The Gay World
THE GAY WORLD
To her friends Aet. 54.
LONDON, Feb. 14, 1886 Last Monday the " Unemployed" workmen of London had a Demonstration at Trafalgar Square, and I attended it.
There were lots of young men from 18 to 21 who were up to all sorts of tricks, and when the meeting broke up these rowdies somehow stole a march on the Police and rioted through one or two of the West End streets, breaking windows and " looting "
_ the shops.
No one thinks it was bona fide working-men at all who did this rioting, but only the rowdies who always hang on the skirts of a crowd... But it frightened
London out of all its senses for a day or two.
I never \saw such a frightened set of people.
I went shopping the next day and had it all to myself pretty much.
The shops were all barricaded, and nobody was out shopping but me, and London seemed paralysed.
And there was not the slightest sign of any rioting anywhere.
It was as striking a case of shutting the stable door after the horse was stolen as I ever saw.
To her friends Aet. 54.
LONDON, Feb. 19, 1886 On Tuesday Mary and I went to a Hunt : I have always wanted to see an English Hunt that I might
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know how to picture it when I should read about it ; and when I saw in the Monday papers that the Queen's staghounds would hunt a stag from a place called
Redhill not very far from London, I determined to go, and Mary concluded to go with me.
A good many horses went down on the train with us, also their owners, both ladies and gentlemen.
Mary and I sat in the same carriage with a young lady all attired for the Hunt in waistcoat, cravat and round top hat, with her riding dress on and her whip in her hand.
There were 2 or 3 gentlemen with her, and we soon found from their conversation that she was a sister of Lord
Randolph Churchill.
It was just the morning after Lord Randolph had made what is considered by the Liberals a most revolutionary speech, in Belfast, and it was very interesting to hear his sister and her friends discussing "' Randolph " and his plans for the Irish.
One of the men appeared to be the owner of one of | the houses that had suffered during the riots, and he said the ignominy of it was almost worse than the damage ; that he would not have minded half so much if his windows had been broken by genuine stones, but to have legs of mutton and loaves of bread dashed through one's drawing room windows was a little too muebet When we arrived at Uxbridge station we took a cab and drove 2 miles to Redhill, in the midst of a lovely rolling country with lovely English lanes winding off in every direction.
Gentlemen and ladies were gathering to the Meet from all sides, and a great wagon full of the Hounds was awaiting the arrival of the poor stag.
[his was brought in a cart from the herds in Windsor Park, I believe, and was turned loose in a ploughed field.
Men and boys gathered around to frighten it and to set it off on a run, and as soon as
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5] this was fairly accomplished, the hounds were let loose ~ and the Hunt began.
The poor frightened stag ran this way and that, and the dogs and horses followed, riding over fields and jumping hedges and ditches perfectly regardless of where they went, only so that they followed the hounds.
M. and I followed on foot, as well and as far as we could, and really felt a little of the hunting spirit.
But of course the hunt soon outstripped us, and we got into our cab and drove back to the station, having seen all we wanted.
I shall always understand about hunts now and I can easily see how excited the English people get over them.
But there must be a great many accidents, with such reckless riding and jumping.
Juliet says the deer are never killed, only run down until they are tired, and she thinks they rather like the fun.
But I cannot help feeling it is a cruel sport.
To her friends Act. 54.
BERLIN, March 7, 1886 I went with Logan last evening to a concert.
The music was very fine, Logan said, and it did sound nice, but my inward ear for music has never been opened yet, and I confess I did not particularly enjoy it.
Logan says that is an evolution I shall have to get in Heaven.
And I suppose I must, if I am to enjoy the harps there.
At present, I confess, a very short exercise in harp playing suffices me.
Yesterday morning Logan took me to the picture gallery + here, and I saw Rembrandts and Titians and 1" T certainly grew up believing that it was wicked to go to picture galleries, or to look at a statue.
And I remember well, when I was about seventeen, breaking loose from all the traditions of my life and
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Tintorets and Claud Lorraines, etc. etc.
And I may as well tell the truth at once and say that J do not like them!
I am sure if any modern painter were to paint such poor pictures now, he would be hooted out of the profession.
I forgot to say that in Antwerp I saw several of Reubens' pictures, and they simply disgusted me.
'They were great fat masses of coarse flesh.
The babies were like pigs for coarseness, and in one or two of his Christs, the anatomy was repulsive.
I think of course the " Old Masters " were wonderful considering how long ago they painted, etc. etc. ; but that is not the orthodox style of praise, I know, so I do not hope to build any reputation on it. ° To her friends Aet. 54.
