# Phoebe Makes the Grand Tour

Extracted from American Magazine, vol 71, 1910-11, pp. 61–70. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
Phoebe MAKES THE GRAND TOUR
BY
INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE AUTHOR OF “THE CODES OF PHOEBE AND ERNEST,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. F. SCHABELITZ
MRS. MARTIN sat alone in the sewing-room, hemming busily on the new napkins. She had sent Phoebe on an errand to Mrs. Warburton, hoping that that energetic lady might pull her daughter out of the doldrums. For only the evening before Phoebe, coming into her mother's room for a good-night talk, had delivered herself of the following:
“Mother, do you know that I wish I could go away from Maywood for a while. You don't know how sick I am of every single thing about it. I know it by heart. I can shut my eyes and see every street and every house just as plain as if was all painted on the inside of my eyelids. And I'm so tired of Maywood people. And I hate to go to the Library—I've read all the fiction there and you have to wait such a long time when you recommend books. The Woman's club is pokey, and I never did care for bridge, and all the girls I like best are away or busy or engaged. Anything I used to like I don't care for any longer, and the things I'd like to do I can't do. What do you suppose is the matter, mother?”
“Oh, it's just the beginning of the spring feeling,” Mrs. Martin said with her usual moderation. “Just as soon as the weather settles you'll get over it.”
“Well, I hope so. I shall be glad enough when the warm weather comes. I'm so tired of snow-freeze-thaw-rain-snow-freeze-thaw-rain that I don't know what to do. I've made up my mind that I just hate winter.”
A little mollified, Phoebe kissed her mother good-night. But she trailed a discontented grumble to the very door of her room.
It was of this that Mrs. Martin was thinking. And so intense was her preoccupation that she was only vaguely conscious that her daughter, returning prematurely from the Warburtons, had dropped into the big wing-chair. Mrs. Martin sewed tranquilly on for an instant. Then something psychological seemed to jump out of the air at her. Her consciousness, flashing back over the last moment, re-registered three astounding facts. Phoebe had actually not banged the front door: she had closed it gently. Phoebe had not run up the stairs, occasionally taking two at a time: she had ascended them slowly, step on step. Phoebe had not rushed into the room, whirlwind fashion, bubbling with gossip: she had drifted silently through the doorway and across the floor.
With a start, Mrs. Martin looked up.
Crumpled up in her chair, Phoebe was staring straight at her. Above her white collar, her face showed whiter. Her eyebrows were caught in the tangle of mental panic. Her lower lip dropped. All this would have been terrifying if it had not been for her eyes. And her eyes—— Mrs. Martin was not given to hyperbole, but it occurred to her that, for the first time in her life, she had seen a pair of stars in the human countenance.
“What is it, Phoebe?” she asked anxiously.
Phoebe swallowed something before her lips would move. And when she spoke, her words came on breath, not sound. “What do you think has happened, mother? I'm dreaming, of course. But I've pinched myself and pinched myself and I don't wake up. Mother, Mrs. Warburton has invited me to go abroad with her for six months as her guest.”
Mrs. Martin stared back. Her own eyebrows caught in the tangle of mental panic, and for an instant the two looked strangely alike. That terror of change which Mrs. Martin had always fought in herself seemed now to clutch at her very heart. An instant, she did not see Phoebe's face. For with the inner vision of mothers, lightning-swift and intuitional, she saw Opportunity outside, knocking at the door of her daughter's life. She knew that she alone could open that door. She knew that she must open it. For if denied, fickle Opportunity might never come again. If welcomed, she would take the child by the hand and lead her—— But what a dreary silent arc of life it left to be lived through somehow—Phoebeless.
“I guess you'd better go, Phoebe,” she said slowly. “There's no reason in the world why you shouldn't. But of course I must talk it over with your father first,” she added, with her characteristic caution.
“Go! Why, Mother Martin, how can you say that! Leave you for six whole months! And father! Why, I couldn't—I simply couldn't. And then there's Ern. Do you know, mother, I've been thinking a lot about Ern, coming home from the Warburtons, and I've made up my mind that he's as good a brother as any girl I know has. Oh, it's just impossible, that's all there is to it. Then think of the dressmaking! And I ought to do loads and oodles and slathers and rafts of studying—I'm so ignorant. Mother, can you believe it's true? I'm still pinching myself. All my life, I've been crazy to go to Europe. And now I'm going. But to think of me getting this chance when you and father haven't been. I feel so selfish. It doesn't make so much difference about Ern. A man can always go anywhere he wants to. And besides Ern wouldn't give up August at Camp Hello for a trip to the moon. But I didn't say yes. And I didn't say no. I said I'd think it over. It's a very serious question, Mother Martin. Think of London and Paris and Rome and Venice and Florence and Naples!”
