diately addressed were, from the nature of the case,
limited, but my arguments were, in effect, at once brought home to the
minds of innumerable thousands, and their main points emphasized by a
concert of leading articles. The drastic efficiency of this procedure
in New York and at other centers was sufficiently shown by the
countless letters I received from Socialists in all parts of America,
most of these letters being courteous, some very much the reverse; but
all indicating that I had succeeded in making the writers reflect on
problems to which they had previously given insufficient attention.

The composition of these addresses, and the reduction of them to their
final form, was a work which, since time was limited, required much
concentrated labor; but the labor was lightened by the extraordinary
hospitality of friends, who made me feel that, so far as society goes, I
had only exchanged one sort of London for another. In my sitting room at
the Savoy Hotel, on arriving from Long Island, I found a number of notes
inviting me to dinners, to concerts, and various other entertainments.
The first of these was a luncheon at Mrs. John Jacob Astor's. Her house
was one which might have been in Grosvenor Place; and, for matter of
that, so might half the company. I found myself sitting by Mrs. Hwfa
Williams. Not far off was her husband, an eminent figure in the racing
world of England. There, too, I discovered Harry Higgins, whom I had
known in his Oxford days, before his translation from Merton to
Knightsbridge barracks; and opposite to me was Monsignor Vay di Vaya, an
Austrian ornament of the Vatican, who wore a dazzling cross on a
perfectly cut waistcoat, and who, when I last saw him, had been winding
wool in the Highlands for Mrs. Bradley Martin. Mrs. Astor, if I may pay
her a very inadequate compliment, merely by her delicate presence seemed
to turn life into a picture on an old French fan.

My first evening party was, if I remember rightly, a concert at the
house of one of the Vanderbilt families. I had hardly entered the music
room before my host, with extreme kindness, indicated a lady who was
sitting next a vacant chair, and said, "Over there is someone you would
like to know." He introduced me to this lady, who was Mrs. Stuyvesant
Fish--one of the best-known and important figures in the social world of
New York. I was subsequently often at her house. I have rarely been
better entertained than I was by her conversati