In England one hesitates to accept to dine out unless one is very sure who is going to be there. Here one can go at random, it may be strange, it may be incomprehensible, but never is it dull! I wonder if it is simply the novelty of the first weeks in America, or is it the interest of continually exploring new people—?
Monday, February 7, 1921. 13 East 55th Street.
Mr. Wiley sent his secretary and his car to convey me to the Times office. There in the building we lunched, and I was the only woman with seven men, all of them interesting. (An improvement on Fifth Avenue with seven women!) Mr. Miller, Mr. Ochs, Mr. Ogden, and so on, it was rather alarming, but they gave me orchids. I was asked a good many questions about Russia, some of them economic, which I longed to be able to answer, and cursed my mind for not working on those lines. I was told that Russia had nothing to trade with, a limited supply of gold; furs that were motheaten, grain that was rotten, aluminium that was full of alloy. I could not dispute these assertions, knowing nothing about it, but I had to laugh, it seemed to end the argument! After lunch I was shown the machinery which is too marvelous and complicated for words. I don’t see how a newspaper ever gets printed in a day. Upstairs in the illustrating part, I caught sight of myself on a copper plate. I had not expected this. They printed one for me, and it came out all folded and still hot at the other end. Too marvelous!
I dined at a big dinner given for me at the Coffee House Club by Mr. Crowninshield and Mr. Condé Nast. I sat next to Paul Manship, whose work I have known for some time. Mr. Bullitt and Mrs. Whitney, the sculptor, sat opposite. Maxine Eliott was at my table, and Mr. Harrison Rhodes, the writer, who has been described to me as “precieux” but I like him. He is more European than anyone I have met. We were four big tables full, and there were speeches after. Mr. Crowninshield in an even quiet voice was very funny.
Lopokova, the exquisite little Russian dancer whom London adores, spoke in Russian. She said she believed in Russia and believed in me! After dinner they played charades. Mr. Crowninshield and I did Trotzky. It was to be in three acts. First, I was to be a trotting horse, and he driving me. Second, we were to ski, and fall down. Third, he was to harangue the Red Army and I was to throw my arms round his neck and passionately embrace him, but Maxine guessed it at the second act, so Mr. Crowninshield was done out of his Trotzky kiss.
Tuesday, February 8, 1921.
Paul Manship called for me and took me to his studio which is near Washington Square in a side alley that used to contain stables. The moment one turned into that side alley one had left New York! He has a beautiful studio and house, and his work is modern and archaic and has a great sense of design. It interested me to discover how he gets his surfaces and the feeling of the thing being carved; this is done by working on the plaster. He is going to have an exhibition in London at the Leicester Galleries in the spring. I shall be very interested to know the result. I am sorry for the artist who goes from here to London, instead of from London here.
I dined with Mr. Archer Huntington in the most lovely house. A real man’s house, no knickknacks. There were some Goya’s that arrested one’s attention.
We were a small party, or else the house was so big, and we all seemed rather English and talked low and there was a calm that was unlike New York. I found my host treated me rather like Lenin did, smilingly and lightly, as if I were not very serious. But he takes me seriously evidently, for he is arranging an exhibition for me at the Museum of the American Numesmatic Society.
Wednesday, February 9, 1921.