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Excerpt from book:
II. The American Foundation. Mrs. Alicia Talcote was "completely gone " over Venice—as she at once confessed to her friends. It was not that she had not suffered—in common with other distinguished travelers—some disappointment, bitter disappointment she felt it to be ; but on the whole she professed herself to be even " more than satisfied." As a fair beginning of an exceedingly interesting subject, it is only necessary to state that Mrs. Talcote was a woman who was possessed of a large amount of what is termedcapability—by the somewhat nervous society of the noisy midland city in which she lived. That this opinion was not merely the verdict obtained by a remarkably expansive popularity could be shown in many ways. The decoration and arrangement of the interior of her perfectly new house were indisputable evidence of the truth of it. .Here everything meant something, was readily explainable—at least by Mrs. Talcote herself. Things were not so greatly modified by conventionalities as to be no longer recognizable, or as she was accustomed to felicitously observe, " Nothing had been sacrificed to mere vulgar Utility or enshrined in Formalism." As an adjunct to her perfect freedom in matters of taste, there was, fortunately, great wealth,—so that she felt herself to be practically limitless. She was a tireless worker. She made it an unbroken rule to examine every English-written novelas soon as it was printed, and all the great publishers had standing orders to keep her supplied. " In this manner," she once remarked, " I now and then discover a genius." Although she had no technical knowledge of music, she had an exceedingly definite idea of what music should be, and she had long been an indefatigable collector of standard editions. Her home was a sort of Mecca for musi...