All Phoebe's vitality and vivacity came back with a rush. She pirouetted madly about the room until her cheeks flashed roses again. “Oh, mother!” Phoebe stopped almost in midair. “Supposing one of you should die while I'm gone. What would I do? Well, I'd just kill myself—that's all.”
“Don't talk nonsense, Phoebe,” Mrs. Martin said with composure. “If we stopped to think of things like that, we'd never go anywhere or do anything. When would Mrs. Warburton want to start? Is Tug going?”
“In a month. No, Tug can't leave Harvard. He'll go West in the summer with Mr. Warburton. He had his choice between the two trips and it was he suggested that his mother take me. Oh, Mrs. Warburton told me to tell you that she never made up her mind that she'd go until yesterday and she was going to speak to you first, but when I came over with that new stencil-pattern which made her think so much of the cathedral at Milan, she just couldn't hold in any longer. She's asked me and Ern to come over to dinner so's we can talk over the itinerary together.”
“Edward,” Mrs. Martin said to Mr. Martin that night, waiting pent-up until their solitary dinner was well under way, “Mrs. Warburton has invited Phoebe to go to Europe with her for six months.”
“To Europe! Six months! Well, that is generous of her—the Warburtons have been good neighbors, Bertha. Six months! Good Lord, Bertha, what will the house be without Phoebe?”
“We can't expect to keep her with us always. We might as well get used to that. Phoebe's the kind that marries young.”
“Marriage! That's a foolish noise, mother! It will be time enough to think of marriage ten years from now.” Mr. Martin poked the fire with undue vigor. Seated again, he studied his work with undue preoccupation. Once or twice, he moved restlessly as if he were about to speak. But in the end he forced his own words back.
Mrs. Martin eyed him furtively now and again. “It's a great responsibility, isn't it, Edward,” she said once, “trying to decide how much you oughtn't to keep them with you and yet not being selfish about them?”
“Them,” between Mr. and Mrs. Martin always meant Phoebe and Ernest.
Mr. Martin replied only by an exclamation, half sigh of regret, half groan of impatience. “When do they want to start?”
“In a month.”
“All right. Six months!” Involuntarily, Mr. Martin's eye went to the calendar. “That would bring her home in August. Buy her anything you think she needs, mother.” Mr. Martin did not speak again, but it was a long time before he took up his magazine.
“What do you think of it, father?” Phoebe called the moment she opened the door that night. She rushed up the stairs, talking all the way, and plumped into Mr. Martin's lap.
“I think it's great,” Mr. Martin replied. “People didn't get chances like that when your mother and I were your age. You see that you make the most of it, young woman!”
If what Phoebe accomplished during her month of preparation could be used as a unit of her capacity to make “the most of it,” stout, fatuous, easy-going Mrs. Warburton might well gasp with dismay. Borrowing library-cards in the neighborhood to the number of eight, Phoebe, tri-weekly, lugged home a bag of books. Travel, poetry, essays, history, and historic-fiction, she skimmed them all.
Evenings that were not given over to farewell hospitality were spent with her father, discussing the trip. Phoebe routed out all the geographies and atlases that the house contained, even a faded old globe from the playroom closet. Mr. Martin bought her a big map of Europe, which they hung on the living-room wall. Every day Mrs. Warburton evolved a fresh itinerary. Every night Phoebe and her father blazed its red-ink course on the new map. The living-room table looked as if a geographers' society were in session. Mrs. Martin, tranquilly bringing order out of all this uncertainty and confusion, caught up with things by means of Phoebe's staccato monologues.
Illustration: “Every night Phoebe and her father blazed its red-ink course on the new map”
“Father, you don't know how confusing it is, the different way people talk about Europe to you. Mrs. Ellis told me to be sure not to take any light clothes but to have plenty of flannels, furs, and hot-water bottles. Well, she said they ought to train Arctic explorers by making them spend their winters in 'sunny Italy.' She said the Polar cold would never have any terrors for them after that. Then, right on top of that, Mrs. Doane said to be sure to take plenty of pretty, light dresses—she didn't, and two or three times she was up against it. Maud Pierce told me that I'd love Paris and hate London and Professor Rollins said that Paris was disappointing but London perfectly lovely—at least he didn't say 'perfectly lovely'—he said 'atmospherically stimulating'—you know what a fierce high-brow he is, father. And everybody who doesn't say I'll be awfully disappointed in Venice because the canals are full of dead cats and dogs (isn't that the limit?) says that I can't have any idea from the pictures how gorgeous it is. Pretty nearly everybody advises me to wait and go late after I've studied more Italian and French. But others say I won't need the languages at all—they speak English everywhere. Old Mrs. Massey said that going by the southern route and seeing Italy first will just ruin France and England for me. And Mr. Yeaton said that I'd appreciate England a lot more coming on it that way—he says when you actually hear some English spoken after so many months, you just about pass away. Some say that they had the most awful times with the customs and the rest that they never had one bit of trouble. Some people tell me never under any circumstances to let myself go about unchaperoned, and others tell me that an American girl can go alone all over Europe. That friend of Mrs. Ellis's gave me a long list of things you could get cheaper in Europe and, after she was gone, Mrs. Ellis said you could get every one of them for half the price in the Boston department stores. Mrs. Haywood said I ought to be ashamed for not seeing my own wonderful country first, though I don't know what that's got to do with it. I've just about made up my mind, father, that I am not going to pay any attention whatever to what people say to me.”
