Hotel Touraine, Boston
(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.)


October 1st (1910)


As for Boston, the New England puritanism which seems to have been prevalent in those times did not appreciate John Cowper's antics and free spirit and he admits to having 'seemed fated to get into violent rows':
    In Boston I came up against sheer hostility, hostility as bitter as my own diatribes. This atmospheric and I might almost say astrological clash between myself and the Bostonians was modified by the fact that I so greatly enjoyed staying at the Tourraine (sic) Hotel, the only hotel I have ever known that possessed a comfortable library. (Autobiography)
    I found a rather Henry-James-like place to take tea in overlooking the central Boston Park - white and red geraniums upon a dark-grained table were not without significance against a background of waving chestnut trees with a sea-wind in them. I spent some hours full of thought of a singular sweetness and bitterness in the Boston grave-yard, looking at the modest monuments to Revolutionary Patriots, or as we might be tempted to whisper Bloody Rebels. They certainly sleep under no very proud marble - but they sleep; they sleep and care not; though all America goes to the dogs.
(Letters to His Brother Llewelyn)