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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15063-8.txt b/15063-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..573a533 --- /dev/null +++ b/15063-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5028 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Your United States, by Arnold Bennett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Your United States + Impressions of a first visit + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: February 15, 2005 [EBook #15063] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR UNITED STATES *** + + + + +Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +[Illustration: THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT] + + + + + +YOUR UNITED STATES + +IMPRESSIONS OF A FIRST VISIT + + + +BY +ARNOLD BENNETT + + +ILLUSTRATED BY +FRANK CRAIG + + + + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK AND LONDON +MCMXII + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + +PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1912 + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. PAGE + + I. THE FIRST NIGHT 3 + II. STREETS 27 + III. THE CAPITOL AND OTHER SITES 49 + IV. SOME ORGANIZATIONS 73 + V. TRANSIT AND HOTELS 99 + VI. SPORT AND THE THEATER 123 + VII. EDUCATION AND ART 147 +VIII. CITIZENS 171 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT _Frontispiece_ +DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK _Facing p._ 10 +THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWED SKY-SCRAPERS 16 +BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT 20 +A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET 34 +A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER 36 +THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT 38 +A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO 42 +A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE--CHICAGO 44 +THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL 50 +ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE 52 +ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO--THE CAPITOL 54 +UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL 56 +THE PROMENADE--CITY POINT, BOSTON 60 +THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB--OVERLOOKING THE HARBOR 64 +AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE 74 +LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB 86 +A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG 90 +ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY 94 +IN THE PARLOR-CAR 100 +BREAKFAST EN ROUTE 108 +IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING STREAM 112 +THE STRAP-HANGERS 114 +THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED 116 +THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS SPLENDOR 118 +THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION 124 +THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR 130 +THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD 134 +UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 156 +MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS--UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 164 +PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN 172 +THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE 186 + + + + +YOUR UNITED STATES + + + + +I + +THE FIRST NIGHT + + +I sat with a melting ice on my plate, and my gaze on a very distant +swinging door, through which came and went every figure except the +familiar figure I desired. The figure of a woman came. She wore a +pale-blue dress and a white apron and cap, and carried a dish in +uplifted hands, with the gesture of an acolyte. On the bib of the apron +were two red marks, and as she approached, tripping, scornful, +unheeding, along the interminable carpeted aisle, between serried tables +of correct diners, the vague blur of her face gradually developed into +features, and the two red marks on her stomacher grew into two rampant +lions, each holding a globe in its ferocious paws; and she passed on, +bearing away the dish and these mysterious symbols, and lessened into a +puppet on the horizon of the enormous hall, and finally vanished through +another door. She was succeeded by men, all bearing dishes, but none of +them so inexorably scornful as she, and none of them disappearing where +she had disappeared; every man relented and stopped at some table or +other. But the figure I desired remained invisible, and my ice +continued to melt, in accordance with chemical law. The orchestra in the +gallery leaped suddenly into the rag-time without whose accompaniment it +was impossible, anywhere in the civilized world, to dine correctly. That +rag-time, committed, I suppose, originally by some well-intentioned if +banal composer in the privacy of his study one night, had spread over +the whole universe of restaurants like a pest, to the exasperation of +the sensitive, but evidently to the joy of correct diners. Joy shone in +the elated eyes of the four hundred persons correctly dining together in +this high refectory, and at the end there was honest applause!... And +yet you never encountered a person who, questioned singly, did not agree +and even assert of his own accord that music at meals is an outrageous +nuisance!... + +However, my desired figure was at length manifest. The man came hurrying +and a little breathless, with his salver, at once apologetic and +triumphant. My ice was half liquid. Had I not the right to reproach him, +in the withering, contemptuous tone which correct diners have learned to +adopt toward the alien serfs who attend them? I had not. I had neither +the right nor the courage nor the wish. This man was as Anglo-Saxon as +myself. He had, with all his deference, the mien of the race. When he +dreamed of paradise, he probably did not dream of the _caisse_ of a +cosmopolitan Grand Hotel in Switzerland. When he spoke English he was +not speaking a foreign language. And this restaurant was one of the +extremely few fashionable Anglo-Saxon restaurants left in the world, +where an order given in English is understood at the first try, and +where the English language is not assassinated and dismembered by +menials who despise it, menials who slang one another openly in the +patois of Geneva, Luxembourg, or Naples. A singular survival, this +restaurant!... Moreover, the man was justified in his triumphant air. +Not only had he most intelligently brought me a fresh ice, but he had +brought the particular kind of rusk for which I had asked. There were +over thirty dishes on the emblazoned menu, and of course I had wanted +something that was not on it: a peculiar rusk, a rusk recondite and +unheard of by my fellow-diners. The man had hopefully said that he +"would see." And here lay the rusk, magically obtained. I felicitated +him, as an equal. And then, having consumed the ice and the fruits of +the hot-house, I arose and followed in the path of the lion-breasted +woman, and arrived at an elevator, and was wafted aloft by a boy of +sixteen who did nothing else from 6 A.M. till midnight (so he said) but +ascend and descend in that elevator. By the discipline of this inspiring +and jocund task he was being prepared for manhood and the greater +world!... And yet, what would you? Elevators must have boys, and even +men. Civilization is not so simple as it may seem to the passionate +reformer and lover of humanity. + +Later, in the vast lounge above the restaurant, I formed one of a group +of men, most of whom had acquired fame, and had the slight agreeable +self-consciousness that fame gives; and I listened, against a background +of the ever-insistent music, to one of those endless and multifarious +reminiscent conversations that are heard only in such places. The +companion on my right would tell how he had inhabited a house in Siam, +next to the temple in front of which the corpses of people too poor to +be burned were laid out, after surgical preliminaries, to be devoured by +vultures, and how the vultures, when gorged, would flap to the roof of +his house and sit there in contemplation. And the companion on my left +would tell how, when he was unfamous and on his beam-ends, he would stay +in bed with a sham attack of influenza, and on the day when a chance +offered itself would get up and don his only suit--a glorious one--and, +fitting an eye-glass into his eye because it made him look older, would +go forth to confront the chance. And then the talk might be interrupted +in order to consult the morning paper, and so settle a dispute about the +exact price of Union Pacifics. And then an Italian engineer would tell +about sport in the woods of Maine, a perfect menagerie of wild animals +where it was advisable to use a revolver lest the excessive noise of a +fowling-piece should disturb the entire forest, and how once he had shot +seven times at an imperturbable partridge showing its head over a tree, +and missed seven times, and how the partridge had at last flown off, +with a flicker of plumage that almost said aloud, "Well, I really can't +wait any longer!" And then might follow a simply tremendous discussion +about the digestibility of buckwheat-cakes. + +And then the conversation of every group in the lounge would be stopped +by the entry of a page bearing a telegram and calling out in the voice +of destiny the name of him to whom the telegram was addressed. And then +another companion would relate in intricate detail a recent excursion +into Yucatan, speaking negligently--as though it were a trifle--of the +extraordinary beauty of the women of Yucatan, and in the end making +quite plain his conviction that no other women were as beautiful as the +women of Yucatan. And then the inevitable Mona Lisa would get onto the +carpet, and one heard, apropos, of the theft of Adam mantelpieces from +Russell Square, and of superb masterpieces of paint rotting with damp in +neglected Venetian churches, and so on and so on, until one had the +melancholy illusion that the whole art world was going or gone to +destruction. But this subject did not really hold us, for the reason +that, beneath a blasé exterior, we were all secretly preoccupied by the +beauty of the women of Yucatan and wondering whether we should ever get +to Yucatan.... And then, looking by accident away, I saw the dim, +provocative faces of girls in white jerseys and woolen caps peering from +without through the dark double windows of the lounge. And I was glad +when somebody suggested that it was time to take a turn. And outside, in +the strong wind, abaft the four funnels of the _Lusitania_, a star +seemed to be dancing capriciously around and about the masthead light. +And it was difficult to believe that the masthead and its light, and not +the star, were dancing. + +From the lofty promenade deck the Atlantic wave is a little enough +thing, so far down beneath you that you can scarcely even sniff its +salty tang. But when the elevator-boy--always waiting for me--had +lowered me through five floors, I stood on tiptoe and gazed through the +thick glass of a porthole there; and the flying Atlantic wave, +theatrically moonlit now, was very near. Suddenly something jumped up +and hit the glass of the port-hole a fearful, crashing blow that made me +draw away my face in alarm; and the solid ground on which I stood +vibrated for an instant. It was the Atlantic wave, caressing. Anybody on +the other side of this thin, nicely painted steel plate (I thought) +would be in a rather hopeless situation. I turned away, half shivering, +from the menace. All was calm and warm and reassuring within the +ship.... In the withdrawn privacy of my berth, with the curtains closed +over the door and Murray Gilchrist's new novel in my hand and a poised +electric lamp over my head, I looked about as I lay, and everything was +still except a towel that moved gently, almost imperceptibly, to and +fro. Yet the towel had copied the immobility of the star. It alone did +not oscillate. Forty-five thousand tons were swaying; but not that +towel. The sense of actual present romance was too strong to let me +read. I extinguished the light, and listened in the dark to the faint +straining noises of the enormous organism. I thought: "This magic thing +is taking me _there_! In three days I shall be on that shore." Terrific +adventure! The rest of the passengers were merely going to America. + + * * * * * + +The magic thing was much more magic than I had conceived. The next +morning, being up earlier than usual and wandering about on strange, +inclosed decks unfamiliar to my feet, I beheld astonishing unsuspected +populations of men and women--crowds of them--a healthy, powerful, +prosperous, independent, somewhat stern and disdainful multitude, it +seemed to me. Those muscular, striding girls in caps and shawls would +not yield an inch to me in their promenade; they brushed strongly and +carelessly past me; had I been a ghost they would have walked through +me. They were, and had been, all living--eating and sleeping--somewhere +within the vessel, and I had not imagined it! It is true that some ass +in the saloon had already calculated for my benefit that there were +"three thousand _souls_ on board!" (The solemn use of the word "souls" +in this connection by a passenger should stamp a man forever.) But such +numerical statements do not really arouse the imagination. I had to see +with my eyes. And I did see with my eyes. That afternoon a high officer +of the ship, spiriting me away from the polite flirtations and pastimes +of the upper decks, carried me down to more exciting scenes. And I saw a +whole string of young women inoculated against smallpox, under the +interested gaze of a crowd of men ranged on a convenient staircase. And +a little later I saw a whole string of men inoculated against smallpox, +under the interested gaze of a crowd of young women ranged on a +convenient staircase. + +"They're having their sweet revenge," said the high officer, indicating +the young women. He was an epigrammatic and terse speaker. When I +reflected aloud upon the order and discipline of service which was +necessary to maintain more than a thousand roughish persons in idleness, +cleanliness, health, peace, and content, in the inelastic forward spaces +of the ship, he said with a certain grimness: "Everything has to be +screwed up as tight as you can screw it. And you must keep to the +round. What you do to-day you must do to-morrow. But what you don't do +to-day you can't get done to-morrow." + +Nevertheless, it proved to be a very human world, a world in which the +personal equation counted. I remember that while some four hundred in +one long hall were applauding "Home, Sweet Home," very badly fiddled by +a gay man on a stool ("Home, Sweet Home"--and half of them +Scandinavians!), and another four hundred or so were sitting expectant +on those multifarious convenient staircases or wandering in and out of +the maze of cubicles that contained fifteen hundred separate berths, and +a third four hundred or so in another long hall were consuming a huge +tea offered to them by a cohort of stewards in white--I remember that +while all this was going forward and the complex mechanism of the +kitchen was in full strain a little, untidy woman, with an infant +dragging at one hand and a mug in the other, strolled nonchalantly into +the breathless kitchen, and said to a hot cook, "Please will you give me +a drop o' milk for this child?" And under the military gaze of the high +officer, too! Something awful should have happened. The engines ought to +have stopped. The woman ought to have been ordered out to instant +execution. The engines did seem to falter for a moment. But the high +officer grimly smiled, and they went on again. "Give me yer mug, +mother," said the cook. And the untidy woman went off with her booty. + +"Now I'll show you the first-class kitchens," the high officer said, and +guided me through uncharted territories to chambers where spits were +revolving in front of intense heat, and where a confectionery business +proceeded, night and day, and dough was mixed by electricity, and +potatoes peeled by the same, and where a piece of clockwork lifted an +egg out of boiling water after it had lain therein the number of seconds +prescribed by you. And there, pinned to a board, was the order I had +given for a special dinner that night. And there, too, more impressive +even than that order, was a list of the several hundred stewards, +together with a designation of the post of each in case of casualty. I +noticed that thirty or forty of them were told off "to control +passengers." After all, we were in the midst of the Atlantic, and in a +crisis the elevator-boys themselves would have more authority than any +passenger, however gorgeous. A thought salutary for gorgeous +passengers--that they were in the final resort mere fool bodies to be +controlled! After I had seen the countless store-rooms, in the recesses +of each of which was hidden a clerk with a pen behind his ear and a +nervous and taciturn air, and passed on to the world of the second +cabin, which was a surprisingly brilliant imitation of the great world +of the saloon, I found that I held a much-diminished opinion of the +great world of the saloon, which I now perceived to be naught but a thin +crust or artificial gewgaw stuck over the truly thrilling parts of the +ship. + +It was not, however, till the next day that I realized what the most +thrilling part of the ship was. Under the protection of another high +officer I had climbed to the bridge--seventy-five feet above the level +of the sea--which bridge had been very seriously disestablished by an +ambitious wave a couple of years before--and had there inspected the +devices for detecting and extinguishing fires in distant holds by merely +turning a handle, and the charts and the telephones and the telegraphs, +and the under-water signaling, and the sounding-tubes, and the officers' +piano; and I had descended by way of the capstan-gear (which, being +capable of snapping a chain that would hold two hundred and sixty tons +in suspension, was suitably imprisoned in a cage, like a fierce wild +animal) right through the length of the vessel to the wheel-house aft. +It was comforting to know that if six alternative steering-wheels were +smashed, one after another, there remained a seventh gear to be worked, +chiefly by direct force of human arm. And, after descending several more +stories, I had seen the actual steering--the tremendous affair moving to +and fro, majestic and apparently capricious, in obedience to the light +touch of a sailor six hundred feet distant. And then I had seen the four +shafts, revolving lazily one hundred and eighty-four to the minute; and +got myself involved in dangerous forests of greasy machinery, whizzing +all deserted in a very high temperature under electric bulbs. Only at +rare intervals did I come across a man in brown doing nothing in +particular--as often as not gazing at a dial; there were dials +everywhere, showing pressures and speeds. And then I had come to the +dynamo-room, where the revolutions were twelve hundred to the minute, +and then to the turbines themselves--insignificant little things, with +no swagger of huge crank and piston, disappointing little things that +developed as much as one-third of the horse-power required for all the +electricity of New York. + +And then, lastly, when I had supposed myself to be at the rock-bottom +of the steamer, I had been instructed to descend in earnest, and I went +down and down steel ladders, and emerged into an enormous, an incredible +cavern, where a hundred and ninety gigantic furnaces were being fed +every ten minutes by hundreds of tiny black dolls called firemen. I, +too, was a doll as I looked up at the high white-hot mouth of a furnace +and along the endless vista of mouths.... Imagine hell with the addition +of electric light, and you have it!... And up-stairs, far above on the +surface of the water, confectioners were making fancy cakes, and the +elevator-boy was doing his work!... Yes, the inferno was the most +thrilling part of the ship; and no other part of the ship could hold a +candle to it. And I remained of this conviction even when I sat in the +captain's own room, smoking his august cigars and turning over his +books. I no longer thought, "Every revolution of the propellers brings +me nearer to that shore." I thought, "Every shovelful flung into those +white-hot mouths brings me nearer." + + * * * * * + +It is an absolute