DRESDEN, Mar. 10, 1886 Logan and Harry Thomas! and I all three went to the picture gallery together, and I saw the Sistine
Madonna of Raphael.
I am thankful to say that I liked it.
I confess I was awfully afraid I should not, going with a beating heart, as though on some perilously wicked excursion, into the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
There was a marble group there of Hero and Leander, and I am afraid Leander had not many clothes on, and I can see myself now, standing and looking at it with my heart in my mouth, and saying to myself 'I suppose now I shall go straight to hell, but I cannot help it.
If I must go there, I must, but I will look at this statue.'
No words can express what a daring sinner I felt myself to be ; and I remember distinctly that I was quite surprised to find myself outside that Academy, standing unharmed in Broad Street, without having experienced the swift judgments of an offended Creator.''
(Unselfishness of God, p. 133.) L.P.S.
'Son of H.W.S.'s sister Mary, who had married Dr. James Carey Thomas, of Baltimore, and was the mother of Martha Carey Thomas, the most famous of all the famous Whitall women.
[She became Dean and President of Bryn Mawr College.] L.P.S.
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and I had determined not to pretend to if I did not, so that I feared I should have to encounter the scorn of my two youthful cavaliers.
Logan is a staunch adherent of the Old Masters, but Harry comforted me up by telling me that his mother had felt about as I do, and had marched through the galleries of the Old
Masters with her skirts drawn closely around her in a fine contempt.
I really would like to know what zs the bottom truth about all this fuss that is made over the Old Masters.
Is it just a fashion, such~as makes even ugly ways of dressing look beautiful when once we have been convinced it is "' the thing"?
Or is it a real fact that any painting which looks so inferior, can really be, in some occult way, so infinitely superior?
I confess I cannot help believing in the first hypothesis.
But Logan says I am like a child who thinks Mother Goose's rhymes far superior poetry to Shakespeare ; and of course this is possible, for I know I have no education in art.
But still—when the thing is right there before my eyes how can I believe I am so deceived ?
To her friends Aet. 54.
PRAGUE, Mar. 15, 1886 The streets in Prague are narrow, and they wind around the houses and through them in dark vaulted passages, that continually suggest mysteries and dungeons and ambushes, and all sorts of foreign things.
It is as great a contrast as could be to dear old straightangled, broad-streeted, frank-faced Philadelphia, where it is hard to believe anything mysterious could possibly happen .
. I was more interested in the old Jewish
80°
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REBEL Cemetery than anything else.
It is 1300 years old and looks as if it had been untouched all that time.
It is right in the midst of the town, and the effect of such a weird and silent wilderness in the heart of a noisy city was indescribable.
I confess I love graveyards, that are such an unanswerable proof that we shall get rid of these old cocoons sometime.
The sight of them always gives'me a thrill of delight, and I almost felt as if I should like to move into this one and live there.
, To her friends Aet. 54.
VIENNA, Mar. 17, 1886 I would never travel here for pleasure again.
Either give me home with all its comforts, or a foreign country that looks and seems really foreign.
I have not even 'had the satisfaction of boiling over with indignation at seeing a woman and a cow hitched together pulling a cart with a man walking alongside driving them, which I have always heard was a feature of these countries.
The women, however, do seem to do more outdoor work than with us.
I have seen them stirring mortar for buildings, and even carrying it up ladders in hods.
But then the men did it too, so that I could not boil over at that.
To Mrs. Lawrence Act. 54.
VIENNA, Mar. 18, 1886 I am rejoiced at my sister Sarah's escape from her poor sick cocoon, and I do not allow myself to grieve for one instant.
It is such a comfort to me to know
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that she is having a good time, for I have sympathised so intensely with all her long years of trial and suffering that I never could enjoy anything thoroughly for thinking of her deprivations.
She has never had her fair share of Mary's and my fun.
But now she has got ahead of us at last and is having an infinitely better time than we are, and how could I be anything but glad?
Our five mystic birds ! can never meet on this earth again and talk of our flights. One has gone on a flight indeed, from which there is no returning to tell the tale.
But it does make the world feel lonely, does it not, to have her out of it?
Oh, if I could only go too!
I cannot tell thee how I long to go.
The thought of living to old age is perfectly appalling to me, and I have to say "' Thy will be done" hard whenever I think of it.
» To her daughter, Mary Costelloe (Berenson) Aet. 54.
CONSTANTINOPLE, Mar. 30, 1886
I have just got back (from a call).
I went in a Sedan chair lined with yellow silk and felt like a Harem woman.
