Mr. Villard asked me to lunch down town with the staff of THE NATION. We were nine people and conversation was general. I heard a good deal of American politics which it interests me to absorb and not have to take part in. They also discussed the English Labor Party, and the strike that is going on at this moment. England is threatened with a “Triple Alliance” strike, (miners, railwaymen and transport workers). It has never happened yet though it has been attempted. We all agreed in believing it will not be accomplished this time either. Some day, perhaps--yes, and then look out! But the time has not come. Meanwhile, as Mr. Villard prophesied, if the worst comes to the worst, Lloyd George will call a general election and will be re-elected with flying colors. I heard a certain amount about the treatment by the United States of the native Indians on the settlements. Apparently there is not a country anywhere that has not its skeletons in its cupboards. In the afternoon I went for the last time to Knoedlers. The exhibition closes tomorrow. Mr. Purcell Jones, who has an exhibition of decorative water-colors upstairs, was very amusing, relating to me some of the remarks of people who came in yesterday when I was away. Apparently two or three women came on after a lecture about Russia. One of them, looking at Lenin, announced in a loud voice, “It’s not the murdering that I resent, but it’s the destruction of the finest collection of butterflies in the world.” Another, looking at the bust of Krassin (whose pure Siberian features, so full, as I think, of dignity and character) said that he reminded her of a Chinese Jew--it was the first time I had heard of there being any in existence--as one lives one learns. Concerning the marble baby on a very low pedestal in the middle of the room, he said, “All the women who come here just stand over it and shower it with hairpins.” I laughed, and to prove his assertion he went and looked on the carpet at the base of the pedestal. Sure, he picked up several straight away! THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1921. Lunched with Emil Fuchs, and walked home by Fifth Avenue. In front of the Public Library a meeting was going on. A woman was speaking, and it seemed to be an appeal for funds for “suffering Ireland.” I mingled with the crowd in hopes of hearing something startling. But I only heard a jumbled mix-up about Women’s Suffrage, and then Belgium, and about the Queen of Belgium being a full-blooded German, “but that didn’t stop you going to help Belgium,” the speaker said. I couldn’t wait long enough to see the connection with Ireland. As I walked away I revolved in my mind the letter I had from papa this morning in which he told me that Stenning, our Scotch game-keeper, who had lived on our Irish estate ever since I was a small child, has just been murdered in his house.