But the time came when, trunk packed for the last time, Phoebe stood on the wharf—a trim little navy-blue figure—beyond the reach of criticism or suggestion. One arm was slipped through her father's, the other was clasped tight about her mother's waist.
“There's only one thing I want you to promise me,” she said, the tears streaming down her cheeks, “And that is—when I come home, no matter what time I get in, day or night, you'll come into Boston to meet me.”
“Of course, child,” Mrs. Martin said, her own eyes swimming, and “Sure, Phoebe!” Mr. Martin said, with a palpable assumption of cheer.
Dearest Family—
          Mother and Father and Ern:
It has been such a wonderful trip! I haven't been seasick one single speck and, so, halfway across the ocean, I threw overboard every remedy for seasickness that anybody gave me—and a good riddance to bad rubbish! But poor Mrs. Warburton has been confined to her cabin the whole during time. She never, never got up until yesterday, and we expect to land to-day. To tell the truth, I don't think she was really sick after the first two or three days, but she says she always takes a sea voyage as an opportunity to get a long rest. Goodness knows she's got it. Every time I went into her cabin she was just dead to the world. The stewardess has waited on her by inches—I never saw anything like it. But when I spoke of how kind she was, Mrs Warburton said, “Don't be worried, my dear. She knows what side her bread's buttered on.” As for the ship's doctor, he spends all his evenings there—he's a great big, fatherly Englishman. Whenever I came in during the evening Mrs. Warburton was telling him about one of her sicknesses or her operations. To-day she showed me a check for fifty dollars that she had made out for him. She says he's helped her a lot. How—I don't see. Unless it was just listening to her.
I simply adore life on board ship. In the first place, they have the nicest things to eat that I ever put in my face. And, in the second place, you do meet such interesting people. There's Mr. Waring, for instance. He lives summers in a place in New England, in what he calls “the colony”—it seems the people there are all painters and sculptors and writers and actors and musicians and things like that. The rest of the year he lives in Florence. I can't quite make up my mind whether he's young or old—I should say about forty. He's very plain, but most distinguished-looking. His hair is a little long, and he has awfully interesting hands. He wears the most wonderful clothes I ever saw in my life on a man. If his suit is brown, his tie and stockings and scarfpin match, if gray ditto. He talks very slowly, with a sort of accent—and, yet, it isn't an accent. Anyway, it has an awfully swell sound—cultured, if you know what I mean. I just love to listen to him. Especially when he talks about art—he's an artist. When we discuss books, we have awful fights. When I told him that I read all the best sellers in “The Bookfellow” lists, I thought he would swoon. But he needn't talk. I never even heard of the writers he's so crazy about—except Walter Pater. We had to read some of his essays in High, and maybe he wasn't stupid! `
Then there's a Mr. Anderson—the dearest old man I ever saw. He's short and stumpy, with twinkling eyes and a beard shaped just like a fan—he looks exactly like Santa Claus. Just think, mother, he went to Rome to study art when he was eighteen. He's been going to Rome whenever he could get a chance ever since. James Russell Lowell was of the party, and the stories he tells me about him and about Rome—oh, it's simply fascinating. He says Rome isn't anything like so beautiful now as it was then. Isn't it funny how nothing ever is so good as it was once when you get there? I guess the first thing the serpent said to Eve was, “Oh, my poor child, you should have seen the place the fifth day of creation?”
I asked Mr. Waring about Mr. Anderson's paintings, and he said: “Oh, he's an R. A.” (That means a member of the Royal Academy—I asked Mrs. Warburton.) “That in itself is enough to condemn him. He still does those formal, academic, early-Victorian, late-Dutch, London-Graphic-Supplement things—old peasant grandmothers teaching little girls how to make lace, old peasant grandfathers teaching little boys how to walk.”
But that sounded perfectly darling to me, doesn't it to you, mother, dear?
Then I asked Mr. Anderson about Mr. Waring's work. He said: “Oh, as far as line is concerned, Waring is still living in the Renaissance. His coloring is impressionistic. His trees and rivers are positively immoral.” How can an ordinary tree or a river be immoral, I'd like to know?
There are no young girls on board ship, but some young men. I dance with them occasionally, and play shuffleboard—but not much. You know I'm not so crazy about young men as most girls are. I think they're very shallow.
