Hurrah for the red, white, and blue!
The dear maid brought me eleven letters, each with a little flag on it, and each intended to reach me this day.
Ruth and I took two young American girls with us to the Ambassador's reception this afternoon at four.
There is a spirit of patriotism in the breast of social leaders which perhaps is seldom equaled by those in the humbler walks of life. The firing of gunpowder in its various forms, the drinking of all sorts and conditions of drinks, the noise of the numerous and senseless yells on our nation's natal day, do not necessarily stamp the doer with boundless national love.
When one is far from one's native land the feeling of love for that home land is of too deep and sacred a nature to admit of jocular demonstrations. I saw society today with statesmen and men of letters and foreign representatives at the Ambassador's reception, and the heart swelled with patriotic emotion, and many eyes were moist with tears as some one unfurled the Stars and Stripes, while the band played the Star-spangled Banner. All this was done without sound of any sort, save the sweet strains of the music, or the deeper drawing of the breath, and yet the men of other nations uncovered their heads in respectful acknowledgment of the fact that they stood before the representatives of the truest and most patriotic country on earth.
So many things crowd to the place where the gray matter should be that I gasp for breath. I wonder if every woman who comes over here is possessed with the wild desire to write letters. I go to places now, that I may tell you about them, and am uneasy until I reach my little sky-parlor in order to begin the telling.
Can I ever make you understand how much, how very much, I appreciate all the delights you are making it possible for me to enjoy? Were I to be stricken blind and deaf, and then live a thousand years, I have enough of beauty of color, of sound and of fragrance to enable me to live happily through it all. And yet, I am going to say, "I told you so."
You never did so unwise a thing as to induce me to bring those trunks. We have discarded them, and have each purchased an English "hold-all" and a dress basket. This last we send to the place where we are to be at the week's end, and there we are laundered, and away it goes to our next resting-place.
I find that one can get her linen washed quickly, cheaply and well in all parts of England. You give your soiled clothes, with a thru'pence, to your maid at night, and you will find them at your door, along with your shoes, in the morning—shoes and all having been thoroughly washed.