Read Online The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt by Eleanor Roosevelt - Free Book Online
Authors: Eleanor Roosevelt
Ads: Link
We watched the people on their knees climbing up the “Scala Santa,” and, silly little Anglo-Saxon that I was, I felt self-conscious for them!
One day we journeyed to Tivoli, with its beautiful gardens and the little loophole in the hedge through which you get a view of the city of Rome in the distance.
St. Peter’s was a terrible disappointment to me, for I had remembered as a little girl kissing the toe of an enormous and heroic statue. In fact, my nurse had held me up so I might accomplish this act of reverence; but when I went back to look at the statue it was so small that I would have had to bend over considerably to kiss the toe.
When Easter came around, Mlle. Souvestre again asked me to travel with her. This time we crossed the Channel and went to stay not far from Calais with her friends, the Ribots, who lived in a house entered by a door set in a wall. You pulled a long, iron bell handle and a cheerful little tinkle ran through the house. In a few minutes you were let into a spacious and comfortable garden surrounded by a wall high above your head, making it possible to have complete privacy, which is one of the things French people strive for even in their city homes.
I do not remember the name of this small town, but I do remember sallying forth alone to look at the churches and to see what could be seen. I felt somewhat awed by our two dignified and very kindly hosts. Later I was to discover in a premier of France my host of this visit.
From there we went to Belgium and visited some other friends of Mlle. Souvestre’s, taking a long trip in their coach. Then we went up the Rhine to Frankfort.
The summer was now approaching, and I knew that I must go home for good. Mlle. Souvestre had become one of the people whom I cared most for in the world, and the thought of the long separation seemed hard to bear. I would have given a good deal to have spent another year on my education, but to my grandmother the age of eighteen was the time when you “came out,” and not to “come out” was unthinkable.
When I left I felt quite sure that I would return before long, but I realize now that Mlle. Souvestre, knowing her infirmities, had little hope of seeing me again. She wrote me lovely letters, which I still cherish. They show the kind of relationship that had grown up between us and give an idea of the fine person who exerted the greatest influence, after my father, on this period of my life.
I returned to Tivoli, my grandmother’s country place, and spent the whole summer there. This was not a happy summer, for while I had been away my uncle Vallie, who had been so kind to me when I was a child, had been slipping rapidly into the habits of the habitual drinker. My grandmother would never believe that he was not going to give it up as he promised after each spree, but the younger members of the family realized that the situation was serious. He made life for them distinctly difficult.
Pussie was away a great deal. Maude was married to Larry Waterbury, Eddie to Josie Zabriskie and was proving himself just as weak as his brother, Vallie. This was my first real contact with anyone who had completely lost the power of self-control, and it began to develop in me an almost exaggerated idea of the necessity for keeping all one’s desires under complete subjugation.
I had been a solemn little girl, my years in England had given me my first taste of being carefree and irresponsible, but my return home to the United States accentuated almost immediately the serious side of life, and that first summer was not good preparation for being a gay and joyous debutante.
My grandmother had cut herself off almost entirely from contact with her neighbors, and while Vallie, when he met anyone, would behave with braggadocio, we really lived an isolated life. No one who was not so intimate that he knew the entire situation was ever invited to come for a meal or to stay with us.
That autumn my little brother went off to
One day we journeyed to Tivoli, with its beautiful gardens and the little loophole in the hedge through which you get a view of the city of Rome in the distance.
St. Peter’s was a terrible disappointment to me, for I had remembered as a little girl kissing the toe of an enormous and heroic statue. In fact, my nurse had held me up so I might accomplish this act of reverence; but when I went back to look at the statue it was so small that I would have had to bend over considerably to kiss the toe.
When Easter came around, Mlle. Souvestre again asked me to travel with her. This time we crossed the Channel and went to stay not far from Calais with her friends, the Ribots, who lived in a house entered by a door set in a wall. You pulled a long, iron bell handle and a cheerful little tinkle ran through the house. In a few minutes you were let into a spacious and comfortable garden surrounded by a wall high above your head, making it possible to have complete privacy, which is one of the things French people strive for even in their city homes.
I do not remember the name of this small town, but I do remember sallying forth alone to look at the churches and to see what could be seen. I felt somewhat awed by our two dignified and very kindly hosts. Later I was to discover in a premier of France my host of this visit.
From there we went to Belgium and visited some other friends of Mlle. Souvestre’s, taking a long trip in their coach. Then we went up the Rhine to Frankfort.
The summer was now approaching, and I knew that I must go home for good. Mlle. Souvestre had become one of the people whom I cared most for in the world, and the thought of the long separation seemed hard to bear. I would have given a good deal to have spent another year on my education, but to my grandmother the age of eighteen was the time when you “came out,” and not to “come out” was unthinkable.
When I left I felt quite sure that I would return before long, but I realize now that Mlle. Souvestre, knowing her infirmities, had little hope of seeing me again. She wrote me lovely letters, which I still cherish. They show the kind of relationship that had grown up between us and give an idea of the fine person who exerted the greatest influence, after my father, on this period of my life.
I returned to Tivoli, my grandmother’s country place, and spent the whole summer there. This was not a happy summer, for while I had been away my uncle Vallie, who had been so kind to me when I was a child, had been slipping rapidly into the habits of the habitual drinker. My grandmother would never believe that he was not going to give it up as he promised after each spree, but the younger members of the family realized that the situation was serious. He made life for them distinctly difficult.
Pussie was away a great deal. Maude was married to Larry Waterbury, Eddie to Josie Zabriskie and was proving himself just as weak as his brother, Vallie. This was my first real contact with anyone who had completely lost the power of self-control, and it began to develop in me an almost exaggerated idea of the necessity for keeping all one’s desires under complete subjugation.
I had been a solemn little girl, my years in England had given me my first taste of being carefree and irresponsible, but my return home to the United States accentuated almost immediately the serious side of life, and that first summer was not good preparation for being a gay and joyous debutante.
My grandmother had cut herself off almost entirely from contact with her neighbors, and while Vallie, when he met anyone, would behave with braggadocio, we really lived an isolated life. No one who was not so intimate that he knew the entire situation was ever invited to come for a meal or to stay with us.
That autumn my little brother went off to
Similar Books
