England, the peace and the remoteness of Sussex; “so far away,” as Mr. Lowry said. So far away, indeed, that it seems like another world, and sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get back there.

I met “Mr. Baker of the Mint” as he was described to me when I asked who he was. A man with a very fine, characteristically American face, and a charming personality. Later, when everyone else went on to a ball, Mr. Baker took me for a drive in his car before dropping me at the Shoreham. I asked him what Mr. Baker he was, whether he was _the_ Mr. Baker of the Wilson Administration. He obviously was laughing at my ignorance and explained that he was just plain Mr. Baker, although he had been in the Wilson Administration, but that he had always been simply Mr. Baker, and still was the same, and not a very important person--not important enough, for instance, to have his head done! By which, I suppose, he means that he is not Secretary for War Baker--? Whoever he is, (and I suppose I shall learn in time about people in Washington, just as I have in time learnt about people in New York!) I like him, I like his face, and I like his talk, although he is “the man of the mint” who refuses to buy Soviet gold. I asked him why, “Is it because you are a very high principled man and you feel the gold belongs to someone else?”

“I am a high principled man but it is not for any principle that I will not buy Soviet gold--.”

“So much the better,” I said, “there will be more for England and we want it--and it will come to you just the same I suppose in the end, only it will come through us--!”

At that moment we passed by what seemed in the night to be columns of a Greek temple standing out against the night blue. It was the Lincoln Memorial. We drove along the river which looked mysterious and beautiful with its bridges and reflected lights. As we flashed by the lights of the lamps I saw azaleas of every color, banks of them. The night was as warm as any in an English summer.

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1921.

Lunched with Sinclair Lewis at the Shoreham. He is full of imagination. One of the few Americans I have met who is not submerged by domesticity, although he is married.

He tells me he wrote four or five novels before he wrote “Main Street,” but they were not successes. I asked him why that had not discouraged him. He laughed, he said it was no use being discouraged, that writing novels was all he could do, he might starve at it, but he was incapable of any other form of work. (Truly an artist!) He had expected some people would like “Main Street,” but he had not expected it to sell. It was a great joke being famous, though sometimes a great bore. He was extremely funny about it.

I went to tea with Mrs. McCormick, then on to see Mr. Justice Brandeis, who expected me at his chambers. He was very nice, though rather shy. He certainly is extremely like Lincoln, but a Lincoln who has not suffered. Certainly a fine head to do. I am told he is one of the big brains of the United States. He is a friend of F. E.‘s[5] and of Lord Reading. He said things about England and the English that made me proud--we talked for quite a while, but one does not talk at ease when both are strangers confronting each other for the purpose of conversation. The best thoughts and talks I elicit from people when I am working on them, and when it is only necessary to speak if the idea comes, and where a gap of silence is possible and restful rather than embarrassing. Under these conditions I get people to give of their best.

I dined with X---- and we talked about the future. But I am like a nun who, when tempted to run away from her vocation, reflected that her lover would no longer love the nun with short hair and no veil. My work is my veil--I must work and keep working, though it entail a sacrifice. I remember years ago a man, (and he was an American) said to me, “Choose your path; either the path of companionship and love, or the path of a career with all it entails of purpose and of loneliness.” And he is right--.

SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 1921.

Motored with Admiral and Mrs. Grayson to some place outside Washington to see Barney Baruch’s race horses. The stable is by the side of the race course, but the District of Columbia has legislated against racing, so now the track is used for a training ground. Queer form of government this! How strange it would be if the County of Surrey suddenly decided by a local County Council to suppress racing, there would be no more Ascot, or if Liverpool suddenly decided to have no more Grand National. I wonder if the English would stand it or rebel. Americans seem to me to be a strangely well-disciplined community; there will never be a revolution in this country!

I lunched with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Lodge, and a beautiful girl, his granddaughter. Although I hardly knew the Senator I feel as if he were a relation. He was, until recently, a trustee for the children under my mother-in-law’s[6] will. We talked at great length about Mother Mary, whom I loved as he also loved her. We discussed her sorrows, her courage, her sense of duty. Almost she played the role in life of a great tragedienne, but with no appeal to the gallery. Very silent, and very lovely and very reserved she was, and her face was the face of Our Mother of Sorrows.

Few people know about my “Mother Mary.” But Senator Lodge knew and it was like bringing her dear ghost-face back again to life. After lunch Colonel Harvey fetched the Senator for a drive, the future ambassador to Britain is not an imposing individuality. He has the American sense of humor which is seldom lacking, and much there may be inside him that is not evident on the surface. I felt no impression of him at all. It seemed to me a pity that the United States should not be represented by one of the types of America, with a square jaw, and clear bright eyes, and forceful personality, such as I meet over and over again.

They dropped me at the Shoreham and from there I proceeded out into the country in an open car with.... Such a lovely afternoon, hot enough to motor without a coat. We drove for miles but it seemed impossible to get away from other cars and other people however far we went. Finally we stopped in front of a lane, left the car and went rambling through someone’s private woods. There were three kinds of wild flowers I had never seen before, and whole bushes of wild azalea in bloom. We gathered armfuls. It seems too wonderful when I think of our tender care in growing azaleas at home, that they should grow wild here. And there was a big yellow “swallowtailed” butterfly. I have seen it in Italy. In England it does not exist. I remember as a child buying one for my butterfly collection, it cost half a crown. (I wonder if the price has gone up since.) We passed by a pond, and the sound of frogs was like the sound of birds, and quite as loud. In England frogs never say a word. I suppose these are a different kind of frog, or else we haven’t enough heat to rouse a protest from them. It was a very heavenly afternoon, out into the stillness of the country, in the sun, in the spring.

