Chapter II: Part 2

The cube turned out a perfect success, and will always be one of my dearest and best-loved possessions. It has the same charm of perfection that characterizes a Japanese rock-crystal ball, and the added interest of being unique. There was, too, a charm in the interest shown in the cube by the old mineralogist, and also by his wife.

The day I went after the completed polished cube, the elderly madame came into the shop from a back room, to congratulate me on the attainment of my desire.

Incidentally, the good people endeavored (and successfully) to persuade me to buy further of their wares.

They had a bewildering assortment of semi-precious stones, curious minerals, and wrought metals and strange bits of handiwork from foreign countries. Beads, of course, in profusion, and fascinatingly ugly little idols. As all these things have great charm for me, and as I am always easily persuaded to buy, I bought largely, to the great satisfaction of the elderly shopkeepers. But, as I had learned a little of their tricks and their manners I offered them, a bit shamefacedly, a lower price in each instance than they asked. To my relief, they took this proceeding quite as a matter of course, and cheerfully accepted the smaller sum without demur.

But to return to that first morning, after my interview with the mild-mannered mineralogist I strolled along Old Bond Street back to Piccadilly.

The Tennyson’s Brook of omnibuses was still going on, and I stood on the corner to watch them again. From this point of view the effect is quite different from that seen from an upstairs window.

You cease to generalize about the procession, and regard the individual ’bus with a new awe.

The ocean may be wider,—the Flatiron Building may be taller,—but there’s nothing in all the world so big as a London omnibus.

_V._ _A Hostess at Home_

An English telephone is a contradiction in terms. If it is in England, it isn’t a telephone. It is a thing that looks something like a broken ox-yoke, that is manipulated something like a trombone, and is about as effectual as the Keeley Motor.

A course of lessons is necessary to learn to use one, but the lessons are wasted, as the instrument is invariably out of order, and moreover, nobody has one, anyhow.

But one morning, before I had discovered all this, I was summoned to the telephone booth of the Pantheon Club, and blithely grasped the cumbersome affair, with its receiver on one end and its transmitter on the other. I ignorantly held it wrong end to, but that made no difference, as it wouldn’t work either way.

“Grawsp it stiffer, madame,” advised the anxious Buttons who engineered it. At length I discovered that this meant to press firmly on a fret, as if playing a flute, but by this time the party addressing me had been disconnected from the other end, and all attempts to regain communication were futile.

The boy took the instrument, and I have never seen a finer display of human ingenuity and patience than he showed for the next half-hour trying to hear that chord again. Then he gave it up, and, laying the horrid thing gently in its cradle, he nonchalantly informed me that if the party awrsked for me again, he’d send me naotice, and then demanded tuppence.

This I willingly paid, as I was always glad to get rid of those copper heavy-weights; and, too, it seemed a remarkably small price even for a telephone call,—until I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t made the call,—nor had I received it.

The call was repeated later, and after another distracting session of incoherent shouting, and painfully-cramped finger muscles, I learned that I was invited to an informal dinner that evening at Mrs. Marchbanks’s at seven-thirty.

I had not intended to plunge into the social whirl so soon, and had declined all the many invitations which had come to me by mail.

But somehow the telephone invitation took me unawares, and, too, I was so pleased to succeed in getting the message at all that it seemed ungracious and ungrateful to refuse. So, I took a fresh grip on the fretted monster, and, aiming my voice carefully at the far-away transmitter, I shouted an acceptance. I hoped it reached the goal, but as there was nothing but awful silence afterward, I had to take it on faith, and I went away to look over my dinner gowns.

The invitation had been classed as “informal,” but I knew the elasticity of that term, and so, though I did not select my very best raiment, I chose a pretty _décolleté_ frock, that had “New York” legibly written on its every fold and pucker.

So late is the dusk of the London spring that I easily made my toilette by daylight, and was all ready at seven o’clock.

Carefully studying my Baedeker maps and plans to make sure of the distance, I stepped into my hansom just in time to reach my destination at a minute or two before half past seven, assuming that New York customs prevailed in England.

The door was opened to me by an amazed-looking maid, who seemed so uncertain what to do with me that I almost grew embarrassed myself.

Finally, she asked me to follow her up-stairs, and then ushered me into a room where my hostess, in the hands of her maid, was in the earliest stages of her toilette.

“You dear thing,” she said, “how sweet of you to come. Yes, Louise, that _aigrette_ is right. Here is the key of my jewel case.”

“I fear I have mistaken the hour,” I said; “the telephone was a bit difficult,—but I understood half past seven.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Marchbanks, studying the back of her head in a hand-mirror, “but in London seven-thirty means eight, you know.”

This was definite information, and I promptly stored it away for future use. Also, it was reliable information, for it proved true, and at eight the guests began to arrive.

Dinner was served at quarter to nine, and all was well.

Incidentally I had learned my lesson.

The half-hour in the drawing-room before dinner was an interesting “first impression” of that indescribable combination of warmth and frost known as a London Hostess.

Further experience taught me that Mrs. Marchbanks was a typical one.

The London hostess’s invariable mode of procedure is a sudden, inordinate gush of welcome, followed immediately by an icy stare. By the time you have politely responded to the welcome, your hostess has forgotten your existence. Nay, more, she seems almost to have forgotten her own. She is vague, self-absorbed, and quite oblivious of your existence. I have heard of a lady with a gracious presence. The London hostess is best described by _a gracious absence_.

