Clyde Fitch

“ With such a culmination everything has been worth while—the French chef and his terrible extravagances, for you must pay to be known as a good house to dine at—all the deadly afternoon parties, all the exorbitant fees paid for years to the opera singers to sing, the house at Newport—and the one at Lennox, the seasons in London, that shooting box in Scotland (it bored us to death) , it was all worth while now that we have arrived at the toppest top. And no one could become her position better than mama. A society matron of the first water is certainly her métier. ”

“ No, my dear Mary, I see in this society of ours, we all grow so hardened, that if we don't have some such grief as I have had, we become hopeless. People soon forgot I had ever had a child, or at least that she hadn't been dead for years. I find myself becoming a bore, because of perhaps a certain lack of spirit that I used to have; and I began to realize that I had never been liked for myself, but for what I gave, and for the atmosphere of amusement which I helped to create by nearly always being gay and enjoying myself. As you yourself said of society, it is absolutely unsatisfactory. ”

“ For the Valkyrie I wore a new mauve and pale green frock. I don't think you've seen it. The bill was atrocious. I sha'n't pay it; but the costume is a great success. Portions of this second opera are awfully tiresome, first one couple and then another, going on for hours about nothing, but there are some exquisite clouds that move and grow and scatter exactly like nature, only more so, and make up a little for the dull people. I notice one thing: all the gods and goddesses have always such troubles. ”

“ To a young man like Bobbie Lawsher afternoon affairs are a sort of happy hunting ground, a social grab bag, where he can never be sure there isn't a dinner invitation, or one for the opera, or a luncheon, to be secured if one is clever and careful. Why, when a woman has a man guest back out at the last moment from a dinner, the first thing she does is to rush off to any At Home, that's going on, with the fairly confident expectation of finding Bobbie Lawsher and making him fill her vacancy. ”

“ Therefore, far from a thought of worry when I found my business visits to New York this summer becoming more and more easy to make as far as you were concerned, I used instead to get "a lump in my throat" on the train which left you here behind, believing that your love for me influenced you to hide your own feelings and aid me all you could in the performance of my duties, even at the cost of your own preferred pleasure and at the price of a good many hours of loneliness. Loneliness! Oh, what fools we men sometimes are! Yes, and how careless you women become! ”

“ When I think of you in Newport, in spite of the heat, leading an absolutely ideal life with your visits, your dinners, and your balls, I am green with envy. These are the times when life seems really almost too complicated to worry through. Or course if I were like John's sister Margaret, sort of half-crazy, who loves the real country, prefers a farmhouse to a hotel, fields and woods to a casino, I might get on well enough. ”

“ How is the dear child? I long to see you. Say what you like, this society life isn't altogether satisfactory. I think after Helen is happily married—to whomever it is—I shall drift quietly out of it, and gradually take to playing Joan to Will's Darby. ”

“ I much prefer Siegfried as a person to Parsifal. He's not such a very good boy. There's more an air of athletics, football, rowing, and all that about Siegfried, while Parsifal smacks just a little, I think, of the Young Men's Christian Association. You can kiss Siegfried with impunity, too; in fact, it saved Brunhilde's life, and I wouldn't mind running a few risks myself to be saved in the same way! You get perfectly drunk with this music of the last act of Siegfried. Of course, my dear, you know I am now writing about the third opera, "Siegfried." ”

“ That funny dragon comes in "Siegfried," you know, and of course it is much more amusing here than in Covent Garden or New York. But it's the last act that I love! Such passionate music! Brunhilde falls madly in love with Siegfried, who is, of course, ever so many years younger than she. But it's just like us women, especially when we are Brunhilde's age. For I suppose she's forty something, as she was grown up and went to sleep before Siegfried was born, and when he kisses her he seems to be quite a man! ”

“ Tom has been making overtures to my maid through a detective, but Lena is faithful to us, and I've promised her double any sum they offer her. When my position is all right again, I shall go in for society in the most extravagant, splendid way for one long, brilliant, spiteful season, and I shall punish every one of these women who have snubbed me so terribly. ”

“ The mountains and lakes, no matter how old they really may be, still always have the beauté du diable; and for a woman of my age—who has to resort to art to keep herself looking the slightest little bit younger than she is!—it gets on one's nerves, all this natural beauty! ”

“ And the races ended my pleasure, for next we started for Lucerne.
I said all along there would be no one in the place. Of course people do go there, but on their way to somewhere else, or coming home at odd times, and not for too long. There is never really any society there. I knew it. I have had experience with it. Besides, we know the places that every one does go to in July and August. I preferred Homburg, with Aix at the end, but I would have put up with Trouville first, or Ostend, or even Dinard. But no, Switzerland it was! I hate it; I always did. It's too like its photographs. ”

“ When we get homesick—as we are both sure to, for after all we are good Americans—we will come back here and settle down quietly in some little house, near everybody, but not in the whirlpool—on the banks of society, as it were, so that when we feel like it we can go and paddle in it for a little, just over our ankles. ”

“ Dick has announced his engagement to an actress—a soubrette, too, in a farce-comedy. If it had been a woman who played Shakespeare, it would have been bad enough, but a girl who sings and dances and does all sorts of things, including wearing her dresses up-side down, as it were—that is, too high at the bottom and too low at the top—well, this is a little too much!—just as we were getting a really good position in society. If the marriage isn't put a stop to, you can be sure she'll soon dance and kick us out of any position whatever that's worth holding. ”

