Fondest love to my angels,
Your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH
LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND
LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND, Saturday.
Dearest Mamma,—We are here for Sunday, but first I must tell you of the day "down town." We went with one of the interesting business men we have met lately, and we seemed to motor for miles along Fifth Avenue until one would think one was dreaming; all the houses seemed to be from fifteen to twenty-five stories high, and so the air rushes down the gorges the streets are, like a tornado, even if it is not a particularly windy day. It is a mercy American women have such lovely feet and nice shapes, because when they cross to a place called the Flat Iron Building the gusts do what they please with their garments. I am quite sure if the Roués' Club in Piccadilly could get itself removed to a house just here, those wicked old men would spend their days glued to the windows. Well, we passed Washington Square, which has a look of Russell or Bedford Squares, part of it, and beyond that I can't remember the names of the streets; it all was so crowded and intent and wonderful,—people racing and chasing after wealth, I suppose.
Finally we got to Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. And Wall Street is quite a little narrow, ordinary street, almost as mean as our Threadneedle or Lombard Streets! The Stock Exchange is the most beautiful building! I don't suppose you have ever been in one, Mamma, and I certainly shall never want to see another. Imagine a colossal room as high as a church, with a Greek roof and a gallery at one end, and down below countless human beings—men at highest tension dealing with stocks and shares, in a noise of hell which in groups here and there rose to a scream of exaltation or a roar of disappointment. How anyone could keep nerves or hearing sense, after a week of it, one cannot imagine. No wonder American men have nervous prostration, and are so often a little deaf. The floor was strewn with bits of paper, that they had used to make calculations on, and they had a lovely kind of game of snowballing with it now and then—I suppose to vary the monotony of shouting and screaming. The young ones would pelt each other. It must have been a nice change.—Then there were a lot of partitions with glass panels at the end of the room, and into these they kept rushing like rabbits into their holes, to send telegrams about the prices, I suppose. And all the while in a balcony half way up one of the great blank empty walls, a dear old white bearded gentleman sat and gazed in a benevolent way at the shrieking crowd below.
They told us he was there to keep order! But no one appeared to care a pin for his presence, and as he did not seem to mind, either, what row they made, we rather wondered what the occasions could be when he would exert his authority! Presently he went away to lunch, and as no one else took his place, they were able to make as much noise as they liked, though it did not seem any greater than before.
Can you imagine, Mamma, spending days in a place like that? No wonder when they get up town they don't want to talk. But Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield says everyone is too restless to stay quietly at home in the evenings, and when they have pulled themselves together with a cocktail they have to dress and go out to dine at some restaurant or with friends, and then the theatre. At first one thinks they are simply angels to their wives, working all day long down town like that—they seem a race of predestined husbands. If one wanted a husband who spent his entire day away from one and was too tired when he came in to talk of anything but a few sentences on Wall Street affairs, one would certainly choose a rich American, because he would load one with money and jewels, and absolutely obey one when he was at home, and let one spend most of the time in Europe. But Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield says all that is only a sop to Cerberus, to keep the wives from grumbling at not being made love to like women of other nations are; that all men are hunters, and while ours in England chase foxes and are thrilled with politics the New Yorkers hunt dollars, and it is the same thing. Wall Street is their adored mistress, and the wives are just their family. As you were married such ages ago I don't know if you quite understand what I mean about men, Mamma, and the effect they have on one. There are creatures who,—the moment they come into the room you know they are there. You know it isn't a woman. It is not an intellectual or soul feeling, but it is rather lovely, all the same, and although I am furious with Harry and intend to be horrid to him, I must say he has this power stronger than anyone I have ever met; when he is close to me I have a kind of creep of pleasure, and when he kisses those little curls at the back of my neck I feel thrills all down my back. Do you know what I mean, Mamma? I have divided men up into two lots. Those one could go to Australia alone with, and those one couldn't, and it does not matter in the least their age or looks or station or anything, it is just whether or no they have got this quality. Well, as far as I have seen, Valerie Latour's husband and one or two others are the only men who have it here in New York, although lots are very good looking and intelligent, and all are kind; but there is a didactic way of talking, a complete absence of subtlety or romance.—And even those it would be perfectly safe to go with; because they would not dream of making love to one, but they have the igniting quality in themselves. Some of the elder men over forty are really attractive and intensely clever, but as everyone is married, one would always have the bore of the wives' frowns if one played with them. How I do wander from what I was telling you!
Tom came with us to the Stock Exchange. We have to leave him at home when we go to the women's lunches, but he spends the time with Valerie Latour, and in the late afternoons he goes to the Clubs with the husbands, and he says they are awfully good fellows and many brilliantly amusing, and full of common sense; but at some of the clubs they have not got any unwritten laws as to manners, so now and then when they get rather drunk, they are astonishingly rude to one another. It is not considered a great disgrace for a young man to get tipsy here; the slang for it is to get "full." There are two grades, "fresh" and "full." When you are "fresh" you are just breezy and what we would call "above yourself;" but when you are "full," you can't speak plain, and are sometimes unsteady on your feet, so it is very unpleasant. You can be "fresh," too, without having drunk anything, if you have an uppish nature. Octavia and I were perfectly astonished the first time we heard it spoken of. A rather nice looking boy who was at dinner had apparently been "full" the night before, and the women on both sides of him chaffed him and scolded him as if it were a joke. I am glad it is still considered a disgrace in England, because when it does occur it is kept out of sight.
After the Stock Exchange we went to see the workings of one of the great journals. That was too wonderful, Mamma, everything happening in a vast room on one floor; compositing, typewriting, printing, and sorting. It is astonishing the tremendous power of concentrating the will to be able to think in that flurry and noise;—hundreds of clean-shaven young men in shirt-sleeves smoking cigars or cigarettes and doing their various duties. The types interested us so; physiognomy counts for nothing, apparently,—faces that might have been the first Napoleon or Tennyson or even Shakespeare,—doing the simple manual part of lifting the blocks of metal and attending to the machinery, older men, these;—and the Editor, who naturally must have been very clever, had a round moon face, tiny baby nose, two marbles stuffed in for eyes and the look of a boyish simpleton.