Illustration: “You know I'm not so crazy about young men as most girls are. I think they're very shallow”
We stopped at the Azores, but were not allowed to land. Oh, wasn't I heart-broken! But we had an hour at Gibraltar—Gib, you call it, if you want to be classy. Mother, you never saw anything like that rock. I got up before sunrise to see it, and it certainly looked like a monstrous crouching lion. When you get near, it's exactly like that advertisement in the magazines, only that's the side you get going away from it. The town is all up and down hill. You know that lamp-shade that Mrs. Ellis brought me from Germany—the one with the little pasteboard houses built out on it and all the colored isinglass windows—well, it looks just like that. And the people you see in the street—Moroccans and Arabs and Nubians and soldiers and sailors and English and tourists—it would kill you dead, it's so different. For a little while after we passed the Straits, we could see the coast of Africa. Father, you can't imagine what a queer sensation it gave me to think that Africa was over there. Just think of it! AFRICA! Then came the coast of Spain, France, Sardinia—mostly bare and rocky and terrifying, but beautiful. When we caught our first glimpse of Italy, you should have heard the Italians in the hold cheer. Now we're approaching Naples, and I must stop writing. You don't know how I miss you, my precious, lovely, beautiful family. Tell Ern to be careful about cramp when he goes in swimming.
Your loving, Phoebe.
“What a beautiful time the child is having!” Mrs. Martin said.
“Yes, it will be a great experience for her. I'm glad we let her go,” Mr. Martin said.
“Cramp! If that isn't like a girl. I never had a cramp in my life,” Ernest said.
My Dearest Family:
Oh, mother! Oh, father! Oh, Ern!
Just as soon as I get home again, I shall begin saving up my money so that when I'm a lonely old maid, and nobody in the whole world cares for me, I can come here to Naples and spend the whole rest of my life. I thought that Gib was wonderful—I never even think of it now. For, compared with Naples, Gib is—— If I only knew where to begin to tell you about it. But I don't. I'm up against it. It is all so simply heavenly!
Well, I hung over the rail all the way into Naples—and I never saw such a panorama of beauty. Netta Walsh can stop bragging about San Francisco Bay, because I'm sure Naples has it stung to a frazzle. As for Naples itself—it's just tumbling down hill as fast as it can tumble. All the houses are painted the most extraordinary colors—pink and blue and purple and red and yellow, and they've all faded in the sun and rain. At first I thought that was a dreadful pity, but Mr. Waring told me that colors aren't attractive at all in the artistic sense until they're faded, and I see he's right now. At any rate, everybody says, “How beautifully it's faded!” to every blessed thing we look at. And they say, “That's nice—very nice,” to the most gorgeous things. Think of saying a thing's nice when it's just perfectly swell! In the midst of all these rainbow houses are beautiful gray churches and beautiful gray forts, greeny-gray stone pines like open umbrellas, and greeny-black cypresses like closed ones, and greeny-silver olives like a dusty mist, and stalwart peasant men and beautiful, madonna-looking peasant women and perfect cherubs and angels and cupids and ducks of darling little children. And beyond, the blue, blue bay, full of ships, and, above the blue, blue sky full of clouds. And as if that wasn't enough, a real live volcano smoking in the distance. Mother, it just beggars description.
Of course, we've been into some of the shops that are all of a shiny black wood with gilt lettering, and simply hung with coral and amber. And, Mother Martin, I bought you something in one of them though, which it is, amber or coral, I'm not going to tell. Maybe you're not going to look sweet in it! And we've been to churches and art-galleries and the beautiful Aquarium and, more wonderful than all these, up Vesuvius, and, most wonderful of all, to Pompeii. Father, I just live to go to Pompeii with you. I never was so thrilled in my life. I'm reading “The Last Days of Pompeii” all over again, and it's so exciting. Mr. Waring went with us, but he didn't seem to be very enthusiastic. He said that, after Egypt, Pompeii looked like a dust-heap. Mrs. Warburton thinks he's the most wonderful thing that ever happened. She stands in awe of him. But I don't. He smiles a sort of weary smile at every remark I make. But if he doesn't like what I say, he doesn't have to listen to me. And then again, why does he always ask me what I think of things? I tell him, too—— Oh, I've handed him a few since I came here!
Mother Martin, you would never suppose that dirt would be beautiful, would you? Well, it is! Naples is the most beautiful place in the world, and the dirtiest. Mr. Waring said that, and I guess he's right there. When I look back on Maywood, is seems such a strange little place, so disgustingly clean and regular, everything just so. We never will have any real artistic beauty in America until we learn to be dirty. At least, that's what Mr. Waring says. I think the Women's Clubs ought to do something about it—really. Oh, how I love you all, and how I miss you. What wouldn't I give—anything in this world—to have you with me!
