: London Days: A Book of Reminiscences by Warren Arthur - London (England) Social life and customs; London (England) Intellectual life

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of English girls who were passing the summer with her. In the evening, when all assembled in the drawing-room before going in to dinner, I found that we represented five nationalities,--Italian, Spanish, French, English, and American. While we awaited the appearance of our hostess, the gathering seemed like a polyglot congress.

It was my privilege at the Castle table to sit at Madame Patti's left. At her right was one whose friendship with her dated from the instant of her first European triumph. Heavens!--How many years ago? But it was a quarter of a century less than it now is at the time of which I am writing. The delight of those luncheons and dinners at Craig-y-Nos is unforgettable. There was a notion abroad that these meals were held "in state"; but they were not. There was merely the ordinary dinner custom of an English mansion. The menu, though, was stately enough, for the art of cookery was practised at Craig-y-Nos by a master who had earned the right to prepare dinners for Patti. The dining room was seldom used in summer for, handsome though that apartment is, Patti, and her guests, too, for that matter, preferred to be served in the great glass room which was formerly the conservatory and was still called so. There we sat, as far as outlook goes, out of doors; in whatever direction we gazed we looked up or down the Swansea Valley, across to the mountains, and along the tumbling course of the river Tawe. I was risking some neglect of my dinner, for I sat gazing at the wood-covered cliffs of Craig-y-Nos opposite, and listening to the ceaseless prattle of the mountain stream. Patti, noticing my admiration of the view, said, "You see what a dreadful place it is in which I bury myself."

"'Bury' yourself! On the contrary, here you are at the summit of Paradise, and you have discovered the fountain of perpetual youth. A 'dreadful place', indeed! It's the nearest thing to fairy-land."

"But one of your countrymen says that I 'hide far from the world among the ugly Welsh hills.' He writes it in an American journal of fabulous circulation, and I suppose people believe the tale."

Patti laughed at the thought of a too credulous public, and then she added:

"Really, they write the oddest things about my home, as if it were either the scene of Jack-the-Giant-Killer's exploits on the top of the Beanstalk, or a prison in a desolate land."

After visiting Patti at Craig-y-Nos I wondered no more why this enchanting woman sang "Home, Sweet Home" so that she fascinated millions. Her own home was far from being "humble", but it was before all things, a home. And she had earned it. There is not anywhere a lovelier spot, nor was there elsewhere a place so remote and at the same time so complete in every resource of civilization.

"I wonder if you have what people call a native tongue, or whether all of them came to you as a gift of the gods."

"Oh, I don't know so many languages," she replied, "only--let's see--English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian."

"And which do you speak best, or like best?"

"I really don't know. To me there is no difference, as far as readiness goes, and I suppose 'the readiness is all.'"

"Not quite all. But what is your favourite, if you have a favourite among them?"

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