But having adapted yourself to this condition, your hostess is likely to whirl about and dart a remark or a question at you.

On the evening under discussion, my hostess suddenly broke off her own greeting to another guest, to say to me, “Of course you’ll be wanting to buy some new clothes at once.”

This statement was accompanied by a deliberate survey, from _berthe_ to hem, of my palpably American-made gown, and as the incident pleased my sense of humor, I felt no resentment, and amiably acquiesced in her decision.

Then, funnily enough, the conversation turned upon good-breeding.

“A well-bred Englishwoman,” my hostess dictatorially observed, “never talks of herself. She tactfully makes the person to whom she is talking the subject of conversation.”

“But,” said I, “if the person to whom she is talking is also well-bred, he must reject that subject, and tactfully talk about the first speaker. This must bring about a deadlock.” She looked at me, or rather through me, in a pitying, uncomprehending way, and went on:

“The well-bred Englishwoman never makes an allusion or an implication that could cause even the slightest trace of discomfiture or annoyance to the person addressed.”

This, of itself, seemed true enough, but again she turned swiftly toward me, and abruptly inquired, “Doesn’t the servility of the English servants embarrass you?”

This time, too, my sense of humor saved me from embarrassment, but I began to think serious-minded persons should not brave the slings and arrows of a well-bred Englishwoman.

Geniality and ingenuousness are alike unknown to the English hostess. It is a very rare thing to meet a _charming_ Englishwoman. Good traits they have in plenty and many sterling qualities which Americans often lack, but magnetism and responsiveness are as a rule not among these qualities.

And I do not yet know whether it is through ignorance or with _malice prepense_ that an English hostess greets you effusively, and then drops you with an air of finality that gives a “lost your last friend” feeling more than anything else in all the world.

This state of things is of course more pronouncedly noticeable at teas than at dinners. At an afternoon reception, the hostility of the hostess is beyond all words. Moreover, at English afternoon teas there are two rules. One is you may not speak to a fellow-guest without an introduction. The other is that no introduction is necessary between guests of the house. One of these rules is always inflexibly enforced at every tea; but the casual guest never knows which one, and so complications ensue.

English hostesses always seem to me very much like that peculiar kind of flowered chintz with which they cover their furniture—the kind that looks like oilcloth, and is very cold and shiny, very beautiful, very slippery, and decidedly uncomfortable.

But in inverse proportion to the conversational unsatisfactoriness of the English women are the entertaining powers of the English men. They are voluntarily delightful. They make an effort (if necessary) to be pleasantly talkative and amusing.

And, notwithstanding the traditional slurs on British humor, the English society man is deliciously humorous, and often as brilliantly witty as our own Americans.

At the dinner I have mentioned above, I was seated next to a somewhat insignificant-looking young man of true English spick-and-spanness, and with a delightful drawl, almost like the one written as dialect in international novels.

Perhaps in consideration of my probable American attitude toward British humor, he good-naturedly amused me with jokes directed against his national peculiarities.

He described graphically an Englishman who was blindly groping about in his brain for a good story which he had heard and stored away there. “Ah, yes,” said the supposed would-be jester; “the man was ill; and he said his physician advised that he should every morning take a cup of coffee and take a walk around the place.”

“He had missed the point, do you see,” explained my amusing neighbor, “and the joke should have been ‘take a cup of coffee, and take a walk on the grounds,’ do you see?”

So pleased was the young man with the whole story, that I laughed in sympathy, and he went on to say:

“But you Americans make just the same mistakes about our jokes. Now only last week _Punch_ had a ripping line asking why the Americans were making such a fuss about Bishop Potter, and said any one would think he was a meat-potter. Now one of your New York daily papers borrowed the thing, and made it read, ‘What’s the matter with Bishop Potter? Any one would think he was a meat packer.’ ’Pon my honor, Miss Emmins, I know that for a fact!”

“Then I think,” I replied, “that we ought never again to throw stones at the British sense of humor.”

In the pause that followed, a bulky English lord across the table was heard denouncing the course taken by a certain political party. So energetic were his gestures, and so forceful his speech, that he had grown very red and belligerent-looking, and fairly hammered the table in his indignation.

The young man next to me looked at him, as an indulgent father might look at a naughty child. “Isn’t he the saucy puss?” said my neighbor, turning to me with such a roguish smile that his remark seemed the funniest thing I had ever heard.

I frankly told my attractive dinner partner that the men of London society were far more entertaining than the women. He did not seem surprised at this, but seemed to look upon it as an accepted condition.

I glanced across the table at a young Englishwoman. She was an “Honorable,” and possessed of a jointed surname. She was attired with great wealth and unbecomingness, and, to sum her up in a general way, she looked as if she did _not_ write poetry.

“Yes,” she was saying, “cabs are cheap with us, but if you ride a lot in a day, they count up.” This is a stock remark with London women and I was not surprised to hear it again.

I glanced at my young man. He too had heard, and he quickly caught my mental attitude.

“Yes,” he said, “Englishwomen and girls are very fit; they’re good form, accomplished, and all that. But, though they know a lot, somehow, er,—their minds don’t jell.”

As this exactly expressed my own opinion, I was delighted at his clever phrasing of it.