Your loving, Phoebe.
“I don't know that I'd like a city to be too dirty,” Mrs. Martin said.
“I must take Phoebe for a little walk on the dump when she comes back if she finds herself getting discontented,” Mr. Martin said.
“Why didn't she say what the crater of Vesuvius looked like?” Ernest said.
My Dearest Family:
Well, here I am in Rome! And if you think that if I started now and just wrote for the rest of my life that I could tell you all about this place, you are very much mistaken, for I couldn't. I haven't words enough. I was wrong about Naples being the most lovely place in the world. Rome puts it all over Naples. Here's the place I'm going to live in when my ship comes in.
I'll begin with the very first day. Because whatever I tell you, I don't want to forget what Mr. Anderson did. You remember he was the lovely old artist on board ship. He was intending to go straight on to Siena, but the last day he said that there was something in Rome that he wanted to show me before anybody else got a chance, an he made an engagement with me for my first day. He called for me at the Hotel, and we took a long winding walk through the city—oh, family, it was so strange and so beautiful and so fascinating. We came to a corner, and Mr. Anderson said, “Now close your eyes!” and I did. He took my arm and led me for a little distance. Then he said. “Keep your eyes closed tight. We're going upstairs.” And we did—until my knees ached. Then we walked, my eyes still closed, on level ground for a little while. “Now look!” he commanded. And, Mother and Father and Ern—what do you think? There I was on a kind of balcony or terrace, looking down on the Roman Forum. I could not speak for a moment.” The funny thing about it was that Mr. Anderson, who'd stopped off in Rome as far as I could see just to show me that, did not look at the Forum itself at first. He looked at me. And, mother, his eyes were full of tears. I guess that shows you how he loves it. I knew it was the Forum the instant I looked at it because it was exactly like that steel engraving of Aunt Mary's that hung so many years over the mantel, and I made you put in the barn when father got the new furniture. Maybe I'm not going to snake it out and hang it up again the moment I get home.
From there, Mr. Anderson took me round to the Campodoglio, down into the Forum, and over to the Coliseum. We went to lunch, and then we explored the Palatine Hill, and he took a carriage, and we went out to the Baths of Caracalla. And oh! the things he told me about all these places! When I went to bed that night, I could not sleep. Maybe I'm not going to study Roman history when I get home.
Mr. Anderson only stayed that one day. After he went away, I went about with Mr. Waring, who came on from Naples with us. You see, Mrs. Warburton hates touristing, and says she's seen all these things a dozen times before. She says it makes her blue to go into churches. Goodness, I can't understand that!—I just love them. There are four hundred churches in Rome, and I made up my mind that I'd see every one of them. Well, I haven't done that, and I guess I won't. You see, many of them are only opened once a year on the day of their tutelary saint and, unless you happen to be here at that time, you can't get in. I think I must have done a hundred, though—I never pass a church that's open without going in. Mr. Waring only stayed a few days, and I was almost glad when he went on to Florence, for it used to make me so tired the way he knocked Rome. I've been about a good deal alone this last week. I wander around with my Baedecker in the morning, and in the afternoon Mrs. Warburton takes me to drive. Perhaps one reason why I love Rome so is because I've done so much of it by myself.
Illustration: “I wander around with my Baedecker in the morning”
I go to St. Peter's every other day. The first time I went we took a street-car. I didn't realize that we were anywhere near it when, suddenly, we turned a corner and there it was. Oh, family, such a great big, brown, faded heap of stone, the colonnades of monster pillars, the fountains like wedding-veils, the statues, and—and—everything. I just rose to my feet and said, “Oh! Oh! OH!” each one louder than the last. Everybody in the car looked at me and smiled, but so sympathetically, for they knew just what I was going through. I've been back there loads of times, and I have studied with the utmost care every bit of statuary and every painting and every chapel in it. Still, there are other churches in Rome I love more. St. Peter's is not at all cozy, if you know what I mean.
Of course, I've been to the Vatican again and again. It simply fascinates me—there's such an air of mystery about it, and—and—oh, I don't know exactly how to put it—power—I guess.
There was the most wonderful man lived in Rome once. His name was Bernini. And I guess he was the busiest man that ever inhabited this earth. He just about did the entire decoration of Rome. I never had even heard of him before, but I think he's a very great genius. Whenever I read in Baedecker that there's something he did anywhere near where I am, I just beat it to it and study it hard.
What with the priests and monks and nuns that you see everywhere, and all the churches and masses and religious anniversaries, this place is just saturated with holiness. Sometimes I think I would rather be a nun than anything else in the world. I think it must be beautiful to lead a life of calm contemplation, away from the world, superior to it, and forgotten by it. I guess I'm not going to be so frivolous after this.
