The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
age is married in New York.
There was a huge slate in the kitchen with who was to do each course written up, and it looked so quaint to see in among the serious dishes:
"Cutting Grouts for Soup"--the Countess of Chevenix assisted by Mr. Buckle.
"Hollandaise Sauce"--The Marchioness of Valmond, Mr. Dick Seton.
And we did do ours badly, I am afraid, because there was a nice low dresser in a cool gloomy place, and we sat down on that, and my assistant whispered such lovely things that we forgot, and stirred all wrong, and the head cook came and scolded us, and said we had spoilt six eggs, and he should not give us another job; we were only fit to arrange flowers! So we went to the dining-room, and you can't think of the fun we had. The Club house is an old place with low rooms and all cosey. Octavia was in there--the dining-room--helping to lay the cloth, as she had been rather clumsy, too, and been sent away, and her young man was as nice as mine; and we four had a superb time, as happy as children, but Tom was nothing but a drone, for he sat with Kitty in a window seat behind some curtains, and did not do a thing.
My one said he had never seen such a sweet squirrel as me in my apron, and I do wish, Mamma, we could have fun like this in England; it is so original to cook one's dinner! And when it came in, all so well arranged, each member knowing his appointed duties, it was excellent, the best one could taste. And everybody was witty and brilliant, and nobody wanted to interrupt with their story before the other had finished his. So the time simply flew until it came to dessert, and there were speeches and toasts, and Octavia and I as the guests of honour each received a present of a box of bonbons like a huge acorn; but when we opened them, out of mine there jumped a darling little real squirrel, quite tame and gentle, and coddled up in my neck and was too attractive, so I purred to it of course and caressed it, for the rest of the time; and Mr. Dick said it was not fair to waste all that on a dumb animal, when there were so many deserving talking squirrels in the room, and especially himself. I have never had such an amusing evening. Even the quaint and rather solemn touch pleased me, of the first toast being said between two freshly lighted candles, to those members who were dead. The club dates from Colonial times, too, so there must have been a number of them, and if their spirits were there in the room they must have seen as merry a party as the old room had ever witnessed.
Dear, polite, courteous gentlemen! And I wish you had been with us, Mamma. I came a roundabout way back alone with my "partner-in-sauce" as we called him, in his automobile, an open one, and we just tore along for miles as fast as we could, and though he was driving himself, he managed to say all sorts of charming things; and when we got back to Kitty's more people came, and we had an impromptu dance and then supper, and all the servants had gone to bed, so we had to forage for things in the pantry, and altogether I have never had such fun in my life, and Octavia, too.
To-day we go back to New York and then out West, so good-bye, dearest Mamma. I will cable you from each stopping place, and write by every mail.
Fond love to my babies.
Your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH.
PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK
BACK IN NEW YORK, PLAZA HOTEL.
DEAREST MAMMA,--All our preparations are made, and we start for the West by Niagara Falls, which I have always wanted to see. The Vicomte is coming with us, and our charming Senator, Elias P. Arden. So I am sure we shall have an agreeable time. "Lola" and the husband have already started, and will join us at Los Angeles from San Francisco; and the Senator says he is "in touch" with Mr. Renour, and he hopes he will "be along" by the time we get to the private car.
These few days in New York have confirmed our opinion of everyone's extraordinary kindness and hospitality. All their peculiarities are just caused by being so young a nation; they are quite natural; whatever their real feelings are come out. As children are touchy, so are they, and as children boast, so do they, and just as children's hearts are warm and generous, so are theirs. So I think this quality of youth is a splendid one, don't you, Mamma?
Valerie's set are practically the same as ours at home in their tone, and way of living, and amusements, so I have not told you anything special of them, the only difference being we never worry in the least about what people think of us, and when we talk seriously it is of politics, and they of Wall Street affairs, which shows, doesn't it, that such things are more interesting to them than the making of laws. We have not heard politics talked about in any class in New York. Attacks on the President often, because he is said to have interfered with trusts by probing their methods, which gets back to the vital point of dollars and cents. People will speak for and against him for hours, but not from a political point of view, and abstract political discussions we have never heard.
I have not yet grasped the difference between "Democrat" and "Republican," and so I don't know if it is just the same as at home, that whichever is Radical wants to snatch each one for his own hand and does not care a rush about the nation; while whichever is Conservative cares nothing for personal advancement--having arrived there already--so has time and experience to look ahead and think of the country.
If you had a delicate baby, Mamma, would not you rather give it into the hands of a thoroughly trained nurse than an ignorant aspiring nursery maid taking her first place, who was more likely to be thinking of the head nurse's wages she was going to get than her duties to the child? That is how I look upon the parties at home, but here I expect it is more as the Whigs and Tories were, each equal in class and experience, only holding different views. I should like to have a peep about five hundred years ahead. I am sure the ignorant nurse-maids will have killed our baby by then, and we shall be a wretched down-trodden commune, while they will be a splendidly governed aristocratic nation under one autocratic king!
I have not told you a thing about the Park, or the general aspect of the houses; we are rushed so it is hard to write. But the Park is a perfectly charming place, as nice as the Bois, and much nicer than our attempt that way, and everyone who goes there seems to be out on a holiday. Fifth Avenue runs beside it like our Park Lane, beginning at Fifty-ninth Street, and about every five years people have to move further up, because of the encroaching shops. So it hardly seems worth while to spend millions on building white marble palaces which may be torn down or converted in so short a time. Nothing is allowed to last. Heaps of the mansions are perfectly beautiful in style, and many simple as well, which is always the prettiest; but you can meet Francois Premier Castles, and Gothic Halls, and all sorts of mixed freaks, too, in half an hour's walk, and it seems to me a pity they can't use their rollers and just cart these into the side streets. But if I were rebuilding Valmond House I would get an American architect to do it for me, and on the American principle, that is, I should get him to study all the best they have done and then "go one better!"
Unless you are quite in the poor parts every creature in the streets is spruce and well dressed; men and women have that look of their things being brushed and ironed to the last state of perfection. And if it is the fashion in Paris to have hats two feet across they will have them a yard; but as they all have the same, one's eye gets accustomed to it, and it does not look ridiculous.
The longer one stays the more one admires that extraordinary quality of "go"--a mental alertness and lucidity they have immeasurably beyond European nations; very few people are intellectual, but all are intelligent and advancing. No one browses like such hundreds do at home, and all are much more amusing companions in consequence.
Last night we went to see China Town with Valerie's brother and some other young men, and two or three women. Valerie would not come because she has done it before and it bores her, and no American woman deliberately does what she finds wearisome. They are sensible. First we dined at the Caf Lafayette, which is almost down town, and near Washington Square, and then started in automobiles which we left in the Bowery. One always thought that was a kind of cut throat Whitechapel, did not one? But it is most quiet and respectable, so is China Town, and I am sure we need not have had the two detectives who accompanied us.
Outside there is nothing very lurid to look at.