To her friends Aet. 54.
ISLAND OF CORFU, Afr. 13, 1886
We took a boat (to a most picturesque little island with an old monastery on its highest point) and were charmed with its lovely beauty.
We found living .
1 H.W.S. herself, her sisters Sarah Nicholson and Mary Thomas, and Mrs. Little, and her cousin, Mrs. Lawrence.
L.P.S.
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REBEL there one old Monk, the only survivor of the Brotherhood, who leads a hermit life within these lonely walls.
It seemed very touching to see a human life stranded in such a beautiful but isolated spot, and I could not but wonder whether he was able all alone to keep up any fervency in his prayers, and whether he found it really any easier to be good than other men.
We have met lately some travellers who have given us news of the '' Chicago party' at Jerusalem.
You will remember that Mrs. Lee and her brother and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Spafford, and a little band of followers started a fanatical mystical form of religion some years ago in Chicago, guided thereto, as they most fervently believed, by the Lord Himself, through a series of most remarkable signs.
Mrs. Lee was the "* Moses "' of the New Dispensation, and Mrs. Spafford was "The Righteous Branch", and others of their members were equally exalted personages!
Their fanaticism was simply unbounded,! but strange to say they were all of them people of education and intelligence, and of undoubted and unusual piety; and 1H.W.S. wrote about this group of fanatics in Religious Fanaticism,
Chapter VI.
The original leader, she tells us, was a Mrs. | eros tae charming lady, whose husband had held some official position in Washington".
After praying for some tangible sign, by which she might recognise the will of the Lord, Mrs. Lee was given, so she believed, such a sign, namely " that her lower jaw was cracked against her upper jaw with a loud crack '"', whenever she was properly carrying out the Lord's will.
Later, "as the cracking was very loud, it became unpleasant to her husband, especially as it would often take place in the very middle of a meal, so she prayed that the Lord would please give her a quieter sign" and it was graciously transferred "to her eyes, which were drawn back into her head, as if by strings fastened behind and pulled by an invisible hand ''.
With such and other evidence of infallible direction, she had no difficulty in leading a number of disciples to Jerusalem, where they were disappointed of every promised and expected sign, a fact, it seems, by which they were not in the least disconcerted.
' Later Mrs. Lee was deposed, and another leader appointed in her place.
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moreover they were all middle-aged! ...
They had a great many remarkable "' leadings "', and finally were » called, as they believed, to Jerusalem there to await the manifestation of the " Branch"', (when) the Star of Bethlehem would come and rest on Mrs. Spafford's head.
Ofcourse, nothing of the kind took place, but nothing daunted they have gone on.
To her friends Aet. 54.
ROME, April 27, 1886 I give myself up as a hopeless case as regards the Old Masters.
I cannot like them, try as hard as I may.
There is certainly something wrong either with them or with me.
Public opinion says it is with me, and so I suppose it must be ; but private conviction says it is with them.
Well, I am sorry, but what zs a body to do under the circumstances but just be honest and bear the consequences ?
I read and read about these pictures and try to work myself up all I can, but it will not work, and I have given up now in despair.
We brought with us some little books of Ruskin's called '' Mornings in Florence " each one taking up.some especial Church or piccue: and telling you just 'when and how to see it, and what you ought to see in it. We determined to take one of them and follow its directions exactly, and see what would come of it.
So we started out one morning for the Santa Croce Church.
Ruskin told us to walk straight up the aisle looking neither to the right nor the left, so we did.
Then he told us to go into a little chapel to the right of the altar, so we did.
Then he told us to stand still awhile until we got used to the dim light, so we did.
Then he told
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us to look at a fresco of Giotto's on the right of the window, so we did.
Then he told us to walk back down the Church to where we would find two marble tombstones laid in the pavement, so we did.
And at this point came a crucial moment ; for of one of the figures carved on these slabs, Ruskin says that if you see nothing right and lovely and exquisite in this sculpture, then you will see nothing in any Florentine drawing or carving.
You can imagine with what fear and trembling I turned my eyes downward upon this crucial tomb ! !
Suppose I did not like it, what was I todo?
Pack up and leave Florence at once, as one unfit to tread its artistic streets?
I held my breath in fear!
But ina moment I breathed freely!
I found I did like and understand the grace and beauty of the old tomb !
I might stay in Florence.
To her friends Aet. 54.
VENICE, May 11, 1886 Of Carpaccio's "Presentation of the Virgin"
Ruskin says, '" You may measure yourself outside and in, your religion, your taste, your knowledge of art, your knowledge of men and things, by the quantity of admiration which honestly, after due time given,
-you can feel for this picture"
. ..