But if the Englishman is charming as a dinner guest, he is even more so when he is host, as he often is at afternoon tea. And though I attended many teas presided over by London men, all others fade into insignificance beside the one given me at the _Punch_ office.

I was the only guest, the host was the genial and miraculously clever Editor of _Punch_.

The tea was of the ordinary London deliciousness, the cakes and thin bread-and-butter were, as always, over there, the best in the world; but it was served to us on the historic _Punch_ table, the great table where every Friday night, since the beginning of that publication, its editorial staff has dined.

And as each diner at some time cut his monogram into the table, the semi-polished surface shows priceless memorials of the great British authors, artists, and illustrators.

I was informed by my kind host that I might sit at any place I chose. I hesitated between Thackeray’s and Mark Lemon’s, but finally by a sudden impulse I dropped into a chair in front of the monogram of George du Maurier.

The Editor of _Punch_ smiled a little, but he only said, “You Americans are a humorous people.”

_VII._ _The Light on Burns’s Brow._

My own subjective London was achieving itself. I have always remembered pleasantly, how,

Without a bit of trouble,
Arabella blew a bubble,

and, with emulative ease, I blew a beautiful, impalpable, iridescent sphere and called it London.

To be sure, a single interrogation point from an earnest Tourist would have burst my bubble, for my whole London hadn’t a Tower or a British Museum in it.

Nor was this an oversight. Calling to my aid a moral courage that was practically a moral hardihood, I had deliberately concluded I would do no sightseeing. Not that I objected to seeing a sight, now and then, but the sight would have to put itself in my way, and the conditions would have to be such that I should prefer to go through the sight rather than around it.

Indeed, it was largely the word _sightseeing_ that I took exception to. Such a very defective verb! Who would voluntarily put herself in a position to say, “I sightsaw the National Gallery yesterday,” or “I have sightseen the whole City,” and then have no proper parts of speech to say it with?

Moreover, I was not willing to go about my London carrying a Baedeker. In truth, my soul was possessed of conflicting emotions toward that little red book. As a directory it was invaluable. Never did I get an invitation to a place of mysterious sound, such as Kensington Gore, or Bird-in-Bush Road, but I ran to my Baedeker and quickly found therein the location, description, and directions for reaching the same. I soon mastered the pink and gray maps, with their clever contrivance of corresponding numbers, and with my Baedeker back of me I could have found the most obscure and bewildering address that even a Londoner is capable of devising.

But the pages devoted to “Sights which Should on No Account be Omitted,” and the kindly advice on “Disposition of Time for the Hurried Visitor,” I avoided with all the strength of my unsightseeing soul.

I was often amused at the ingenious efforts of tourists to disguise their Baedekers. One tailor-made American girl had hers neatly covered with bright blue paper, quite oblivious of the fact that the marbled edges and fluttering red and black tapes are unmistakable. Another, a pedagogic Bostonian, had hers wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. Another had a leather case which exactly fitted the volume. And I thought that as the nude in art is far less suggestive than the semi-draped figure, so the uncovered red book was really less noticeable than these futile attempts at disguise.

Having, then, definitely decided that I should eventually return to America without having set foot in the Tower, the Bank or the Charter-house, I drew a long breath of content, and gave myself up to the delight of just living in the atmosphere of my own London.

And yet, I wanted to go to the Tower, the Bank, and the Charter-house. I wanted to go to Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul’s and the National Gallery. But I did not want to go for the first time. I wanted to revisit these places, and how could I do that when I had never yet visited them?

First impressions of Piccadilly or Hyde Park are all very well, but first impressions are incongruous in connection with Westminster Abbey. What has crude admiration to do with experienced sublimity? How absurd to let the gaze of surprise rest upon age-accustomed glory! What presumption to look at solemn ancient grandeur as at a novelty! I wished that I had been to Westminster Abbey many, many times, and that I could drift in again some lovely summer afternoon to revive old memories and renew old emotions.

But as this might not be, then would I keep away from it entirely, and study it from books as I had always done.

One day a departing caller carelessly left behind her a pamphlet entitled _The Deanery Guide to Westminster Abbey_. With a natural curiosity I picked it up and opened it.

But I got no farther than the first fly-leaf, for that bore an advertisement of _Rowland’s Macassar Oil_! I promptly forgot the existence of Westminster Abbey in the delight of finding that my London contained such a desirable commodity. Not that I wished to purchase the lotion, but I was absorbingly interested to learn that there really was such a thing. I had never heard of it before except in connection with the Aged, aged man, a-sitting on a gate, who manufactured Rowland’s Macassar Oil from mountain rills which he chanced to set ablaze. The remembrance of that dear old white-haired man, placidly going his ways, and content with the tuppence ha’-penny that rewarded his toil, filled my soul to the exclusion of all else, and he made a welcome addition to the census of my own London. It was pleasant, too, to reflect on the sound logic of the English people when they coined the word “anti-macassar.” How much more restrictedly definite than our word “tidy”!

Well, then next it came about that I went for a walk.

And, as was bound to happen sooner or later, I was strolling unthinkingly along, when I found myself with the Houses of Parliament on my right hand and Westminster Abbey on my left. I was fairly caught, and surrendered at discretion. The only question was which way to turn. As I had no choice in the matter, I should logically have gone, like John Buridan’s Ass, straight ahead, and so missed both; but the Abbey, with an almost imperceptible nod of invitation, compelled me to turn that way, and involuntarily, though not at all unwillingly, I entered.

