"Do you think I could play at this so long that one day I'd imagine I was doing what God had expected of me when he sent me to you, Brick? Could I stay out in the big world until I'd think of the cove as a cramped little pocket in the wilderness with two pennies jingling at the bottom of it named Brick and Bill? If I thought there was any danger of that, I'd start home in the morning!
"We are in a Kansas City hotel where all the feathers are in ladies' hats and bonnets instead of in the gentlemen's hair. To get to our rooms you go to a dark little door and push something that makes a bell ring, and then you step into a dugout on pulleys, that shoots up in the air so quick it makes you feel a part of you has fallen out and got lost. The dugout doesn't slow up for the third story, it just stops THAT QUICK—they call it an 'elevator' and it certainly does elevate! You step out in a dim trail where there are dusky kinds of lights, although it may be the middle of the day, and you follow the trail over a narrow yellow desert, turn to your right and keep going till you reach a door with your number on it. When you are in your room, you see the things that are considered more important than the people.
"There's an entire room set apart for the sole purpose of bathing!—and the room with the bed in it is separate from the sitting-room. You can go in one and stay a while, and go in another and stay a while, and then go in the third—and you have a different feeling for each room that you're in. I'd rather see everything at once, as I can in my cabin. And that bed! If my little bed at home could be brought here and set up beside this hotel wonder, the very walls would cry out.... I wish I could sleep in my little bed tonight, and hear the wind howling over the mountain.
"The dining-room is the finest thing I ever saw; I doubt if the kings and queens of old times ever ate in richer surroundings. There are rows of immense mirrors along the wall and gold borders—and then the tables! I wonder what would happen if anybody should spread newspapers on one of these wonderful tables and use them for a tablecloth? At home, we can just reach out and take what we want off the stove, and help our plates without rising. It's so different here! After you've worried over crooked lists of things to eat that you've never heard of, and have hurried to select so the waiter won't have to lose any time, the waiter goes away. And when he puts something before you, you don't know what to call it, because it's been so long, you've forgotten its name on that awful pasteboard. But there's something pleasant when you've finished, in just getting up and walking away, not caring who cleans up the dishes!
"I've been to the opera-house, but it wasn't an opera, it was a play. That house—I wish you could see it!—the inside, I mean, for outside it looks like it needs washing. The chairs—well, if you sent that stool of ours to a university you couldn't train it up to look anything like those opera-chairs. And the dresses—the diamonds.... Everything was perfectly lovely except what we had come to see, and my party thought it was too funny for anything; but it wasn't funny to me. The story they acted was all about a young couple fooling their parents and getting married without father and mother knowing, and a baby brought in at the last that nobody would claim though it was said to be somebody's that shouldn't have had one—the audience just screamed with laughter over that; I thought they never would quiet down. Out in The big world, babies and old fathers and mothers seem to be jokes. The star of the evening was a married actress with 'Miss' before her name. You could hear every word she spoke, but the others didn't seem to try to make themselves plain—I guess that's why they aren't stars, too.
"I've lived more during the last week than I had the previous fifty-one. We must have been to everything there is, except a church. Yesterday was Sunday, and I asked Mrs. Sellimer about it, but she said people didn't go to church any more.
"Maybe you wonder why I don't tell you about our crowd, but I guess it's because I feel as if they didn't matter. I wouldn't say that to anybody in the world but to you, Brick and Bill, and if I hadn't promised to write you every single thing, I wouldn't even tell you, because they are so good to me. It sounds untrue to them, doesn't it? But you won't tell anybody, because you've nobody to tell! And besides, they could be different in a minute if they wanted to be; it isn't as if they were helpless.
"Miss Sellimer is witty and talented, and from the way she treats me, I know she has a tender heart. And her mother is a perfect wonder of a manager, and never makes mistakes except such as happen to be the fad of the hour. And Mr. Edgerton Compton could be splendid, for he seems to know everything, and when we travel with him, or go to the parks and all that, people do just as he says, as if he were a prince; he has a magnificent way of showering money on porters and waiters and cabmen that is dazzling; and he holds himself perfectly WITHOUT TRYING, and dresses so that you are glad you're with him in a crowd; he knows what to do ALL the time about EVERYTHING. But there he stops. I mean, he isn't trying to do anything that matters. Neither are any of the rest.
"What they are working at now, is all they expect to work at as long as they live—and it takes awfully hard work to keep up with their set. They call it 'keeping in the swim,' and let me tell you what it reminds me of—a strong young steer out in a 'tank,' using all the strength he has just to keep on top of the water, instead of swimming to shore and going somewhere. Society people don't go anywhere; they use all their energy staying right where they are; and if one of them loses grip and goes under—GOODNESS!
"I know what Mrs. Sellimer has set her heart on, because she has already begun instructing me in her ideals. She wants her daughter to marry a rich man, and Mr. Edgerton Compton isn't rich, he only looks like he is. Mrs. Sellimer feels that she's terribly poor, herself; it's the kind of poverty that has all it wants to eat and wear, but hasn't as many horses and servants as it wants. It's just as hard on her as it would be on you if the bacon gave out and you couldn't go for more. Annabel—that's Miss Sellimer—likes Mr. Compton very, very much, but she feels like her mother about marrying a rich man, and I don't think he has much chance. One trouble is that he thinks he must marry a rich girl, so they just go on, loving each other, and looking about for 'chances.'