fact that, four hours before we could hope to +disembark, ladies in mantles and shore hats (seeming fantastic and +enormous after the sobriety of ship attire), and gentlemen in shore hats +and dark overcoats, were standing in attitudes of expectancy in the +saloon-hall, holding wraps and small bags: some of their faces had never +been seen till then in the public resorts of the ship. Excitement will +indeed take strange forms. For myself, although I was on the threshold +of the greatest adventure of my life, I was unaware of being excited--I +had not even "smelled" land, to say nothing of having seen it--until, +when it was quite dark, I descried a queerly arranged group of +different-colored lights in the distance--yellow, red, green, and what +not. My thoughts ran instantly to Coney Island. I knew that Coney was an +island, and that it was a place where people had to be attracted and +distracted somehow, and I decided that these illuminations were a device +of the pleasure-mongers of Coney. And when the ship began to salute +these illuminations with answering flares I thought the captain was a +rather good-natured man to consent thus to amuse the populace. But when +we slowed, our propellers covering the calm sea with acres of foam, and +the whole entire illuminations began to approach us in a body, I +perceived that my Coney Island was merely another craft, but a very +important and official craft. An extremely small boat soon detached +itself from this pyrotechnical craft and came with a most extraordinary +leisureness toward a white square of light that had somehow broken forth +in the blackness of our side. And looking down from the topmost deck, I +saw, far below, the tiny boat maneuver on the glinting wave into the +reflection of our electricity and three mysterious men climb up from her +and disappear into us. Then it was that I grew really excited, +uncomfortably excited. The United States had stretched out a tentacle. + +In no time at all, as it seemed, another and more formidable tentacle +had folded round me--in the shape of two interviewers. (How these men +had got on board--and how my own particular friend had got on board--I +knew not, for we were yet far from quay-side.) I had been hearing all my +life about the sublime American institution of the interview. I had been +warned by Americans of its piquant dangers. And here I was suddenly up +against it! Beneath a casual and jaunty exterior, I trembled. I wanted +to sit, but dared not. They stood; I stood. These two men, however, were +adepts. They had the better qualities of American dentists. Obviously +they spent their lives in meeting notorieties on inbound steamers, and +made naught of it. They were middle-aged, disillusioned, tepidly polite, +conscientious, and rapid. They knew precisely what they wanted and how +to get it. Having got it, they raised their hats and went. Their printed +stories were brief, quite unpretentious, and inoffensive--though one of +them did let out that the most salient part of me was my teeth, and the +other did assert that I behaved like a school-boy. (Doubtless the result +of timidity trying to be dignified--this alleged school-boyishness!) + +I liked these men. But they gave me an incomplete idea of the race of +interviewers in the United States. There is a variety of interviewers +very different from them. I am, I think, entitled to consider myself a +fairly first-class authority on all varieties of interviewer, not only +in New York but in sundry other great cities. My initiation was brief, +but it was thorough. Many varieties won my regard immediately, and kept +it; but I am conscious that my sympathy with one particular brand +(perhaps not numerous) was at times imperfect. The brand in question, as +to which I was amiably cautioned before even leaving the steamer, is +usually very young, and as often a girl as a youth. He or she cheerfully +introduces himself or herself with a hint that of course it is an awful +bore to be interviewed, but he or she has a job to do and he or she must +be allowed to do it. Just so! But the point which, in my audacity, I +have occasionally permitted to occur to me is this: Is this sort of +interviewer capable of doing the job allotted to him? I do not mind +slips of reporting, I do not mind a certain agreeable malice (indeed, I +reckon to do a bit in that line myself). I do not even mind hasty +misrepresentations (for, after all, we are human, and the millennium is +still unannounced); but I do object to inefficiency--especially in +America, where sundry kinds of efficiency have been carried farther than +any efficiency was ever carried before. + +[Illustration: THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWDED SKY-SCRAPERS] + +Now this sort of interviewer too often prefaces the operation itself by +the remark that he really doesn't know what question to ask you. (Too +often I have been tempted to say: "Why not ask me to write the interview +for you? It will save you trouble.") Having made this remark, the +interviewer usually proceeds to give a sketch of her own career, +together with a conspectus of her opinions on everything, a reference to +her importance in the interviewing world, and some glimpse of the amount +of her earnings. This achieved, she breaks off breathless and reproaches +you: "But, my dear man, you aren't saying anything at all. You really +must say something." ("My dear man" is the favorite form of address of +this sort of interviewer when she happens to be a girl.) Too often I +have been tempted to reply: "Cleopatra, or Helen, which of us is +being interviewed?" When he has given you a chance to talk, this sort of +interviewer listens, helps, corrects, advises, but never makes a note. +The result the next morning is the anticipated result. The average +newspaper reader gathers that an extremely brilliant young man or woman +has held converse with a very commonplace stranger who, being confused +in his or her presence, committed a number of absurdities which offered +a strong and painful contrast to the cleverness and wisdom of the +brilliant youth. This result apparently satisfies the average newspaper +reader, but it does not satisfy the expert. Immediately after my first +bout with interviewers I was seated at a table in the dining-saloon of +the ship with my particular friend and three or four friendly, quiet, +modest, rather diffident human beings whom I afterward discovered to be +among the best and most experienced newspaper men in New York--not +interviewers. + +Said one of them: + +"Not every interviewer in New York knows how to _write_--how to put a +sentence together decently. And there are perhaps a few who don't +accurately know the difference between impudence and wit." + +A caustic remark, perhaps. But I have noticed that when the variety of +interviewing upon which I have just animadverted becomes the topic, +quiet, reasonable Americans are apt to drop into causticity. + +Said another: + +"I was a reporter for twelve years, but I was cured of personalities at +an early stage--and by a nigger, too! I had been interviewing a nigger +prize-fighter, and I'd made some remarks about the facial +characteristics of niggers in general. Some other nigger wrote me a long +letter of protest, and it ended like this: 'I've never seen you. But +I've seen your portraits, and let me respectfully tell you that _you're_ +no Lillian Russell.'" + +Some mornings I, too, might have sat down and written, from visual +observation, "Let me respectfully tell you that _you're_ no Lillian +Russell." + +Said a third among my companions: + +"No importance whatever is attached to a certain kind of interview in +the United States." + +Which I found, later, was quite true in theory, but not in practice. +Whenever, in that kind of interview, I had been made to say something +more acutely absurd and maladroit than usual, my friends who watched +over me, and to whom I owe so much that cannot be written, were a little +agitated--for about half an hour; in about half an hour the matter had +somehow passed from their minds. + +"Supposing I refuse to talk to that sort of interviewer?" I asked, at +the saloon table. + +"The interviews will appear all the same," was the reply. + +My subsequent experience contradicted this. On the rare occasions when I +refused to be interviewed, what appeared was not an interview, but +invective. + +Let me not be misunderstood. I have been speaking of only one brand of +American interviewer. I encountered a couple of really admirable women +interviewers, not too young, and a confraternity of men who did not +disdain an elementary knowledge of their business. One of these arrived +with a written list of questions, took a shorthand note of all I said, +and then brought me a proof to correct. In interviewing this amounts +almost to genius.... I have indicated what to me seems a +defect--trifling, possibly, but still a defect--in the brilliant +organization of the great national sport of interviewing. Were this +defect removed, as it could be, the institution might be as perfect as +the American oyster. Than which nothing is more perfect. + + * * * * * + +"You aren't drinking your coffee," said some one, inspecting my cup at +the saloon table. + +"No," I answered, firmly; for when the smooth efficiency of my human +machine is menaced I am as faddy and nervous as a marine engineer over +lubrication. "If I did, I shouldn't sleep." + +"And what of it?" demanded my particular friend, challengingly. + +It was a rebuke. It was as if he had said, "On this great night, when +you enter my wondrous and romantic country for the first time, what does +it matter whether you sleep or not?" + +I saw the point. I drank the coffee. The romantic sense, which had been +momentarily driven back by the discussion of general ideas, swept over +me again.... In fact, through the saloon windows could be seen all the +Battery end of New York and the first vague visions of sky-scrapers.... +Then-the moments refused to be counted--we were descending by lifts and +by gangways from the high upper decks of the ship down onto the rocky +ground of the United States. I don't think that any American ever set +foot in Europe with a more profound and delicious thrill than that which +affected me at that instant.... I was there!... The official and +unofficial activities of the quay passed before me like a dream.... I +heard my name shouted by a man in a formidably severe uniform, and I +thought, "Thus early have I somehow violated the Constitution of these +States?" But it was only a telegram for me.... And then I was in a most +rickety and confined taxi, and the taxi was full to the brim with +luggage, two friends, and me. And I was off into New York. + +At the center of the first cross-roads I saw a splendid and erect +individual, flashing forth authority, gaiety, and utter smartness in the +gloom. Impossible not to believe that he was the owner of all the +adjacent ground, disguised as a cavalry officer on foot. + +"What is that archduke?" I inquired. + +"He's just a cop." + +I knew then that I was in a great city. + +[Illustration: BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT] + +The rest of the ride was an enfevered phantasmagoria. We burst +startlingly into a very remarkable deep glade--on the floor of it long +and violent surface-cars, a few open shops and bars with commissionaires +at the doors, vehicles dipping and rising out of holes in the ground, +vistas of forests of iron pillars, on the top of which ran deafening, +glittering trains, as on a tight-rope; above all that, a layer of +darkness; and above the layer of darkness enormous moving images of +things in electricity--a mastodon kitten playing with a ball of thread, +an umbrella in a shower of rain, siphons of soda-water being emptied +and filled, gigantic horses galloping at full speed, and an incredible +heraldry of chewing-gum.... Sky-signs! In Europe I had always inveighed +manfully against sky-signs. But now I bowed the head, vanquished. These +sky-signs annihilated argument. Moreover, had they not been made +possible by the invention of a European, and that European an intimate +friend of my own?... + +"I suppose this is Broadway?" I ventured. + +It was. That is to say, it was one of the Broadways. There are several +different ones. What could be more different from this than the +down-town Broadway of Trinity Church and the crowded sky-scrapers? And +even this Broadway could differ from itself, as I knew later on an +election night.... I was overpowered by Broadway. + +"You must not expect me to talk," I said. + +We drew up in front of a huge hotel and went into the bar, huge and +gorgeous to match, shimmering with white bartenders and a variegated +population of men-about-town. I had never seen such a bar. + +"Two Polands and a Scotch highball," was the order. Of which +geographical language I understood not a word. + +"See the fresco," my particular friend suggested. And from his tone, at +once modestly content and artificially careless, I knew that that +nursery-rhyme fresco was one of the sights of the pleasure quarter of +New York, and that I ought to admire it. Well, I did admire it. I found +it rather fine and apposite. But the free-luncheon counter, as a sight, +took my fancy more. Here it was, the free-luncheon counter of which the +European reads--generously loaded, and much freer than the air. + +"Have something?" + +I would not. They could shame me into drinking coffee, but they could +not shame me into eating corned beef and granite biscuits at eleven +o'clock at night. The Poland water sufficed me. + +We swept perilously off again into the welter. That same evening three +of my steamer companions were thrown out of a rickety taxi into a hole +in the ground in the middle of New York, with the result that one of +them spent a week in a hotel bed, under doctor and nurse. But I went +scatheless. Such are the hazards of life.... We arrived at a terminus. +And it was a great terminus. A great terminus is an inhospitable place. +And just here, in the perfection of the manner in which my minutest +comfort was studied and provided for, I began to appreciate the +significance of American hospitality--that combination of eager +good-nature, Oriental lavishness, and sheer brains. We had time to +spare. Close to the terminus we had passed by a hotel whose summit, for +all my straining out of the window of the cab, I had been unable to +descry. I said that I should really like to see the top of that hotel. +No sooner said than done. I saw the highest hotel I had ever seen. We +went into the hotel, teeming like the other one, and from an agreeable +and lively young dandy bought three cigars out of millions of cigars. +Naught but bank-notes seemed to be current. The European has an awe of +bank-notes, whatever their value. + +Then we were in the train, and the train was moving. And every few +seconds it shot past the end of a long, straight, lighted +thoroughfare--scores upon scores of them, with a wider and more +brilliant street interspersed among them at intervals. And I forgot at +what hundredth street the train paused before rolling finally out of New +York. I had had the feeling of a vast and metropolitan city. I thought, +"Whatever this is or is not, it is a metropolis, and will rank with the +best of 'em." I had lived long in more than one metropolis, and I knew +the proud and the shameful unmistakable marks of the real thing. And I +was aware of a poignant sympathy with those people and those mysterious +generations who had been gradually and yet so rapidly putting together, +girder by girder and tradition by tradition, all unseen by me till then, +this illustrious, proud organism, with its nobility and its baseness, +its rectitude and its mournful errors, its colossal sense of life. I +liked New York irrevocably. + + + + +II + +STREETS + + +When I first looked at Fifth Avenue by sunlight, in the tranquillity of +Sunday morning, and when I last set eyes on it, in the ordinary peevish +gloom of a busy sailing-day, I thought it was the proudest thoroughfare +I had ever seen anywhere. The revisitation of certain European capitals +has forced me to modify this judgment; but I still think that Fifth +Avenue, if not unequaled, is unsurpassed. + +One afternoon I was driving up Fifth Avenue in the company of an +architectural expert who, with the incredible elastic good nature of +American business men, had abandoned his affairs for half a day in order +to go with me on a voyage of discovery, and he asked me, so as to get +some basis of understanding or disagreement, what building in New York +had pleased me most. I at once said the University Club--to my mind a +masterpiece. He approved, and a great peace filled our automobile; in +which peace we expanded. He asked me what building in the world made the +strongest appeal to me, and I at once said the Strozzi Palace at +Florence. Whereat he was decidedly sympathetic. + +"Fifth Avenue," I said, "always reminds me of Florence and the +Strozzi.... The cornices, you know." + +He stopped the automobile under the Gorham store and displayed to me +the finest cornice in New York, and told me how Stanford White had put +up several experimental cornices there before arriving at finality. +Indeed, a great cornice! I admit I was somewhat dashed by the +information that most cornices in New York are made of cast iron; but +only for a moment! What, after all, do I care what a cornice is made of, +so long as it juts proudly out from the façade and helps the street to a +splendid and formidable sky-line? I had neither read nor heard a word of +the cornices of New York, and yet for me New York was first and last the +city of effective cornices! (Which merely shows how eyes differ!) The +cornice must remind you of Italy, and through Italy of the Renaissance. +And is it not the boast of the United States to be a renaissance? I +always felt that there was something obscurely symbolic in the New York +cornice--symbolic of the necessary qualities of a renaissance, half +cruel and half humane. + +The critical European excusably expects a very great deal from Fifth +Avenue, as being the principal shopping street of the richest community +in the world. (I speak not of the residential blocks north of +Fifty-ninth Street, whose beauty and interest fall perhaps far short of +their pretensions.) And the critical European will not be disappointed, +unless his foible is to be disappointed--as, in fact, occasionally +happens. Except for the miserly splitting, here and there in the older +edifices, of an inadequate ground floor into a mezzanine and a shallow +box (a device employed more frankly and usefully with an outer flight of +steps on the East Side), there is nothing mean in the whole street from +the Plaza to Washington Square. A lot of utterly mediocre architecture +there is, of course--the same applies inevitably to every long street in +every capital--but the general effect is homogeneous and fine, and, +above, all, grandly generous. And the alternation of high and low +buildings produces not infrequently the most agreeable architectural +accidents: for example, seen from about Thirtieth Street, the +pale-pillared, squat structure of the Knickerbocker Trust against a +background of the lofty red of the Æolian Building.... And then, that +great white store on the opposite pavement! The single shops, as well as +the general stores and hotels on Fifth Avenue, are impressive in the +lavish spaciousness of their disposition. Neither stores nor shops could +have been conceived, or could be kept, by merchants without genuine +imagination and faith. + +And the glory of the thoroughfare inspires even those who only walk up +and down it. It inspires particularly the mounted policeman as he reigns +over a turbulent crossing. It inspires the women, and particularly the +young women, as they pass in front of the windows, owning their contents +in thought. I sat once with an old, white-haired, and serious gentleman, +gazing through glass at Fifth Avenue, and I ventured to say to him, +"There are fine women on Fifth Avenue." "By Jove!" he exclaimed, with +deep conviction, and his eyes suddenly fired, "there are!" On the whole, +I think that, in their carriages or on their feet, they know a little +better how to do justice to a fine thoroughfare than the women of any +other capital in my acquaintance. I have driven rapidly in a fast car, +clinging to my hat and my hair against the New York wind, from one end +of Fifth Avenue to the other, and what