FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   549   550   551   552   553   554   555  
556   557   558   559   560   561   562   563   564   565   566   567   568   569   570   571   572   573   574   575   576   577   578   579   580   >>   >|  
g which the introducer said. If that said speech got cabled and printed, you needn't let on that it was never uttered. That was a darling night, and those Hungarians were lively people. We were there a week and had a great time. At the banquet I heard their chief orator make a most graceful and easy and beautiful and delicious speech--I never heard one that enchanted me more--although I did not understand a word of it, since it was in Hungarian. But the art of it!--it was superlative. They are wonderful English scholars, these people; my lecture audience--all Hungarians--understood me perfectly--to judge by the effects. The English clergyman told me that in his congregation are 150 young English women who earn their living teaching their language; and that there are others besides these. For 60 cents a week the telephone reads the morning news to you at home; gives you the stocks and markets at noon; gives you lessons in 3 foreign languages during 3 hours; gives you the afternoon telegrams; and at night the concerts and operas. Of course even the clerks and seamstresses and bootblacks and everybody else are subscribers. (Correction. Mrs. Clemens says it is 60 cents a month.) I am renewing my youth. I made 4 speeches at one banquet here last Saturday night. And I've been to a lot of football matches. Jean has been in here examining the poll for the Immortals ("Literature," March 24,) in the hope, I think, that at last she should find me at the top and you in second place; and if that is her ambition she has suffered disappointment for the third time--and will never fare any better, I hope, for you are where you belong, by every right. She wanted to know who it is that does the voting, but I was not able to tell her. Nor when the election will be completed and decided. Next Morning. I have been reading the morning paper. I do it every morning--well knowing that I shall find in it the usual depravities and basenesses and hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization, and cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do not despair. (Escaped from) 5 o'clock tea ('sh!) Oh, the American girl in Europe! Often she is creditable, but sometimes she is just shocking. This one, a minute ago--19, fat-face, raspy voice, pert ways, the self-complacency of God; and with it all a silly laugh (embarrassed) which kept breaking ou
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   549   550   551   552   553   554   555  
556   557   558   559   560   561   562   563   564   565   566   567   568   569   570   571   572   573   574   575   576   577   578   579   580   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

morning

 

English

 

banquet

 

speech

 

people

 

Hungarians

 

election

 

Morning

 

reading

 

decided


completed

 

ambition

 

suffered

 

disappointment

 

Literature

 

knowing

 

wanted

 

voting

 

belong

 

shocking


minute

 
American
 

Europe

 

creditable

 

embarrassed

 

breaking

 
complacency
 
damnation
 
pleading
 
civilization

depravities

 

basenesses

 

hypocrisies

 

cruelties

 

Escaped

 
despair
 
Immortals
 

prayers

 

answered

 

superlative


wonderful

 

Hungarian

 

understand

 

scholars

 
lecture
 

clergyman

 

congregation

 
effects
 

audience

 

understood