Whereupon I made the startling discovery that I was in the Poets’ Corner! Now, I had definitely planned that if ever I _did_ visit the Abbey, I would enter by the North Transept, and gradually accustom myself to the atmosphere of the place. I would go away after a short inspection, and return several times to revisit it, before I even approached the Poets’ Corner. And to find myself thus unexpectedly and somewhat informally introduced to an inscription attesting the rarity of Ben Jonson, took me unawares, and my eyes rested coldly on the words, and then passed on, still uninterestedly, to Spencer, Milton, and Gray.

Uncertain whether to advance or retreat I took a few tentative steps, which brought me to the bust of our own Longfellow. The dignified and old-school New Englander is here represented as a plump-faced and jovial gentleman with very curly hair. The marble is excessively white and new-looking, and altogether the monument suggests the Longfellow who wrote “There was a little girl, who had a little curl,” rather than the author of _Evangeline_. But if not of poetic effect, the bust is satisfactory as a fine type of American manhood, so I smiled back at it, and passed on.

Then, by chance, I turned into the South Transept.

It was about five o’clock on a midsummer afternoon, the hour, as I have often since proved, when the spell of the Poets’ Corner is most potent—the hour when a prismatic shaft of sunlight strikes exactly on the marble forehead of Burns, and flickering sun-rays light up the face of Southey. There, above the mortal remains of Henry Irving, I stood, and as I looked up, I knew that at last Westminster Abbey and I were at one.

For I saw Shakespeare.

It was not the emotional atmosphere of the place, for that had not as yet affected me. It was not historic association, for I knew Shakespeare’s bones did not rest there. It was not the inherent, artistic worth of the sculptured figure, for I knew that it has never been looked upon as a masterpiece, and that Walpole, or somebody, called it “preposterous.” But it was Shakespeare, and from his eyes there shone all the wonder, the beauty, and the immortality of his genius.

I am told the whole monument is wrong in composition and in execution, but that is merely

A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,—
Its body, so to speak; its soul is right.

Or at least it was to me, and from that moment I felt at home in Westminster Abbey.

Without leaving the United States, I could have found a more magnificent statue of Shakespeare in our own Library of Congress, but no other representation of him, in paint or stone, has ever portrayed to my mind the personality of the poet as does the Abbey monument.

I invited emotions and they accepted with thanks. They came in crowds, rushing, and soon I was unqualifiedly certain that I would rather be dead in Westminster Abbey than alive out of it. Having reached this important decision, I broke off my emotions at their height and went home.

The next day, as the sunlight touched Burns’s uplifted brow, I was there again, and the next, and the next.

The first impressions being comfortably over, Shakespeare and I became very good friends, without the necessity for heaving breast and suppressed tears on my part.

I had affable feelings, too, toward many of the other great and near-great. It amused me to learn how many succeeded in getting into the Abbey by the mere accident of dying while there was plenty of room.

John Gay, they tell me, is one of the interlopers, and his epitaph,

Life is a jest and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it,

is dubbed irreverent.

But to my mind the irreverence is not in the sentiment, but in the fact that it is placed upon his tomb, the responsibility therefore, even though Gay requested it, lying with his survivors. Surely the man who wrote _Trivia_ is as much entitled to honor as many others whose virtues are set forth in stone.

But if any one is disturbed by Gay’s irreverence, he has only to step through the door which is close at hand, into the little chapel of St. Faith.

For some indefinable reason, this chapel breathes more the spirit of reverence and holiness than any other in the Abbey. There is no especial beauty of decoration here, but he who can enter the solemn little room without putting up the most fervent prayer of his life must be of an unresponsive nature indeed.

It did not seem to me inharmonious to visit the Chapels of the Sanctuary in charge of a verger. The Abbey guide is also a philosopher and friend. His intoned information is pleasantly in keeping with the chiselled epitaphs, and his personality is invariably delightful; and he so dominates the group of tourists he conducts that they often show signs of almost human intelligence. The guide answers questions, not perfunctorily, but with an air of personal interest. To be sure, he passes lightly over many of the most impressive figures and proudly exhibits the fearsome Death who jabs a dart at Lady Nightingale, while her husband politely endeavors to protect her. But after becoming acquainted with the chapels one may return on free days and visit, unescorted, the tomb of Sir Francis Vere.

The Waxen Effigies greatly took my fancy. Hidden away in an upper room, they are well worth the extra fee which it costs to see them. The verger describes them with a show of real affection, and indeed, I felt strangely drawn to the ghastly puppets, which are, undoubtedly, very like the kings and queens they represent. William and Mary are easily lodged in a case by themselves, and their brocades and velvets and real laces are beautiful to look upon, though stiffened by age and dirt. Elizabeth is a terror, and Charles the Second a horror, but vastly fascinating in their weird dreadfulness. Again and again I returned to my waxen friends, and found that they gave me more historic atmosphere than their biographies or tombs.

Hanging round the outside of the Abbey, I one day stumbled into St. Margaret’s. The window is wonderful, of course, but I was more interested in remembering that here Mr. Pepys married the wife of whom he later naïvely chronicled:

“She finds, with reason, that in the company of other women that I love, I do not value her or mind her as I ought.”

