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My American Diary Clare Sheridan

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My American Diary Clare Sheridan •ow^T^ " iljrvWiVf= Copyright iN^_ COPWIGHT DEPOSrr. MY AMERICAN DIARY CLARE SHERIDAN CLARE SHERIDAN (Photograph by Francis Bruguiere) MY AMERICAN DIARY BY CLARE SHERIDAN Author 0/ "MA7FAIR TO MOSCOW" ^ BONI AND LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK .S5-3 Copyright, 1922, By BoNi AND LrvERiGHT, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America MAR 15 '22 S)CI.A654942 DEDICATION To those I have met in this country who have not misunderstood me. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Clare Sheridan Frontispiece George Gray Barnard, describing his clois- ters to Clare Sheridan 72 Lady Randolph Churchill 154 Margaret, who is being brought up in Eng- land, like a conventionally proper little girl 226 Dick sailing his battleship in the turbulent Mexican river 272 The "Russian Castle" in the "Land of Make-Believe" 302 "Charlie" in his dressing-gown on his Moor- ish sunbathed veranda 340 "Charlie" tells Dick the story of the wrecked ship on the beach .... 348 VII INTRODUCTION rHE publication of an American diary requires neither apology nor explanation, especially when it is more a record than a criticism. Besides, the "best people" seem to do it. I have upon my desk an old volume entitled : "Travels in the United States, etc., during 1849 and 1850/' by the Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortly. It is dedicated with some pomp "to the Coimtess of Chesterfield by her most affection- ate cousin the authoress." By a strange coincidence we seem to have trodden the same paths, and ofttimes our impressions are the same. Her experiences in 1850 traveling with her little girl are in many ways not dissimilar to mine in 1921 traveling with my little son. She describes her visits to New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc., and then she goes to Vera Cruz, Mexico City, Puebla, and many other places. She has the unconscious arrogance of a genteel aristocrat; she describes the people she meets and writes of them as "Ladies and Gentlemen" instead of as "men and women." For her there is no Bohemianism and she has no perplexities about world movements. Nevertheless she expresses a deep interest in Russia and some of her com- ments are not without value even in this day. I think I zvill allow Lady Emmeline to voice in her own mA,d-Victorian language some of m^y oivn opinions. Her condescension, her lack of humor and her naivete have a charm that I cannot compete with. Beginning with New York, she says, "I like the Americans more and more, either they have improved wonderfully lately or else the criticisms on them have been cruelly exag- gerated. They are particularly courteous and obliging; and seem, I think, amiably anxious that foreigners should carry away a favorable impression of them. As for me—I am determined not to be prejudiced, but to judge of them exactly as I find them; and I shall most pertinaciously con- IX INTRODUCTION tinue to praise them (if I see no good cause to alter my pres- ent humble opinion). I have witnessed but very few isolated cases, as yet, of the wonderful habits so usually ascribed to them—the superior classes here have almost always excel- lent manners, and a great deal of real and natural, as zvell as acquired, refinement, and are often besides (which per- haps will not be believed in fastidious England) extremely distinguishing looking." It is ivritten in the spirit of her day and is meant to be extremely complimentary. It pleases me to note that I have already unconsciously corroborated her remark that : "The Americans, I think, are a very inusically inclined people— far more naturally so, it strikes me, than we Britishers." She tells of meeting ^r. Prescott in Boston. "Prescott is one of the most agreeable people I have ever met with— as delightful as his own most delightful books.—He tells me he has never visited either Mexico or Peru. I am sur- prised that the interest in his own matchless works did not impel him to go to both." I agree with her, it does indeed seem strange. But what really interests me is a sidetrack in which she launches out in opinions about Russia. She zs/rites : "There are but few Russian visitors here in New York, it seems; but I am very much struck by the apparent entente-cordialc that exists between Russia and the United States. There seems an inexplicable instinct of sympathy, some mysterious magnetism at work, which is drawing by degrees these tzvo mighty nations into closer contact. Napoleon, we knozv, prophesied that the world, ere long, would be either Cossack or Republican. I cannot resist dwelling a little on this interesting