But, after all, it's the ruins of Rome that I love most. That's the great out about America, mother—there are no ruins there. If we could only have a tumble-down cathedral on Maywood Common, with broken pillars and things like that. I guess that's what I shall miss most when I get home.
Tell Ern that when he sees the place of the Cæsars on the Palatine Hill, he won't regret one moment that he spent slaving over his Latin.
Tell father that I chased all over Rome to get something that my heart was set on bringing home to him. And I found it, too! It's the loveliest thing! I'm not going to say what it is, but it has something to do with Julius Cæsar. Loads of love and kisses to my sweetest, darlingest family!
Phoebe.
P. S.—I've seen Hilda's Tower and now I'm reading “The Marble Faun” all over again.
“What a fine man that Mr. Anderson must be,” Mrs. Martin said.
“Yes, but I don't know that I care so much for Waring.” Mr. Martin said.
“Gee, Phoebe'd make a healthy nun,” Ernest said.
My Dearest Family:
Well, here I am in Florence. And Florence is—I don't know how I'm going to describe it to you—but it's different from any other place I've seen. I guess on the whole I think it's the most beautiful city I've been in yet. It certainly puts it all over Naples. As for Rome—well, beside Florence, Rome seems kind of austere, if you know what I mean. Here you feel just like singing and laughing all the time. It's winsome—that's the only word I can think of to describe it, and that isn't exactly right. Then again, Rome had no real art-atmosphere. Here, the art-atmosphere is so thick—Mother, I wonder the place doesn't jell. Every moment I can get to myself, I'm reading “Romola,” and I can't tell you how it illumines the city for me.
Florence itself is lovely—just a huddle of red-brown roofs and old stone walls thrown up and down the hills, and nestling about the river. And such interesting people come here—highbrow's no name for them. It's the thing to be mad about Florence, and I can understand how it's perfectly easy. Mr. Waring's here—he has a villa in Fiesole. Mrs. Warburton and I go there quite often in the afternoon for tea. At first I thought his studio was the barest, strangest place I ever was in. But I see now that it's very, very artistic. To be artistic, mother, in any subtle sense, you must have only a few things about. In fact, his walls consist mainly of beautifully-managed bare spaces. Maybe I won't yank down all those passe-partout things I put up on our walls—the moment I get home. I'm going to revolutionize the whole house—I'm just full of ideas.
Mr. Waring has taught me a lot. He's been taking me about to the galleries. You see, Mrs. Warburton is all in after half an hour in a gallery, whereas I could live in one. So Mr. Waring has undertaken to teach me what's good and what isn't. I am so glad he's doing that, for I have been dead wrong about a whole lot of things. Take Rome, for instance! It seems that that Bernini, whose stuff I was so crazy about, is the extreme limit in the artistic world. He's baroque, and you might just as well do chromos as be baroque. How I first realized what breaks I was making was when I asked Mr. Waring if he didn't think St. Peter's was wonderful, and he said, “Oh, the place itself is very noble, but it's absolutely ruined by all that shameless bric-a-brac.”
Mother, I didn't dare tell him that I spent days and days studying everything in St. Peter's, and that I made a red-crayon cross in my Baedecker beside each thing as fast as I looked at it. But I am learning. I referred to Rome the-other day as Berniniville-on-the-Tiber, and Mr. Waring laughed and put it down in his note-book.
But it is rather perplexing, for I naturally adore a whole lot of things he tells me I mustn't. But on one thing we're agreed—that's Botticelli's Primavera. Oh, mother, she is so much like Mrs. Raikes—more when you see the real thing with the colors in it. I sent her a picture post-card the other day, telling her so. I can sit before that picture for ages, just lost in contemplation. I like the other Botticellis too, but not so much. It's the most curious thing, mother—his women all look like Swedes to me.
Oh, mother, and father, and Ern, how I want to see you—how I want to see you. But sometimes I have an awful sinking in my heart when I think of living in America again. I could get along without the artistic dirtiness of Naples, and the ruins of Rome. But I shall miss this art atmosphere awfully. Once you get that in your system, it seems as if you could not possibly stand the newness and rawness and crudeness of America. Mr. Waring says you can't, and I guess you can't. You will understand when you come here. If I could map my life out, I'd save up all my money until I had enough to buy a villa here, and then just lead the idle delicious kind of life Mr. Waring leads, seeing only the best pictures, listening only to the best music, buying exquisitely-bound little books of poems and essays by people the hoi polloi never heard of, and exercising the utmost care not to meet the wrong people. Mr. Waring says he doesn't create, he appreciates. He says that he does not believe in doing, but in living exquisitely. That's a perfectly lovely idea, I think, but I guess you'd have to have an independent income.
Mother, I'd work my fingers to the bone for you all to see this wonderful old world.
Your loving, Phoebe.
“How carried away the child is!” Mrs. Martin said.