Having seen the church where Pepys was married, I felt an impulse to visit the house where he died. But I was relieved rather than otherwise to learn that no trace of the house now remains.

And, anyway, the house where he died wasn’t the house where he made the pathetic entry in his _Diary_:

“Home, and, being washing day, dined upon cold meat.”

_VII._ _Certain Social Uncertainties_

Londoners have no definiteness of any sort. Their most striking trait is, paradoxically, a vague uncertainty, and this is seen in everything connected with London, from the weather to the gauzy, undecided, wavering scarfs which the women universally wear.

Indeed I do not know of anything that so perfectly represents the mentality of an Englishwoman as these same uncertain morsels of drapery.

This state of things is doubtless founded on a logical topographical fact. Baedeker states that the city of London is built on a tract of undulating clay soil, and the foundation of the average Londoner’s mind seems to be of equal instability.

I have learned from the recent newspapers that, owing to these lamentable subsoil conditions, Saint Paul’s Cathedral is even now cracking and crumbling, and parallel cases may sometime be noted among the great minds of the Britons.

I trust this will not be mistakenly thought to mean any disparagement to the British mind, whether great or small. It is, I am sure, a matter of taste; and the English people prefer their waveringness of brain, as the Pisan Tower prefers to lean.

The result of this state of things is, naturally, a lack of a sense of proportion, and an absolute ignorance of values.

And it is this that makes it impossible, or at least improbable, to generalize about the manners and customs of London’s polite society; though indeed anything so uncertain as their society ways can scarcely be called customs.

I received one morning from Mrs. C. a hastily-written note of invitation to dine with her that same evening.

“Quite informally,” the note said, “and afterward,” it went on, “we will drop in at Lady Sutherland’s.”

As I had learned that “quite informally” meant anything its writer chose it to mean, I was uncertain as to the formality of the function, and, having no idea who Lady Sutherland might be, I asked information of a casual caller.

“Who is she?” was the response, “why, in social importance, she’s only next to the King! that’s all! She’s the Duchess of Sutherland. She lives in Stafford House. You may not be familiar with Stafford House, but it is on record that when Queen Victoria was there, calling on a former Duchess of Sutherland, she took her leave with the remark, ‘I will now go from your palace to my humble home,’ referring to her own residence in Buckingham.”

I was dumfounded! To be invited to Stafford House in that careless way, and to have the Duchess of Sutherland mentioned casually as Lady Sutherland,—well!

And so for the informal dinner I arrayed myself in the most elaborate costume in my wardrobe.

Nor was I overdressed. The informal dinner proved to be a most pompous function, and after it we were all whisked into carriages, and taken to the reception at Stafford House.

Once inside of the beautiful palace I ceased to wonder at Queen Victoria’s remark. Admitted to be the most beautiful of all English private mansions, Stafford House seemed to my American inexperience far more wonderful than Aladdin’s palace could possibly have been.

The magnificent Entrance Hall, with its branching staircase and impressive gallery, seemed an appropriate setting for the beautiful Duchess, who stood on the staircase landing to greet her guests. Robed in billows of white satin, and adorned with what seemed to me must be the crown jewels, the charming, gracious lady was as simple and unaffected of manner as any American girl. She greeted me with a sincerity of welcome that had not lost its charm by having already been accorded to thousands of others.

Then, a mere atom of the thronging multitude, I was swept on by the guiding hands of belaced and bepowdered lackeys, and, quite in keeping with the unexpectedness of all things in London, I found myself suddenly embarked on a sightseeing tour. But this was a sort of sightseeing toward which I felt no objection. To be jostled by thousands, all arrayed in costumes and jewels that were sights in themselves; to visit not only the great picture gallery of Stafford House, but the smaller apartments, rarely shown to visitors; to be treated by guests and attendants as an honored friend of the family and not as an intruder; all these things made me thoroughly enjoy what would otherwise have been a sightseeing bore.

It was a marvellous pageant, and to stand looking over the railing of the high balcony at the crush of vague-expressioned lights of London society, drifting slowly up the staircase in their own impassive way, was to me a “Sight Which Should on No Account be Omitted.”

With a sort of chameleonic tendency, I involuntarily acquired a similar air, and like one in a dream I was introduced to celebrities of all degrees. Authors of renown, artists of repute, soldiers of glorious record, all were presented in bewildering succession.

Their demeanor was invariably gracious, kindly, and charming; they addressed me as if intensely interested in my well-being, past, present, and future. And yet, combined with their warm interest, was that indefinite, preoccupied, waveringness of expression, that made me feel positive if I should suddenly sink through the floor the speaker would go on talking just the same, quite unaware of my absence.

The feast prepared for this grand army of society was on a scale commensurate with the rest of the exhibition.

Apparently, whoever was in charge had simply provided all there was in the world of everything; and a guest had merely to mention a preference for anything edible, and it was immediately served to him.

The Londoners of course, being quite unaware what they wanted to eat, vaguely suggested one thing or another at random; and the vague waiters, apparently knowing the game, brought them something quite different. These viands the Londoners consumed with satisfaction; but in what was unmistakably a crass ignorance of what they were eating.

All this fascinated me so that I greatly desired to try experiments, such as sprinkling their food thickly with red pepper or putting sugar in their wine. I have not the slightest doubt that they would have calmly continued their repast, without the slightest suspicion of anything wrong.

