Mrs. Morgan and her daughter and son were there, the mother looked like their sister. The atmosphere of restraint and politeness among themselves gave one the impression of being with Austrian Royalties.
Florrie Grenfell took me over to the library. It is a wonderful place, and inconceivable that it is a private possession. Everything is arranged and labelled as though it were a public museum. Even the bibelots have their labels, and the smallest thing on a shelf is a priceless work of art. There was a little bronze Benvenuto Cellini, a Michael Angelo baby head, a Botticelli on an easel—etc., etc. I asked if the place were open certain days a week to the public, but was told no.
GEORGE GRAY BARNARD DESCRIBING HIS CLOISTERS TO CLARE SHERIDAN
(Photograph by Ralph Pulitzer, Esq.)
When we came out, I saw two men leaning against the lamp post. Florrie Grenfell said they were detectives. I asked her how she knew—she said she had been there long enough to know them by sight! Round the angle of the block, opposite the front door was another. I observed that this was rather fantastic; but the answer is that the police say they will not be responsible for Mr. Morgan’s life, and he has already been shot at! It seems to me that if he metaphorically shook hands with the world, he’d be as safe as, for instance, our Prince of Wales. The world reacts to one’s own attitude.
Saturday, March 12, 1921.
Kenneth and I dined together and then he took me among poets in Greenwich Village. Genevieve Taggard, whose apartment we met in, is a lovely and graceful being. An interesting Russian was there, Vladimir Simkhovitch. He took us to his apartment afterwards, and opening a cupboard, he unrolled and hung up on the wall series of Chinese paintings. He is a great authority on Oriental Art. He loves his things. He produced from his treasure store those that suited his mood. Poems, in brown gauche, or else portraits full of character and mystery. He values them far above Gainsboroughs! Each one of the pictures was something that one longed to be alone with, and to think over, and absorb. As I was leaving, he presented me with a terra cotta Chinese “Tanagra” Ming period. ... A truly Oriental impulse—we are going back again!
St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1921.
I took Dick and Louise and little Walter Rosen and his governess to view the Sinn Fein procession. All down Fifth Avenue, even to where we were, opposite the Metropolitan Museum, the crowd was dense. I never realized so many Irish and such a Sinn Fein majority. After three hours of it I found a taxi opposite the Plaza Hotel and jumped in. We were blocked a long time, owing to traffic disorganization, and as the window between us in front was open we talked. The taxi driver observed that if some of these Irish really wanted to help Ireland, why didn’t they go back—instead of carrying placards deploring the fact that they have but one life to lose for their country. Why not go back and lose it, or offer it? He said to me: “Some Irishmen were jeering at me the other day, and calling me a Russian Jew—I said to them that at least the Russian Jews had been consistent. Having been persecuted, they suddenly one day got up and murdered their Czar—I said to these Irishmen, instead of complaining so, why don’t you go and kill George?”