PARIS, December 31st, 1915.
[DEAR OLD MAN:]
To wish you and Dai a Happy New Year. It will mean a lot
to us when we can get together, and take it together, good and
bad. I am awfully pleased over the novel coming out by the
Harper's and, in landing so much for me out of The
Dictator.
You have started the New Year for me splendidly. I expect I
will be back around the first of February. I am now trying to
"get back," but, I need more time. I can only put the trip
down to the wrong side of the ledger. Personally, I got a lot
out of it, but I am not sent over here to improve my knowledge
of Europe, but to furnish news and stories and that has not
happened.
I am constantly running against folks who knew you in
Florence, and I regret to say most of them are in business at
the Chatham bar. What a story they make; the M — — 's and the
like, who know Paris only from the cocktail side. One of our
attaches told me to-day he had been lunching for the last 18
months at the grill room of the Chatham, where the "mixed
grill" was as good as in New York. He had no knowledge of any
other place to eat. The Hotel de l'Empire is a terrible
tragedy. They are so poor, that I believe
it is my eight francs a day keeps them going; nothing else is
in sight. But, it is the exception. Never did a people take
a war as the French take this worst of all wars. They really
are the most splendid of people. I only wish I could have had
one of them for a grandfather or grandmother. Bessie writes
that Hope is growing wonderfully and beautifully, and I am
sick for a sight of her, and for you. Good night and God
bless you and the happiest of New Years to you both.
Your loving brother,
DICK.
These postcards are "originals" painted by students of
the Beaux-Arts to keep alive, and to keep those students in
the trenches. They are for Dai.