The air of the “passive patrician” of London society is unmistakable, inimitable, and absorbingly interesting; and never did I have a better opportunity to observe it than at the beautiful reception at Stafford House to which I was invited, “quite informally.”

In contrast to this, and as a fine example of the Londoner’s utter absence of a sense of proportion, listen to the tale of a lady who called on me one day.

I had met her before, but knew her very slightly. She was exceedingly polite, and well-bred, and of very formal manner.

The purpose of her call was to invite me to her house. She definitely stated a date ten days hence, and asked if I would enjoy a bread-and-milk supper. “For we are plain folk,” she said, “and do not entertain on an elaborate scale.”

I accepted with pleasure, and she went politely away.

But I was not to be fooled by intimations of informality. “Bread and milk,” indeed! _that_, I well knew, was a euphonious burlesque for a high tea if not a sumptuous dinner. I remembered that she had called personally to invite me; that she asked me ten days before the occasion; and that the hour, seven o’clock, might mean anything at all.

Therefore, when the day came, I donned evening costume, called a hansom, and started.

I had never been to the house before, and on reaching it found myself confronted by a high stone wall and a broad wooden door.

Pushing open the latter, I doubtfully entered, and seemed to be in a large and somewhat neglected garden filled with a tangle of shrubs, vines, and flowers. Magnificent old trees drooped their branches low over the winding paths; rustic arbors, covered with earwiggy vines, would have delighted Amy March; here and there a broken and weather-beaten statue of stone or marble poked its head or its headlessness up through the wandering branches.

I started uncertainly along the most promising of the paths, and at last came in sight of a house.

A picturesque affair it was. A staircase ran up on the outside, and a tree,—an actual tree—came up through the middle of the roof. It was like a small, tall cottage, almost covered with rambling vines, and surrounded by an irregular, paved court.

From an inconspicuous portal my hostess advanced to greet me. She wore a summer muslin, simply made, and I promptly felt embarrassed because of my stunning evening gown.

Her welcome was most cordial, and expressive of beaming hospitality.

“You must enter by the back door,” she explained, “as the vines have grown over the trellis, so that we cannot get around them to the front door to enter; though of course we can go out at it. But this side of the house is more picturesque, anyway. Do you not think it delightful?”

A bit bewildered, I was ushered into a room, strange, but most interesting. It contained a mantel and fireplace which had been originally in Oliver Goldsmith’s house, and which was a valuable gem, both intrinsically and by association. The other fittings of the room were quite in harmony with this unique possession, and showed experienced selection, and taste in arrangement. The next room, in the centre of the house, was the one through which the tree grew. Straight up, from floor to ceiling, the magnificent trunk formed a noble column, around which had been built a somewhat undignified table.

Another room was entirely furnished with wonderful specimens of old Spanish marquetry—such exquisite pieces that it seemed unfair for one person to own them all. Any one of them would have been a gem of any collection.

My friend was a charming hostess; and when her husband appeared, he proved not only a charming host, but a marvellous conversationalist.

So engrossed did we all become in talking, so quick were my friends at repartee, so interesting the tales they told of their varied experiences, that the time slipped away rapidly, and the quaint old clock, which was a gem of some period or other, chimed eight before any mention had been made of the evening meal.

“Why, it’s after supper-time!” exclaimed my hostess, “let us go to the dining-room at once.”

The dining-room was another revelation. One corner was occupied by a huge, high-backed angle-shaped seat of carved wood, which carried with it the atmosphere of a ruined cathedral or a _Hofbrauhaus_. The latter effect was perhaps due to the sturdy oaken table which had been drawn into the corner, convenient to the great settee.

After we were seated, a maid suddenly appeared. She was garbed in a gorgeous and elaborate costume which seemed to be the perfection of a peasant’s holiday attire. Huge gold earrings and strings of clinking beads were worn with a confection of bright-colored satin and cotton lace, which would have been conspicuous in the front row of a comic opera chorus.

If you’ll believe me, that Gilbert and Sullivan piece of property brought in and served, with neatness and despatch, a meal which consisted solely of bread and milk!

The bowls were of Crown Derby, the milk in jugs of magnificent old ware, and the old silver spoons were beyond price.

Yet so accustomed had I become to unexpectedness, and so imbued was I with the spirit of surprise that haunted the whole place, that the proceeding seemed quite rational, and I ate my bread and milk contentedly and in large quantities.

There was no other guest, but I shall never forget the delight of that supper. Never have I seen a more innate and beautiful hospitality; never have I heard more delightfully witty conversation; never have I been so fascinated by an experience.

And so if Londoners choose to scribble a hasty note inviting one carelessly to a reception at Stafford House, and if they see fit to make a personal call far in advance to ask one to a bread-and-milk supper, far be it from me to object. But I merely observe, in passing, that they have no sense of proportion, at least in their ideas of the formality demanded by social occasions.

_VIII._ _A Sentimental Journey_

I suppose every one experiences sudden moments of self-revelation that come without rhyme or reason, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky: revelations that make clear in one illuminative flash conditions and motives that have been tangled in a vague obscurity of doubt.

It was when such an instantaneous radiance of mental vision came to me I realized at once why I had come to England. It was simply and only that I might visit Stratford-on-Avon.

