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.