Terribly Intimate Portraits

Excerpt

SATURDAY

I felt that some sort of scene was necessary in order to celebrate my first entrance into America, so I said "Little lamb, who made thee?" to a customs official. A fracas ensued far exceeding my wildest dreams, during which he delved down—with malice aforethought—to the bottom of my trunk and discovered the oddest things in my sponge bag. I think I'm going to like America.

I have very good letters to Daniel Blood, Dolores Hoofer, Senator Pinchbeck, Violet Curzon-Meyer, and Julia Pescod, so I ought to get along all right socially at any rate.

It would be quite impossible to give an adequate description of one's first glimpse of Broadway at night—I should like to have a little pocket memory of it to take out and look at whenever I feel depressed. I shall feel awfully offended for Piccadilly Circus when I get back.

God! How I love frosted chocolate!

WEDNESDAY

For a really jolly evening, recommend me to the Times Square subway station. You get into any train with that delicious sensation of breathless uncertainty as to where exactly you are going to be conveyed. To approach an official is sheer folly, as any tentative question is quickly calculated to work him up into a frenzy of rage and violence, while to ask your fellow passengers is equally useless as they are generally as dazed as you are. The great thing is to keep calm and at all costs avoid expresses.

As another means of locomotion the Elevated possesses a rugged charm which is all its own, the serene pleasure of gazing into frowsy bedroom windows at elderly coloured ladies in bust bodices and flannel petticoats, being only equalled by the sudden thrill you experience when the two front carriages hurtle down into the street in flames.

I took three of my plays to Fred Latham at the Globe Theatre. He didn't accept them for immediate production, but he told me of two delightful bus rides, one going up Riverside Drive, and the other coming down Riverside Drive. I was very grateful as the busses, though slow moving, are more or less tranquil and filled with the wittiest advertisements—especially the little notices about official civility, which made everyone rock with laughter.

FRIDAY

Met Alexander Woollcott and Heywood Broun at a first night—we were roguish together for hours—Alexander Woollcott says that each new play is a fresh joy to him, but the question is whether he's a fresh joy to each new play!—I wonder.

TUESDAY

Spent all last night at Coney Island—I've never known such an atmosphere of genuine carnival. We went on "The Whip," the sudden convulsions of which drove the metal clasp of my braces sharply into my back, I think scarring me for life. Then we went into "The Haunted House" where a board gave way beneath my feet and ricked my ankle, the "Giant Dipper" was comparatively tame as I only bruised my side and cut my cheek. After this we had "hot dog" and stout, which the others seemed to enjoy immensely, then—laughing gaily—we all ran through a revolving wooden wheel, at least the others did, I inadvertently caught my foot and fell, which caused a lot of amusement....