March 16th:
A gentleman friend and I were
dining at the Ritz last evening and he said that if I took a pencil
and a paper and put down all of my thoughts it would make a book.
This almost made me smile as what it would really make would be a
whole row of encyclopediacs. I mean I seem to be thinking
practically all of the time. I mean it is my favorite recreation
and sometimes I sit for hours and do not seem to do anything else
but think. So this gentleman said a girl with brains ought to do
something else with them besides think. And he said he ought to
know brains when he sees them, because he is in the senate and he
spends quite a great deal of time in Washington, d. c., and when he
comes into contract with brains he always notices it. So it might
have all blown over but this morning he sent me a book. And so when
my maid brought it to me, I said to her, “Well, Lulu, here is
another book and we have not read half the ones we have got yet.”
But when I opened it and saw that it was all a blank I remembered
what my gentleman acquaintance said, and so then I realized that it
was a diary. So here I am writing a book instead of reading
one.
But now it is the 16th of March
and of course it is to late to begin with January, but it does not
matter as my gentleman friend, Mr. Eisman, was in town practically
all of January and February, and when he is in town one day seems
to be practically the same as the next day.
I mean Mr. Eisman is in the
wholesale button profession in Chicago and he is the gentleman who
is known practically all over Chicago as Gus Eisman the Button
King. And he is the gentleman who is interested in educating me, so
of course he is always coming down to New York to see how my brains
have improved since the last time. But when Mr. Eisman is in New
York we always seem to do the same thing and if I wrote down one
day in my diary, all I would have to do would be to put quotation
marks for all other days. I mean we always seem to have dinner at
the Colony and see a show and go to the Trocadero and then Mr.
Eisman shows me to my apartment. So of course when a gentleman is
interested in educating a girl, he likes to stay and talk about the
topics of the day until quite late, so I am quite fatigued the next
day and I do not really get up until it is time to dress for dinner
at the Colony.
It would be strange if I turn out
to be an authoress. I mean at my home near Little Rock, Arkansas,
my family all wanted me to do something about my music. Because all
of my friends said I had talent and they all kept after me and kept
after me about practising. But some way I never seemed to care so
much about practising. I mean I simply could not sit for hours and
hours at a time practising just for the sake of a career. So one
day I got quite tempermental and threw the old mandolin clear
across the room and I have really never touched it since. But
writing is different because you do not have to learn or practise
and it is more tempermental because practising seems to take all
the temperment out of me. So now I really almost have to smile
because I have just noticed that I have written clear across two
pages onto March 18th, so this will do for today and tomorrow. And
it just shows how tempermental I am when I get started.
March 19th:
Well last evening Dorothy called
up and Dorothy said she has met a gentleman who gave himself an
introduction to her in the lobby of the Ritz. So then they went to
luncheon and tea and dinner and then they went to a show and then
they went to the Trocadero. So Dorothy said his name was Lord
Cooksleigh but what she really calls him is Coocoo. So Dorothy said
why don’t you and I and Coocoo go to the Follies tonight and bring
Gus along if he is in town? So then Dorothy and I had quite a
little quarrel because every time that Dorothy mentions the subject
of Mr. Eisman she calls Mr. Eisman by his first name, and she does
not seem to realize that when a gentleman who is as important as
Mr. Eisman, spends quite a lot of money educating a girl, it really
does not show reverance to call a gentleman by his first name. I
mean I never even think of calling Mr. Eisman by his first name,
but if I want to call him anything at all, I call him “Daddy” and I
do not even call him “Daddy” if a place seems to be public. So I
told Dorothy that Mr. Eisman would not be in town until day after
tomorrow. So then Dorothy and Coocoo came up and we went to the
Follies.
So this morning Coocoo called up
and he wanted me to luncheon at the Ritz. I mean these foreigners
really have quite a nerve. Just because Coocoo is an Englishman and
a Lord he thinks a girl can waste hours on him just for a luncheon
at the Ritz, when all he does is talk about some exposition he went
on to a place called Tibet and after talking for hours I found out
that all they were was a lot of Chinamen. So I will be quite glad
to see Mr. Eisman when he gets in. Because he always has something
quite interesting to talk about, as for instants the last time he
was here he presented me with quite a beautiful emerald bracelet.
So next week is my birthday and he always has some delightful
surprise on holidays.
I did intend to luncheon at the
Ritz with Dorothy today and of course Coocoo had to spoil it, as I
told him that I could not luncheon with him today, because my
brother was in town on business and had the mumps, so I really
could not leave him alone. Because of course if I went to the Ritz
now I would bump into Coocoo. But I sometimes almost have to smile
at my own imagination, because of course I have not got any brother
and I have not even thought of the mumps for years. I mean it is no
wonder that I can write.
So the reason I thought I would
take luncheon at the Ritz was because Mr. Chaplin is at the Ritz
and I always like to renew old acquaintances, because I met Mr.
