PARIS, May llth, 1893.
[DEAR MOTHER:]
I am still somewhat tentative as regards my opinion of
the place, what it will bring me in the way of material I
cannot tell. So far, "Paris Decadent" would be a good title
for anything I should write of it. It is not that I have seen
only the worst side of it but that that seems to be so much
the most prominent. They worship the hideous Eiffel Tower and
they are a useless, flippant people who never sleep and yet do
nothing while awake. To-morrow I am going to a pretty inn
surrounded by vines and trees to see a prize fight with all
the silly young French men and their young friends in black
and white who ape the English manners and customs even to "la
box." To night at the Ambassadeurs the rejected lover of some
actress took a gang of bullies from Montmartre there and
hissed and stoned her. I turned up most innocently and
greatly bored in the midst of it but I was too far away to
pound anybody — I collected two Englishmen and we went in
front to await her re-appearance but she had hysterics and
went off in a cab and so we were not given a second
opportunity of showing them they should play fair. It is a
typical incident of the Frenchman and has made me wrathy. The
women watching the prize fight will make a good story and so
will the arms of the red mill, "The Moulin Rouge" they keep
turning and turning and grinding out health and virtue and
souls.
I dined to night with the C — — -s and P — — s, the
Ex-Minister and disagreed with everybody and found them all
very middle class as to intellect. An old English lady next
to me said apropos of something "that is because you are not
clever like Mr. — — and
do not have to work with your brains." To which I said, I did
not mind not being clever as my father was a many times
millionaire," at which she became abjectly polite. Young
Rothenstein is going to do a picture of me to-morrow morning.
There is nothing much more to tell except that a horse stood
on his fore legs in the Bois the other day and chucked me into
space. I was very sore but I went on going about as it was
the Varnishing day at the new salon and I wished to see it. I
am over my stiffness now and if "anybody wants to buy a
blooming bus" I have one for sale and five pairs of riding
breeches and two of ditto boots. No more riding for me — -The
boxing bag is in good order now and I do not need for
exercise. The lady across the street has a new wrapper in
which she is even more cold and haughty than before. "I sing
Tarrara boom deay and she keeps from liking me."
DICK.