We sat ourselves down before it to measure ourselves at leisure, and while on the whole I quite liked it, yet I fear my measurement must be far short of Ruskin's standard.
But I do not feel discouraged, nevertheless, for there is a picture of Tintoretto's called "' Paradise " which Ruskin says is the " thoughtfullest and mightiest picture in the world", and which is simply a great
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cataract of human legs and arms and bodies and heads jumbled together in inextricable confusion—and if that is a sample of Ruskin's taste, I am thankful I do not measure up to his standard.
To her friends Aet. 54.
DORKING, Aug. 1, 1886 I went to Dorking to join Lord and Lady Mount Temple at a friend's house there to meet Laurence
Oliphant, He has been living in Palestine for several years, and actually owns the plain of Armageddon !
His wife died lately, and he has come over to England on a mission to propagate a sort of mystic spiritualism of a most peculiar kind.
It is set forth in a book he and his wife wrote in partnership, called " Sym- \ pneumata "'.
The gist of it is that each one of us has a missing half in the spirit world which he calls our "' Sympneuma " or " Counterpart ", and the great business of our souls ought to be to find this " Sympneuma " and come into union with it!
He thinks this is the secret to regenerate the world! ! I had expected of course that we were going to some fanatic's plain little house in the village of Capel, where I was told to leave the train, but instead I was met by a stylish footman and conducted to an elegant carriage and pair, in which I was taken toa most beautiful country place, where I found a grand dinner party !
After dinner Laurence Oliphant read us a long paper about "It" and " He", of which I could make neither head nor tail, but I gathered that " It " meant the Sympneuma.
It sounded like pure unadulterated trash!
The next morning, however, he unfolded his
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REBEL ideas to me, and they were about as I tell you. I told him of the dangers I saw in his teachings, and illustrated what I had to say by the account of fanaticisms to which similar teaching had led a great many good people in America ; but I might as well have talked to the whirlwind.
I am very glad, however, that I know what his teachings really are, as I can warn people more intelligently against them.
It seems very sad to see such a really bright and good man so deluded.
I cannot understand it at all.
To her friends BROADLANDS, Aug. 13, 1886 The visit of Lady Pembroke and her friends, Lady
Lothian and Lady Brownlow, was, I suppose, a very fair sample of the way with such visitings among the aristocracy, and it was tiresome, I am sure, to everyone concerned.
It appears to be the regular thing to take * Readers of her Religious Fanaticism will recognise the moderation of this letter, for, as she there frankly reveals, Laurence Oliphant, together with his disciples, actually carried out, to the utmost possible extent, the practices of which Robert Pearsall Smith was suspected— even by the irreligious—of having only partially attempted : and this in spite of the fact that the prophet who taught these doctrines to Oliphant had swindled him out of a fortune in California, that state so strangely fecund in curious and profitable religions.
At one time Laurence Oliphant and his wife carried on their work in Palestine.
In the course of this work Mrs. Oliphant felt compelled into highminded but unreticent intimacy with Arabs, "no matter *, as H.W.S. writes, "' how degraded and dirty they were.
It was," she goes on, "'a great trial to her to do this, and she felt that she was performing a most holy mission.
As she was one of the most refined and cultivated of English ladies, it is evident that nothing but a, strong sense of duty could have induced her to such a course."
In this last sentence, being written by the mother of Logan Pearsall Smith, we may allow ourselves, perhaps, to detect a grain of irony.
Oliphant openly propounded his preposterous doctrine to her.
She expostulated with him, " although," as she writes, ''I might as well have talked to Niagara".
(Religious Fanaticism, Chapter VIII.)
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ate + visitors first all over the show rooms of the house and descant on the pictures, statuary, etc., and then all over the gardens and as much of the park as they can drag themselves.
So instead of sitting down and having a good talk, we all had to perform this painful duty.
I confess I prefer my own way of having callers in my library at home, seated at my table with my
* revolver "? beside me, and my friends sitting in comfortable rocking-chairs before me.
However, if I had Lady Pembroke and Lady Lothian and Lady Brownlow calling on me, I cannot tell what I might feel impelled to do!
It evidently was the conventional thing to go over the house and grounds, and no one seemed to think for a moment of doing anything else.
I frankly confess if I lived in England I should want to belong to the aristocracy.1
My independent spirit would revolt, I fear, at the idea of having anyone Lord or Lady it over me. I always tell the aristocracy this, and they enjoy it greatly.