“I'm afraid we're in for another line of interior decoration when Phoebe gets home,” Mr. Martin said.
“Wouldn't I like to hand that Waring a bunch of fives!” Ernest said.
To the Dearest Family Any Girl Ever Had:
I'm in Venice. I've written those words and looked at them hard. I guess it's true, because they don't vanish before my eyes. But I can't seem to make myself believe it. Venice, I'll write it again. VENICE! Mother, think of all the descriptions you ever read of it. Think of all the poetry you ever heard of it! Think of all the pictures you've ever seen of it! Multiply that by a million, and then some, and you'll begin to have a faint idea of the scrumptiousness of this place. I only want to live here for the entire rest of my life, and when the time comes tg go, I feel it in my bones that I'm going to refuse to budge. Perhaps I could get a job in one of the lace-places here. Which reminds that Mrs. Warburton has helped me to pick out some lace for you, mother, that will make you look too ducky for words. I'm just dying to see you in it.
Mr. Waring did not come with us. He had an engagement to go to Siena. He did his best, though, to get Mrs. Warburton to come up there. He said that he was beginning to find that Siena had a message for him even deeper and subtler than Florence. He said that there was a dawn of art up there preceding the Renaissance, that simply puts it all over Florence. But Mrs. Warburton decided that it sounded too exhausting. To tell the truth, I was glad that we hiked over to Venice. For since I've been here, I see that Mr. Waring had a very depressing influence in me. You know how horrid it is to have to keep admiring things that, in your secret heart, you feel are a perfect mess. Why, I was so awed that I got into the way of thinking before I spoke—the way I have to do when I speak French—and I'm sure that's no fun. I could understand most of the Florentine painters. But I simply would not stand for Giotto, and when it came to Cimabue—well, you wait till you see him—that's all I've got to say.
Somehow the moment I struck Venice, my spirits went up, up, up. I guess I wish I could paint a picture of San Marco the day we came into it—the great stone-paved square covered with hundreds of doves that looked just as if they'd been made by glass-blowers, St. Mark's at the end all covered with pinnacles and mosaics, the beautiful old palaces on each side, just sootty black with age, the Doge's Palace, like a wonderful wedding-cake, covered with frost lace, the band playing, the sun shining, and, beyond all this, the blue ocean and, above all this, the blue sky—mother, I just jumped up and down.
Of course, I've gone about a great deal to the churches and the galleries. And it's such a relief to feel that I can admire anything I want to. For, mother, I may not know anything about art, but I certainly know what I like. For instance, I simply loathe Carpaccio, but I just adore Paul Veronese. When I am not touristing, I'm floating about in a gondola. Oh, mother, they're such beautiful things—jet-black—and, like a swan or a violin, I don't know which they resemble most. You feel as if any kind of romantic adventure might happen to you in them.
Venice is so full of color, mother. I guess when I get home to Maywood that's the thing I shall miss most—color. Oh, if we could only have a line of weather-stained marble palaces on the river. What fun it would be canoeing through their beautiful reflections. Mother, you don't realize until you go abroad what a money-loving nation we are, and how little we consider the fact that the human soul just hungers for beauty. It makes me quite discouraged with my country when I think of it. If you were here, you would see in an instant exactly what I mean. Dearest, darlingest, beautifullest family, I love you,
Phoebe.
“Now I don't want that child to spend any more money on me,” Mrs. Martin said.
“I'm afraid she'll have to make up her mind to put up with the vulgar commercialism of the United States, though,” Mr. Martin said.
“You bet I wouldn't get so stuck on any dago-town that I wanted to live there. You can't tell me any country's as good as the United States,” Ernest said.
My Dearest Family:
We intended to take a leisurely trip through the Riviera to France. But one day Mrs. Warburton made up her mind that she wanted to see something lively—like theaters and opera—and suddenly we just packed up our things and rushed from Venice to Paris. You see, in the winter-time, Italy's awfully dull at-night. There is no good drama, and Mrs. Warburton says the opera's a scream. But Paris—well, take it from me, there's nothing slow about Paris. I have not had one quiet moment since we came here—it's a perfect whirl.
I guess Paris is the city of all Europe that most appeals to a woman. In the first place, it's so beautifully clean and orderly and—and, well, chic is the only word to describe it. It's just like the prettiest woman you can imagine, all dressed up, to go out and make calls. Dirt may be all right from the artistic point of view, and ruins, of course, are perfectly lovely in their place. I like an art-atmosphere as much as anybody, and certainly it is a great inspiration to see a city all full of lovely faded colors. But when all's said and done, it is great relief to see streets filled with beautiful fresh new, clean, unfaded, up-to-date shops.