Nor was this pilgrimage to be lightly undertaken. Well I knew that the position Shakespeare occupied in my lists of hero-worship demanded that a fitting tribute of emotion be displayed at sight of such material memorials as were preserved at his birthplace.

Moreover, I knew that, whatever might be my sense of reverential homage, in me the power of emotional demonstration did not abound.

But it is ever my custom, when possible, to supply or amend such lacks as I may note in my nature, by any available means.

And what could be wiser than when going on such an important journey, and where I knew my own powers would fall short of an imperative requirement, to take with me some one who should adequately supplement my shortcomings?

Being of a methodical nature, I have my friends as definitely classified and as neatly pigeon-holed as my old letters. Mentally running over my collection of available companions, I stopped at Sentimental Tommy, knowing I need look no further.

Of course Sentimental Tommy was not his real name, but it is my custom to bestow upon my friends such titles as seem to me appropriate or descriptive.

Sentimental Tommy, then, was the only man in the world, so far as I knew, who would make a perfect associate for a day in Stratford. His especial qualifications were a chameleonic power of adaptability, an instant and sympathetic comprehension of mood, an unbounded capacity for sentiment, and a genius for comradeship. He was also a man to whom one could say “come, and he cometh,” without any fuss about it.

The date being arranged, I turned to my Baedeker and was deeply delighted to discover that we must take a train from Euston Station. For it seemed that the wonderful columned façade of Euston was the only appropriate exit from London, when one’s destination was Stratford. I had hoped that our route might cause us to pass through Upper Tooting, as, next to Stratford, this was to me the most interesting name in my little red book. I know not why, but Upper Tooting has always possessed for me a strange fascination and, though it sounds merely like the high notes of a French horn, yet my intuition tells me that it is full of deep and absorbing interest.

Sentimental Tommy met me at Euston Station, and bought tickets for Stratford as casually as if it had been on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Tommy was in jubilant spirits that morning, with the peculiar kind of international triumph which comes only to an American who has attained some especial favour of the English. Gleefully he told me of his great luck: Only that morning he had been kicked by the King’s cat! An early stroll past Buckingham Palace and along Constitution Hill had resulted in an interview with the royal feline, and the above-mentioned honorable result had been achieved. My observation to the effect that I didn’t know that cats kicked, was met by the simple statement that this cat did,—and then we went on to Stratford.

The ride being in part through the same country that I had traversed when coming to London, I felt quite at home in my surroundings; and we chatted gayly of everything under the sun except the immortal hero of our pilgrimage.

That’s what I like about Tommy—he has such a wonderful intuitive sense of conversational values. And though his obsession by Shakespeare is precisely the same as my own, and though he is himself a _Bartlett’s Concordance_ in men’s clothing, yet I knew, for a surety, that he would quote no line from the poet through the entire day.

As we had neither of us ever been in Stratford before, we left the train at the station and paced the little town with an anticipation that was like a blank page, to be written on by whatever might happen next.

Trusting to Tommy’s instinct, we asked no questions of guidance, and started off at random, on a nowise remarkable street. It was an affable August day, and our gait was much like that of a snail at full gallop; yet before we turned the first corner tears stood in my eyes,—though whether caused by the thrill of being on Shakespeare’s ground, or the reflection of Tommy’s discernibly suppressed emotion, I’ve no idea.

But for pure delightfulness of sensation it is difficult to surpass that aimless wandering through Stratford, with a subconsciousness of what was awaiting us.

In London, historical associations crop up at every step; but, though pointing backward, each points in a different direction, and so they form a great semicircular horizon which becomes misty and vague in the distance. This is restful, and gives one a mere sense of blurred perspective. But Stratford is definite and coherent. Everything in it, material or otherwise, points sharply back to the one figure, and the converging rays meet with a suddenness that is dazzling and well-nigh stunning.

Stratford is reeking with dramatic quality, and a sudden breath of its atmosphere makes for mental unbalance.

“Don’t take it so hard,” said Tommy, with his gentle smile; “this is really the worst of it,—except perhaps one other bit,—and it will soon be over.”

“Why, we haven’t begun yet,” said I, in astonishment.

“You’re thinking of the Birthplace, the Memorial, and the Church. You ought to know that we can see, absorb, and assimilate those things in just about one minute each. It is this that counts,—this, and the footpath across the fields to Shottery.”

“And the River,” I added.

“Yes, and the River.”

Following his unerring instincts, Tommy’s steps led us, though perhaps not by the most direct route, to the Shakespeare Hotel.

“You know,” he said, “intending visitors to Stratford are invariably instructed by returned visitors to go to the Red Lion Inn, or Red Bear, or Red something; but instinct tells me that this hostelry has a message for us.”

Nor was the message only that of the typical English luncheon which the dining-room afforded. There were many other points about that hotel which impressed me with peculiar delight, from the quaint entrance hall to the garden at the back.

Each room is named for one of Shakespeare’s plays, and has the title over its door. After hesitating between _Hamlet_ and _Twelfth Night_, I finally concluded that should I ever spend a whole summer in Stratford, which I fully intend to do, I should take possession of the delightful, chintz-furnished _Love’s Labour’s Lost_.

The library was a continuation of fascination. A strange-shaped room whose length is half a dozen times its width, it seemed a place to enter but not to leave.

However, one does not visit Stratford for the delights of hotel-life, and, luncheon over, we again began our wanderings.