/ Archdeacon Sumner wore a black alpaca apron all the 1 [According to her own words, this romance for the British aristocracy had started early, and—since fiction was frowned on—almost sinfully. ]
"Tt was one ' First Day ' afternoon when there seemed to be nothing oing on, I had borrowed a book from one of my schoolmates which she had told me was 'lovely', and I took this book and a plate of apples and gingerbread, and stretched myself on the outside of my bed to read and eat at my leisure.
"The story I read that day, under, these delightful circumstances, seemed to give me the nearest approach to perfect bliss of anything
I had ever before experienced, and it remains in my memory as one of the happiest days of my life.
The book was ' The Earl's Daughter ', by Grace Aguilar, and to my young American and Quaker mind an Earl was more like an archangel than a man, and to be an Earl's daughter was almost akin to being a daughter of heaven.
And to this day, in spite of all the disillusions that life has brought me about earls and their daughters, the old sense of grandeur that filled my soul with awe on that First Day afternoon so long ago, never fails to come back for at least a moment when earls and countesses are mentioned in my presence."
(Unselfishness of God, p. 129.) L.P.S.
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REBEL time, and I was very anxious to know what it was for, so I-asked him out plump and plain, to the great amazement of all the party.
He said it was a remnant of the old cassock that the priests-of Rome still wear, but I could not find out that it had any especial meaning.
There was a High Church clergyman present who said they ought to be wearing the whole cassock, and that all Clergymen ought to wear it.
These High Churchmen are a subject of great perplexity to me.
How they can be as " High" as they are and not go over to Rome is incomprehensible to my uninitiated mind.
But they all seem very holy men, and I expect our Father in Heaven does not mind their little notions any more than He minds ours, whether aprons or coats.
To her Jae Aet. 54.
LONDON, Aug. 26, 1886 On August 24th Mrs. Bottome and I went to the little dark barred-in cage reserved for women in the House of Commons.
We heard both Parnell and Gladstone make long speeches, and most interesting ones.
We both of us have heard so much said on the conservative side since we have been over here, that we felt rather shaky on the Home Rule question, but Parnell and Gladstone were too much for us, and we wheeled right over into their ranks.
They talked like men who had justice and right on their side, and could afford to be calm and quiet about it.
Mrs. Bottome said she and I reminded her of a story she had heard of a mermaid who was turned into' a beautiful princess and married a great king.
She told the King she would be all right as long as she did
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not see. a stream or a lake, but that if that should ever occur she could not answer for what she would 'do.
They lived very happily together for many months, and the King carefully guarded his fair bride from seeing any water.
But one day he carelessly allowed the coachman to drive them across a river.
With ascream of delight his bride made one spring into the water and was lost to sight forever.
Just so, Mrs. Bottome said, she and I were'all right as long as we were kept away from the radical river, but the moment we caught sight of it, with one leap we plunged in, and were happy again in our native element.
To her daughter, Mary Costelloe (Berenson) Aet. 54.
AT SEA, Sept. 23, 1886 * * * * * * * The above stars represent 7 days of sea-sickness, which my pen refuses to chronicle.
All my Mind Cure for sea-sickness was a fancied dream !
But never mind, it is over now, and I am once more in America, dear old free and unaristocratic and yet all aristocratic America !
To her daughter, Mary Costelloe (Berenson) Aet. 55.
Y GERMANTOWN, Mar. 25, 1887 If ever I am disabled, I want thee to remind me that I have always declared my intention of being waited on by hired help, and I want thee to insist that I shall do it. When grandma was sick once I insisted on her having a nurse very much against her will, in fact
I had the nurse in the next room with her bonnet off and her white apron on, before I told grandma.
Grandma declared she would not have her, and I said, H
\ "y gO
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REBEL ** Mother, dear, thee will have to have her.
Thy children insist on it."
Then dear grandma gave up and afterwards told me that the nurse was the greatest possible comfort.
In fact she did not want to let her go when she got well.
I hope I shall have the sense to remember all this when I get disabled, but if I don't, thee must remind me.
It is perfect folly, and often worse than folly, for the relatives of an invalid to wear themselves out with the physical part of the nursing.
They ought to keep themselves fresh and bright for the other part.
Moreover, many a life has been wrecked by the strain, for a hired nurse has no strain of the sympathies, which is often the hardest part of it.
To her friends Aet. 55.
LONDON, May 10, 1887 Lady Mount Temple and I went together to the Women's Jubilee Meeting at a large hall in Lambeth, called "The Old Vic", really Victoria Hall.
Suck a meeting I never attended!
