Back here again last night—after a fine time of it at Mrs. Nordhoff's,1 where everyone was so kind & the fun so continued all day long, that I did not find time to write you even a line.
There were some jolly young fellows there, & some splendid girls, but among the last I think Alys Smith2 may be said to have "taken the cake." Dressed as Portia, when a Shakespeare masquerade (in which everyone took some part from the plays) was being enacted, it would have delighted your eyes to see her dance,—"A wild Bacchante passionate of foot!"—The house itself stands on the Palisades of the Hudson, about 500 feet or so above the river on a steep cliff, commanding a superb view right over to the sea & far away up & down the Hudson. The place would loc.03319.002_large.jpg have thoroughly suited you for a camping spot.
Passing through New York yesterday, in a bright, splendid sunlight, the rush of life in Broadway made me wish you could have been with me there.
After the stupid, half-&-half pretence of Philadelphia, the reckless, go-ahead life in New York is very refreshing. Tell this not to the Philadelphians!
No letters arrived at Alpine Bergen for me,—so I suppose none have reached you! If there are any waiting now, will you mail them on here. I expect to go to Boston on Friday or Saturday—after which my address will be to the care of Kennedy3 at Belmont.
I hope you are feeling well these bright days. I am trying to persuade myself that from this New Year forward everything is to be first-rate with me & with all my friends—in the higher, eternal sense, if not always & altogether in the other!
With much love, Ernest RhysBest rememberances to Mrs. Davies !4
Correspondent:
Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).