DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68288#0229
THE WORLD’S FAIR 181
All the artists were there, most of them with their wives.
It was quite an exciting life for any one who cared about
art — the men working all day at their jobs, painting,
sculping, decorating, all working against time — World’s
Fairs are always rushed through — working all day, talk-
ing art in the evening, filled with enthusiasm; as Richard
Le Gallienne said, ‘One can never be truly unhappy if one
has discovered what art is early in life.’
We went back the next summer to look at it, the Grand
Court opening out through columns into the lake, the
white buildings forming a quadrangle about the lagoon,
with the ‘Republic’ at one end and MacMonnies’s ‘Foun-
tain’ at the other. It was very beautiful, but I am afraid
it seemed to us rather cold. The men loved to build it, but
they spent most of their time in the Midway, and the mass
of the people had not yet discovered, as had the foreigners,
how to sit around in an enchanted spot, to sip a glass of
wine, and enjoy one’s soul and the beauty of the scene.
i
Two of those summers, the one before the World’s Fair,
and the one after, we spent in Cornish, New Hampshire,
which we loved, but which was too far from New York for
us to adopt as our home.
Cornish was, in my day, and of course still is, a com-
munity rather than a village, a scattering group of houses
among the New Hampshire hills. There was not even
what we might call a settlement; occasionally two or three
houses near together, but most of them like small country
estates, wide apart. For the mail and for whatever small
business affairs there were, we drove down long hills, and
along flat river-banks, and through an old ramshackle
covered bridge, into the town of Windsor.
All the artists were there, most of them with their wives.
It was quite an exciting life for any one who cared about
art — the men working all day at their jobs, painting,
sculping, decorating, all working against time — World’s
Fairs are always rushed through — working all day, talk-
ing art in the evening, filled with enthusiasm; as Richard
Le Gallienne said, ‘One can never be truly unhappy if one
has discovered what art is early in life.’
We went back the next summer to look at it, the Grand
Court opening out through columns into the lake, the
white buildings forming a quadrangle about the lagoon,
with the ‘Republic’ at one end and MacMonnies’s ‘Foun-
tain’ at the other. It was very beautiful, but I am afraid
it seemed to us rather cold. The men loved to build it, but
they spent most of their time in the Midway, and the mass
of the people had not yet discovered, as had the foreigners,
how to sit around in an enchanted spot, to sip a glass of
wine, and enjoy one’s soul and the beauty of the scene.
i
Two of those summers, the one before the World’s Fair,
and the one after, we spent in Cornish, New Hampshire,
which we loved, but which was too far from New York for
us to adopt as our home.
Cornish was, in my day, and of course still is, a com-
munity rather than a village, a scattering group of houses
among the New Hampshire hills. There was not even
what we might call a settlement; occasionally two or three
houses near together, but most of them like small country
estates, wide apart. For the mail and for whatever small
business affairs there were, we drove down long hills, and
along flat river-banks, and through an old ramshackle
covered bridge, into the town of Windsor.