After dinner we had music...
I don't know what your experience has been, but I find it hard to remain patient with the whole world of people who delight in calling themselves "artists". (If English has any meaning, an artist is a person who paints, not a fiddler or a poet or an actor.) So much fuss has been made of them that their heads have really been turned. Before I had quite decided what music to have, I heard a young man playing at Connie Maitland's. Quite well he played—for an Englishman, and I asked Connie to present him.
"I have a few friends dining on the eighteenth," I said, "and I was wondering whether you would be so very kind as to come and give us an opportunity of hearing a little more of your too delightful playing."
These people expect to be flattered, as no doubt you know...
"The eighteenth?," he repeated. "I'm not dining anywhere that night, so far as I know; I will come with great pleasure."
The impudence of the man!
"Dinner itself..." I said. "My dining-room is so absurdly small that I am absolutely restricted in numbers. But afterwards... I have asked a few friends, real music-lovers; say about half-past ten. The address—"
"Oh," he interrupted, "I'll ask you to get in touch with my agent. He'll tell you my terms and make all arrangements."
"But there are no arrangements to make," I protested. "Lady Maitland told me that you were a new-comer to London, and I thought you might like to meet a few people..."
And then I told him that the princess had graciously promised to come.