It was crowded—at least 3000 people they said, and most of them women and girls from the slums, with no ideas apparently of how to behave in a meeting.
Whenever the music was the least lively, they all got up and danced up and down on their seats, and the effects of this great mass of women, babies and all, bobbing up and down, up and down, was indescribable.
As to being heard, that was impossible, except when we fairly shrieked.
Dear Lady Mount Temple, with her gentle patrician voice, was like the rustling of a violet in a thunderstorm.
J managed to make them hear, and I made a right loyal speech, spite of my radical Americanism.
I was sur-
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To her friends Aet. 55. '
LONDON, June 1, 1887 On the gist Gurney Barclay had a large Yearly Meeting garden party at his beautiful place called
Knott's Green, about 20 miles from London.
There I met John Bright, who is an uncle of Gurney Barclay's.
I had a little talk with him about politics, and said how interested all Americans were.
'' No, you are not," he said brusquely.
'' You only care about the Irish vote!"
-I ventured a little disclaimer, when he said, with even more brusqueness, " All those resolutions passed by your legislatures, and those meetings in protest held by Mayors and Governors are only bunkum.
They don't mean anything but a bid for Irish votes ! "
Then he added in a lower voice—" It is all of a piece with Gladstone's bunkum, and the rest of them."
I confess the old man seemed to me to be thoroughly put out by America.
He ventured no prophecies for the future, and said no human being could tell.
He was furious at what he called Gladstone's " wicked tactics of obstruction " over the Coercion Bill.
On Derby Day we drove out to Tooting to meet the people returning from the races on Epsom Downs, which is one of the London sights.
We found the streets lined with crowds who had assembled to see the return; and on Clapham Common hundreds of carriages were stationed full of spectators.
All there is to see, however, is just crowds of wagons, and stages, and drags, and dog-carts, and vehicles of all sorts and descriptions, filled with racing men and
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REBEL women, and the crowd of hangers on at the races, most of them half drunk, and many of them decorated with green or blue gauze streamers around their hats and bonnets, and with ridiculous little rag dolls and puppets stuck in their hat bands, blowing striped horns and squirting water out of penny squirts.
These rag dolls and water squirts seemed to be the principal
_ amusement, and the great aim was to get a chance to squirt the water into people's ears and necks.
One man off the top of a coach squirted some right down Mary's neck as they passed.
I confess I did not see anything that would have paid me for standing for hours on the side walk, as thousands of people evidently did.
<S Seeing the return from the Derby" is one of the famous dissipations of London life.
To her friends Aet. 55.
'LONDON, ,June 18, 1887 The other day I did a very frolicsome thing.
I wanted to see something essentially English, and everyone said that the Ascot week was the very most characteristic thing I could possibly do.
So my brother-inlaw * and I decided to go out one day.
It is really a week of races to which all the Royalties and Aristocracy go, taking country places all around the neighbourhood for the week or being entertained.
We did not care for the races, but for the people, and it certainly was a very Englishy sight.
A great many of the Aristocracy had drags, immense sorts of omnibuses with seats on top, and on these seats the young ladies sat and entertained their beaux, and ate their luncheons.
The "drags" were arranged all 1 Dr. Thomas, of Baltimore.
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along one side of the "' Course ", and on the other side were the Stands for the less fortunate spectators.
However, the Prince of Wales, who always attends, has a large " Box'"', as it is called, capable of holding several hundred, and this was filled with a gorgeously dressed assemblage.
The scene was like a flower garden because of the beautiful toilettes of the ladies, and the many bright colored parasols.
But why they care to get together in such crowds to see a few horses racing I cannot imagine.
The tumult on the betting ground was something dreadful, and my heart ached and ached to think of the ruin to morals and fortunes that must follow.
It is evidently the proper thing for the English upper classes to go to Races, and it is eminently respectable.
TI do not think that is the case with us, is it?
I did not consider that J was going to a Race, fot my interest was simply in seeing a characteristic bit of English life, which could be seen nowhere else.
On Whit Monday I saw an English lower class crowd taking their holiday, and at Ascot I saw a higher class crowd doing the same,
| and I confess the principal difference between them seemed to be only and altogether in their dress.
I wonder if Carlyle is right, and if we all went unclothed, whether we would all be on an absolute equality ?
To her friends Aet. 55.
LONDON, July 3, 1887 The great Jubilee took place, and it was truly a wonderful affair.
