Clare Sheridan

“ Driven from the cafeteria into the night, we motored fast and aimless, talking as we drove, talking, never ceasing, until we could drive no more. Our road led down a hill, straight like the road of the Nazarene swine, into the sea, and so we stopped; a great long white line of breakers confronted us, we left the car, and stood for a moment undecidedly. Then a long seaside bench came crawling past me. I thought for a moment that I was in madland. I remembered in a flash the sham village, the illusions of filmland, still so near me. Really one should not be surprised by anything any more. ”

“ There is nothing to do in this semi-American, semi-Mexican town. But the hotel is pure American, full of standardized American luxury. It seems wonderful. I ring the bell of my bedroom and ask the room service to send me a jug— (no a pitcher I have to call it, else they don’t understand) —a pitcher of lemonade. I don’t always want the lemonade but I love to see it when it comes. The glass jug is a real object of beauty—a work of art. It is full of sliced oranges, carmine cherries, ice and green leaved herb. It is a riot of color, a delight to the eye. ”

“ It turned the sky into the most perfect Valkyric background. When Dick asked me what the stars were like to touch: “Are they soft, or do they burn?” I had to tell him they were great big worlds like ours. Dick felt very small—we both did.
Whatever Mexico may or may not have in store for us, the journey alone is well worth while. The contrast after four bewildering months in New York is extreme. The peace and the beauty are reviving and one gets back one’s sense of judgment, which one is apt to lose in the crowd. ”

“ He is perfectly right, one’s desire for color depends entirely on one’s mood.
Now and then we stopped for a cup of tea, for a tune on the piano, for a breath of air, on the sunbathed balcony and Charlie with his wild hair standing on end, and his orange gown dazzling against the white wall of his moorish house, would either philosophise or impersonate. He told me that when he was a young man in London, he longed to know people, but that now he knew so many and he felt lonelier than ever, and it is no use, he said, for artists to hope to be anything else. ”

“ These hillsides in the dusk with their silhouettes of drilling towers, of palm trees and grass thatched bamboo huts, added to which the sickly smell of oil, have furnished palaces to men who once had nothing and diamond crowns to women, and given them the power of kings and queens. The mud and chaos, the breathless energy and human striving, have enriched men and women beyond all dream.
But today, the world being saturated in the blood of bankrupting war, the demand for oil has enormously subsided, nor can the price be paid. ”

“ During the first part of our journey we passed through a chaotic riot of tropical vegetation. Everything grew everywhere, under giant trees were dense bushes, and on the tree trunks and branches grew countless other species of plant, as though a gardener had grafted one onto another in profuse experiment. There were banana, cocoanut, coffee, maize and so many new and bright-colored flowers that I was bewildered. There is not a flower or a fruit of any color or shape that any Futurist could invent, that does not grow in Mexico. ”

“ In the orchard on the steep grassy hill behind the house the children climbed a cherry tree, and Dick brought me greenleafed branches hanging with ripe sweet cherries. After lunch we walked up the road to see the view from the top of the hill. There is a sort of Colony at Croton, and every other house is inhabited by someone one knows, or who knows the other. All work-worn journalists, artists and Bohemians generally, who come there with their children for a rest. The houses have no gardens, the grass grows long and the rose bushes are weed tangled. ”

“ Dick begged to be allowed to go up, but I was frankly afraid. This morning I was ashamed of my fear. I know that I was wrong. One should always trust people, things, Destiny. So Louise and Dick and I crushed into a small front seat and took a flight out over the sea. It was cool and it was steady. The green fields and the plough patches looked like little mats laid out to dry. The motors on the roads like small crawling beetles. We could see the mountains behind the mountains, and way down below us, on the earth, our little shadow followed us. ”

“ The man who can build a monument like this must have great energy. A worker does not go from here to Italy, the worker works here, where there is work to do, and so Barnard planted himself on a still hillside within view, but out of sound, of New York, and he collected stones, old worn stones from Italy and France and Spain, stones that had built tradition, and he built a little bit of old world at his gate, where his soul might some day be at rest. ”