with the sunshine, and the flags +wildly waving in the sunshine, and the blue sky and the cornices jutting +into it and the roofs scraping it, and the large whiteness of the +stores, and the invitation of the signs, and the display of the windows, +and the swift sinuousness of the other cars, and the proud opposing +processions of American subjects--what with all this and with the +supreme imperialism of the mounted policeman, I have been positively +intoxicated! + +And yet possibly the greatest moment in the life of Fifth Avenue is at +dusk, when dusk falls at tea-time. The street lamps flicker into a +steady, steely blue, and the windows of the hotels and restaurants throw +a yellow radiance; all the shops--especially the jewelers' shops--become +enchanted treasure-houses, whose interiors recede away behind their +façades into infinity; and the endless files of innumerable vehicles, +interlacing and swerving, put forth each a pair of glittering eyes. Come +suddenly upon it all, from the leafy fastnesses of Central Park, round +the corner from the Plaza Hotel, and wait your turn until the arm of the +policeman, whose blue coat is now whitened with dust, permits your +restive chauffeur to plunge down into the main currents of the city.... +You will have then the most grandiose impression that New York is, in +fact, inhabited; and that even though the spectacular luxury of New York +be nearly as much founded upon social injustice and poverty as any +imperfect human civilization in Europe, it is a boon to be alive +therein!... In half an hour, in three-quarters of an hour, the vitality +is clean gone out of the street. The shops have let down their rich +gathered curtains, the pavements are deserted, and the roadway is no +longer perilous. And nothing save a fire will arouse Fifth Avenue till +the next morning. Even on an election night the sole sign in Fifth +Avenue of the disorder of politics will be a few long strips of +tape-paper wreathing in the breeze on the asphalt under the lonely +lamps. + + * * * * * + +It is not easy for a visiting stranger in New York to get away from +Fifth Avenue. The street seems to hold him fast. There might almost as +well be no other avenues; and certainly the word "Fifth" has lost all +its numerical significance in current usage. A youthful musical student, +upon being asked how many symphonies Beethoven had composed, replied +four, and obstinately stuck to it that Beethoven had only composed four. +Called upon to enumerate the four, he answered thus, the C minor, the +Eroica, the Pastoral, and the Ninth. "Ninth" had lost its numerical +significance for that student. A similar phenomenon of psychology has +happened with the streets and avenues of New York. Europeans are apt to +assume that to tack numbers instead of names on to the thoroughfares of +a city is to impair their identities and individualities. Not a bit! The +numbers grow into names. That is all. Such is the mysterious poetic +force of the human mind! That curt word "Fifth" signifies as much to the +New-Yorker as "Boulevard des Italiens" to the Parisian. As for the +possibility of confusion, would any New-Yorker ever confuse Fourteenth +with Thirteenth or Fifteenth Street, or Twenty-third with Twenty-second +or Twenty-fourth, or Forty-second with One Hundred and Forty-second, or +One Hundred and Twenty-fifth with anything else whatever? Yes, when the +Parisian confuses the Champs Elysées with the Avenue de l'Opéra! When +the Parisian arrives at this stage--even then Fifth Avenue will not be +confused with Sixth! + +One day, in the unusual silence of an election morning, I absolutely +determined to see something of the New York that lies beyond Fifth +Avenue, and I slipped off westward along Thirty-fourth Street, feeling +adventurous. The excursion was indeed an adventure. I came across +Broadway and Sixth Avenue together! Sixth Avenue, with its barbaric +paving, surely could not be under the same administration as Fifth! +Between Sixth and Seventh I met a sinister but genial ruffian, proudly +wearing the insignia of Tammany; and soon I met a lot more of them: +jolly fellows, apparently, yet somehow conveying to me the suspicion +that in a saloon shindy they might prove themselves my superiors. (I was +told in New York, and by the best people in New York, that Tammany was a +blot on the social system of the city. But I would not have it so. I +would call it a part of the social system, just as much a part of the +social system, and just as expressive of the national character, as the +fine schools, the fine hospitals, the superlative business +organizations, or Mr. George M. Cohan's Theater. A civilization is +indivisibly responsible for itself. It may not, on the Day of Judgment, +or any other day, lessen its collective responsibility by baptizing +certain portions of its organism as extraneous "blots" dropped thereon +from without.) To continue--after Seventh Avenue the declension was +frank. In the purlieus of the Five Towns themselves--compared with which +Pittsburg is seemingly Paradise--I have never trod such horrific +sidewalks. I discovered huge freight-trains shunting all over Tenth and +Eleventh Avenues, and frail flying bridges erected from sidewalk to +sidewalk, for the convenience of a brave and hardy populace. I was +surrounded in the street by menacing locomotives and crowds of Italians, +and in front of me was a great Italian steamer. I felt as though Fifth +Avenue was a three days' journey away, through a hostile country. And +yet I had been walking only twenty minutes! I regained Fifth with +relief, and had learned a lesson. In future, if asked how many avenues +there are in New York I would insist that there are three: Lexington, +Madison, and Fifth. + + * * * * * + +The chief characteristic of Broadway is its interminability. Everybody +knows, roughly, where it begins, but I doubt if even the topographical +experts of Albany know just where it ends. It is a street that inspires +respect rather than enthusiasm. In the daytime all the uptown portion of +it--and as far down-town as Ninth Street--has a provincial aspect. If +Fifth Avenue is metropolitan and exclusive, Broadway is not. Broadway +lacks distinction, it lacks any sort of impressiveness, save in its +first two miles, which do--especially the southern mile--strike you with +a vague and uneasy awe. And it was here that I experienced my keenest +disappointment in the United States. + +[Illustration: A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET] + +I went through sundry disappointments. I had expected to be often asked +how much I earned. I never was asked. I had expected to be often +informed by casual acquaintances of their exact income. Nobody, save an +interviewer or so and the president of a great trust, ever passed me +even a hint as to the amount of his income. I had expected to find an +inordinate amount of tippling in clubs and hotels. I found, on the +contrary, a very marked sobriety. I had expected to receive many hard +words and some insolence from paid servants, such as train-men, +tram-men, lift-boys, and policemen. From this class, as from the others, +I received nothing but politeness, except in one instance. That +instance, by the way, was a barber in an important hotel, whom I had +most respectfully requested to refrain from bumping my head about. +"Why?" he demanded. "Because I've got a headache," I said. "Then why +didn't you tell me at first?" he crushed me. "Did you expect me to be a +thought-reader?" But, indeed, I could say a lot about American barbers. +I had expected to have my tempting fob snatched. It was not snatched. I +had expected to be asked, at the moment of landing, for my mature +opinion of the United States, and again at intervals of about a quarter +of an hour, day and night, throughout my stay. But I had been in America +at least ten days before the question was put to me, even in jest. I had +expected to be surrounded by boasting and impatient vanity concerning +the achievements of the United States and the citizens thereof. I +literally never heard a word of national boasting, nor observed the +slightest impatience under criticism.... I say I had expected these +things. I would be more correct to say that I _should_ have expected +them if I had had a rumor--believing mind: which I have not. + +But I really did expect to witness an overwhelming violence of traffic +and movement in lower Broadway and the renowned business streets in its +vicinity. And I really was disappointed by the ordinariness of the +scene, which could be well matched in half a dozen places in Europe, and +beaten in one or two. If but once I had been shoved into the gutter by a +heedless throng going furiously upon its financial ways, I should have +been content.... The legendary "American rush" is to me a fable. Whether +it ever existed I know not; but I certainly saw no trace of it, either +in New York or Chicago. I dare say I ought to have gone to Seattle for +it. My first sight of a stock-market roped off in the street was an +acute disillusionment. In agitation it could not have competed with a +sheep-market. In noise it was a muffled silence compared with the fine +racket that enlivens the air outside the Paris Bourse. I saw also an +ordinary day in the Stock Exchange. Faint excitations were afloat in +certain corners, but I honestly deemed the affair tame. A vast litter of +paper on the floor, a vast assemblage of hats pitched on the tops of +telephone-boxes--these phenomena do not amount to a hustle. Earnest +students of hustle should visit Paris or Milan. The fact probably is +that the perfecting of mechanical contrivances in the United States has +killed hustle as a diversion for the eyes and ears. The mechanical side +of the Exchange was wonderful and delightful. + +The sky-scrapers that cluster about the lower end of Broadway--their +natural home--were as impressive as I could have desired, but not +architecturally. For they could only be felt, not seen. And even in +situations where the sky-scraper is properly visible, it is, as a rule, +to my mind, architecturally a failure. I regret for my own sake that I +could not be more sympathetic toward the existing sky-scraper as an +architectural entity, because I had assuredly no European prejudice +against the sky-scraper as such. The objection of most people to the +sky-scraper is merely that it is unusual--the instinctive objection of +most people to everything that is original enough to violate tradition! +I, on the contrary, as a convinced modernist, would applaud the +unusualness of the sky-scraper. Nevertheless, I cannot possibly share +the feelings of patriotic New-Yorkers who discover architectural +grandeur in, say, the Flat Iron Building or the Metropolitan Life +Insurance Building. To me they confuse the poetical idea of these +buildings with the buildings themselves. I eagerly admit that the bold, +prow-like notion of the Flat Iron cutting northward is a splendid +notion, an inspiring notion; it thrills. But the building itself is +ugly--nay, it is adverbially ugly; and no reading of poetry _into_ it +will make it otherwise. + +[Illustration: A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER] + +Similarly, the Metropolitan Building is tremendous. It is a grand sight, +but it is an ugly sight. The men who thought of it, who first conceived +the notion of it, were poets. They said, "We will cause to be +constructed the highest building in the world; we will bring into +existence the most amazing advertisement that an insurance company +ever had." That is good; it is superb; it is a proof of heroic +imagination. But the actual designers of the building did not rise to +the height of it; and if any poetry is left in it, it is not their +fault. Think what McKim might have accomplished on that site, and in +those dimensions! + +Certain architects, feeling the lack of imagination in the execution of +these enormous buildings, have set their imagination to work, but in a +perverse way and without candidly recognizing the conditions imposed +upon them by the sky-scraper form: and the result here and there has +been worse than dull; it has been distressing. But here and there, too, +one sees the evidence of real understanding and taste. If every tenant +of a sky-scraper demands--as I am informed he does--the same windows, +and radiators under every window, then the architect had better begin by +accepting that demand openly, with no fanciful or pseudo-imaginative +pretense that things are not what they are. The Ashland Building, on +Fourth Avenue, where the architectural imagination has exercised itself +soberly, honestly, and obediently, appeared to me to be a satisfactory +and agreeable sky-scraper; and it does not stand alone as the promise +that a new style will ultimately be evolved. + +In any case, a great deal of the poetry of New York is due to the +sky-scraper. At dusk the effect of the massed sky-scrapers illuminated +from within, as seen from any high building up-town, is prodigiously +beautiful, and it is unique in the cities of this world. The early night +effect of the whole town, topped by the aforesaid Metropolitan tower, +seen from the New Jersey shore, is stupendous, and resembles some +enchanted city of the next world rather than of this. And the fact that +a very prominent item in the perspective is a fiery representation of a +frothing glass of beer inconceivably large--well, this fact too has its +importance. + +But in the sky-scrapers there is a deeper romanticism than that which +disengages itself from them externally. You must enter them in order to +appreciate them, in order to respond fully to their complex appeal. +Outside, they often have the air of being nothing in particular; at best +the façade is far too modest in its revelation of the interior. You can +quite easily walk by a sky-scraper on Broadway without noticing it. But +you cannot actually go into the least of them and not be impressed. You +are in a palace. You are among marbles and porphyries. You breathe +easily in vast and brilliant foyers that never see daylight. And then +you come to those mysterious palisaded shafts with which the building +and every other building in New York is secretly honeycombed, and the +palisade is opened and an elevator snatches you up. I think of American +cities as enormous agglomerations in whose inmost dark recesses +innumerable elevators are constantly ascending and descending, like the +angels of the ladder.... + +[Illustration: THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT] + +The elevator ejects you. You are taken into dazzling daylight, into what +is modestly called a business office; but it resembles in its grandeur +no European business office, save such as may have been built by an +American. You look forth from a window, and lo! New York and the Hudson +are beneath you, and you are in the skies. And in the warmed stillness +of the room you hear the wind raging and whistling, as you would have +imagined it could only rage and whistle in the rigging of a three-master +at sea. There are, however, a dozen more stories above this story. You +walk from chamber to chamber, and in answer to inquiry learn that the +rent of this one suite-among so many-is over thirty-six thousand dollars +a year! And you reflect that, to the beholder in the street, all that is +represented by one narrow row of windows, lost in a diminishing +chess-board of windows. And you begin to realize what a sky-scraper is, +and the poetry of it. + +More romantic even than the sky-scraper finished and occupied is the +sky-scraper in process of construction. From no mean height, listening +to the sweet drawl of the steam-drill, I have watched artisans like +dwarfs at work still higher, among knitted steel, seen them balance +themselves nonchalantly astride girders swinging in space, seen them +throwing rivets to one another and never missing one; seen also a huge +crane collapse under an undue strain, and, crumpling like tinfoil, +carelessly drop its load onto the populous sidewalk below. That +particular mishap obviously raised the fear of death among a +considerable number of people, but perhaps only for a moment. Anybody in +America will tell you without a tremor (but with pride) that each story +of a sky-scraper means a life sacrificed. Twenty stories--twenty men +snuffed out; thirty stories--thirty men. A building of some sixty +stories is now going up--sixty corpses, sixty funerals, sixty domestic +hearths to be slowly rearranged, and the registrars alone know how many +widows, orphans, and other loose by-products! + +And this mortality, I believe, takes no account of the long battles +that are sometimes fought, but never yet to a finish, in the steel webs +of those upper floors when the labor-unions have a fit of objecting more +violently than usual to non-union labor. In one celebrated building, I +heard, the non-unionists contracted an unfortunate habit of getting +crippled; and three of them were indiscreet enough to put themselves +under a falling girder that killed them, while two witnesses who were +ready to give certain testimony in regard to the mishap vanished +completely out of the world, and have never since been heard of. And so +on. What more natural than that the employers should form a private +association for bringing to a close these interesting hazards? You may +see the leading spirit of the association. You may walk along the street +with him. He knows he is shadowed, and he is quite cheerful about it. +His revolver is always very ready for an emergency. Nobody seems to +regard this state of affairs as odd enough for any prolonged comment. +There it is! It is accepted. It is part of the American dailiness. +Nobody, at any rate in the comfortable clubs, seems even to consider +that the original cause of the warfare is aught but a homicidal +cussedness on the part of the unions.... I say that these accidents and +these guerrillas mysteriously and grimly proceeding in the skyey fabric +of metal-ribbed constructions, do really form part of the poetry of life +in America--or should it be the poetry of death? Assuredly they are a +spectacular illustration of that sublime, romantic contempt for law and +for human life which, to a European, is the most disconcerting factor +in the social evolution of your States. I have sat and listened to tales +from journalists and other learned connoisseurs till--But enough! + + * * * * * + +When I left New York and went to Washington I was congratulated on +having quitted the false America for the real. When I came to Boston I +received the sympathies of everybody in Boston on having been put off +for so long with spurious imitations of America, and a sigh of happy +relief went up that I had at length got into touch with a genuine +American city. When, after a long pilgrimage, I attained Chicago, I was +positively informed that Chicago alone was the gate of the United +States, and that everything east of Chicago was negligible and even +misleading. And when I entered Indianapolis I discovered that Chicago +was a mushroom and a suburb of Warsaw, and that its pretension to +represent the United States was grotesque, the authentic center of the +United States being obviously Indianapolis.... The great towns love thus +to affront one another, and their demeanor in the game resembles the +gamboling of young tigers--it is half playful and half ferocious. For +myself, I have to say that my heart was large enough to hold all I saw. +While I admit that Indianapolis struck me as very characteristically +American, I assert that the unreality of New York escaped me. It +appeared to me that New York was quite a real city, and European +geographies (apt to err, of course, in matters of detail) usually locate +it in America. + +Having regard to the healthy mutual jealousy of the great towns, I feel +that I am carrying audacity to the point of foolhardiness when I state +that the streets of every American city I saw reminded me on the whole +rather strongly of the streets of all the others. What inhabitants of +what city could forgive this? Yet I must state it. Much of what I have +said of the streets of New York applies, in my superficial opinion, for +instance, to the streets of Chicago. It is well known that to the +Chinaman all Westerners look alike. No tourist on his first visit to a +country so astonishing as the United States is very different from a +Chinaman; the tourist should reconcile himself to that deep truth. It is +desolating to think that a second visit