As for the things in the windows, they are enough to drive you wild. Tell Ern I bought him a present here—I won't say what, but they're something he can wear with evening clothes. It's the beginning of the spring season, and the windows are full of hats. Mother Martin, in all your born days, you never saw such hats. Mrs. Warburton said that every girl ought to buy a hat when she's in Paris, and she told me to pick out any one that I wanted as a present from her. Isn't that sweet of her—oh, mother, she's been so kind! I guess I know as well as I know my name that I never can pay her back for all she's done for me. But I simply cannot make up my mind which hat I want. Every new place the hats are lovelier than the last, and they are all so becoming to me. I guess I'll wait until the very last day—then I'll have to make up my mind.
I've only been here a few days, but it is quite long enough for me to see that I am more fitted by temperament to the French mode of life than to the Italian. I wish, for instance, I could stay in Paris for a while and study art. I think it would be such fun to have a studio all my own, and an overpowering ambition. I guess that's the trouble with me—when I come to think of it—I have no ambition. It would be so romantic to nearly starve and to have to pawn things to buy paints, which is what pretty nearly everybody does, I guess. Some of these girls and fellows look as if they hadn't eaten anything for a year.
I've been to one Salon here—not the regular Salon—but the Salon of the young crowd of art-revolutionists—les indépendants, they call themselves. And, mother, if you will believe me, I never saw anything so horrible in my life—well, Mrs. Warburton actually forbade me to go into some rooms. People say that they have broken away from the old art traditions, and are trying to do for line what the impressionists did for color. Well, all I've got to say is that I hope they won't succeed.
It was a great relief to go to the Louvre the next day. I love the pictures there—I guess I like Greuze better than anybody—lI like pictures of pretty women and children. Then you can't imagine, mother, what fun it is to see the pictures you've seen photographs of in the Boston art-stores all your me. The first day I went there I just ran through the rooms, recognizing things here and there.
I've been to Versailles, and maybe that isn't a duck of a place, and Fontainebleau and St. Denis and the Eiffel Tower, and the Madeleine. But I love Notre Dame more than anything. You tell Ern Martin that he's got to go to the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame first with me. I guess he'll open his eyes when he looks down on the city. And as for those gargoyles—won't they make him sit up! I'm reading Hugo as fast as I can tear through him. I'm going to the opera now, but I'll add something when I get back.
Your loving, Phoebe.
“I'd admire to see Paris,” Mrs. Martin said.
“Phoebe seems to be getting over her passion for dirt,” Mr. Martin said.
“I bet they're cuff-links or shirt-studs,” Ernest said.
Dearest Family:
I have been in London only a week, and it seems to me I fell in love with it quicker than any other city. It's just as Professor Rollins says, when you hear people speaking the English language in the streets, you nearly go wild with delight. At first I kept turning right round to look at them. And London is so much like Boston that I've felt at home as I haven't anywhere else.
I've been to the Abbey and the Tower and the British Museum and the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and, oh, a lot of places. I think I like the Abbey best of all. I slip down there afternoons a lot and just sit and think of all I've studied in English literature, Washington Irving particularly. Oh, to think what has happened in that vast pile!
What I love most about England is the mold of antiquity that hangs over everything. Oh, I don't know how I'm going to stand the newness of America after this. If the United States could only fall asleep for three hundred years, and then wake up all in ruins, faded and dirty and full of color and especially the mold of antiquity over everything. Mrs. Warburton's plans are for three months in England, Scotland, and Wales. And sometimes when I think of living here so long, I'm afraid I never will be content to live anywhere else. You see, in addition to everything Europe has to offer you, you have your own language. It doesn't seem to me that I—
Oh, mother! Oh, father! Oh, Ern!
What do you think has happened? Mrs. Warburton has just come in to tell me that she's had a cablegram from Mr. Warburton, and his trip in the West has been suddenly shortened and he wants her to come home at once. And we're going! We're going! Do you hear that—WE'RE GOING HOME. In two days. We've got to take a steamer that goes to New York, and so I can't see you the instant we land in America, but Mrs. Warburton says we'll beat it to a limited train, as soon as possible.
Oh, I could jump up and down. I could scream and sing with delight. Just think. I'm going back to the best and beautifullest mother and the best and handsomest father and the best and nicest brother that ever was. And I'm going back to the grandest country on the face of the globe. Mother, you have to travel in foreign lands to realize what a splendid place the United States is. There is no country in the world like it—take that from me.
Mother, I don't know what's the matter with me for, though I'm as happy as I can be and live, the tears are just pouring down my cheeks. I've cried because I was sad before or because I was mad but never because I was glad. Oh dear, dear, dear family, I don't want ever to leave you again.
Phoebe.
“Father,” Mrs. Martin said two nights after the receipt of this letter, you remember you told Phoebe that you would go into Boston to meet her, no matter what time she arrived.”
“I remember,” Mr. Martin said. “We'll all three go on to New York Wednesday so as to be there when the boat gets in.”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1970, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 53 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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