The whole nation seemed to go wild over it, and I am strongly impressed with the devotion of the English people of all grades and ranks to the ranks above them. I believe the technical name
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
for this devotion is '' snobbism ", and I have come to ' the conclusion that it is in the very atmosphere here, so that an Englishman, even the most radical, can no more help it than he can help breathing.
The crowds of people that stand craning their necks for hours just to catch a glimpse of some Royalty's bonnet or hat are both ridiculous and pitiful to see.
I myself believe that England is given over to snobbism and that no Radical party will have the slightest chance of success for many years to come, if ever again.
The Tories, who are the Aristocrats, have an immense majority, both in Parliament and out, and are carrying everything with a high hand, and mean to go on doing it, so that I can see no hope for Ireland, or for the poor man anywhere.
What is the most amazing thing is that the poorer classes themselves are all so largely Tory. A little notice from an aristocrat reduces them to abject Toryism at once.
To her friends Aet. 55.
/ LONDON, july 9, 1887 We found a crowded stream of elegantly dressed aristocracy ascending the stairs and being received by Sir Frederick Leighton, and then dispersing through the different galleries.
It was an interesting thing to get a peep at the Aristocracy in low necks and short sleeves, and pinched waists, but this very soon palled.
Still there certainly is a charm about the English upper classes that is indescribable, and I confess I do enjoy them exceedingly.
For one thing they are far more like Americans than the classes below them.
I am quite convinced that we Americans are in a
THE GAY WORLD
further state of evolution than the English.
What is rare with them is universal with us.
And it delights me to see how they appreciate us.
To be an American seems to be a certain passport to their favour.
They seem to look on us all as belonging to the Aristocracy.
And they sigh for our special developments of freedom, and largeheartedness and unconventionality, and spirit of progress.
I do my best, you may be sure, to intensify this feeling of envy of our lot, and I especially make the English mouth water by my praises of the Women's Christian Temperance Union women and their work. I believe it would be very easy to make a "boom " for our women if they could be brought over _ here.
I have attended 2 meetings of Josephine Butler's on the subject of the infliction by England of the horrible
C.D. Acts upon the women of the nations they conquer...
My very soul blazed with indignation as I listened to the voiceless cry of my enslaved and outraged sisters of heathen lands!
I wonder God does not sweep England out of existence at one blow!
I cannot think that those old nations in the land of Canaan, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, who were doomed to destruction because of their sins, could have been worse than England!
I tried to speak in one of those meetings, but broke down crying with an anguish of pity.
To her friends Aet. 55LONDON, July 20, 1887 Madame Blavatsky is the great Leader of the Theosophical Society which believes in the occult teaching
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL of the East, and which professes to be under the control and guidance of the Mahatmas or Adepts, who live in the hidden mountain fastnesses of Thibet, and who are supposed to have mastered the secrets of the control: of spirit over matter.
I have long wanted to see her, and one evening last week an intimate friend of hers took us out to her little cottage at Norwood, where she is writing a new book to be called " The Secret
Doctrine", that is to be three times as large as her immense book, " Isis Unveiled'.
It is a history of all that is known of occultism from the earliest ages down to the present.
(All that is known, and all that is imagined also I suspect.) We found her at her table surrounded by books and papers smoking endless cigarettes, and looking like a perfect frump.
She is enormously fat, and looks very coarse and shabby.
I could not see how the ladies who were with me could kiss her.
Neither could I understand how the intelligent cultured young men I met there could possibly bring themselves to be her disciples.
Yet such they evidently were, attracted I concluded at last, by the high ideal of purity and selfsacrifice she has incorporated in her doctrines, whether she practises them or not.
All sorts of stories are circulated concerning Mme.
Blavatsky, such as that she is hundreds of years old, and has kept herself alive by the occult secret, that she can work miracles, that she has visits from Indian
" Mahatmas " who transport themselves through the air from their hidden mountain haunts in Thibet, etc. etc.
All which rubbish seems perfectly ridiculous in the presence of a fat old woman, with blowsy hair, and racked with rheumatism, dressed in a dirty gown and smoking endless cigarettes which she continually makes for herself.
/ THE
GAY WORLD
The Psychical Society sent out a delegate to India to investigate her so-called miracles, and proved with absolute satisfaction to themselves that they were all stupendous frauds, but of course her followers have explanations which are equally satisfactory to them.
I confess she impressed me as a sincere but deluded woman, very much like the deluded fanatics of different sorts with whom we are so familiar in America.
Among other things Mme. Blavatsky believes in evolution through repeated incarnations, and when
I asked her what would happen to her in case she should die that same night, she gravely informed me that she would have to look out for a new body in which to be reincarnated, and that the way would be to catch someone just at the point of death, and slip into their body just at the moment that they slipped out!