will reveal to me the blindness, +the distortions, and the wrong-headedness of my first. But even as a +Chinaman I did notice subtle differences between New York and Chicago. +As one who was brought up in a bleak and uncanny climate, where soft +coal is in universal use, I at once felt more at home in Chicago than I +could ever do in New York. The old instinct to wash the hands and change +the collar every couple of hours instantly returned to me in Chicago, +together with the old comforting conviction that a harsh climate is a +climate healthy for body and spirit. And, because it is laden with soot, +the air of Chicago is a great mystifier and beautifier. Atmospheric +effects may be seen there that are unobtainable without the combustion +of soft coal. Talk, for example, as much as you please about the +electric sky-signs of Broadway--not all of them together will write as +much poetry on the sky as the single word "Illinois" that hangs without +a clue to its suspension in the murky dusk over Michigan Avenue. The +visionary aspects of Chicago are incomparable. + +[Illustration: A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO] + +Another difference, of quite another order, between New York and +Chicago is that Chicago is self-conscious. New York is not; no +metropolis ever is. You are aware of the self-consciousness of Chicago +as soon as you are aware of its bitumen. The quality demands sympathy, +and wins it by its wistfulness. Chicago is openly anxious about its +soul. I liked that. I wish I could see a livelier anxiety concerning the +municipal soul in certain cities of Europe. + +Perhaps the least subtle difference between New York and Chicago springs +from the fact that the handsomest part of New York is the center of New +York, whereas the center of Chicago is disappointing. It does not +impress. I was shown, in the center of Chicago, the first sky-scraper +that the world had ever seen. I visited with admiration what was said to +be the largest department store in the world. I visited with a natural +rapture the largest book-store in the world. I was informed (but +respectfully doubt) that Chicago is the greatest port in the world. I +could easily credit, from the evidence of my own eyes, that it is the +greatest railway center in the world. But still my imagination was not +fired, as it has been fired again and again by far lesser and far less +interesting places. Nobody could call Wabash Avenue spectacular, and +nobody surely would assert that State Street is on a plane with the +collective achievements of the city of which it is the principal +thoroughfare. The truth is that Chicago lacks at present a +rallying-point--some Place de la Concorde or Arc de Triomphe--something +for its biggest streets to try to live up to. A convocation of elevated +railroads is not enough. It seemed to me that Jackson Boulevard or Van +Buren Street, with fine crescents abutting opposite Grant Park and +Garfield Park, and a magnificent square at the intersection of Ashland +Avenue, might ultimately be the chief sight and exemplar of Chicago. Why +not? Should not the leading thoroughfare lead boldly to the lake instead +of shunning it? I anticipate the time when the municipal soul of Chicago +will have found in its streets as adequate expression as it has already +found in its boulevards. + +Perhaps if I had not made the "grand tour" of those boulevards, I might +have been better satisfied with the streets of Chicago. The excursion, +in an automobile, occupied something like half of a frosty day that +ended in torrents of rain--apparently a typical autumn day in Chicago! +Before it had proceeded very far I knew that there was a sufficient +creative imagination on the shore of Lake Michigan to carry through any +municipal enterprise, however vast, to a generous and final conclusion. +The conception of those boulevards discloses a tremendous audacity and +faith. And as you roll along the macadam, threading at intervals a +wide-stretching park, you are overwhelmed--at least I was--by the +completeness of the scheme's execution and the lavishness with which the +system is in every detail maintained and kept up. + +[Illustration: A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE--CHICAGO] + +You stop to inspect a conservatory, and find yourself in a really +marvelous landscape garden, set with statues, all under glass and +heated, where the gaffers of Chicago are collected together to discuss +interminably the exciting politics of a city anxious about its soul. And +while listening to them with one ear, with the other you may catch +the laconic tale of a park official's perilous and successful vendetta +against the forces of graft. + +And then you resume the circuit and accomplish many more smooth, +curving, tree-lined miles, varied by a jolting section, or by the faint +odor of the Stock-yards, or by a halt to allow the longest freight-train +in the world to cross your path. You have sighted in the distance +universities, institutions, even factories; you have passed through many +inhabited portions of the endless boulevard, but you have not actually +touched hands with the city since you left it at the beginning of the +ride. Then at last, as darkness falls, you feel that you are coming to +the city again, but from another point of the compass. You have rounded +the circle of its millions. You need only think of the unkempt, shabby, +and tangled outskirts of New York, or of any other capital city, to +realize the miracle that Chicago has put among her assets ... + +You descry lanes of water in the twilight, and learn that in order to +prevent her drainage from going into the lake Chicago turned a river +back in its course and compelled it to discharge ultimately into the +Mississippi. That is the story. You feel that it is exactly what +Chicago, alone among cities, would have the imagination and the courage +to do. Some man must have risen from his bed one morning with the idea, +"Why not make the water flow the other way?" And then gone, perhaps +diffidently, to his fellows in charge of the city with the suggestive +query, "Why not make the water flow the other way?" And been laughed at! +Only the thing was done in the end! I seem to have heard that there was +an epilogue to this story, relating how certain other great cities +showed a narrow objection to Chicago draining herself in the direction +of the Mississippi, and how Chicago, after all, succeeded in persuading +those whom it was necessary to persuade that, whereas her drainage was +unsuited to Lake Michigan, it would consort well with the current of the +Mississippi. + +And then, in the night and in the rain, you swerve round some corner +into the straight, by Grant Park, in full sight of one of the most +dazzling spectacles that Chicago or any other city can offer--Michigan +Avenue on a wet evening. Each of the thousands of electric standards in +Michigan Avenue is a cluster of six huge globes (and yet they will tell +you in Paris that the Rue de la Paix is the best-lit street in the +world), and here and there is a red globe of warning. The two lines of +light pour down their flame into the pool which is the roadway, and you +travel continually toward an incandescent floor without ever quite +reaching it, beneath mysterious words of fire hanging in the invisible +sky!... The automobile stops. You get out, stiff, and murmur something +inadequate about the length and splendor of those boulevards. "Oh," you +are told, carelessly, "those are only the interior boulevards.... +Nothing! You should see our exterior boulevards--not quite finished +yet!" + + + + +III + +THE CAPITOL AND OTHER SITES + + +"Here, Jimmy!" said, briskly, a middle-aged administrative person in +easy attire, who apparently had dominion over the whole floor beneath +the dome. A younger man, also in easy attire, answered the call with an +alert smile. The elder pointed sideways with his head at my two friends +and myself, and commanded, "Run them through in thirty minutes!" Then, +having reached the center of a cuspidor with all the precision of a +character in a Californian novel, he added benevolently to Jimmy, "Make +it a dollar for them." And Jimmy, consenting, led us away. + +In this episode Europe was having her revenge on the United States, and +I had planned it. How often, in half a hundred cities of Europe, had I +not observed the American citizen seeing the sights thereof at high +speed? Yes, even in front of the Michael Angelo sculptures in the Medici +Chapel at Florence had I seen him, watch in hand, and heard him murmur +"Bully!" to the sculptures and the time of the train to his wife in one +breath! Now it was impossible for me to see Washington under the normal +conditions of a session. And so I took advantage of the visit to +Washington of two friends on business to see Washington hastily, as an +excursionist pure and simple. I said to the United States, grimly: "The +most important and the most imposing thing in all America is surely the +Capitol at Washington. Well, I will see it as you see the sacred sights +of Europe. By me Europe shall be revenged." + +Thus it came about that we had hired a kind of carriage known as a +"sea-going hack," driven by a negro in dark blue, who was even more +picturesque than the negroes in white who did the menial work in the +classic hotel, and had set forth frankly as excursionists into the +streets of Washington, and presently through the celebrated Pennsylvania +Avenue had achieved entrance into the Capitol. + +[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL] + +It was a breathless pilgrimage--this seeing of the Capitol. And yet an +impressive one. The Capitol is a great place. I was astonished--and I +admit at once I ought not to have been astonished--that the Capitol +appeals to the historic sense just as much as any other vast legislative +palace of the world--and perhaps more intimately than some. The sequence +of its endless corridors and innumerable chambers, each associated with +event or tradition, begets awe. I think it was in the rich Senatorial +reception-room that I first caught myself being surprised that the heavy +gilded and marmoreal sumptuosity of the decorations recalled the average +European palace. Why should I have been expecting the interior of the +Capitol to consist of austere bare walls and unornamented floors? +Perhaps it was due to some thought of Abraham Lincoln. But whatever its +cause, the expectation was naïve and derogatory. The young guide, Jimmy, +who by birth and genius evidently belonged to the universal race of +guides, was there to keep my ideas right and my eyes open. He was +infinitely precious, and after his own fashion would have done honor to +any public monument in the East. Such men are only bred in the very +shadow of genuine history. + +"See," he said, touching a wall. "Painted by celebrated Italian artist +to look like bas-relief! But put your hand flat against it, and you'll +see it isn't carved!" One might have been in Italy. + +And a little later he was saying of other painting: + +"Although painted in eighteen hundred sixty-five--forty-six years +ago--you notice the flesh tints are as fresh as if painted yesterday!" + +This, I think, was the finest remark I ever heard a guide make--until +this same guide stepped in front of a portrait of Henry Clay, and, after +a second's hesitation, threw off airily, patronizingly: + +"Henry Clay--quite a good statesman!" + +But I also contributed my excursionist's share to these singular +conversations. In the swathed Senate Chamber I noticed two +holland-covered objects that somehow reminded me of my youth and of +religious dissent. I guessed that the daily proceedings of the Senate +must be opened with devotional exercises, and these two objects seemed +to me to be proper--why, I cannot tell--to the United States Senate; but +there was one point that puzzled me. + +"Why," I asked, "do you have _two_ harmoniums?" + +"Harmoniums, sir!" protested the guide, staggered. "Those are roll-top +desks." + +If only the floor could have opened and swallowed me up, as it opens +and swallows up the grand piano at the Thomas concerts in Chicago! + +Neither the Senate Chamber nor the Congress Chamber was as imposing to +me as the much less spacious former Senate Chamber and the former +Congress Chamber. The old Senate Chamber, being now transferred to the +uses of supreme justice, was closed on the day of our visit, owing to +the funeral of a judge. Europeans would have acquiesced in the firm +negative of its locked doors. But my friends, being American, would not +acquiesce. The mere fact that the room was not on view actually +sharpened their desire that I should see it. They were deaf to +refusals.... I saw that room. And I was glad that I saw it, for in its +august simplicity it was worth seeing. The spirit of the early history +of the United States seemed to reside in that hemicycle; and the crape +on the vacated and peculiar chair added its own effect. + +[Illustration: ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE] + +My first notion on entering the former Congress Chamber was that I was +in presence of the weirdest collection of ugly statues that I had ever +beheld. Which impression, the result of shock, was undoubtedly false. On +reflection I am convinced that those statues of the worthies of the +different States are not more ugly than many statues I could point to in +no matter what fane, museum, or palace of Europe. Their ugliness is only +different from our accustomed European ugliness. The most crudely ugly +mural decorations in the world are to be found all over Italy--the home +of sublime frescos. The most atrociously debased architecture in the +world is to be found in France--the home of sober artistic tradition. +Europe is simply peppered everywhere with sculpture whose appalling +mediocrity defies competition. But when the European meets ugly +sculpture or any ugly form of art in the New World, his instinct is to +exclaim, "Of course!" His instinct is to exclaim, "This beats +everything!" The attitude will not bear examination. And lo! I was +adopting it myself. + +"And here's Frances Willard!" cried, ecstatically, a young woman in one +of the numerous parties of excursionists whose more deliberate paths +through the Capitol we were continually crossing in our swift course. + +And while, upon the spot where John Quincy Adams fell, I pretended to +listen to the guide, who was proving to me from a distance that the +place was as good a whispering-gallery as any in Europe, I thought: "And +why should not Frances Willard's statue be there? I am glad it is there. +And I am glad to see these groups of provincials admiring with open +mouths the statues of the makers of their history, though the statues +are chiefly painful." And I thought also: "New York may talk, and +Chicago may talk, and Boston may talk, but it is these groups of +provincials who are the real America." They were extraordinarily like +people from the Five Towns--that is to say, extraordinarily like +comfortable average people everywhere. + +We were outside again, under one of the enormous porticos of the +Capitol. The guide was receiving his well-earned dollar. The faithful +fellow had kept nicely within the allotted limit of half an hour. + +"Now we'll go and see the Congressional Library," said my particular +friend. + +But I would not. I had put myself in a position to retort to any +sight-seeing American in Europe that I had seen his Capitol in thirty +minutes, and I was content. I determined to rest on my laurels. +Moreover, I had discovered that conventional sight-seeing is a very +exhausting form of activity. I would visit neither the Library of +Congress, nor the Navy Department, nor the Pension Bureau, nor the +Dead-Letter Museum, nor the Zoological Park, nor the White House, nor +the National Museum, nor the Lincoln Museum, nor the Smithsonian +Institution, nor the Treasury, nor any other of the great spectacles of +Washington. We just resumed the sea-going hack and drove indolently to +and fro in avenues and parks, tasting the general savor of the city's +large pleasantness. And we had not gone far before we got into the +clutches of the police. + +"I don't know who you are," said a policeman, as he stopped our +sea-going hack. "I don't know who you are," he repeated, cautiously, as +one accustomed to policing the shahs and grand viziers of the earth, +"but it's my duty to tell you your coachman crossed over on the wrong +side of the lamp-post. It's not allowed, and he knows it as well as I +do." + +We admitted by our shamed silence that we had no special "pull" in +Washington; the wise negro said not a word; and we crept away from the +policeman's wrath, and before I knew it we were up against the +Washington Monument--one of those national calamities which ultimately +happen to every country, and of which the supreme example is, of course, +the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. + +[Illustration: ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO--THE CAPITOL] + +When I drove into the magnificent railway station late that +night--true American rain was descending in sheets--I was carrying away +with me an impression, as it were, of a gigantic plantation of public +edifices in a loose tangle and undergrowth of thoroughfares: which +seemed proper for a legislative and administrative metropolis. I was +amused to reflect how the city, like most cities, had extended in +precisely the direction in which its founders had never imagined it +would extend; and naturally I was astonished by the rapidity of its +development. (One of my friends, who was not old, had potted wild game +in a marsh that is now a park close to the Capitol.) I thought that the +noble wings of the Capitol were architecturally much superior to the +central portion of it. I remembered a dazzling glimpse of the White +House as a distinguished little building. I feared that ere my next +visit the indefatigable energy of America would have rebuilt +Pennsylvania Avenue, especially the higgledy-piggledy and picturesque +and untidy portion of it that lies nearest to the Capitol, and I hoped +that in doing so the architects would at any rate not carry the cornice +to such excess as it has been carried in other parts of the town. And, +finally, I was slightly scared by the prevalence of negroes. It seemed +to me as if in Washington I had touched the fringe of the negro problem. + + * * * * * + +It was in a different and a humbler spirit that I went to Boston. I had +received more warnings and more advice about Boston than about all the +other cities put together. And, in particular, the greatest care had +been taken to permeate my whole being with the idea that Boston was +"different." In some ways it proved so to be. One difference forced +itself upon me immediately I left the station for the streets--the +quaint, original odor of the taxis. When I got to the entirely admirable +hotel I found a book in a prominent situation on the writing-table in my +room. In many hotels this book would have been the Bible. But here it +was the catalogue of the hotel library; it ran to a hundred and +eighty-two pages. On the other hand, there was no bar in the hotel, and +no smoking-room. I make no comments; I draw no conclusions; I state the +facts. + +The warnings continued after my arrival. I was informed by I don't know +how many persons that Boston was "a circular city," with a topography +calculated to puzzle the simple. This was true. I usually go about in +strange places with a map, but I found the map of Boston even more +complex than the city it sought to explain. If I did not lose myself, it +was because I never trusted myself alone; other people lost me. + +Within an hour or so I had been familiarized by Bostonians with a whole +series of apparently stock jokes concerning and against Boston, such as +that one hinging on the phrase "cold roast Boston," and that other one +about the best thing in Boston being the five o'clock train to New York +(I do not vouch for the hour of departure). Even in Cambridge, a less +jocular place, a joke seemed to be immanent, to the effect that though +you could always tell a Harvard man, you could not tell him much. + +[Illustration: UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL] + +Matters more serious awaited me. An old resident of Boston took me +out for privacy onto the Common and whispered in my ear: "This is the +most snobbish city in the whole world. There is no real democracy here. +The first thing people do when they get to know you is to show you their +family tree and prove that they came over in the _Mayflower_." And so he +ran on, cursing Boston up hill and down dale. Nevertheless, he was very +proud of his Boston. Had I agreed with the condemnation, he might have +thrown me into the artificial brook. Another great Bostonian expert, +after leading me on to admit that I had come in order to try to learn +the real Boston, turned upon me with ferocious gaiety, thus: "You will +not learn the real Boston. You cannot. The real Boston is the old Back +Bay folk, who gravitate eternally between Beacon Street and State Street +and the Somerset Club, and never go beyond. They confuse New England +with the created universe, and it is impossible that you should learn +them. Nobody could learn them in less than twenty years' intense study +and research." + +Cautioned, and even intimidated, I thought it would be safest just to +take Boston as Boston came, respectfully but casually. And as the +hospitality of Boston was prodigious, splendid, unintermittent, and most +delightfully unaffected, I had no difficulty whatever in taking Boston +as she came. And my impressions began to emerge, one after another, from +the rich and cloudy confusion of novel sensations. + +What primarily differentiates Boston from all the other cities I saw is +this: It is finished; I mean complete. Of the other cities, while +admitting their actual achievement, one would say, and their own +citizens invariably do say, "They will be ..." Boston is. + +Another leading impression, which remains with me, is that Boston is not +so English as it perhaps imagines itself to be. An interviewer (among +many) came to see me about Boston, and he came with the fixed and sole +notion in his head that Boston was English. He would have it that Boston +was English. Worn down by his persistency, I did, as a fact, admit in +one obscure corner of the interview that Boston had certain English +characteristics. The scare-head editor of the interviewing paper, +looking through his man's copy for suitable prey, came across my +admission. It was just what he wanted; it was what he was thirsting for. +In an instant the scare-head was created: "Boston as English as a +muffin!" An ideal scare-head! That I had never used the word "muffin" or +any such phrase was a detail exquisitely unimportant. The scare-head was +immense. It traveled in fine large type across the continent. I met it +for weeks afterward in my press-cuttings, and I doubt if Boston was +altogether delighted with the comparison. I will not deny that Boston is +less strikingly un-English than sundry other cities. I will not deny +that I met men in Boston of a somewhat pronounced English type. I will +not deny that in certain respects old Kensington reminds me of a street +here and there in Boston--such as Mount Vernon Street or Chestnut +Street. But I do maintain that the Englishness of Boston has been +seriously exaggerated. + +And still another very striking memory of Boston--indeed, perhaps, the +paramount impression!