subject : Russia is certainly the grand respre- scntative pf despotic principles, as the U. S. are the repre- sentatives of democratic ones. How is it that these antagon- istic principles, embodied in these two mighty governments, allow them to be so friendly and cordial towards one an- X INTRODUCTION other? . Russia and the U. S. are the two young giant nations of the world . The Leviathans of the lands! ., . These two grand young nations are strong to the race, and fresh to the glorious contest. Far off in the future, centuries and ages beyond this present hour, is the culminating point. What to other Nations may he ivork and labor, to them is but, as it were, healthful relaxation, the exercising of their mammoth limbs, the quickening of the mighty current of their buoyant and bounding life-blood, the conscious enjoy- ment of their own inexhaustible vitality. There is much similarity, in short, in the position of these two vast powers. She (Russia) has plenty of time, too, before her— "" she can watch and she can wait . // Lady Emmeline had had an American mother, to help her to be just a little less English and a little less class- conscious, she might have evolved into quite an emancipated thinker! I cannot help wishing that she, too, had kept a diary, in- stead of compiling her book from letters "after adding some- what, to give them the usual narrative form," as she says 'in the preface. Consequently one loses many of the little details often illustrative or human that only a daily diary can remember to record. Following her travels, I see that at Vera Cruz she probably stayed in the same hotel, "In the great Plaza, almost close to the fine old Cathedral." In comparison with our experience at Vera Cruz hers was not so very unlike. They "ran into a Norther" which relieved them of the expected heat, but "in spite of all our pre- cautions in the night, our balcony-doors blew open, and my kitle girl and I were almost blown away, beds and all." Her journey to Mexico City is by stage coach; "not far from this spot is the beginning of a railroad, which, say the Americans, may perhaps be finished in 500 years. It is intended to be carried on to Mexico." No doubt it would have taken 500 years, but that an English company "butted XI INTRODUCTION in" and so I have been privileged less than 100 years later to travel to Mexico on that railway. It can only be said, in comparison, that her discomforts were more prolonged. Arrived in Mexico, we have a similar experience when visiting Chaptdtepec Castle : "The commandant came for- ward and very courteously asked if we would like to see the views from the flat roof of the castle. What a Paradise zvorld we saw . ., etc." and we have both seen the same thing, and thought the same thing, only in different words. Lady Emmeline has a more fragrant style. She makes an effort, on occasions, to describe scenes that surpass mere words: "But it is not, after all, so much the scene itself, as the great and boundless story the imagination ever lends it; for the soul once awakened, and stirred and thrilled by the sight of that magnificent scenery, makes it ten " thousand fold more glorious. There is much more of this. On her way to Puebla she describes how "we soon came in sight of the zvonderful and huge pyramid of Cholula, built by the Aztecs; it is supposed as a Teocali. A temple to Queatzalcoatl formerly stood on it, but now it is crowned by a Christian Chapel dedicated to the Madonna. With regard to this extraordinary pyramid, I think the people zvho coidd be bold enough to become mountain- builders zvithin sight of those stupendous volcanoes, Popo- catapetl and Itaccihuatl and so many other mighty moun- tains, deserve much praise for their almost sublime audacity These were exactly my sentiments and I must thank Lady Emmeline for having spared me the writing of my ozvn introduction. I curtsey to her very charming ghost and my great regret is that our paths divide. I cannot follow her to Peru, whither she goes from Mexico; and she cannot accompany me to Los Angeles, nor shake zvith me the hand of Charlie Chaplin. XII — MY AMERICAN DIARY February 2, 1921. The Biltmore, New York. What a funny life ! I do not know myself, nor what I have become, and yet when I look in the glass I am the same. I seem to be a machine—I have no soul ; rapidly I am losing all mind. From morning till night newspaper reporters ask me questions, I am told I have to submit— if I were impatient or cross they would write some- thing nasty. So I am amiable ! I go on talking the same stuff about Lenin and Trotzky! How they would laugh if they could hear me! I've been photographed in this room, over and over; by flashlight, by electric light, by day-light.
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