Charlie Chaplin

“ The rest of my friends arrive all bruised and cut up. Now that the excitement has died down, what are we going to do? For no reason at all we order a meal. Nobody is hungry. I want to get out again. Wish I could.
I feel that everybody ought to leave immediately. I want to be alone. I want to get out and escape from all crowds. I want to get over London, over to Kennington, all by myself. I want to see some familiar sights. Here baskets of fruit keep pouring in, fresh bouquets, presents, trays full of cards, some of them titles, some well-known names—all paying their respects. ”

“ If I could only get through the glass and touch the real live thing that had called me back to London. But I couldn't.
A man cannot go back. He thinks he can, but other things have happened to his life. He has new ideas, new friends, new attachments. He doesn't belong to his past, except that the past has, perhaps, made marks on him.
My friends and I continue our stroll—a stroll so pregnant with interest to me at times that I forget that I have company and wander along alone. ”

“ Then as we approach, the tide comes in toward 78 the gates of the hotel. They have been kept locked to prevent the crowd from demolishing the building. I can see one intrepid motion-picture camera man at the door as the crowd starts to swarm. He begins to edge in, and starts grinding his camera frantically as he is lifted into the whirlpool of humanity. But he keeps turning, and his camera and himself are gradually turned up to the sky, and his lens is registering nothing but clouds as he goes down turning—the most honorable fall a camera man can have, to go down grinding. ”

“ I am a good audience. I laugh at anything and dare not speak. Why can't I be witty? Are they trying to draw me out? Maybe I am wrong and there is a purpose behind this buffoonery. But I hardly know whether to retaliate in kind, or just grin.
I am dying for something to happen. Lucas is rising. We all feel the tension. Why are parties like that? It ends.
Barrie is whispering, "Let's go to my apartment for a drink and a quiet talk," and I begin to feel that things are most worth while. Knoblock and I walk with him to Adelphi Terrace, where his apartment overlooks the Thames Embankment. ”

“ Some come for the purpose of exercising, like myself; others out of curiosity to watch me perform. I grow careless. I don't care to go through with it. I put on my coat and hat and go to my room, finding that the old once-discarded "prop" smile is useful as I make my way through the crowd.
At four o'clock we have tea. I decide that the people are interesting. I love to meet so many. Perhaps they are the same ones I hated to see come into the gym, but I feel no sense of being paradoxical. The gymnasium belongs to individuals. The tea-room suggests and invites social intercourse. ”

“ I discover that everything is Los Angeles in my compartment, with the exception of my cousin and Sonny. Here I am in the midst of Hollywood. I have travelled six thousand miles to get away from Hollywood. Motion pictures are universal. You can't run away from them. But I am not bothering much, because I am cannily figuring on shaking the whole lot of them after the usual dinner and getting off by myself.
And I am getting new thrills every minute. There are people waiting all along the line, at small stations, waiting for the train to pass. ”

“ I even begin to like reporters. They are regular fellows, intent on their job.
And going over it all, it has been so worth while and the job ahead of me looks worth while. If I can bring smiles to the tired eyes in Kennington and Whitechapel, if I have absorbed and understood the virtues and problems of those simpler people I have met, and if I have gathered the least bit of inspiration from those greater personages who were kind to me, then this has been a wonderful trip, and somehow I am eager to get back to work and begin paying for it. ”

“ The crowd gives a concerted cheer as the train pulls out and a few intrepid ones run alongside until distanced by steam and steel.
We go into the dining-room and here is a fresh surprise. The dinner is table d'hôte and three waiters are serving it. Everyone is served at once, and as one man is taking up the soup plates another is serving the next course. Here is French economy—economy that seems very sensible as they have perfected it. It seems so different from America, where waiters always seem to be falling over one another in dining-rooms. ”

