But within one discovers simply naught but the very latest, the very
dearest, the very best of everything that is luxurious. I was ushered
into a most princely apartment, grandiose in dimensions, superbly
furnished and decorated, lighted with rich discretion, heated to a turn.
Portraits by John Sargent hung on the vast walls, and a score of other
manifestations of art rivaled these in the attention of the stranger. No
club in London could match this chamber. It was, I believe, a sort of
lounge for the students. Anyhow, a few students were lounging in it;
only a few--there was no rush for the privilege. And the few loungers
were really lounging, in the wonderful sinuous postures of youth. They
might have been lounging in a railway station or a barn instead of amid
portraits by John Sargent.

The squash-racket court was an example of another kind of luxury, very
different from the cunning combinations of pictured walls, books, carved
wood, and deep-piled carpets, but not less authentic. The dining-hall
seating a thousand simultaneously was another. Here I witnessed the
laying of dinner-tables by negroes. I noted that the sudden sight of me
instantly convinced one negro, engaged in the manipulation of pats of
butter, that a fork would be more in keeping with the Harvard tradition
than his fingers, and I was humanly glad thus to learn that the secret
reality of table-laying is the same in two continents. I saw not the
dining of the thousand. In fact, I doubt whether in all I saw one
hundred of the six thousand students. They had mysteriously vanished
from all the resorts of perfect luxury provided for them. Possibly they
were withdrawn into the privacies of the thousands of suites--each
containing bedroom, sitting-room, bath-room, and telephone--which I
understood are allotted to them for lairs. I left Harvard with a very
clear impression of its frank welcoming hospitality and of its
extraordinary luxury.