The Infanta had a busy time in New York. She cruised up the Hudson as far as Yonkers, was taken over Governor’s Island in New York Harbour, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, attended the review on Decoration Day, and laid a wreath on General Grant’s sarcophagus at Riverside. A little incident, which reveals the sympathetic, warm-hearted impulsiveness of the Infanta, occurred when she visited the Normal School, where she was gracefully welcomed by 1,900 girls. In a characteristic outburst of womanly feeling, she exclaimed:
“I can only say that I wish I were sitting on the benches with you, girls.”
On June 5th she left for Chicago, and Chicago was determined not to be behind New York and Washington in the enthusiasm of its reception. It had been announced that only the “best society” would be invited to meet the Infanta, and much bad feeling was created when a member of this select coterie, on being asked by a local journalist whether the City Fathers would be invited, unguardedly replied:
“The City Council could hardly claim to represent our best society.”
In the end, however, everybody who was or who pretended to be entitled to hobnob with Royalty was invited.
At the Union Depot she was met by Mayor Carter Harrison—so soon to be foully murdered. She speedily became as popular in Chicago as in New York and Washington, and when she visited the Exhibition she was at once named “Queen of the Fair.” Her desire for privacy was courteously respected, and on several occasions she was permitted to leave the hotel and to go out for a walk unnoticed. The Duke of Veragua, who was about to leave Chicago, called on her, and a reception was given in her honour at the Mayor’s private residence, but on the whole she was left to herself much more than she had been in New York. With visits to the Niagara Falls, Boston, and some of the watering-places on the Atlantic seaboard, this princess of old Spain concluded her stay in the western republic. She left New York on board the Touraine for Havre, en route for Madrid, carrying with her all the varied impressions which the modern institutions and industrial and social forwardness of the United States had made upon her receptive mind. The following letter to Señor Arturo Cuyas, of the Circulo Colon-Cervantes, New York, written in English the day before her departure, is evidence of the feelings the country aroused in her:—
New York, 23 June, 1893.
Dear Mr. Cuyas,
Your inquiry about the impressions the United States have produced on my mind have met my expectations (sic). They are most favourable and, judging from the present, will be lasting, as so many pleasant remembrances will be attached to them.
It would require more than Longfellow’s thorough knowledge of English, Depew’s imagination, and Mary Anderson’s sentimentality to express all the feelings which I entertain for this country.