Memories of the future

by Ronald Arbuthnott Knox

New York, March 3.

Dear old thing,—

I am quartered here on Lord Poughkeepsie and his wife, such a charming couple. The weather is, we hear, intensely cold, but one doesn’t come into personal contact with it in these parts: a closed motor stands ready on the lift when you want to go “out,” and you take care to fasten all the windows before it is lowered into the porch. The same sort of thing happens, of course, at the other end. We had a most interesting dinner-party here last night with a very old American family, the van Murphy’s—he is said to have refused a knighthood, which is regarded as a frightfully desperate thing to do, out here. He says the Cleans are gaining in the East, though New York is sticky to a man; but it is the Western vote which will count. In Los Angeles it is not safe to go out of doors unless you pretend to be chewing, and some of the more peaceable citizens keep marbles in their cheeks permanently, to avoid being held up and questioned. Several of the States have already gone clean, including Maine, where the result, they tell me, has been an appalling outbreak of sweet-eating. Even here it is quite difficult to get butterscotch or barley-sugar, because there is such a lot of hoarding going on. I asked whether either party was likely to include the No-gum plank in its platform, and he said the Revolutionaries (they correspond to our Conservatives, you know) have practically pledged themselves to it. I haven’t caught the habit myself yet; it is horrible when they are chewing the stuff, but still worse when they “release” it.

Mr. van Murphy startled me by asking me whether I was fond of Theocritus! For a moment I imagined it was a kind of cigarette, but just remembered in time that it was the name of a classical author, and said I had never been encouraged to read him, because in England it wasn’t thought proper for young girls. This was a desperate shot, but turned out to be a fortunate one; he quite understood. It seems that they read the classics out here with great avidity, and Greek forms part of their ordinary education! Mr. van Murphy continued to talk about Theocritus, seeing that the field was clear for him, and said he did not think he was as good as Longfellow, not so uplifting. I said I always felt uplifted by Longfellow. He said Lucretius was great stuff, but kind of old-fashioned: the man hadn’t got our advantages, scince being little studied in those times. He thought if Lucretius could come to life now a man like Jefferson could hand him the soap. I had no idea what he meant, so agreed feverishly. He said he had learnt scince pretty average when he was at the seminary, and thought it was a great thing for a boy; gave him a kind of scatter for things. I was feeling badly out of my depth (you know, Lady Poughkeepsie afterwards told me that the real high-class Americans don’t talk slang; “a man like Alge van Murphy, now, you couldn’t tell him from a Britisher by his talk”). I felt it was my turn to “come in” somehow, so (remembering my Stories from the Aeneid) I asked if Virgil was read much in American schools; I thought boys enjoyed it so much more if the books they read had a plot and a human interest. He said it was pretty generally considered in American circles that Virgilius P. Maro was the greatest man God ever. I turned in despair to the man on the other side. He turned out to be a Professor of philosophy, but was fortunately disinclined to talk shop. Indeed, for about twenty minutes on end he told me all about the points of all the Derby winners for the last ten years or so: they are a strange people....

New York, March 24. To-morrow I am to cross the Continent. I am going by helico after all, because I want to crowd in as much sight-seeing as I can. I am sorry, though, to miss the train journey; apparently it is like nothing on earth. The trains only go at twenty miles an hour, on a fabulously broad gauge, and living in them is like living in a hotel. The engines consume their own smoke, and if the weather is fine you spend your time on the top of the carriage, which is all laid out as a flower garden! Each coach is named after the flower that is principally cultivated on the top of it. Life on the train is so quiet that the journey is regularly recommended by doctors to patients who have had a nervous break down. There is always a hospital coach, and it is a favourite joke against the company to declare that when the train reaches its terminus the guard—I mean the “conductor”—has to hand in a list of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Another humorist assured me that it is only a matter of time before they start granting divorces on these trains; “twenty-five days between stations is a long stretch, you know, Miss Winterhead.” It is really true that they have swimming-baths in summer, and that you can send your clothes to the wash!

I am very sorry to hear about the strike at the College of Heralds. It’s true, of course, that they’ve had to work overtime, and that the salaries are calculated on a hopelessly outworn scale, but I can’t feel they’re likely to get their way. And what will Frank Hopgood do if they don’t take him back after the strike? He had such a promising career in front of him, and I can’t imagine him settling down to a new job....

Washington, April 7. People talk about nothing except the Gum Question here. Mrs. Rivers, my hostess here, who is passionately Clean (you understand what I mean, don’t you? It’s the oddest thing to hear people talking about it, because one’s always hearing things like “We’ll have no Clean Senator in these parts,” or “Mrs. So-and-so isn’t as Clean as she used to be”)—what was I saying? Yes, Mrs. Rivers tells me that the reason why they are so keen on it is that the gum-makers have notoriously been introducing opium into the gum for years past. She says a girl who has the chewing habit is “sucking her Particular Judgement every time,” which I thought a nice phrase. By the way, I have been making a little list of Americanisms to send you: I give them here with the equivalents opposite:

He didn’t come up by the 4.33.		He wasn’t born yesterday.
He’s got his flying check.	}
He’s lost weight.	}
He’s joined the ’cellos.	}	He has died.
He’s got in amongst it.	}
He’s gone in off the flush.	}
Have my card.		That doesn’t deceive me.
To get one’s diaphragm buzzing.		To have a meal.
He’s under the hoist.		He doesn’t count.
He’s mislaid his gum somewhere.		He is off his head.
There’s no hair on that egg.		That’s no use.
I should half.		No, thank you.
To come down butter-side up.		To fall on one’s feet.

And so on and so on. I’m only gradually getting into the way of understanding what it all means; probably when I come home I shall just have begun to talk it!

Please tell Mrs. Rowlands that I have been under the Niagara Falls on a hydroplane. I haven’t been anywhere near them really, but I thought she’d like to hear that kind of thing....