--is that it contains the loveliest modern thing I +saw in America--namely, the Puvis de Chavannes wall-paintings on the +grand staircase of the Public Library. The Library itself is a beautiful +building, but it holds something more beautiful. Never shall I forget my +agitation on beholding these unsurpassed works of art, which alone would +suffice to make Boston a place of pilgrimage. + +When afterward I went back to Paris, the painters' first question was: +"_Et les Puvis à Boston--vous les avez vus? Qu'est-ce que vous en +dites?_" + +It was very un-English on the part of Boston to commission these austere +and classical works. England would never have done it. The nationality +of the greatest decorative painter of modern times would have offended +her sense of fitness. What--a French painter officially employed on an +English public building? Unthinkable! England would have insisted on an +English painter--or, at worst, an American. It is strange that a +community which had the wit to honor itself by employing Puvis de +Chavannes should be equally enthusiastic about the frigid +theatricalities of an E.A. Abbey or the forbidding and opaque intricate +dexterity of a John Sargent in the same building. Or, rather, it is not +strange, for these contradictions are discoverable everywhere in the +patronage of the arts. + +It was from the Public Library that some friends and I set out on a +little tour of Boston. Whether we went north, south, east, or west I +cannot tell, for this was one of the few occasions when the extreme +variousness of a city has deprived me definitely of a sense of +direction; but I know that we drove many miles through magnificent +fenny parks, whose roads were reserved to pleasure, and that at length, +after glimpsing famous houses and much of the less centralized wealth +and ease of Boston, we came out upon the shores of the old harbor, and +went into a yacht-club-house with a glorious prospect. Boston has more +book-shops to the acre than any city within my knowledge except Aberdeen +(not North Carolina, but Scotland). Its book-shops, however, are as +naught to its yacht clubs. And for one yacht club I personally would +sacrifice many book-shops. It was an exciting moment in my life when, +after further wandering on and off coast roads, and through curving, +cobbled, rackety streets, and between thunderous tram-cars and under +deafening elevated lines, I was permitted to enter the celestial and +calm precincts of the Boston Yacht Club itself, which overlooks another +harbor. The acute and splendid nauticality of this club, all fashioned +out of an old warehouse, stamps Boston as a city which has comprehended +the sea. I saw there the very wheel of the _Spray_, the cockboat in +which the regretted Slocum wafted himself round the world! I sat in an +arm-chair which would have suited Falstaff, and whose tabular arms would +have held all Falstaff's tankards, and gazed through a magnified +port-hole at a six-masted schooner as it crossed the field of vision! +And I had never even dreamed that a six-masted schooner existed! It was +with difficulty that I left the Boston Yacht Club. Indeed, I would only +leave it in order to go and see the frigate _Constitution_, the ship +which was never defeated, and which assuredly, after over a hundred and +ten years of buoyant life, remains the most truly English thing in +Boston. The afternoon teas of Boston are far less English than that grim +and majestic craft. + +[Illustration: THE PROMENADE--CITY POINT, BOSTON] + +We passed into the romantic part of Boston, skirting vast +wool-warehouses and other enormous establishments bearing such Oriental +signs as "Coffee and Spices." And so into a bewildering congeries of +crowded streets, where every name on the walls seemed to be Italian, and +where every corner was dangerous with vegetable-barrows, tram-cars, and +perambulators; through this quarter the legend of Paul Revere seemed to +float like a long wisp of vapor. And then I saw the Christopher Wren +spire of Paul Revere's signal-church, closed now--but whether because +the congregation had dwindled to six or for some more recondite reason I +am not clear. And then I beheld the delightful, elegant fabric of the +old State House, with the memories of massacre round about it, and the +singular spectacle of the Lion and the Unicorn on its roof. Too proudly +negligent had Boston been to remove those symbols! + +And finally we rolled into the central and most circular shopping +quarter, as different from the Italian quarter as the Italian quarter +was different from Copley Square; and its heart was occupied by a +graveyard. And here I had to rest. + +The second portion of the itinerary began with the domed State Capitol, +an impressive sight, despite its strange coloring, and despite its +curious habit of illuminating itself at dark, as if in competition with +such establishments as the "Bijou Dream," on the opposite side of the +Common. Here I first set eyes on Beacon Street, familiar--indeed, +classic--to the European student of American literature. Commonwealth +Avenue, I have to confess, I had never heard of till I saw it. These +interminable and gorgeous thoroughfares, where each massive abode is a +costly and ceremonial organization of the most polished and civilized +existence, leave the simple European speechless--especially when he +remembers the swampy origin of the main part of the ground.... The +inscrutable, the unknowable Back Bay! + +Here, indeed, is evidence of a society in equilibrium, and therefore of +a society which will receive genuinely new ideas with an extreme, if +polite, caution, while welcoming with warm suavity old ideas that +disguise themselves as novelties! + +It was a tremendous feat to reclaim from ooze the foundation of Back +Bay. Such feats are not accomplished in Europe; they are not even +imaginatively conceived there. And now that the great business is +achieved, the energy that did it, restless and unoccupied, is seeking +another field. I was informed that Boston is dreaming of the +construction of an artificial island in the midst of the river Charles, +with the hugest cathedral in the world thereon, and the most gorgeous +bridges that ever spanned a fine stream. With proper deference, it is to +be hoped that Boston, forgetting this infelicitous caprice, will +remember in time that she alone among the great cities of America is +complete. A project that would consort well with the genius of Chicago +might disserve Boston in the eyes of those who esteem a sense of fitness +to be among the major qualifications for the true art of life. And, in +the matter of the art of daily living, Boston as she is has a great deal +to teach to the rest of the country, and little to learn. Such is the +diffident view of a stranger. + + * * * * * + +Cambridge is separated from Boston by the river Charles and by piquant +jealousies that tickle no one more humorously than those whom, +theoretically, they stab. From the east bank Cambridge is academic, and +therefore negligible; from the west, Boston dwindles to a mere quay +where one embarks for Europe. + +What struck me first about Cambridge was that it must be the only city +of its size and amenity in the United States without an imposing hotel. +It is difficult to imagine any city in the United States minus at least +two imposing hotels, with a barber's shop in the basement and a world's +fair in the hall. But one soon perceives that Cambridge is a city apart. +In visual characteristics it must have changed very little, and it will +never change with facility. Boston is pre-eminently a town of +traditions, but the traditions have to be looked for. Cambridge is +equally a town of traditions, but the traditions stare you in the face. + +My first halt was in front of the conspicuous home of James Russell +Lowell. Now in the far recesses of the Five Towns I was brought up on +"My Study Windows." My father, who would never accept the authority of +an encyclopedia when his children got him in a corner on some debated +question of fact, held James Russell Lowell as the supreme judge of +letters, from whom not even he could appeal (It is true, he had never +heard of Ste. Beuve, and regarded Matthew Arnold as a modern fad.) And +there were the study windows of James Russell Lowell! And his house in +its garden was only one of hundreds of similar houses standing in like +old gardens. + +It was highly agreeable to learn that some of the pre-Revolution houses +had not yet left the occupation of the families which built them. +Beautiful houses, a few of them, utterly dissimilar from anything on the +other side of the Atlantic! Did not William Morris always maintain that +wood was and forever would be the most suitable material for building a +house? On the side of the railroad track near Toledo I saw frame houses, +whose architecture is debased from this Cambridge architecture, blown +clean over by the gale. But the gale that will deracinate Cambridge has +not yet begun to rage.... I rejoiced to see the house of Longfellow. In +spite of the fact that he wrote "The Wreck of the _Hesperus_," he seems +to keep his position as the chief minor poet of the English language. +And the most American and the most wistful thing in Cambridge was that +the children of Cambridge had been guided to buy and make inalienable +the land in front of his house, so that his descendant might securely +enjoy the free prospect that Longfellow enjoyed. In what other country +would just such a delicate, sentimental homage have been paid in just +such an ingeniously fanciful manner?[1] + +[Footnote 1: This story was related to me by a resident of Cambridge. +Mr. Richard H. Dana, Longfellow's son-in-law, has since informed me that +it is quite untrue. I regret that it is quite untrue. It ought to have +been quite true. The land in question was given by Longfellow's children +to the Longfellow Memorial Association, who gave it to the city of +Cambridge. The general children of Cambridge did give to Longfellow an +arm-chair made from the wood of a certain historic "spreading +chestnut-tree," under which stood a certain historic village smithy; and +with this I suppose I must be content.--A.B.] + +[Illustration: THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB--OVERLOOKING THE RIVER] + +After I had passed the Longfellow house it began to rain, and dusk +began to gather in the recesses between the houses; and my memory is +that, with an athletic and tireless companion, I walked uncounted +leagues through endless avenues of Cambridge homes toward a promised +club that seemed ever to retreat before us with the shyness of a fawn. +However, we did at length capture it. This club was connected with +Harvard, and I do not propose to speak of Harvard in the present +chapter. + + * * * * * + +The typical Cambridge house as I saw it persists in my recollection as +being among the most characteristic and comfortable of "real" American +phenomena. And one reason why I insisted, in a previous chapter, on the +special Americanism of Indianapolis is that Indianapolis is full of a +modified variety of these houses which is even more characteristically +American--to my mind--than the Cambridge style itself. Indianapolis +being by general consent the present chief center of letters in the +United States, it is not surprising that I, an author, knew more people +from Indianapolis than from any other city. Indeed, I went to +Indianapolis simply because I had old friends there, and not at all in +the hope of inspecting a city characteristically American. It was quite +startlingly different from the mental picture I had formed of it. + +I think that in order to savor Indianapolis properly one should approach +it as I approached it--in an accommodation-train on a single track, a +train with a happy-go-lucky but still agreeable service in its +restaurant-car, a train that halts at every barn-door in the vast flat, +featureless fields of yellow stubble, rolling sometimes over a muddy, +brown river, and skirting now and then a welcome wooded cleft in the +monotony of the landscape. The scenes at those barn-doors were full of +the picturesque and of the racy. A farmer with a gun and a brace of +rabbits and a dog leaping up at them, while two young women talked to or +at the farmer from a distance; a fat little German girl in a Scotch +frock, cleaning outside windows with the absorbed seriousness of a +grandmother; a group of boys dividing their attention between her and +the train; an old woman driving a cart, and a negro gesticulating and +running after the cart; and all of them, save the nigger, wearing +gloves--presumably as a protection against the strong wind that swept +through the stubble and shook the houses and the few trees. Those +houses, in all their summariness and primitive crudity, yet reminded one +of the Cambridge homes; they exhibited some remains of the +pre-Revolution style. + +And then you come to the inevitable State Fair grounds, and the environs +of the city which is the capital and heart of all those plains. + +And after you have got away from the railroad station and the imposing +hotels and the public monuments and the high central buildings--an +affair of five minutes in an automobile--you discover yourself in long, +calm streets of essential America. These streets are rectangular; the +streets of Cambridge abhor the straight line. They are full everywhere +of maple-trees. And on either side they are bordered with homes--each +house detached, each house in its own fairly spacious garden, each +house individual and different from all the rest. Few of the houses are +large; on the other hand, none of them is small: this is the region of +the solid middle class, the class which loves comfort and piques itself +on its amenities, but is a little ashamed or too timid to be luxurious. + +Architecturally the houses represent a declension from the purity of +earlier Cambridge. Scarcely one is really beautiful. The style is +debased. But then, it possesses the advantage of being modernized; it +has not the air of having strayed by accident into the wrong century. +And, moreover, it is saved from condemnation by its sobriety and by its +honest workmanship. It is the expression of a race incapable of looking +foolish, of being giddy, of running to extremes. It is the expression of +a race that both clung to the past and reached out to the future; that +knew how to make the best of both worlds; that keenly realized the value +of security because it had been through insecurity. You can see that all +these houses were built by people who loved "a bit of property," and to +whom a safe and dignified roof was the final ambition achieved. Why! I +do believe that there are men and women behind some of those curtains to +this day who haven't quite realized that the Indians aren't coming any +more, and that there is permanently enough wood in the pile, and that +quinine need no longer figure in the store cupboard as a staple article +of diet! I do believe that there are minor millionaires in some of those +drawing-rooms who wonder whether, out-soaring the ambition of a bit of +property, they would be justified in creeping down-town and buying a +cheap automobile!... These are the people who make the link between the +academic traditionalism of Cambridge and such excessively modern +products of evolution as their own mayor, Mr. Shanks, protector of the +poor. They are not above forming deputations to parley with their own +mayor.... I loved them. Their drawing-rooms were full of old silver, and +book-gossip, and Victorian ladies apparently transported direct from the +more aristocratic parts of the Five Towns, who sat behind trays and +poured out tea from the identical tea-pot that my grandmother used to +keep in a green bag. + +In the outer suburbs of the very largest cities I saw revulsions against +the wholesale barracky conveniences of the apartment-house, in the shape +of little colonies of homes, consciously but superficially imitating the +Cambridge-Indianapolis tradition--with streets far more curvily winding +than the streets of Cambridge, and sidewalks of a strip of concrete +between green turf-bands that recalled the original sidewalks of +Indianapolis and even of the rural communities around Indianapolis. Cozy +homes, each in its own garden, with its own clothes-drier, and each +different from all the rest! Homes that the speculative builder, recking +not of the artistic sobriety, had determined should be picturesque at +any cost of capricious ingenuity! And not secure homes, because, though +they were occupied by their owners, their owners had not built them--had +only bought them, and would sell them as casually as they had bought. +The apartment-house will probably prove stronger than these throwbacks. +And yet the time will come when even the apartment-house will be +regarded as a picturesque survival. Into what novel architecture and +organization of living it will survive I should not care to prophesy, +but I am convinced that the future will be quite as interestingly human +as the present is, and as the past was. + + + + +IV + +SOME ORGANIZATIONS + + +"What strikes and frightens the backward European as much as anything in +the United States is the efficiency and fearful universality of the +telephone. Just as I think of the big cities as agglomerations pierced +everywhere by elevator-shafts full of movement, so I think of them as +being threaded, under