By good luck we chanced first upon the Memorial Theatre. The good luck lay in the fact that, having seen the outside of this Tribute to Genius, we had no desire to enter. It was remindful of a modern New England high school building, and, though we knew it contained authentic portraits and first folios, it had little to do with our Shakespeare.

We paused at the Monument, and commented on the cleverness of the happy thought that provided _Philosophy_ to fill up the fourth side of Shakespeare’s genius.

And then we went on to Henley Street and the house where Shakespeare was born.

We entered the narrow door-way into the old house, which shows so plainly the frantic endeavor at preservation, and we climbed the stairs to the room where the poet was born. The air was smoky with memory and through it loomed the rather smug bust, its weight supported by a thin-legged, inadequate table.

With Tommy I was not troubled by the objectionable thought of “first impressions.” In the first moment we took in, with one swift glance, the fireplace, the walls, the windows, and the few scant properties, and after that our attitude was as of pilgrims returning to an oft-visited shrine.

In the room back of the Birthroom, the one that looks out over the garden, sat the old custodian of the place. He was a large handsome man with none of the doddering, mumbling effects of his profession.

He looked at me keenly, as I stood looking out of the back window, my thoughts all with Mary Arden, and he said, in a low voice, “You love him, too,” and I said, “Yes.”

A little shaken by the Birthplace, but of no mind to admit it, we went gayly through the Stratford streets, passing groups of Happy Villagers, and so suddenly did we meet the Avon, that we almost fell into it. We chanced upon two broad marble steps that seemed to be the terminal of a macadamized path to the river.

The Avon was using the lower of these two steps, so we sat on the upper one and watched the children sailing boats upon the Memorial Stream. This brought to my mind Mr. Mabie’s word picture of Shakespeare at four years old, and for a time the baby Shakespeare took precedence over the man poet.

It is scarcely fair that the Avon should be so beautiful of itself, for this, with its vicarious interests, makes it too blessed among rivers.

Then we went to Holy Trinity. The approach, plain as way to parish church, seemed like a solemn ceremony, and, as Tommy afterward admitted, “it got on his nerves.”

Unbothered by verger or guide, oblivious to tourists, if any were there, we walked straight to the chancel, looked at Shakespeare’s grave,—and walked away.

It was fortunate for me at this moment that I had taken Sentimental Tommy with me; for, as his emotions are so much more available than mine, so he has them under much better control.

I had expected to look around the church a bit, but Tommy led me away, through the old graveyard, to the low wall by the river. And there, under the waving old trees, we sat until we could pick up our lost three hundred years.

Back through the town we went; and I must needs stop here and there at the little shops, which, with their modern attempts at quaintness, display relics and antiques, more or less genuine.

Few of their wares appealed to me, so I contented myself with a tiny celluloid bust of Shakespeare, which by chance presented the familiar features with an expression of real power and intellect. It was strange to find this poet face on a cheap trinket, and with deep thankfulness of heart I possessed myself of my one souvenir of Stratford.

It is directly opposed to all the instincts of Tommy’s nature to ask instructions in matters which he feels that he ought to know intuitively.

And so, upon his simple announcement, “This is the footpath across the fields to Shottery,—to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage,” we started.

As Tommy had hinted, during our walk from the station, there would be another bit of the real thing; and this was it. The walk across the fields was crowded with impulses that came perilously near emotional intensity. But from such appalling fate we were saved by our sense of humor. One cannot give way to emotion if one is conscious of its humorous aspect. And we agreed that as the path across the field had been here ever since Shakespeare trod it, and as it would in all probability remain for some time in the future, the mere coincidence that we were traversing it at this particular moment was nothing to be thrilled about.

And yet,—it _was_ the path from Stratford to Shottery, and we _were_ there!

But it was a longer path than we had thought, and the practicality which is one of the chief ingredients of Tommy’s sentiment moved him to look at his watch and announce that we would have to turn back at once, if we would catch the last train to London.

Not entirely disheartened at leaving Anne Hathaway’s cottage unvisited,—for we both well knew the value of the unattained,—we turned, and wandered back to the station just in time for the late afternoon train.

And that was why we didn’t discover until some time afterward that we had taken the wrong road across the fields; and that, as we imagined our faces turned toward it, Anne Hathaway’s cottage was getting further and further away to our left.

_IX._ _All in a Garden Fair_

To be in London is to be in Society. Each invitation accepted brings two more, with an ultimate result like that of the old-fashioned “chain letter.”

Having thoughtlessly begun a social career, I suddenly found my London carpeted with crimson velvet. And by insidious processes, and by reason of the advance of summer, the velvet carpet magically transformed itself into country-house lawns, the only difference being that the green velvet carpet was of a richer pile.

I had determined to accept no country-house invitations. The somewhat ample length and breadth of London itself was all the England I desired, and this I absorbed as fast as I could; my only difficulty being that I could not live nimbly enough.

But, like the historic gentleman who “loved but was lured away,” I was invited to a Saturday afternoon garden party in the country, and, under pressure of argument by some cherished friends, I consented to go.

The Garden Party, unlike Sheridan, was seventy miles away; but I learned that it would be a typical English Garden Party of the three-volume sort, and though it necessitated a week-end stay, and concomitant luggage bothers, I stoically prepared to see it through.

I was to meet my cherished friends, who were none other than the Wag O’ The World and his Wife, at Victoria Station.