“ When we are married you have got to give them up. When we are married, too, and this bore of a divorce of mine is finally settled, I presume I shall be invited to Mrs. Makeway's parties! I wasn't asked last night to her big ball!—not that I care. I am sure that beast of a husband of mine will never be able to prove his nasty charges against us, and that I shall win the case. Then there'll be no excuse for Mrs. Makeway and her prudish set, and I promise you they shall eat "humble pie," if there's any left in the world after all my dear friends have made me devour. ”

“ I think I should prefer London to Paris. Smart life in Paris seems to be so very much more immoral than in London, judging from what one hears and the books one reads, and you know I don't care about immorality. I get that from mama, too. She is shocked all the time in the "world," over here even, tho' she tries to hide it.
Our house looked lovely last night. We had powdered footmen, and just enough music and just enough supper and just enough people. One of the secrets of success in society is not to overcrowd anything. ”

“ Marie brought me my coffee at nine, as usual, with a perfect mail. No nasty business letters from America, but only most desirable invitations, notes full of gossip, and regrets from the Thompsons for the expensive dinner I felt obliged to give them at Armenonville, so I won't have to give it! One's old friends in America are really rather a bother, coming to Paris in the very middle of the season. If they came only in midsummer, when every one is away, one would be very glad to do what one could, if one were in the city. ”

“ There were beautiful jewels in evidence at the ball. Mrs. Makeway wore, I believe, a dozen strings of the most gorgeous pearls. All real, of course, with their money. They must represent a fortune in themselves. Poor old Mrs. Hammond Blake came with all her Switzerland amethysts, and a few new topazes mixed in (she must have been at Lucerne last summer) . She looked like one of those glass gas-lit signs. But really, all the best jewels in New York were there. ”

“ I prefer some place that has to resort to art, too, and make itself up a little with gorgeous hotels, casinos, theatres, and baccarat tables. Mountains bore me, and I hate to go on the water. There at Lucerne the mountains stood continually and solemnly around, just like elderly relatives at a family reunion, and the flat lake lies as uninteresting as the conversation of these estimable creatures would be. ”

“ The Makeways are now a power in New York society, and there's really no reason why they shouldn't be. His family are all right and her English connections are better; and then what a charming woman she is! She makes a perfect hostess. Such tact! Everything was carried out in the best of taste. If they erred at all it was on the side of simplicity; and yet that gives you a wrong idea about the ball, because it really could boast of splendor. Yes, I mean it, but of a solid, real kind. There is nothing papier maché about the Makeway house ”

“ We don't seem to have had many grandfathers, my dear—of our own, I mean, of course. I know you've married a wonderful collection of them, dating back to goodness knows when, but it isn't so important for American women; they can acquire breeding in their own lifetime. I know no other nation whose women can do the same, and even our men haven't the same ability. Look at the American duchesses—don't they grace even the parties at Marlborough House? Look at yourself, my dear girl. ”

“ But I think the best thing about the opera is it leaves you in such an exalted mood. I know I won't be able to think of small or worldly things for weeks, much less write about them. Before I forget it, be sure and write me if it's true that Mrs. —— and Sir George —— are both at Homburg, at the same hotel. I hear they are, and there's no end of talk about it. But then I find there's no end of talk about everything and everybody. It is not that people mean badly, but one has to pass the time somehow. I think I love best of all the Rheingold music. ”

“ In the first place every one of any consequence in New York came; except, of course, those who are in mourning. There are certain people who have always held off from me, you know; but they've come around at last, and were all in evidence last night and in their best clothes, and all their jewels, and you know that always speaks well for the hostess. I wore my tiara that Will so generously gave me my last birthday (of course he hates it himself, but I brought it home, and he had to give in—the Dear!) ”

“ But, dear me, how badly the German women dress! I haven't seen a single chic one among them since I've been here, I don't believe I shall come to Bayreuth again. Besides, the music is too wearing. The Rhine maidens come back in this act! It is most wonderful the way they swim about! But, as far as I can gather, they are rather nasty cats. One thing I will say, though: I think Wagner's on the side of the women; for, in spite of Brunhilde's being in love with little more than a boy, she has all your sympathies. So has Siegfried, too; which is odd. ”

“ But there is a difference in being asked to meet a questionable person because that person is brilliant, or beautiful, or talented, and that therefore you (belonging to the aristocracy of brains) will appreciate her, and, on the other hand, being asked to meet her because you are an artist's wife and don't mind that sort of thing. We do mind it very much! We don't even care for it in geniuses—only we overlook it in a genius ”

“ I hear one prominent woman who was asked last week to dine and meet the Romedeks considered herself insulted, and has struck her would-be hostess' name off her visiting list. So you see it wasn't all plain sailing with the Westington's, and I can hear them decide between themselves to give a "real Bohemian dinner;" that is, ask people who "do things," and whom you sometimes do meet out at houses where they are not particular about mixing—the kind of people who would probably not take offense at being asked to meet Mrs. Romedek without having her marriage certificate for their dinner card. ”

“ I wouldn't hesitate a moment, but it's so hard for a mother who has spent such happy years with her son to realize that his happiness does altogether and absolutely depend on some one else, and on that one and no other? ”

“ Of course, I knew whenever we had guests Jack Tolby was always one of them, and also one of the guests wherever we went, but it only seemed natural. He was extremely agreeable in our house; it's only now I realize he has always rather avoided me at the club. I suppose even men like him have some sort of conscience, or at least a sense of decency, if not of honor, toward their own friends, and, if so, good God, how ashamed he must have been every time he had to take my hand! ”