pavements and over roofs and between floors and +ceilings and between walls, by millions upon millions of live filaments +that unite all the privacies of the organism--and destroy them in order +to make one immense publicity! I do not mean that Europe has failed to +adopt the telephone, nor that in Europe there are no hotels with the +dreadful curse of an active telephone in every room. But I do mean that +the European telephone is a toy, and a somewhat clumsy one, compared +with the inexorable seriousness of the American telephone. Many +otherwise highly civilized Europeans are as timid in addressing a +telephone as they would be in addressing a royal sovereign. The average +European middle-class householder still speaks of his telephone, if he +has one, in the same falsely casual tone as the corresponding American +is liable to speak of his motor-car. It is naught--a negligible +trifle--but somehow it comes into the conversation! + +"How odd!" you exclaim. And you are right. It is we Europeans who are +wrong, through no particular fault of our own. + +The American is ruthlessly logical about the telephone. The only +occasion on which I was in really serious danger of being taken for a +madman in the United States was when, in a Chicago hotel, I permanently +removed the receiver from the telephone in a room designed (doubtless +ironically) for slumber. The whole hotel was appalled. Half Chicago +shuddered. In response to the prayer of a deputation from the management +I restored the receiver. On the horrified face of the deputation I could +read the unspoken query: "Is it conceivable that you have been in this +country a month without understanding that the United States is +primarily nothing but a vast congeries of telephone-cabins?" Yes, I +yielded and admired! And I surmise that on my next visit I shall find a +telephone on every table of every restaurant that respects itself. + +[Illustration: AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE] + +It is the efficiency of the telephone that makes it irresistible to a +great people whose passion is to "get results"--the instancy with which +the communication is given, and the clear loudness of the telephone's +voice in reply to yours: phenomena utterly unknown in Europe. Were I to +inhabit the United States, I too should become a victim of the telephone +habit, as it is practised in its most advanced form in those suburban +communities to which I have already incidentally referred at the end of +the previous chapter. There a woman takes to the telephone as women in +more decadent lands take to morphia. You can see her at morn at her +bedroom window, pouring confidences into her telephone, thus +combining the joy of an innocent vice with the healthy freshness of +breeze and sunshine. It has happened to me to sit in a drawing-room, +where people gathered round the telephone as Europeans gather round a +fire, and to hear immediately after the ejaculation of a number into the +telephone a sharp ring from outside through the open window, and then to +hear in answer to the question, "What are you going to wear to-night?" +two absolutely simultaneous replies, one loudly from the telephone +across the room, and the other faintlier from a charming human voice +across the garden: "I don't know. What are you?" Such may be the +pleasing secondary scientific effect of telephoning to the lady next +door on a warm afternoon. + +Now it was obvious that behind the apparently simple exterior aspects of +any telephone system there must be an intricate and marvelous secret +organization. In Europe my curiosity would probably never have been +excited by the thought of that organization--at home one accepts +everything as of course!--but, in the United States, partly because the +telephone is so much more wonderful and terrible there, and partly +because in a foreign land one is apt to have strange caprices, I allowed +myself to become the prey of a desire to see the arcanum concealed at +the other end of all the wires; and thus, one day, under the high +protection of a demigod of the electrical world, I paid a visit to a +telephone-exchange in New York, and saw therein what nine hundred and +ninety-nine out of every thousand of the most ardent telephone-users +seldom think about and will never see. + +A murmuring sound, as of an infinity of scholars in a prim school +conning their lessons, and a long row of young women seated in a dim +radiance on a long row of precisely similar stools, before a long +apparatus of holes and pegs and pieces of elastic cord, all extremely +intent: that was the first broad impression. One saw at once that none +of these young women had a single moment to spare; they were all +involved in the tremendous machine, part of it, keeping pace with it and +in it, and not daring to take their eyes off it for an instant, lest +they should sin against it. What they were droning about it was +impossible to guess; for if one stationed oneself close to any +particular rapt young woman, she seemed to utter no sound, but simply +and without ceasing to peg and unpeg holes at random among the thousands +of holes before her, apparently in obedience to the signaling of faint, +tiny lights that in thousands continually expired and were rekindled. +(It was so that these tiny lights should be distinguishable that the +illumination of the secret and finely appointed chamber was kept dim.) +Throughout the whole length of the apparatus the colored elastic cords +to which the pegs were attached kept crossing one another in fantastic +patterns. + +We who had entered were ignored. We might have been ghosts, invisible +and inaudible. Even the supervisors, less-young women set in authority, +did not turn to glance at us as they moved restlessly peering behind the +stools. And yet somehow I could hear the delicate shoulders of all the +young women saying, without speech: "Here come these tyrants and +taskmasters again, who have invented this exercise which nearly but not +quite cracks our little brains for us! They know exactly how much they +can get out of us, and they get it. They are cleverer than us and more +powerful than us; and we have to submit to their discipline. But--" And +afar off I could hear: "What are you going to wear to-night?" "Will you +dine with me to-night?" "I want two seats." "Very well, thanks, and how +is Mrs....?" "When can I see you to-morrow?" "I'll take your offer for +those bonds." ... And I could see the interiors of innumerable offices +and drawing-rooms.... But of course I could hear and see nothing really +except the intent drone and quick gesturing of those completely absorbed +young creatures in the dim radiance, on stools precisely similar. + +I understood why the telephone service was so efficient. I understood +not merely from the demeanor of the long row of young women, but from +everything else I had seen in the exact and diabolically ingenious +ordering of the whole establishment. + +We were silent for a time, as though we had entered a church. We were, +perhaps unconsciously, abashed by the intensity of the absorption of +these neat young women. After a while one of the guides, one of the +inscrutable beings who had helped to invent and construct the astounding +organism, began in a low voice on the forlorn hope of making me +comprehend the mechanism of a telephone-call and its response. And I +began on the forlorn hope of persuading him by intelligent acting that I +did comprehend. We each made a little progress. I could not tell him +that, though I genuinely and humbly admired his particular variety of +genius, what interested me in the affair was not the mechanics, but the +human equation. As a professional reader of faces, I glanced as well as +I could sideways at those bent girls' faces to see if they were happy. +An absurd inquiry! Do _I_ look happy when I'm at work, I wonder! Did +they then look reasonably content? Well, I came to the conclusion that +they looked like most other faces--neither one thing nor the other. +Still, in a great establishment, I would sooner search for sociological +information in the faces of the employed than in the managerial rules. + +"What do they earn?" I asked, when we emerged from the ten-atmosphere +pressure of that intense absorption. (Of course I knew that no young +women could possibly for any length of time be as intensely absorbed as +these appeared to be. But the illusion was there, and it was effective.) + +I learned that even the lowest beginner earned five dollars a week. It +was just the sum I was paying for a pair of clean sheets every night at +a grand hotel. And that the salary rose to six, seven, eight, eleven, +and even fourteen dollars for supervisors, who, however, had to stand on +their feet seven and a half hours a day, as shop-girls do for ten hours +a day; and that in general the girls had thirty minutes for lunch, and a +day off every week, and that the Company supplied them gratuitously with +tea, coffee, sugar, couches, newspapers, arm-chairs, and fresh air, of +which last fifty fresh cubic feet were pumped in for every operator +every minute. + +"Naturally," I was told, "the discipline is strict. There are test +wires.... We can check the 'time elements.' ... We keep a record of +every call. They'll take a dollar a week less in an outside place--for +instance, a hotel.... Their average stay here is thirty months." + +And I was told the number of exchanges there were in New York, exactly +like the one I was seeing. + +A dollar a week less in a hotel! How feminine! And how masculine! And +how wise for one sort of young woman, and how foolish for another!... +Imagine quitting that convent with its guaranteed fresh air, and its +couches and sugar and so on, for the rough hazards and promiscuities of +a hotel! On the other hand, imagine not quitting it! + +Said the demigod of the electrical world, condescendingly: "All this +telephone business is done on a mere few hundred horse-power. Come away, +and I'll show you electricity in bulk." + +And I went away with him, thoughtful. In spite of the inhuman perfection +of its functioning, that exchange was a very human place indeed. It +brilliantly solved some problems; it raised others. Excessively +difficult to find any fault whatever in it! A marvelous service, +achieved under strictly hygienic conditions--and young women must make +their way through the world! And yet--Yes, a very human place indeed! + + * * * * * + +The demigods of the electric world do not condescend to move about in +petrol motor-cars. In the exercise of a natural and charming coquetry +they insist on electrical traction, and it was in the most modern and +soundless electric brougham that we arrived at nightfall under the +overhanging cornice-eaves of two gigantic Florentine palaces--just such +looming palaces, they appeared in the dark, as may be seen in any +central street of Florence, with a cinema-show blazing its signs on the +ground floor, and Heaven knows what remnants of Italian aristocracy in +the mysterious upper stories. Having entered one of the palaces, +simultaneously with a tornado of wind, we passed through long, deserted, +narrow galleries, lined with thousands of small, caged compartments +containing "transformers," and on each compartment was a label bearing +always the same words: "Danger, 6,600 volts." "Danger, 6,600 volts." +"Danger, 6,600 volts." A wondrous relief when we had escaped with our +lives from the menace of those innumerable volts! And then we stood on a +high platform surrounded by handles, switches, signals--apparatus enough +to put all New York into darkness, or to annihilate it in an instant by +the unloosing of terrible cohorts of volts!--and faced an enormous white +hall, sparsely peopled by a few colossal machines that seemed to be +revolving and oscillating about their business with the fatalism of +conquered and resigned leviathans. Immaculately clean, inconceivably +tidy, shimmering with brilliant light under its lofty and beautiful +ceiling, shaking and roaring with the terrific thunder of its own +vitality, this hall in which no common voice could make itself heard +produced nevertheless an effect of magical stillness, silence, and +solitude. We were alone in it, save that now and then in the far-distant +spaces a figure might flit and disappear between the huge glinting +columns of metal. It was a hall enchanted and inexplicable. I understood +nothing of it. But I understood that half the electricity of New York +was being generated by its engines of a hundred and fifty thousand +horse-power, and that if the spell were lifted the elevators of New York +would be immediately paralyzed, and the twenty million lights expire +beneath the eyes of a startled population. I could have gazed at it to +this day, and brooded to this day upon the human imaginations that had +perfected it; but I was led off, hypnotized, to see the furnaces and +boilers under the earth. And even there we were almost alone, to such an +extent had one sort of senseless matter been compelled to take charge of +another sort of senseless matter. The odyssey of the coal that was +lifted high out of ships on the tide beyond, to fall ultimately into the +furnaces within, scarcely touched by the hand-wielded shovel, was by +itself epical. Fresh air pouring in at the rate of twenty-four million +cubic feet per hour cooled the entire palace, and gave to these +stoke-holes the uncanny quality of refrigerators. The lowest horror of +the steamship had been abolished here. + +I was tempted to say: "This alone is fit to be called the heart of New +York!" + +They took me to the twin palace, and on the windy way thither figures +were casually thrown at me. As that a short circuit may cause the +machines to surge wildly into the sudden creation of six million +horse-power of electricity, necessitating the invention of other +machines to control automatically these perilous vagaries! As that in +the down-town district the fire-engine was being abolished because, at a +signal, these power-houses could in thirty seconds concentrate on any +given main a pressure of three hundred pounds to the square inch, +lifting jets of water perhaps above the roofs of sky-scrapers! As that +the city could fine these power-houses at the rate of five hundred +dollars a minute for any interruption of the current longer than three +minutes--but the current had never failed for a single second! As that +in one year over two million dollars' worth of machinery had been +scrapped!... And I was aware that it was New York I was in, and not +Timbuctoo. + +In the other palace it appeared that the great American scrapping +process was even yet far from complete. At first sight this other seemed +to resemble the former one, but I was soon instructed that the former +one was as naught to this one, for here the turbine--the "strong, silent +man" among engines--was replacing the racket of cylinder and crank. +Statistics are tiresome and futile to stir the imagination. I disdain +statistics, even when I assimilate them. And yet when my attention was +directed to one trifling block of metal, and I was told that it was the +most powerful "unit" in the world, and that it alone would make +electricity sufficient for the lighting of a city of a quarter of a +million people, I felt that statistics, after all, could knock you a +staggering blow.... In this other palace, too, was the same solitude of +machinery, attending most conscientiously and effectively to itself. A +singularly disconcerting spectacle! And I reflected that, according to +dreams already coming true, the telephone-exchange also would soon be a +solitude of clicking contact-points, functioning in mystic certitude, +instead of a convent of girls requiring sugar and couches, and thirsting +for love. A singularly disconcerting prospect! + +But was it necessary to come to America in order to see and describe +telephone-exchanges and electrical power-houses? Do not these wonders +exist in all the cities of earth? They do, but not to quite the same +degree of wondrousness. Hat-shops, and fine hat-shops, exist in New +York, but not to quite the same degree of wondrousness as in Paris. +People sing in New York, but not with quite the same natural lyricism as +in Naples. The great civilizations all present the same features; but it +is just the differences in degree between the same feature in this +civilization and in that--it is just these differences which together +constitute and illustrate the idiosyncrasy of each. It seems to me that +the brains and the imagination of America shone superlatively in the +conception and ordering of its vast organizations of human beings, and +of machinery, and of the two combined. By them I was more profoundly +attracted, impressed, and inspired than by any other non-spiritual +phenomena whatever in the United States. For me they were the proudest +material achievements, and essentially the most poetical achievements, +of the United States. And that is why I am dwelling on them. + + * * * * * + +Further, there are business organizations in America of a species which +do not flourish at all in Europe. For example, the "mail-order house," +whose secrets were very generously displayed to me in Chicago--a +peculiar establishment which sells merely everything (except +patent-medicines)--on condition that you order it by post. Go into that +house with money in your palm, and ask for a fan or a flail or a +fur-coat or a fountain-pen or a fiddle, and you will be requested to +return home and write a letter about the proposed purchase, and stamp +the letter and drop it into a mail-box, and then to wait till the +article arrives at your door. That house is one of the most spectacular +and pleasing proofs that the inhabitants of the United States are thinly +scattered over an enormous area, in tiny groups, often quite isolated +from stores. On the day of my visit sixty thousand letters had been +received, and every executable order contained in these was executed +before closing time, by the co-ordinated efforts of over four thousand +female employees and over three thousand males. The conception would +make Europe dizzy. Imagine a merchant in Moscow trying to inaugurate +such a scheme! + +A little machine no bigger than a soup-plate will open hundreds of +envelops at once. They are all the same, those envelops; they have even +less individuality than sheep being sheared, but when the contents of +one--any one at random--are put into your hand, something human and +distinctive is put into your hand. I read the caligraphy on a blue sheet +of paper, and it was written by a woman in Wyoming, a neat, earnest, +harassed, and possibly rather harassing woman, and she wanted all sorts +of things and wanted them intensely--I could see that with clearness. +This complex purchase was an important event in her year. So far as her +imagination went, only one mail-order would reach the Chicago house that +morning, and the entire establishment would be strained to meet it. + +Then the blue sheet was taken from me and thrust into the system, and +therein lost to me. I was taken to a mysteriously rumbling shaft of +broad diameter, that pierced all the floors of the house and had +trap-doors on each floor. And when one of the trap-doors was opened I +saw packages of all descriptions racing after one another down spiral +planes within the shaft. There were several of these great shafts--with +divisions for mail, express, and freight traffic--and packages were +ceaselessly racing down all of them, laden with the objects desired by +the woman of Wyoming and her fifty-nine-thousand-odd fellow-customers of +the day. At first it seemed to me impossible that that earnest, +impatient woman in Wyoming should get precisely what she wanted; it +seemed to me impossible that some mistake should not occur in all that +noisy fever of rushing activity. But after I had followed an order, and +seen it filled and checked, my opinion was that a mistake would be the +most miraculous phenomenon in that establishment. I felt quite reassured +on behalf of Wyoming. + +And then I was suddenly in a room where six hundred billing-machines +were being clicked at once by six hundred young women, a fantastic aural +nightmare, though none of the young women appeared to be conscious that +anything bizarre was going on.... And then I was in a printing-shop, +where several lightning machines spent their whole time every day in +printing the most popular work of reference in the United States, a +bulky book full of pictures, with