“ I almost know without asking that it is a picture of Hetty. I am amazed. He understood all the time. Was always alive to the situation. How England covers up her feelings!
Everybody is off the boat but the passengers. My friends stand on the dock and wave to me. I see everything in their glowing faces—loyalty, love, sadness, a few tears. There is a lump in my throat. I smile just as hard as I can to keep them from seeing. I even smile at the reporters. They're darn nice fellows. ”

“ There is the Queen's Theatre, bringing forward a mental picture of little Gina of Chinatown, who stopped a panic in the fire-frightened audience of the playhouse as her début offering on the stage. Little Gina, who brought the whole neighbourhood to her feet in her joyous dancing delight. Little Gina, who at fourteen had lived, laughed, and loved, and who met death with a smile, carrying the secret of him with her.
Every once in a while Burke merely lifts his stick and points. ”

“ There is something so wistful about London, about their kind, gentle appreciation. They smile tenderly as I look this way, that way, over there—on every side it is the same. They are all my friends and I am leaving them.
Will I sign this? A few excited ones are shoving autograph books at me, but most of them are under restraint, almost in repose. They feel the parting. They sense it, but are sending me away with a smile. 205
My car is full of friends going with me to Southampton. They mean little at the moment. The crowd has me. ”

“ I lost no time in accepting such an invitation.
There is a big luncheon party on among my friends and I am told that a party has been arranged to go through the Limehouse district with Thomas Burke, who wrote "Limehouse Nights." I resent it exceedingly and refuse to go with a crowd to meet Burke. I revolt against the constant crowding. I hate crowds.
London and its experiences are telling on me and I am nervous and unstrung. I must see Burke and go with him alone. He is the one man who sees London through the same kind of glasses as myself. ”

“ We stroll along the boulevard and it is growing light. I am recognised and we are being followed. We are passing a church. There is an old woman asleep on the steps, but she does not seem worn and haggard. There is almost a smile on her face as she sleeps. She typifies Paris to me. Hides her poverty behind a smile.
Sir Philip Sassoon, who is the confidential secretary to Lloyd George, calls the next day with Georges Carpentier, the pugilistic idol of France, and we are photographed many times, the three of us together, and separately. ”

“ The devotion of the prisoners is almost childish in its eagerness as they sit with their children, talking with their wives, here and there a lover with his sweetheart—all of them have written a compelling story in the book of life. But love is in this room, love unashamed. Why are sinners always loved? Why do sinners make such wonderful lovers? ”

“ An artist! Why is she here? I must know her.
The song itself is plaintive, elemental, with the insinuating nuances that are vital to Russian music. The orchestra, with the violins and 'cellos predominant, is playing hauntingly, weaving a foreign exotic spell.
She has poise, grace, and is compelling attention even in this place. There comes a bit of melancholy in the song and she sings it as one possessed, giving it drama, pathos. Suddenly there is a change. The music leaps to wild abandon. She is with it. She tosses her head like a wild Hungarian gipsy and gives fire to every note. ”

“ There are three peasant farmer boys, in all probability. They seem very much embarrassed as three tiny girls, bright-eyed and red-lipped, join them for a drink. I can see fire smouldering in their dull faces in spite of their awkwardness in welcoming the girls.
An interesting figure, Corsican, I should say, is very conspicuous. A gentleman by his bearing, debonair and graceful, he looks the very picture of an impecunious count. He is visiting all the tables in the café. At most of them he calls the girls by their first names. ”

“ As I pass 85 they look up. Frankly and without embarrassment they look at the stranger with their beautiful, kindly eyes. They smile at me. I smile back. Oh, if I could only do something for them. These waifs with scarcely any chance at all.
Now a woman passes with a can of beer. With a white skirt hanging down, trailing at the back. She treads on it. There, she has done it again. I want to shriek with laughter at the joy of being in this same old familiar Kennington. I love it.
It is all so soft, so musical; there is so much affection in the voices. They seem to talk from their souls. ”