She said she should choose a young boy about 16 or so, as she had had enough of being a woman !
I was struck dumb at finding that her followers present received this statement in perfect faith ; and I actually had not my wits sufficiently collected to pursue my inquiries as to how things would go on afterwards etc. etc.
Could anything more absurd be imagined?
And yet one man of evident culture and intelligence present said in response that he had always
_ thought that Beethoven must have slipped himself in this way into Wagner's body at some moment when
Wagner had been very ill and had slipped out.
Let us hope poor Wagner had no intention of returning himself!
Suffice it to say, I did not join the Theosophical Society that evening !
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL To her friends Aet. 55.
LONDON, Aug. 1887
Most of the guests gathered at Broadlands on the and of August.
There were about 40 entertained in the house, about 20 clergymen, and when you understand that each person had a room to themselves, and that some of the ladies had maids, who had also to be accommodated besides all the house-servants, and the family, you can get a little idea of the number of rooms the house contains.
Someone told me it was 100, and I can easily believe it.
George Macdonald and his wife were there, Canon Wilberforce, Lord Radstock, Mr.
Clifford,! Lady Darnley, etc. etc., I cannot give all the names.
Our days were divided as follows.
Breakfast at 9.
Family Prayers at 10, followed by 4 hour's talk on thoughts suggested by the leader of Prayers.
Meeting under the Beeches at 11.
Lunch at 1.
Meeting under the Beeches or in the Orangery at 2.
Afternoon tea at 5. A reading in the dining-room, generally by George Macdonald at 6, while Lord Radstock and others held an Evangelistic meeting for the people of Romsey under the Beeches.
Dinner at 8.
Family prayers again at 9.30.
Bed at to.
After we had separated for the night downstairs, each with our candle presented to us by the solemn looking butler, there always began a visitation in wrappers from room to room, when confidences were exchanged, and troubles poured out, and perplexities
1 Edward Clifford, for many years a prominent worker with the Church Army.
He was a talented painter who imitated, and sometimes copied, Burne-Jones.
These copies, it has been said, were hard or impossible even for experts to distinguish from original works of the master.
THE GAY WORLD
~ aired, so that it was generally pretty late before one really got to bed.
To M.
Aet. 55.
BALTIMORE, Oct. 28, 1887 Tonight Miss Willard is to speak.
There are 13 of us staying at Aunt Mary's.
Imagine
" earnest" women in one house !
To Mrs. Henry Ford Barclay Aet. 55.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 31, 1887
We came into lodgings (on our return from England) because we found that Logan had decided, with our approval, to give up business and devote himself to a literary life He had faithfully tried business life for a year, and had been very successful in it, and was on the sure road to make a fortune.
But he said the impulse was so strong within him towards a literary life that he could not resist it, and he would rather be a poor Professor with just enough to live on very moderately, than the wealthiest business man living.
Of course we could not feel it right to withstand so strong an impulse and conviction, and moreover both his father and I agreed in feeling it was really the right thing, especially as he will we trust always have a moderate competence from the family property.
He has therefore given up his position, and is now with us, 1 Readers of Logan Pearsall Smith's Unforgotten Years will know that, in his escape from business, his mother took a more conscious and diplomatic—one might almost say a more cunning—part than she here admits to.
(Unforgotten Years, Chapter V, "' Business and Release ".)
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL studying under a private tutor to prepare himself for Oxford in the spring.
With Mary and Logan both in England, and Alys very desirous of studying there also as soon as she is through College here,1 we have decided to make England our home for the next few years though we shall not go to housekeeping there at once, as we would rather keep ourselves free to move about with Logan or Alys.
When parents have only 3 children as we have, we feel as if we must keep close to them, and the new baby 2 is an immense attraction.
I have so many dear friends in England that I feel almost as much at home there as here.
I have always had a sort of feeling that sometime I would live in England, and I feel that it is all in the Divine ordering, and am very happy in the prospect.
To M.
Aet. 56. i
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 5, 1888
I have had my black plush made into a Princess with a trail, and shall wear that at the wedding and feel like a slave in it.
To Miss Priscilla Mounsey Aet. 56.
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 19, 1888
People that get too resigned generally become chronic invalids, and that is vigorously to be avoided.
I have made up my mind to go on until I drop in the traces, as long as I can put one foot before the other.
1 Alys graduated 1890.
L.P.S.
* Ray Costelloe, who afterwards married Mr. Oliver Strachey, brother of Lytton' Strachey.