an annual circulation of five and a +half million copies--the general catalogue of the firm. For the first +time I realized the true meaning of the word "popularity "--and +sighed.... + +And then it was lunch-time for about a couple of thousand employees, +and in the boundless restaurant I witnessed the working of the devices +which enabled these legions to choose their meals, and pay for them +(cost price) in a few moments, and without advanced mathematical +calculations. The young head of the restaurant showed me, with pride, a +menu of over a hundred dishes--Austrian, German, Hungarian, Italian, +Scotch, French, and American; at prices from one cent up as high as ten +cents (prime roast-beef)--and at the foot of the menu was his personal +appeal: "_I_ desire to extend to you a cordial invitation to inspect," +etc. "_My_ constant aim will be," etc. Yet it was not _his_ restaurant. +It was the firm's restaurant. Here I had a curious illustration of an +admirable characteristic of American business methods that was always +striking me--namely, the real delegation of responsibility. An American +board of direction will put a man in charge of a department, as a +viceroy over a province, saying, as it were: "This is yours. Do as you +please with it. We will watch the results." A marked contrast this with +the centralizing of authority which seems to be ever proceeding in +Europe, and which breeds in all classes at all ages--especially in +France--a morbid fear and horror of accepting responsibility. + +[Illustration: LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB] + +Later, I was on the ground level, in the midst of an enormous apparent +confusion--the target for all the packages and baskets, big and little, +that shot every instant in a continuous stream from those spiral planes, +and slid dangerously at me along the floors. Here were the packers. I +saw a packer deal with a collected order, and in this order were a +number of tiny cookery utensils, a four-cent curling-iron, a brush, and +two incredibly ugly pink china mugs, inscribed in cheap gilt +respectively with the words "Father" and "Mother." Throughout my stay in +America no moment came to me more dramatically than this moment, and +none has remained more vividly in my mind. All the daily domestic life +of the small communities in the wilds of the West and the Middle West, +and in the wilds of the back streets of the great towns, seemed to be +revealed to me by the contents of that basket, as the packer wrapped up +and protected one article after another. I had been compelled to abandon +a visitation of the West and of the small communities everywhere, and I +was sorry. But here in a microcosm I thought I saw the simple reality of +the backbone of all America, a symbol of the millions of the little +plain people, who ultimately make possible the glory of the +world-renowned streets and institutions in dazzling cities. + +There was something indescribably touching in that curling-iron and +those two mugs. I could see the table on which the mugs would soon +proudly stand, and "father" and "mother" and children thereat, and I +could see the hand heating the curling-iron and applying it. I could see +the whole little home and the whole life of the little home.... And +afterward, as I wandered through the warehouses--pyramids of the same +chair, cupboards full of the same cheap violin, stacks of the same album +of music, acres of the same carpet and wallpaper, tons of the same +gramophone, hundreds of tons of the same sewing-machine and +lawn-mower--I felt as if I had been made free of the secrets of every +village in every State of the Union, and as if I had lived in every +little house and cottage thereof all my life! Almost no sense of beauty +in those tremendous supplies of merchandise, but a lot of honesty, +self-respect, and ambition fulfilled. I tell you I could hear the +engaged couples discussing ardently over the pages of the catalogue what +manner of bedroom suite they would buy, and what design of sideboard.... + +Finally, I arrived at the firm's private railway station, where a score +or more trucks were being laden with the multifarious boxes, bales, and +parcels, all to leave that evening for romantic destinations such as +Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming. Yes, the package of the woman of Wyoming's +desire would ultimately be placed somewhere in one of those trucks! It +was going to start off toward her that very night! + + * * * * * + +Impressive as this establishment was, finely as it illustrated the +national genius for organization, it yet lacked necessarily, on account +of the nature of its activity, those outward phenomena of splendor which +charm the stranger's eye in the great central houses of New York, and +which seem designed to sum up all that is most characteristic and most +dazzling in the business methods of the United States. These central +houses are not soiled by the touch of actual merchandise. Nothing more +squalid than ink ever enters their gates. They traffic with symbols +only, and the symbols, no matter what they stand for, are never in +themselves sordid. The men who have created these houses seem to have +realized that, from their situation and their importance, a special +effort toward representative magnificence was their pleasing duty, and +to have made the effort with a superb prodigality and an astounding +ingenuity. + +Take, for a good, glorious example, the very large insurance company, +conscious that the eyes of the world are upon it, and that the entire +United States is expecting it to uphold the national pride. All the +splendors of all the sky-scrapers are united in its building. Its foyer +and grand staircase will sustain comparison with those of the Paris +Opéra. You might think you were going into a place of entertainment! +And, as a fact, you are! This affair, with nearly four thousand clerks, +is the huge toy and pastime of a group of millionaires who have +discovered a way of honestly amusing themselves while gaining applause +and advertisement. Within the foyer and beyond the staircase, notice the +outer rooms, partitioned off by bronze grilles, looming darkly gorgeous +in an eternal windowless twilight studded with the beautiful glowing +green disks of electric-lamp shades; and under each disk a human head +bent over the black-and-red magic of ledgers! The desired effect is at +once obtained, and it is wonderful. Then lose yourself in and out of the +ascending and descending elevators, and among the unending multitudes of +clerks, and along the corridors of marble (total length exactly measured +and recorded). You will be struck dumb. And immediately you begin to +recover your speech you will be struck dumb again.... + +Other houses, as has been seen, provide good meals for their employees +at cost price. This house, then, will provide excellent meals, free of +charge! It will install the most expensive kitchens and richly spacious +restaurants. It will serve the delicate repasts with dignity. "Does all +this lessen the wages?" No, not in theory. But in practice, and whether +the management wishes or not, it must come out of the wages. "Why do you +do it?" you ask the departmental chief, who apparently gets far more fun +out of the contemplation of these refectories than out of the +contemplation of premiums received and claims paid. "It is better for +the employees," he says. "But we do it because it is better for us. It +pays us. Good food, physical comfort, agreeable environment, scientific +ventilation--all these things pay us. We get results from them." He does +not mention horses, but you feel that the comparison is with horses. A +horse, or a clerk, or an artisan--it pays equally well to treat all of +them well. This is one of the latest discoveries of economic science, a +discovery not yet universally understood. + +[Illustration: A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG] + +I say you do not mention horses, and you certainly must not hint that +the men in authority may have been actuated by motives of humanity. You +must believe what you are told--that the sole motive is to get results. +The eagerness with which all heads of model establishments would disavow +to me any thought of being humane was affecting in its _naïveté_; it had +that touch of ingenuous wistfulness which I remarked everywhere in +America--and nowhere more than in the demeanor of many mercantile +highnesses. (I hardly expect Americans to understand just what I mean +here.) It was as if they would blush at being caught in an act of +humanity, like school-boys caught praying. Still, to my mind, the +white purity of their desire to get financial results was often muddied +by the dark stain of a humane motive. I may be wrong (as people say), +but I know I am not (as people think). + +The further you advance into the penetralia of this arch-exemplar of +American organization and profusion, the more you are amazed by the +imaginative perfection of its detail: as well in the system of filing +for instant reference fifty million separate documents, as in the +planning of a concert-hall for the diversion of the human machines. + +As we went into the immense concert-hall a group of girls were giving an +informal concert among themselves. When lunch is served on the premises +with chronographic exactitude, the thirty-five minutes allowed for the +meal give an appreciable margin for music and play. A young woman was +just finishing a florid song. The concert was suspended, and the whole +party began to move humbly away at this august incursion. + +"Sing it again; do, please!" the departmental chief suggested. And the +florid song was nervously sung again; we applauded, the artiste bowed as +on a stage, and the group fled, the thirty-five minutes being doubtless +up. The departmental chief looked at me in silence, content, as much as +to say: "This is how we do business in America." And I thought, "Yet +another way of getting results!" + +But sometimes the creators of the organization, who had provided +everything, had been obliged to confess that they had omitted from their +designs certain factors of evolution. Hat-cupboards were a feature of +the women's offices--delightful specimens of sound cabinetry. And still, +millinery was lying about all over the place, giving it an air of +feminine occupation that was extremely exciting to a student on his +travels. The truth was that none of those hats would go into the +cupboards. Fashion had worsted the organization completely. Departmental +chiefs had nothing to do but acquiesce in this startling untidiness. +Either they must wait till the circumference of hats lessened again, or +they must tear down the whole structure and rebuild it with due regard +to hats. + +Finally, we approached the sacred lair and fastness of the president, +whose massive portrait I had already seen on several walls. Spaciousness +and magnificence increased. Ceilings rose in height, marble was softened +by the thick pile of carpets. Mahogany and gold shone more luxuriously. +I was introduced into the vast antechamber of the presidential +secretaries, and by the chief of them inducted through polished and +gleaming barriers into the presence-chamber itself: a noble apartment, +an apartment surpassing dreams and expectations, conceived and executed +in a spirit of majestic prodigality. The president had not been afraid. +And his costly audacity was splendidly justified of itself. This man had +a sense of the romantic, of the dramatic, of the fit. And the qualities +in him and his _état major_ which had commanded the success of the +entire enterprise were well shown in the brilliant symbolism of that +room's grandiosity.... And there was the president's portrait again, +gorgeously framed. + +He came in through another door, an old man of superb physique, and +after a little while he was relating to me the early struggles of his +company. "My wife used to say that for ten years she never saw me," he +remarked. + +I asked him what his distractions were, now that the strain was over and +his ambitions so gloriously achieved. He replied that occasionally he +went for a drive in his automobile. + +"And what do you do with yourself in the evenings?" I inquired. + +He seemed a little disconcerted by this perhaps unaccustomed bluntness. + +"Oh," he said, casually, "I read insurance literature." + +He had the conscious mien and manners of a reigning prince. His courtesy +and affability were impeccable and charming. In the most profound sense +this human being had succeeded, for it was impossible to believe that, +had he to live his life again, he would live it very differently. + +Such a type of man is, of course, to be found in nearly every country; +but the type flourishes with a unique profusion and perfection in the +United States; and in its more prominent specimens the distinguishing +idiosyncrasy of the average American successful man of business is +magnified for our easier inspection. The rough, broad difference between +the American and the European business man is that the latter is anxious +to leave his work, while the former is anxious to get to it. The +attitude of the American business man toward his business is +pre-eminently the attitude of an artist. You may say that he loves +money. So do we all--artists particularly. No stock-broker's private +journal could be more full of dollars than Balzac's intimate +correspondence is full of francs. But whereas the ordinary artist loves +money chiefly because it represents luxury, the American business man +loves it chiefly because it is the sole proof of success in his +endeavor. He loves his business. It is not his toil, but his hobby, +passion, vice, monomania--any vituperative epithet you like to bestow on +it! He does not look forward to living in the evening; he lives most +intensely when he is in the midst of his organization. His instincts are +best appeased by the hourly excitements of a good, scrimmaging +commercial day. He needs these excitements as some natures need alcohol. +He cannot do without them. + +[Illustration: ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY] + +On no other hypothesis can the unrivaled ingenuity and splendor and +ruthlessness of American business undertakings be satisfactorily +explained. They surpass the European, simply because they are never out +of the thoughts of their directors, because they are adored with a fine +frenzy. And for the same reason they are decked forth in magnificence. +Would a man enrich his office with rare woods and stuffs and marbles if +it were not a temple? Would he bestow graces on the environment if while +he was in it the one idea at the back of his head was the anticipation +of leaving it? Watch American business men together, and if you are a +European you will clearly perceive that they are devotees. They are open +with one another, as intimates are. Jealousy and secretiveness are much +rarer among them than in Europe. They show off their respective +organizations with pride and with candor. They admire one another +enormously. Hear one of them say enthusiastically of another: "It was a +great idea he had--connecting his New York and his Philadelphia places +by wireless--a great idea!" They call one another by their Christian +names, fondly. They are capable of wonderful friendships in business. +They are cemented by one religion--and it is not golf. For them the +journey "home" is often not the evening journey, but the morning +journey. Call this a hard saying if you choose: it is true. Could a man +be happy long away from a hobby so entrancing, a toy so intricate and +marvelous, a setting so splendid? Is it strange that, absorbed in that +wondrous satisfying hobby, he should make love with the nonchalance of +an animal? At which point I seem to have come dangerously near to the +topic of the singular position of the American woman, about which +everybody is talking.... + + + + +V + +TRANSIT AND HOTELS + + +The choice of such a trite topic as the means of travel may seem to +denote that my observations in the United States must have been +superficial. They were. I never hoped that they would be otherwise. In +seven weeks (less one day) I could not expect to penetrate very far +below the engaging surface of things. Nor did I unnaturally attempt to +do so; for the evidence of the superficies is valuable, and it can only +be properly gathered by the stranger at first sight. Among the scenes +and phenomena that passed before me I of course remember best those +which interested me most. Railroads and trains have always appealed to +me; I have often tried to express my sense of their romantic savor. And +I was eager to see and appreciate these particular manifestations of +national character in America. + +It happily occurred that my first important journey from New York was on +the Pennsylvania Road. + +"I'll meet you at the station," I said to my particular friend. + +"Oh no!" he answered, positively. "I'll pick you up on my way." + +The fact was that not for ten thousand dollars would he have missed the +spectacle of my sensations as I beheld for the first time the most +majestic terminus in the world! He alone would usher me into the gates +of that marvel! I think he was not disappointed. I frankly surrendered +myself to the domination of this extraordinary building. I did not +compare. I knew there could be no comparison. Whenever afterward I +heard, as I often did, enlightened, Europe-loving citizens of the United +States complain that the United States was all very well, but there was +no art in the United States, the image of this tremendous masterpiece +would rise before me, and I was inclined to say: "Have you ever crossed +Seventh Avenue, or are you merely another of those who have been to +Europe and learned nothing?" The Pennsylvania station is full of the +noble qualities that fine and heroic imagination alone can give. That +there existed a railroad man poetic and audacious enough to want it, +architects with genius powerful enough to create it, and a public with +heart enough to love it--these things are for me a surer proof that the +American is a great race than the existence of any quantity of wealthy +universities, museums of classic art, associations for prison reform, or +deep-delved safe-deposit vaults crammed with bonds. Such a monument does +not spring up by chance; it is part of the slow flowering of a nation's +secret spirit! + +[Illustration: IN THE PARLOR-CAR] + +The terminus emerged brilliantly from an examination of the complicated +detail, both esthetic and practical, that is embedded in the apparent +simplicity of its vast physiognomy. I discovered everything in it proper +to a station, except trains. Not a sign of a train. My impulse was to +ask, "Is this the tomb of Alexander J. Cassatt, or is it a cathedral, or +is it, after all, a railroad station?" Then I was led with due +ceremony across the boundless plains of granite to a secret staircase, +guarded by lions in uniform, and at the foot of this staircase, hidden +like a shame or a crime, I found a resplendent train, the Congressional +Limited. It was not the Limited of my dreams; but it was my first +American Limited, and I boarded it in a condition of excitement. I +criticized, of course, for every experienced traveler has decided views +concerning _trains de luxe_. The cars impressed rather than charmed me. +I preferred, and still prefer, the European variety of Pullman. (Yes, I +admit we owe it entirely to America!) And then there is a harsh, +inhospitable quality about those all-steel cars. They do not yield. You +think you are touching wood, and your knuckles are abraded. The +imitation of wood is a triumph of mimicry, but by no means a triumph of +artistic propriety. Why should steel be made to look like wood?... +Fireproof, you say. But is anything fireproof in the United States, +except perhaps Tammany Hall? Has not the blazing of fireproof +constructions again and again singed off the eyebrows of dauntless +firemen? My impression is that "fireproof," in the American tongue, is +one of those agreeable but quite meaningless phrases which adorn the +languages of all nations. Another such phrase, in the American tongue, +is "right away!" ... + +I sat down in my appointed place in the all-steel car, and, turning over +the pages of a weekly paper, saw photographs of actual collisions, +showing that in an altercation between trains the steel-and-wood car +could knock the all-steel car into a cocked hat!... The