Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/119

 seems to belong to the wealthy and fashionable class of the city, I dined with the N.'s, whom you may remember were with us at Årsta, and who had now kindly invited me to their house. They wished also to take me to the opera this evening, but Miss Lynch was going to have a large party, where I was to be introduced to people, and people were to be introduced to me, and I drove therefore to the house to act the parrot in a great crowd of people till towards midnight. These introductions are very wearisome; because I must for a hundred times reply to the same questions, and these for the most part of an unmeaning and trivial character, just as people would put to a parrot, whose answers are known beforehand—for example: Had you a good passage from England? How do you like New York? How do you like America? How long have you been here? How long do you think of remaining? Where are you going to from here? and such like.

It is true that numbers of really kind and good-hearted people come to see me, and I am not mistaken in the feeling which brings many others; but there are too many. It is an actual whirl of presentations and scraps of conversation which serves no other purpose than to make the soul empty and the body weary. A good earnest conversation with an earnest person would be a refreshment. But scarcely could I have begun such a one before I must turn round my head again to reply to the question, “Had you a good passage?” or “What do you think of New York?” or “How do you like America?”

Such fêtes as these are one's ruin! And in the meantime I am taken up with visits, letters, and notes, invitations, autographs, so that I have no time for myself. I had this morning a charming visit from a little lady doctor, that is to say, a lady who practises the healing art, a Miss H. H., “female physician,” as she calls herself, from Boston, who invited me to her house there,