Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust i?i Hollywood One should face the inevitable. In a land of optimism you cannot associate with people who break your heart ; in a land where all social positions are fluid one must be prepared to reject those who fall behind in the money race, and to accept rejection philosophically from those who leave us behind. In a land where conversation is almost wholly limited to business, psycho-analysis, birth-control, and bootleg the only easy basis of association is that of equal incomes and parallel interests ; therefore a certain cold-bloodedness in acquaintanceship must be cultivated almost in self-defence. The English-speaking Union, which wrote asking us to give the society a free lecture, on receiving the reply that I was seriously ill, could not be bothered to send back even conventional regrets. To me, lying there bedridden for a month and subsequently in the garden in a deck-chair, chasing the shadow round the foot of a cypress-tree, the life of Los Angeles came gradually and in a peculiar way. My bedroom window, with the happy impertinence of American gregariousness, stared straight into the front windows of the landlord's own bungalow ten feet away ; only my blinds interposed a thin copper-wire mist between us. When the occasional winds were direct enough to pierce the mist they brought with them a peculiar aroma from the other dwelling — a mixture of face creams, scent, house soap, and furniture polish. For it seemed to us that our handsome landlady's life was spent in the pursuit of cleanliness. She had a fierce and scolding pernicketiness that had worn out the patience of every char within hiring range. She thus had reduced herself to the position of family drudge. First she had to clean her house, then she had to clean her house from herself, and then, with face creams and vanishing creams and home massage, manicure, and chiropody,