We took a look at the relics of Juarez, the "man in the black coat," as the only Mexican ruler that didn't wear uniform is called. The plainest of civilian garb of the late sixties was in the vitrine, and near by was the bed in which he actually managed to die. This last, as far as I can see, is unique among Mexican relics, Mexican public men not having the habit of dying in bed.
Dearing has gone away, on three months' leave, and N. is at his desk.
I must stop and take my baby on my lap. He has been standing by my side, saying, "Dy will be done." He is being taught various prayers, and repeats them on all occasions. He is waiting with a bit of blotting-paper to blot my letter, which I am sure he will do, and wants to know if you got the last thousand kisses.
Evening.
These past two days I have lunched at Coyoacan. Yesterday at the house of some American friends of the ambassador's—the Becks—who are charmingly situated in a huge old house surrounded by a great, tall-treed garden, and filled with lovely old things. Mr. Potter, who is down here to watch over large interests of his own and other people's, is most witty and entertaining, and with his friend, Mr. Butler, went with us. The day before Mrs. Laughton, who had met De Weede, asked us all for lunch at the Casa de Alvarado. I was glad to show him some more "local color," and that beautiful old house is simply oozing with it.
After lunch we went into the garden for our coffee, while Elim played with Mrs. Laughton's two little children; but, even with young voices sounding, a soft sun shining upon lovely flowers, and sipping coffee under the pleasant shade of the rose-grown arbor, the garden is eery and melancholy-inducing.
On our way back we stopped at the Zócalo, and went to the Academia San Carlos, the national picture-gallery, Academia de las Nobles Artes de Mexico, as it was called under the viceroys. It has a huge collection of plaster casts which cost the king several hundred thousand pesos. Do you see the "Laocoön," the "Apollo Belvedere," the "Young Hercules," etc., being brought up on Indian backs from Vera Cruz? The patio and corridors were full of scaffolding and plaster scrapings as we passed in.
Humboldt speaks of seeing great halls lighted with Argand lamps, evidently then the dernier cri of illumination, and the Indian, the Mestizo, and the son of the "grand seigneur" side by side, drawing and modeling from the antique molds. Tolsa, the celebrated artist of the "Iron Horse," taught here.
We took a glance only at some of the boresome, well-painted academic modern canvases, which made us feel like dashing into the street to get some real pictures. The rooms where the early Mexican painters, the Echave brothers, Cabrera, etc., hang were closed for repairs or cleaning. Indeed, the whole place was at sixes and sevens, each object plastered with from two to five numbers. As we had "met" most of the casts in European museums, it didn't matter. We walked up the gay Avenida San Francisco and stopped in at "El Globo," a café much frequented from this hour on. On coming out De W. took photographs of the Jockey Club, its blue and yellow tiles particularly brilliant against some threatening rain-clouds, and some others of the charming entrance to the old Church of San Francisco opposite; he said they could be hung as "Sacred and Profane Love." We got back to Calle Humboldt as the heavens opened and deluged the town.
General Crozier, just arrived from Washington, came in the darkest and wettest hour. Such an unexpected pleasure! There are not many Americans to visit Mexico this summer. All the people who used to come in their private cars and bring a note of home and gaiety are conspicuous by their absence. There is no way of heating the houses, and sometimes during the rainy hours there is a cold dampness which is very penetrating. Stirring the embers of old acquaintance and talking of "home" happenings was a very pleasant way of alleviating the temperature this afternoon.