“ I ate sometimes in the dining car, sometimes in our drawing-room. I slept atrociously. I always do. I hate travelling. The faces left on the platform at Los Angeles began to look kinder and more attractive. They did not seem the sort to drive one away. But they had, or maybe it was optical illusion on my part, illusion fostered by mental unrest.
For two thousand miles we did the same thing over many times, then repeated it. Perhaps there were many interesting people on the train. I did not find out. The percentage of interesting ones on trains is too small to hazard. ”

“ He knows their locations, knows their lights because he has studied them well. There are forms slinking gracefully, as though on location and with rehearsed movement. What an effect for a camera!
This is rugged. Here are the robust of the slums. People act more quickly here than in Lambeth. And suddenly we are back where we started. In a car we go to the old Britannia, Hoxton, rather reluctantly.
There is a glaring moving-picture palace. ”

“ I drew a picture of my hat, cane, and boots, which is my favourite autograph. I wrote, "I would sooner be a gipsy than a movie man," and signed my name.
Home in the petrol wagon, which by this time had become manageable again. An evening of rareness. Beauty, excitement, sadness and contact with human, lovable personalities.
Waldo Frank called the next day, bringing with him Jacques Copeau, one of the foremost dramatists and actors in France, who manages and directs in his own theatre. We go to the circus together and I never saw so many sad-faced clowns. ”

“ At luncheon next day the little girl is the soul of the party. We discuss everything from Art to ambitions. At one moment she is full of musical laughter, and the next she is excitedly discussing some happening aboard ship. Her stories are always interesting. How do children see so much more than grown-ups?
She has a great time. I must visit her father, he is so much like me. He has the same temperament, and is such a great daddy. He is so good to her. ”

“ I am the wrong note in this picture that nature has concentrated here. My clothes are a bit conspicuous in this setting, no matter how unobtrusive my thoughts and actions. Dressed as I am, one never strolls along Lambeth Walk. ”

“ There is a huge marble staircase whose cold austereness suggests all sorts of things designed to send chills up the spine. The servants are so impressive and the meal such a ceremony that I feel that I am in a palace. The Russian 174 folk-songs that are being dreamily whined from the strings of their peculiar instruments have a very weird effect and I find food and dining the least interesting things here.
There is a touch of mystery, of the exotic, something so foreign though intangible, that I find myself searching everything and everybody, trying to delve deeper into this atmosphere. ”

“ Tom is a great friend of mine and we have spent many a pleasant hour in Doug's home in Los Angeles. There is Donald Crisp, who played Battling Burrows in "Broken Blossoms," a clubmate in the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
My cousin, Aubrey Chaplin, a rather dignified gentleman, but with all the earmarks of a Chaplin, greets me.
Heavens! I look something like him. I picture myself in another five years. Aubrey has a saloon in quite a respectable part of London. I feel that Aubrey is a nice simple soul and quite desirous of taking me in hand. ”

“ It is amazing how much Europe is aping America, particularly with its dance music. In cafés you hear all the popular airs that are being played on Broadway. The American influence has been felt to such an extent that King Jazz is a universal potentate. Sonny and I go to the theatre and see a part of the "League of Notions," but we leave early and I run to say hello to Constance Collier, who is playing in London.
The next day is exciting. Through the invitation of a third party I am to meet H. G. Wells at Stoll's office to view the first showing of Wells's picture, "Kipps." ”

“ We cannot collect ourselves. Bursting with pent-up questions of years of gathering, overflowing with important messages for one another, we are talking about the most commonplace things. I find that I am not listening to them, nor they to me. I am just taking it all in, eyes and ears.
An English "bobby." Everything is different. Taking the tickets. The whole thing is upside down. The locking us in our compartment. I look at the crowds. The same old "prop" smile is working. They smile. They cheer. I wave my hat. I feel silly, but it seems that they like it. Will the train never start? ”

“ Why, you should be so happy because you have friends all over the world!"
I tell her that it is just the parting—that the thought of leaving is always sad. Life is always "Good-bye." And here I feel it is good-bye to new friends, that my old ones are in America. ”