Part 26 (2/2)
December 25 Christmas Day
DEAR MOTHER:
We are settled here in Darkest Chelsea as though we had been born here
I a for Mayor
Meanwhile, it is a wonderful place in which to write the last chapters of ”Once Upon a Ti and Summer it must be rarely beautiful It has trees in front and a yard and a garden and a squash court: a sort of tennis you play against the angles of walls covered se as a theatre Outside the trees beat on the s and birds chirp there The river flows only forty feet aith great brown barges on it, and gulls whimper and cry, and aeroplane all day I have a fine room, and about the only one you can keep as warland never is
Cecil has engaged a teacher, and ahere to work
He is twenty years old, and called the ”boy Sargent” So, as soon as the British public gets sober, ill begin life in earnest, and both work hard I need not tell you how glad I aht and recited as ht Before Christmas,” which always means Dad to me, as he used to read it to us How much he made the dayBut tonight ill all drink to you, and a few hours later you will drink to us God bless you all
dick
December 29th
DEAR MOTHER:
A blizzard has swept over London The last one cost the City Corporation 25,000!! The last man who contracted to clean New York of snoas cleaned out by two days of it, to the tune of 200,000
Still, in spite of our alleged superiority in all things, one inch of snow in Chelsea can do more to drive one to drink and suicide than a foot of it ”on the far fires and oil laht it with two buckets of soft chocolate cake called Welch coal, and the result is you freeze Cecil's studio is like one vast suo near it except in rubber boots, fur coats and woolen gloves My room still is the only one that is livable It is four feet square, heavily panelled in oak and the coal fire ht and can work nicely Janet Sothern caazing Tomorroe have Capt Chule to dinner He came up the West coast with us and is accustorees
New Year's eve we spend with Lady Lehere we dine and keep it up until four in the et back here but hoe can get a hansoine
I have seen none in five days It is fine to be surrounded by busts of Carlyle, Whistler, Rosetti and Turner's own, but occasionally you wish for a taxicab Toreat city of London The novel goes on s for Mayor of Chelsea
Love to you all
dick
LONDON--January 1, 1909
DEAR MOTHER:
I drank your health and Noll's and Charley's last night and so we all caood foron ith another book It is splendid I alad Some of the very best stories anybody has written will be in his next book
We dined at the Lewis's There were 150 at dinner and as we live in Chelsea now--one ht as well be in Brooklyn--ere a half hour late Fancy feeling you were keeping 150 people hungry I sat at Lady Lewis's table with solass over pink silk, and pearls, and pearls and then, pearls She said ”Who airl in Areen paper lamp shade up in a farm house in New Hampshi+re and play a violin” Whereat there was hter of a Mrs
Van S----, rote short stories Her daughter was L---- Van S---- now the wife of a baronet and worth five ht dollars a week Noe are dining with her next Monday and as I insisted on gold plate she said ”Very well, I'll get out the gold plate” But wasn't it dramatic of me to remember her after twenty two years?
dick