To-day there is an account in the New York Herald of Lady Astor in the House pleading for mothers, that they may have at least an equal right to their children, and as Miss Spence pointed out, how strange that a woman from this country should have to do it for the English women!
We discussed “Main Street,” which we are both in process of reading. I have already said that its author is the Thackeray of the United States, but Miss Spence said even more. She said: “It is Balsac-ian.”
Monday, May 16, 1921. Philadelphia.
In New York they told me Philadelphia was “slow.” I came to Philadelphia on Saturday. It has not been “slow.” It has been breathless. I am staying with friends outside Philadelphia, in an area which seems to be known as the “Chilten Hills.” Perhaps the Chilten Hills are more energetic than Philadelphia, and that may explain the breathless haste. I do not know. I have not been given time to analyze it.
I came to Philadelphia because the “Arts Alliance” club offered me an exhibition and asked me to open it (to-night) with a lecture.
Sunday was one uninterrupted twelve-hour rush in which one met over and over again (at places miles apart!) the same friendly faces that I had learned to know on Saturday night. This is the way the overworked American rests on Sunday:
At 10 o’clock I was taken out riding. Only once before in my life—and that a year ago—had I ever ridden astride. I was mounted on a thoroughbred hunter, but mercifully it was as quiet as a lamb. We rode in the sun for two hours. Going through peoples’ private grounds seems to be no offense in this country. Some time ago—at Bernardsville, New Jersey, I walked for miles unmolested through peoples’ woods and gardens, enjoyed their fountains and their flowers and their lawns. Yesterday was much the same. We rode peacefully, not “across country,” but across property. Honorably sticking to the paths, of course.
People don’t surround their grounds with walls and hedges and ditches here as in England. There appear to be no lodges and gates, and furious people. A gateless entrance is a great temptation, it looks to me like an invitation. No Communist could war against these conditions. It really gives one a sense of fraternity. I need no garden of my own, if I may walk in my neighbor’s. His azaleas look just the same as mine would look, and his fountain sings the same song.
Returning from our ride late, we jumped into a 12-cylinder two-seater, in our riding clothes, and drove at a speed of fifty to the house of friends who had invited us for cocktails at midday! I felt rather as if we were film playing! At the friend’s house I also got an order to do a bust. Thus stimulated, we returned at a speed of sixty. Got home barely in time to bathe and change and start off again for a luncheon party.
After luncheon the entire party motored over to Mr. Stotesbury’s house. This incident deserves comment. Mr. Stotesbury’s house is just completed. It is a sort of Versailles. In reply to comment I heard someone say: “It was not really built so very quickly. It was begun five years ago.” Five years in which to begin and complete an American Versailles! Complete and perfect inside as well as the shell. Five years ago the site on which it stands was a wild countryside which harbored the fox. To-day it is levelled, terraced, planted and planned. Fountains tumble and splash arrogantly. Neatly trimmed box hedging pursues its Italian design, big trees brought from a distance thrive. It seems that you can bribe quite aged trees to survive transplantation that otherwise would die, and altogether one realizes that money can remove mountains or create them. Only—I discovered one rebel. My friend the orange tree, recognizing no King but the sun, had refused to grow oranges to order, and had to submit to having these wired on, but had produced no blossom!