This gorgeous hotel on Easter week is a sight for gods and men. We engaged our rooms here while we were on the Nile, two months before, and reminded them once a week all during that time that we were coming; otherwise, on account of its extreme popularity in the fashionable world, they might not have been able to hold them for us. We reached there late on the Saturday evening before Easter, and dined in our own apartments. But the next day, and indeed until war broke out and we fled from Rome, the Grand Hôtel was as delightful as it was possible to make a gorgeous, luxurious, and fashionable hotel. The palm-room, where the band plays for afternoon tea, and where one always comes for one’s coffee, is between the entrance and the grand dining-room, so that on entering the hotel one comes upon a most beautiful vista of a series of huge glass doors and lovely green waving palms, with nothing but a glass roof between one and the blue Italian sky.
Most of the smart Americans go there, and a very beautiful front they presented. I had not seen any American clothes for a year, but on Easter Sunday at luncheon I saw the most bewitching array of smart street-gowns worn by the inimitable American woman, who is as far beyond the women of every other race on earth in her selection of clothes and the way she holds up her head and her shoulders back and walks off in them as grand opera is above a hand-organ. Even the French woman does not combine the good sense with good taste as the American does. And there I found these sisters, each lovely in her own way—the pretty one listening to the raptures of the poetic one with a palpable sneer which said plainly: “I not only have no part in these vain imaginings, but I do not think that you yourself believe them. You are posing for the world, and I am the only one who knows it. Have I not been with you everywhere, and have I, with my two eyes, which certainly are as good as yours—have I seen these things you describe?” It was pathetic, for the muse of the poet soon felt the mire in which it daily trod. The fire faded from the girl’s eye, her radiance disappeared, her noble enthusiasms paled, her fantastic and brilliant imagination dulled, and soon she sat listlessly in our midst, a tired, patient smile upon her delicate face, while her sister discoursed volubly upon clothes. Alas, the old fable of the iron pot and the porcelain kettle drifting down the stream together! At the end of the journey the iron pot had not even a scratch upon its thick sides, but the porcelain was broken to pieces. How I longed to take that wounded imagination, that whimsical wit, under my wing and explore Rome with her! But circumstances held the two together, and I took instead my guide, Seraphino Malespina. Seraphino deserves a chapter by himself. His observations upon human nature were of much more value to me than his knowledge of Rome, accurate and worthy as that was. He was the best guide I ever had. I had heard of him, so when we arrived I simply wrote to him and engaged him by the week. He took us everywhere, never wasted our money (which is a wonder in a guide), and, while I may forget some of his dates and statistics, I shall never forget his shrewdness in understanding human nature. His disquisitions on the ordinary tourist, and his acute analysis of the two sisters I have described, were so accurate that I determined then and there that Seraphino was a philosopher. The interest I took in his narratives pleased him to such an extent that he was unwearied in searching out interesting material. I taught him to use the camera, and he photographed us in the Colosseum and in front of the Arch of Constantine.
He persuaded me to coax the poet away from her sister one day and to take her with me instead of my companion. I did so, and to this day I thank my guide for his wisdom, for once out from under the sister’s depressing influence, that whimsical genius, worthy of being classed with the most famous of wits, blossomed under my appreciative laughter like a rose in the sunlight.
We saw, too, the magnificent statue of Garibaldi—a superb thing, which overlooks the whole city of Rome. We tossed pennies into the fountain of the Trevi, and drank some of the water, which is a sure sign, if you wish it at the time you drink, that you will return to Rome.
It was on the day that we went to Tivoli that I heard the first war news from America which I regarded final. We were on the Nile when the Maine was blown up, and all through Egypt and Greece news was slow to travel. When we got to Italy we were dependent upon London for despatches. I waited until I received my own papers before I knew the truth. Finally, on our departure for Tivoli, my American mail was handed to me, and I found what preparations were being made—that my brother was going! I remember Tivoli as in a haze of war-clouds. America arming herself for war once more! Some of my family—my very own—preparing to go! How much do you think I cared for the Emperor Hadrian and his villa, which was a whole town in itself, and his waterfalls and his wonderful objects of art?
At any other time how I would have revelled in the idea of his two theatres, his schools, his libraries, his statues pillaged from my beautiful Greece, his philosopher’s wall—a huge wall built only for shade, so that his friends who came to discourse philosophy with him could walk in its west shadow mornings, and in its east shadow afternoons; all these things would have driven me wild with enthusiasm. But on that day I saw instead the Flying Squadron in Hampton Roads, painted black. I saw the President and his secretaries, with anxious faces, consulting with their generals; I saw how awful must be the sacrifice to the country in every way—money, commerce, health, the very lives of the dear soldiers of our army, who fight from choice, and not because law compels their enlistment. My companion ridiculed my anxiety and rallied me on my inattention to Hadrian. Hadrian! What was Hadrian to me when I thought of the volunteers in America?
Not two days later war was formally declared, and although Rome was yet practically unexplored, although we had been there only three weeks, we rushed post-haste to Paris, spent one day gathering up our trunks from Munroe’s, and left that same night for London.
Once in London, however, we found ourselves blocked. The American Line steamships had been requisitioned by the government, and were no longer at our disposal. With changed names they were turned into war vessels, and few, indeed, were the women who would go aboard them in the near future. The North German Lloyd promised us the new Kaiser Friedrich, and every place was taken. We went to the Cecil Hotel and waited. Day after day passed, and the sailing-day was postponed once, then twice. I was frantic with impatience. The truth was the Kaiser Friedrich was not quite finished. Evidently it is the same with a ship as with dress-makers. They promise to finish your gown and send it home for Thanksgiving, whereas you are in luck if you get it by Christmas.
The only thing that consoled me was being at the Cecil. To be sure, it was filled with Americans, but I was not avoiding them then. I had finished my journeyings. I had got my point of view. I was going HOME!
How I wished for poor Bee! What an awful time she had with me at “The Insular”! (which, of course, is not its real name; but I dare not tell it, because it is so smart, and I would shock its worshippers). How she hated our lodgings! Now she will not believe me when I tell her that the Cecil is as good as an American hotel; that its elevators (lifts) really move; that its cuisine is as delicious as Paris; that its service is excellent. Bee is polite but incredulous. To be sure, I tell her that the hotel is as ugly as only an English architect could make it; that the blue tiles in the dining-room would make of it a fine natatorium, if they would only shut the doors and turn in the water—nothing convinces her that English hotels are not jellied nightmares. But as for me, I recall the Cecil with feelings of the liveliest appreciation. I was comfortable there, for the first time in England. If it had not been for the war I would have been happy.