“ Some people never awaken, others start with their eyes wide open. I began late, I feel as if I had only waked up when I got to Russia. Perhaps I was slowly stirring ever since I began to work five years ago. But those years were too laden with overwork and anxiety as to the future, and the effort of attaining. I was conscious then of belonging to a world, but not to the world. But now I know the world is all mine for the discovering. ”

“ Some day perhaps, when there is time to stop to take a breath a few individualities will be allowed to live among the standardized—at present those few slip off abroad, and live there! But I am not complaining, I am only wondering why with all its restrictions, I like living in it better than I like living in the freest country on earth—England!
On Sunday night I had one of the great surprises of my life. It will be as memorable as any of the big events that have come to me. ”

“ But I am tired (already) of civilization, of the luxury of baths and telephones, and the overabundance of food. I am tired of people, even of people who are kind, and people who are brilliant. I want to take Dick and get away somewhere into the wilds. Whenever I ask if there is some village in the hills; with an Inn, as for instance, in Cornwall, or in Italy, I am recommended a primitive wood, where there is “a colony.” I want to get away from the colony! Can’t I live for a while, as at Lerici, seeing only peasant people? ”

“ I have been with Charlie from midday to midnight. He has just left me. First we went to his studio, and Dick came along with us to see “The Kid” which I had never seen. He had it put on for me in his studio theatre, and now I realize the whole world of possibilities in films. Just as a “movie” can be stupid, boring, badly done, and irritating, as any bad bit of work must be, so too it can be very fine and very beautiful. Charlie has produced an exquisite story. ”

“ But how do the pipes, the boilers, the tanks and the camps, the provisions and the materials get to the fields? What is this super-human effort to achieve the seemingly impossible? Why is there not a pause for breath, a respite from the rush, why is there no co-operation among the companies? There is so much fraternity among workers, why not among employers? A very few months and just a little of this quickly made gold would suffice to achieve a common road for the common welfare, or to build a railway, and obviate this struggle of hired humans to extricate machinery from a bog. ”

“ Such an attitude of mind in a nun is perhaps not unexpected, but one is surprised at the lack of simplicity in a great primitive country. But in the United States the Puritan origin has dominated 135 over all other races with which it has eventually become amalgamated; stronger than the Latin is the Puritan—stronger than the German, the Dutch, the Irish, or the Jew. In this amazing country even the mature foreign element is bent, broken, molded, forced into an American! And in a very short space of time—it is this standardization that suppresses individuality. ”

“ It was afterwards, when I came out of Russia that my own world roused in me a reaction of rebellion. The intense stupidity as well as the narrow-mindedness of my own class did their work on me.
As for America! Since I landed I have been metaphorically slapped and kissed alternately, until I’m so bewildered I have almost lost judgment. Yet I claim nothing for myself but the right, as a citizen of the world to be free, to think as I like, and to speak as I think. I have the right that the man in the street has, to an opinion. ”

“ This is at a time when I had quite a lot of commissions to work at in my own studio. I benefited in no way from the school, and I don’t believe anyone else does. At best it succeeds in turning out a mould, a type, a “school.” Only once in a million times does one arise, who would have arisen anyway, anyhow, anywhere. Mr. Martinez, who has worked in Paris (why?) who has no more “the soul of Mexico,” or the depth to realise it, will work in vain, open air or indoor, unless he instils some spirit into those students! ”

“ When we left the cafe, children had assembled in the streets and shouted “Goodbye Charlie” as we drove away. It was only his fondness for children that made him wave to them. Otherwise (I have observed) he has no desire to be recognized or lionized.
Who has ever seen an American country road on a Sunday, and not deplored the prosperity of the nation, especially within radius of Los Angeles? The road is like a smooth winding ribbon on which they race, they pursue, they overtake, the atmosphere is gas and dust, the surface is thick and oily. ”

“ If ever a poet were required to sing praises the American man deserves his poet.
The hotel bedroom was high, floor tiled and almost empty of furniture except for two double beds. Long windows opened on to a balcony overlooking the square, full of green tropical trees and flowering shrubs. A great gnarled fire-tree, with its scarlet blossom dominated all other trees, and in the background was the old Spanish Cathedral, its dome covered with buzzard birds, and its tower full of bells. ”