Chaplin once when we were both working on the same lot in Hollywood
and I am sure he would remember me. Gentlemen always seem to
remember blondes. I mean the only career I would like to be besides
an authoress is a cinema star and I was doing quite well in the
cinema when Mr. Eisman made me give it all up. Because of course
when a gentleman takes such a friendly interest in educating a girl
as Mr. Eisman does, you like to show that you appreciate it, and he
is against a girl being in the cinema because his mother is
authrodox.
March 20th:
Mr. Eisman gets in tomorrow to be
here in time for my birthday. So I thought it would really be
delightful to have at least one good time before Mr. Eisman got in,
so last evening I had some literary gentlemen in to spend the
evening because Mr. Eisman always likes me to have literary people
in and out of the apartment. I mean he is quite anxious for a girl
to improve her mind and his greatest interest in me is because I
always seem to want to improve my mind and not waste any time. And
Mr. Eisman likes me to have what the French people call a “salo”
which means that people all get together in the evening and improve
their minds. So I invited all of the brainy gentlemen I could think
up. So I thought up a gentleman who is the proffessor of all of the
economics up at Columbia College, and the editor who is the famous
editor of the New York Transcript and another gentleman who is a
famous playright who writes very, very famous plays that are all
about Life. I mean anybody would recognize his name but it always
seems to slip my memory because all of we real friends of his only
call him Sam. So Sam asked if he could bring a gentleman who writes
novels from England, so I said yes, so he brought him. And then we
all got together and I called up Gloria and Dorothy and the
gentleman brought their own liquor. So of course the place was a
wreck this morning and Lulu and I worked like proverbial dogs to
get it cleaned up, but Heaven knows how long it will take to get
the chandelier fixed.
March 22nd:
Well my birthday has come and
gone but it was really quite depressing. I mean it seems to me a
gentleman who has a friendly interest in educating a girl like Gus
Eisman, would want her to have the biggest square cut diamond in
New York. I mean I must say I was quite disappointed when he came
to the apartment with a little thing you could hardly see. So I
told him I thought it was quite cute, but I had quite a headache
and I had better stay in a dark room all day and I told him I would
see him the next day, perhaps. Because even Lulu thought it was
quite small and she said, if she was I, she really would do
something definite and she said she always believed in the old
addage, “Leave them while you’re looking good.” But he came in at
dinner time with really a very very beautiful bracelet of square
cut diamonds so I was quite cheered up. So then we had dinner at
the Colony and we went to a show and supper at the Trocadero as
usual whenever he is in town. But I will give him credit that he
realized how small it was. I mean he kept talking about how bad
business was and the button profession was full of bolshevicks who
make nothing but trouble. Because Mr. Eisman feels that the country
is really on the verge of the bolshevicks and I become quite
worried. I mean if the bolshevicks do get in, there is only one
gentleman who could handle them and that is Mr. D. W. Griffith.
Because I will never forget when Mr. Griffith was directing
Intolerance. I mean it was my last cinema just before Mr. Eisman
made me give up my career and I was playing one of the girls that
fainted at the battle when all of the gentlemen fell off the tower.
And when I saw how Mr. Griffith handled all of those mobs in
Intolerance I realized that he could do anything, and I really
think that the government of America ought to tell Mr. Griffith to
get all ready if the bolshevicks start to do it.
Well I forgot to mention that the
English gentleman who writes novels seems to have taken quite an
interest in me, as soon as he found out that I was literary. I mean
he has called up every day and I went to tea twice with him. So he
has sent me a whole complete set of books for my birthday by a
gentleman called Mr. Conrad. They all seem to be about ocean travel
although I have not had time to more than glance through them. I
have always liked novels about ocean travel ever since I posed for
Mr. Christie for the front cover of a novel about ocean travel by
McGrath because I always say that a girl never really looks as well
as she does on board a steamship, or even a yacht.
So the English gentleman’s name
is Mr. Gerald Lamson as those who have read his novels would know.
And he also sent me some of his own novels and they all seem to be
about middle age English gentlemen who live in the country over in
London and seem to ride bicycles, which seems quite different from
America, except at Palm Beach. So I told Mr. Lamson how I write
down all of my thoughts and he said he knew I had something to me
from the first minute he saw me and when we become better
acquainted I am going to let him read my diary. I mean I even told
Mr. Eisman about him and he is quite pleased. Because of course Mr.
Lamson is quite famous and it seems Mr. Eisman has read all of his
novels going to and fro on the trains and Mr. Eisman is always
anxious to meet famous people and take them to the Ritz to dinner
on Saturday night. But of course I did not tell Mr. Eisman that I
am really getting quite a little crush on Mr. Lamson, which I
really believe I am, but Mr. Eisman thinks my interest in him is
more literary.