I dined at the Medill McCormick’s. A big party at small tables in several rooms. I sat next to Mr. Richard Washburn Child on one side. He is talked of as a possible United States Ambassador to Japan.[7] He looks very young. He asked me why I was “here,” which I took to mean America, not Washington, and I found myself telling him everything that I haven’t told even some of my best friends. He seemed to understand my feeling about the adventure of life. Some people never awaken, others start with their eyes wide open. I began late, I feel as if I had only waked up when I got to Russia. Perhaps I was slowly stirring ever since I began to work five years ago. But those years were too laden with overwork and anxiety as to the future, and the effort of attaining. I was conscious then of belonging to _a_ world, but not to _the_ world. But _now_ I know the world is all mine for the discovering. I belong to every bit of it, and it all belongs to me. What care I where I live, so long as I find work, and sunshine, and from out the crowd one hand extended towards me in friendship?

When I got to Russia, I realized a great big new country that was thinking and working in a way I had never dreamt of. It was a tremendous awakening. And now, what hazard has led me back to my mother’s country? I find it is another great big new world, working and thinking in just as new and different a way, and as differently as Russia. But the size of these countries is what appeals to me. In Russia I could have (but I didn’t) taken a train for days, and travelled to other parts and been still in Russia. Here I have not, but I will--go west, go south, go north. For days and days I shall be able to go. From a commercial provincial town out into the land of endless flowers where there are no seasons, and the land gives out two crops a year.

I have a great desire to see more, and more, and yet more. To see it all, in fact. But I am tired (already) of civilization, of the luxury of baths and telephones, and the overabundance of food. I am tired of people, even of people who are kind, and people who are brilliant. I want to take Dick and get away somewhere into the wilds. Whenever I ask if there is some village in the hills; with an Inn, as for instance, in Cornwall, or in Italy, I am recommended a primitive wood, where there is “a colony.” I want to get away from the colony! Can’t I live for a while, as at Lerici, seeing only peasant people? Even outside Rome, within half an hour by rail, I found myself in Arcadian groves, where it seemed that only Pan had lived. I am told that here it is impossible, however remotely one travel to get away from the telegraph, telephone and motor cars. From England I had visualized this country, as consisting of New York, Washington and Chicago and Boston, and for the rest, that one mounted a horse, and rode out over prairies towards mountains. And I mean to find it is so. The land of the Red Indian must still contain some primitive unreclaimed spots. Anyway, there it all is, and mine if I choose to go and look for it. The world is a great wonder-place with wonder-people in it. I am drunk with love of it, love of the beauty and the capriciousness, and the unexpectedness of it. I want to see it all--Mexico, China, Egypt, Greece and back again to Russia, working all the way, hunting heads, and reading people and never arriving at any understanding, but loving it always as one loves the person who is big, generous, elusive, full of moods, and never to be understood.

Sometimes, though, I wish I could learn something from it all. I wish I could understand some of the problems, and have a few convictions. As I sit here and ruminate in front of my open window I think of many things, in a kaleidoscopic way. It is the first time I have had leisure to think since I landed in America. I have heard so many varied opinions over here, and I just begin to wish I knew for example: whether the Soviet form of government is right, or even partly right, or on the right trail, and whether the majority of the world which condemns it, is wrong, or frightened, or sensible.

I wish I knew if human nature on the whole is very grand and fine, or whether it is chiefly murky and ugly and very selfish.

I wish I knew if there is such a thing as love, apart from maternal love, or whether it is all only passion.

I wish I could make up my mind as to whether civilization is a very valuable evolution, or a very great curse.

I wish I could decide whether I want to live in America, France or Russia, and whether I should like my immediate headquarters to be in New York or Washington.

I wish I knew how much the people who are nice to me really like me, or how much I am a curiosity.

I wish I knew whether I am happier than anyone else or happy at all.

TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1921.

Alice Longworth fetched me a little after twelve (a piping hot day). We drove to the Senate. For about half an hour before lunch we sat in the gallery of the Senate Chamber. By strange chance a Senator called LaFollette was holding forth upon Ireland, and demanding that the government of the U. S. recognize the Irish Republic. It was strange to come to the Senate to hear home politics. I listened to censorious remarks on Great Britain and I felt that everyone was agreeing, both on the floor of the Senate as well as in the galleries. Senator LaFollette, with his gray hair standing on end, and his face pink with passion, left his desk, strode up and down, around and about, the while he shook a formidable finger at the empty seats around him. They were not entirely empty, however, for Senator Reed was listening with attention and approval. I had met Senator Reed at Mrs. McCormick’s party on Sunday night, and the subject of Ireland had arisen between us then. He told me he was contemplating a journey to Detroit to speak at a meeting for “Funds for Ireland.” I said to him that night: “If you are going to ask for funds for Ireland you must needs abuse Great Britain.” He answered that the one did not absolutely necessitate the other. But I surmised he only said it out of politeness to an Englishwoman. I feel I have met the anti-British wave at last. It is here--and it is in the Senate! But what can one say in self-defense about Ireland? Senator LaFollette reiterated all the arguments that were asserted in Moscow, and to which I could not answer a word. Such as the war having been fought to protect the small nations, self-determination by the people, freedom of Poland, of Jugo-Slavia, of Czecho-Slovakia, of God knows what else.