“ This morning I allowed Dick to visit the secret place amidstream where I come to write. He took off his garment to bathe, and standing naked in the sun, on a rock above the waterfall, his body burnt brown, and, with his pet ant-eater round his neck, he looked the embodiment of Mowglie in Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” the boy who was suckled by the she-wolf, and grew up in the woods, and could speak the language of the animals.
Mowglie could look into the eyes of the Black Panther and make him blink and turn his head away. Mowglie defeated the Tiger, he led the wolves. ”

“ We triumphed in the end, I would not return the way we came, so from the mainland opposite our camp, the Irishman got across hand over hand, on a wire hawser that spanned the river. It used to serve the ferry which now lies wrecked and derelict half a mile down-stream; once across he improvised a boat, out of a big wooden box and came across to fetch me.
We were rather silent at supper; there seemed some food for thought.
It is a beautiful but awesome thing, this river. Higher up just around the bend of the mountain it cascades for half a mile: thunderous and forceful. ”

“ I want to see it all—Mexico, China, Egypt, Greece and back again to Russia, working all the way, hunting heads, and reading people and never arriving at any understanding, but loving it always as one loves the person who is big, generous, elusive, full of moods, and never to be understood. ”

“ We seem to have been divinely led to this most beautiful and secluded place. One can hardly believe it was mere chance. So near civilization we are, and yet no one passes this way. As far as the eye can see the curving beach belongs to the sea-birds. There is a fresh water lake full of preserved wild duck, and word has been sent by the proprietor that we may shoot, hunt, cut wood, and do whatever we like! We surely picked a good spot, and then the sand dunes! We discovered such a high one yesterday, and Dick took a header down it, as if he were diving. ”

“ And then, in spite of his emotional, enthusiastic temperament, with a soundness of judgment that surprised me, he said: “Don’t get lost on the path of propaganda. Live your life of an artist ... the other goes on—always.”
One can see, in the sadness of the eyes—which the humor of his smile cannot dispel—that the man has suffered—has known things we do not dream. Has striven, hoped and aimed. Has reached his goal, yet he is not content. He feels there is more to do, and see, and know, more to attain. He believes in work and in producing always the best of one’s effort. ”

“ 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. In day dress, in evening dress, in Russian head dress, in work dress, with child, with roses, and so on!
I go out to lunch with a reporter in the taxi—and what luncheons: hen luncheons in Fifth Avenue! Lovely women with bare white chests, pearls, and tulle sleeves—never saw such clothes—and apparently all for themselves. There is never a man. They even pay one another compliments. ”

“ This is the way the overworked American rests on Sunday:
At 10 o’clock I was taken out riding. Only once before in my life—and that a year ago—had I ever ridden astride. I was mounted on a thoroughbred hunter, but mercifully it was as quiet as a lamb. We rode in the sun for two hours. Going through peoples’ private grounds seems to be no offense in this country. Some time ago—at Bernardsville, New Jersey, I walked for miles unmolested through peoples’ woods and gardens, enjoyed their fountains and their flowers and their lawns. ”

“ His own private opinion was that every movement has something good as well as bad in it. He thought the result of the Russians having been so long oppressed, was that they were now like birds let out of a cage, and not knowing quite what to do with their freedom.... I thought to myself, this is the most non-committal opinion I have ever heard expressed! and I marvelled at the unhesitating readiness of the man, who is really a soldier, yet talks like a diplomat! My impression was of a man of no culture and little education. ”

“ Mexico.
My fears were unwarranted: In the end, the river was kind and calm and let me pass—I said goodbye regretfully, lingeringly, even I have to admit tearfully.
I am quite sure I shall never return to the island that has been my world for a month.
It is a closed chapter, but a very definite chapter, and I have learnt many things. I have learnt that nature, with her camouflage garb of beauty, is merciless, cruel, pitiless and hostile. The unpolluted virgin forest contains poison and disease. Civilization which I have always scorned is fighting Nature all the time. ”