These were civilities beyond one’s dreams, and added to them were the never-ceasing hospitalities at houses like John Hay’s, and the Judges’, and the delightful receptions at which one met the great scientists connected with the Smithsonian Institute, and the chief authors and editors congregated at Washington.
To witness a change of Administration at Washington and partake in its hospitalities is extraordinarily stimulating and interesting. It was a privilege far beyond my deserts to meet the great public men of America.
CHAPTER VI
LITERARY AT-HOMES AND LITERARY CLUBS
The literary at-home is an American institution. It may not have been invented there, but it has certainly flowered there. I did not visualise the literary at-home at all until I attended the Sunday evenings of my dear old friend, Louise Chandler Moulton, the author of Swallow Flights, at Boston. Her house was the centre of literary society there. She knew every one who was worth knowing in literary circles in England and America, and she had a passion for collecting them on Sunday nights.
There I learnt the essential simplicity and common-sensibleness of American entertainments. No one went for the refreshments; there were none except coffee and various kinds of cakes. It was, in fact, afternoon tea, with coffee instead of the drink which cheers without inebriating, held at 9 p.m. instead of 5. Her evenings were crowded.
When I went to New York I found the New York literary people collected every Sunday night in the hospitable home of Edmund Clarence Stedman, the chief literary biographer of his day. Laurence Hutton, too, the author of Literary Landmarks in London, and editor of certain pages of Harper’s Magazine, had a few people on Sunday nights. There was always the same simplicity about eating and drinking, and the same absence of any entertainment, except being introduced to American celebrities, or occasionally listening spellbound while one of them told a humorous story in the inimitable American way.
Charles de Kay, the chief art critic in New York of that day, was one of the few people who gave big afternoon teas in the English style. De Kay belonged to one of the oldest literary families in New York, for he was the grandson of Joseph Rodman Drake.
These were the private literary at-homes. They yielded in importance to the story-tellers’ nights of the various clubs, generally Saturday nights. Sometimes there was a large house dinner at the Club, sometimes nothing happened until the reception began, about nine, but in any case, the procedure was the same. First of all, the most brilliant men of the day told anecdotes, and then the assemblage broke up into small groups, when the introduction of strangers to each other was the feature of the evening. It was in this way that I came to know nearly every important American writer of that day. Sometimes two good anecdote-tellers would be put up to banter each other, and the encounters would be very witty. I remember one encounter in particular between a Bostonian and a professor of the University of Chicago. The professor alluded most feelingly to the departed glories of Boston—Boston which considered itself the hub of the universe—and dilated upon the new era which was dawning for Chicago. The Bostonian got up and agreed with every word he said.
“I am surprised at my friend’s agreeing with this,” said the professor.