decoration of +the all-steel car does not atone for its probable combustibility and its +proved fragility. In particular, the smoking-cars of all the Limiteds I +intrusted myself to were defiantly and wilfully ugly. Still, a fine, +proud train, handsome in some ways! And the trainmen were like admirals, +captains, and first officers pacing bridges; clearly they owned the +train, and had kindly lent it to the Pennsylvania R.R. Their demeanor +expressed a rare sense of ownership and also of responsibility. While +very polite, they condescended. A strong contrast to the miserable +European "guard"--for all his silver buttons! I adventured into the +observation-car, of which institution I had so often heard Americans +speak with pride, and speculated why, here as in all other cars, the +tops of the windows were so low that it was impossible to see the upper +part of the thing observed (roofs, telegraph-wires, tree-foliage, +hill-summits, sky) without bending the head and cricking the neck. I do +not deny that I was setting a high standard of perfection, but then I +had heard so much all my life about American Limiteds! + +The Limited started with exactitude, and from the observation-car I +watched the unrolling of the wondrous Hudson tunnel--one of the major +sights of New York, and a thing of curious beauty.... The journey passed +pleasantly, with no other episode than that of dinner, which cost a +dollar and was worth just about a dollar, despite the mutton. And with +exactitude we arrived at Washington--another splendid station. I +generalized thus: "It is certain that this country understands railroad +stations." I was, however, fresh in the country, and had not then seen +New Haven station, which, as soon as it is quite done with, ought to be +put in a museum. + +We returned from Washington by a night train; we might have taken a day +train, but it was pointed out to me that I ought to get into "form" for +certain projected long journeys into the West. At midnight I was +brusquely introduced to the American sleeping-car. I confess that I had +not imagined anything so appalling as the confined, stifling, malodorous +promiscuity of the American sleeping-car, where men and women are herded +together on shelves under the drastic control of an official aided by +negroes. I care not to dwell on the subject.... I have seen European +prisons, but in none that I have seen would such a system be tolerated, +even by hardened warders and governors; and assuredly, if it were, +public opinion would rise in anger and destroy it. I have not been in +Siberian prisons, but I remember reading George Kennan's description of +their mild horrors, and I am surprised that he should have put himself +to the trouble of such a tedious journey when he might have discovered +far more exciting material on any good road around New York. However, +nobody seemed to mind, such is the force of custom--and I did not mind +very much, because my particular friend, intelligently foreseeing my +absurd European prejudices, had engaged for us a state-room. + +This state-room, or suite--for it comprised two apartments--was a +beautiful and aristocratic domain. The bedchamber had a fan that would +work at three speeds like an automobile, and was an enchanting toy. In +short, I could find no fault with the accommodation. It was perfect, +and would have remained perfect had the train remained in the station. +Unfortunately, the engine-driver had the unhappy idea of removing the +train from the station. He seemed to be an angry engine-driver, and his +gesture was that of a man setting his teeth and hissing: "Now, then, +come out of that, you sluggards!" and giving a ferocious tug. There was +a fearful jerk, and in an instant I understood why sleeping-berths in +America are always arranged lengthwise with the train. If they were not, +the passengers would spend most of the night in getting up off the floor +and climbing into bed again. A few hundred yards out of the station the +engine-driver decided to stop, and there was the same fearful jerk and +concussion. Throughout the night he stopped and he started at frequent +intervals, and always with the fearful jerk. Sometimes he would slow +down gently and woo me into a false tranquillity, but only to finish +with the same jerk rendered more shocking by contrast. + +The bedchamber was delightful, the lavatory amounted to a boudoir, the +reading-lamp left nothing to desire, the ventilation was a continuous +vaudeville entertainment, the watch-pocket was adorable, the mattress +was good. Even the road-bed was quite respectable--not equal to the best +I knew, probably, but it had the great advantage of well-tied rails, so +that as the train passed from one rail-length to the next you felt no +jar, a bliss utterly unknown in Europe. The secret of a satisfactory +"sleeper," however, does not lie in the state-room, nor in the +glittering lavatory, nor in the lamp, nor in the fan, nor in the +watch-pocket, nor in the bed, nor even in the road-bed. It lies in the +mannerisms of that brave fellow out there in front of you on the engine, +in the wind and the rain. But no one in all America seemed to appreciate +this deep truth. For myself, I was inclined to go out to the +engine-driver and say to him: "Brother, are you aware--you cannot +be--that the best European trains start with the imperceptible +stealthiness of a bad habit, so that it is impossible to distinguish +motion from immobility, and come to rest with the softness of doves +settling on the shoulders of a young girl?" ... If the fault is not the +engine-driver's, then are the brakes to blame? Inconceivable!... All +American engine-drivers are alike; and I never slept a full hour in any +American "sleeper," what with stops, starts, hootings, tollings, +whizzings round sharp corners, listening to the passage of +freight-trains, and listening to haughty conductor-admirals who +quarreled at length with newly arrived voyagers at 2 or 3 A.M.! I do not +criticize; I state. I also blame myself. There are those who could +sleep. But not everybody could sleep. Well and heartily do I remember +the moment when another friend of mine, in the midst of an interminable +scolding that was being given by a nasal-voiced conductor to a passenger +just before the dawn, exposed his head and remarked: "Has it occurred to +you that this is a sleeping-car?" In the swift silence the whirring of +my private fan could be heard. + +I arrived in New York from Washington, as I arrived at all my +destinations after a night journey, in a state of enfeebled +submissiveness, and I retired to bed in a hotel. And for several hours +the hotel itself would stop and start with a jerk and whiz round +corners. + + * * * * * + +For many years I had dreamed of traveling by the great, the unique, the +world-renowned New York-Chicago train; indeed, it would not be a gross +exaggeration to say that I came to America in order to take that train; +and at length time brought my dream true. I boarded the thing in New +York, this especial product of the twentieth century, and yet another +thrilling moment in my life came and went! I boarded it with pride; +everybody boarded it with pride; and in every eye was the gleam: "This +is the train of trains, and I have my state-room on it." Perhaps I was +ever so slightly disappointed with the dimensions and appointments of +the state-room--I may have been expecting a whole car to myself--but the +general self-conscious smartness of the train reassured me. I wandered +into the observation-car, and saw my particular friend proudly employ +the train-telephone to inform his office that he had caught the train. I +saw also the free supply of newspapers, the library of books, the +typewriting-machine, and the stenographer by its side--all as promised. +And I knew that at the other end of the train was a dining-car, a +smoking-car, and a barber-shop. I picked up the advertising literature +scattered about by a thoughtful Company, and learned therefrom that this +train was not a mere experiment; it was the finished fruit of many +experiments, and that while offering the conveniences of a hotel or a +club, it did with regularity what it undertook to do in the way of +speed and promptness. The pamphlet made good reading!... + +I noted that it pleased the Company to run two other very important +trains out of the terminus simultaneously with the unique train. +Bravado, possibly; but bravado which invited the respect of all those +who admire enterprise! I anticipated with pleasure the noble spectacle +of these three trains sailing forth together on three parallel tracks; +which pleasure was denied me. We for Chicago started last; we started +indeed, according to my poor European watch, from fifteen to thirty +seconds late!... No matter! I would not stickle for seconds: +particularly as at Chicago, by the terms of a contract which no company +in Europe would have had the grace to sign, I was to receive, for any +unthinkable lateness, compensation at the rate of one cent for every +thirty-six seconds! + +Within a quarter of an hour it became evident that that train had at +least one great quality--it moved. As, in the deepening dusk, we swung +along the banks of the glorious Hudson, veiled now in the vaporous +mysteries following a red sunset, I was obliged to admit with increasing +enthusiasm that that train did move. Even the persecutors of Galileo +would never have had the audacity to deny that that train moved. And one +felt, comfortably, that the whole Company, with all the Company's +resources, was watching over its flying pet, giving it the supreme right +of way and urging it forward by hearty good-will. One felt also that the +moment had come for testing the amenities of the hotel and the club. + +"Tea, please," I said, jauntily, confidently, as we entered the +spotless and appetizing restaurant-car. + +The extremely polite and kind captain of the car was obviously taken +aback. But he instinctively grasped that the reputation of the train +hung in the balance, and he regained his self-possession. + +"Tea?" His questioning inflection delicately hinted: "Try not to be too +eccentric." + +"Tea." + +"Here?" + +"Here." + +"I can serve it here, of course," said the captain, persuasively. "But +if you don't mind I should prefer to serve it in your state-room." + +We reluctantly consented. The tea was well made and well served. + +[Illustration: BREAKFAST EN ROUTE] + +In an instant, as it seemed, we were crossing a dark river, on which +reposed several immense, many-storied river-steamers, brilliantly lit. I +had often seen illustrations of these craft, but never before the +reality. A fine sight-and it made me think of Mark Twain's incomparable +masterpiece, _Life on the Mississippi_, for which I would sacrifice the +entire works of Thackeray and George Eliot. We ran into a big town, full +of electric signs, and stopped. Albany! One minute late! I descended to +watch the romantic business of changing engines. I felt sure that +changing the horses of a fashionable mail-coach would be as nothing to +this. The first engine had already disappeared. The new one rolled +tremendous and overpowering toward me; its wheels rose above my head, +and the driver glanced down at me as from a bedroom window. I was +sensible of all the mystery and force of the somber monster; I felt the +mystery of the unknown railway station, and of the strange illuminated +city beyond. And I had a corner in my mind for the thought: "Somewhere +near me Broadway actually ends." Then, while dark men under the ray of a +lantern fumbled with the gigantic couplings, I said to myself that if I +did not get back to my car I should probably be left behind. I regained +my state-room and waited, watch in hand, for the jerk of restarting. I +waited half an hour. Some mishap with the couplings! We left Albany +thirty-three minutes late. Habitués of the train affected nonchalance. +One of them offered to bet me that "she would make it up." The admirals +and captains avoided our gaze. + +We dined, _à la carte_; the first time I had ever dined _à la carte_ on +any train. An excellent dinner, well and sympathetically served. The +mutton was impeccable. And in another instant, as it seemed, we were +running, with no visible flags, through an important and showy street of +a large town, and surface-cars were crossing one another behind us. I +had never before seen an express train let loose in the middle of an +unprotected town, and I was _naïf_ enough to be startled. But a huge +electric sign--"Syracuse bids you welcome"--tranquilized me. We briefly +halted, and drew away from the allurement of those bright streets into +the deep, perilous shade of the open country. + +I went to bed. The night differed little from other nights spent in +American sleeping-cars, and I therefore will not describe it in detail. +To do so might amount to a solecism. Enough to say that the jerkings +were possibly less violent and certainly less frequent than usual, +while, on the other hand, the halts were strangely long; one, indeed, +seemed to last for hours; I had to admit to myself that I had been to +sleep and dreamed this stoppage. + +From a final cat-nap I at last drew up my blind to greet the oncoming +day, and was rewarded by one of the finest and most poetical views I +have ever seen: a misty, brown river flanked by a jungle of dark reddish +and yellowish chimneys and furnaces that covered it with shifting +canopies of white steam and of smoke, varying from the delicatest grays +to intense black; a beautiful dim gray sky lightening, and on the ground +and low, flat roofs a thin crust of snow: Toledo! A wonderful and +inspiring panorama, just as romantic in its own way as any Spanish +Toledo. Yet I regretted its name, and I regretted the grotesque names of +other towns on the route--Canaan, Syracuse, Utica, Geneva, Ceylon, +Waterloo, and odd combinations ending in "burg." The names of most of +the States are superb. What could be more beautiful than Ohio, Idaho, +Kentucky, Iowa, Missouri, Wyoming, Illinois--above all, Illinois? +Certain cities, too, have grand names. In its vocal quality "Chicago" is +a perfect prince among names. But the majority of town names in America +suffer, no doubt inevitably, from a lack of imagination and of +reflection. They have the air of being bought in haste at a big +advertising "ready-for-service" establishment. + +Remembering in my extreme prostration that I was in a hotel and club, +and not in an experiment, I rang the bell, and a smiling negro +presented himself. It was only a quarter to seven in Toledo, but I was +sustained in my demeanor by the fact that it was a quarter to eight in +New York. + +"Will you bring me some tea, please?" + +He was sympathetic, but he said flatly I couldn't have tea, nor +anything, and that nobody could have anything at all for an hour and a +half, as there would be no restaurant-car till Elkhart, and Elkhart was +quite ninety miles off. He added that an engine had broken down at +Cleveland. + +I lay in collapse for over an hour, and then, summoning my manhood, +arose. On the previous evening the hot-water tap of my toilette had +yielded only cold water. Not wishing to appear hypercritical, I had said +nothing, but I had thought. I now casually turned on the cold-water tap +and was scalded by nearly boiling water. The hot-water tap still yielded +cold water. Lest I should be accused of inventing this caprice of +plumbing in a hotel and club, I give the name of the car. It was +appropriately styled "Watertown" (compartment E). + +In the corridor an admiral, audaciously interrogated, admitted that the +train was at that moment two hours and ten minutes late. As for Elkhart, +it seemed to be still about ninety miles away. I went into the +observation-saloon to cheer myself up by observing, and was struck by a +chill, and by the chilly, pinched demeanor of sundry other passengers, +and by the apologetic faces of certain captains. Already in my +state-room my senses had suspected a chill; but I had refused to believe +my senses. I knew and had known all my life that American trains were +too hot, and I had put down the supposed chill to a psychological +delusion. It was, however, no delusion. As we swept through a snowy +landscape the apologetic captains announced sadly that the engine was +not sparing enough steam to heat the whole of the train. We put on +overcoats and stamped our feet. + +The train was now full of ravening passengers. And as Elkhart with +infinite shyness approached, the ravening passengers formed in files in +the corridors, and their dignity was jerked about by the speed of the +icy train, and they waited and waited, like mendicants at the kitchen +entrance of a big restaurant. And at long last, when we had ceased to +credit that any such place as Elkhart existed, Elkhart arrived. Two +restaurant-cars were coupled on, and, as it were, instantly put to the +sack by an infuriated soldiery. The food was excellent, and newspapers +were distributed with much generosity, but some passengers, including +ladies, had to stand for another twenty minutes famished at the door of +the first car, because the breakfasting accommodation of this particular +hotel and club was not designed on the same scale as its bedroom +accommodation. We reached Chicago one hundred and ten minutes late. And +to compensate me for the lateness, and for the refrigeration, and for +the starvation, and for being forced to eat my breakfast hurriedly under +the appealing, reproachful gaze of famishing men and women, an official +at the Lasalle station was good enough to offer me a couple of dollars. +I accepted them.... + +[Illustration: IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING +STREAM] + +An unfortunate accident, you say. It would be more proper to say a +series of accidents. I think "the greatest train in the world" is +entitled to one accident, but not to several. And when, in addition to +being a train, it happens to be a hotel and club, and not an experiment, +I think that a system under which a serious breakdown anywhere between +Syracuse and Elkhart (about three-quarters of the entire journey) is +necessarily followed by starvation--I think that such a system ought to +be altered--by Americans. In Europe it would be allowed to continue +indefinitely. + +Beyond question my experience of American trains led me to the general +conclusion that the best of them were excellent. Nevertheless, I saw +nothing in the organization of either comfort, luxury, or safety to +justify the strange belief of Americans that railroad traveling in the +United States is superior to railroad traveling in Europe. Merely from +habit, I prefer European trains on the whole. It is perhaps also merely +from habit that Americans prefer American trains. + + * * * * * + +As regards methods of transit other than ordinary railroad trains, I +have to admit a certain general disappointment in the United States. The +Elevated systems in the large cities are the terrible result of an +original notion which can only be called unfortunate. They must either +depopulate the streets through which they run or utterly destroy the +sensibility of the inhabitants; and they enormously increase and +complicate the dangers of the traffic beneath them. Indeed, in the view +of the unaccustomed stranger, every Elevated is an affliction so +appallingly hideous that no degree of convenience could atone for its +horror. The New York Subway is a masterpiece of celerity, and in other +ways less evil than an Elevated, but in the minimum decencies of travel +it appeared to me to be inferior to several similar systems in Europe. + +The surface-cars in all the large cities that I saw were less smart and +less effective than those in sundry European capitals. In Boston +particularly I cannot forget the excessive discomfort of a journey to +Cambridge, made in the company of a host who had a most beautiful house, +and who gave dinners of the last refinement, but who seemed +unaccountably to look on the car journey as a sort of pleasant +robustious outing. Nor can I forget--also in Boston--the spectacle of +the citizens of Brookline--reputed to be the wealthiest suburb in the +world--strap-hanging and buffeted and flung about on the way home from +church, in surface-cars which really did carry inadequacy and brutality +to excess. + +The horse-cabs of Chicago had apparently been imported second-hand +immediately after the great fire from minor towns in Italy. + +[Illustration: THE STRAP-HANGERS] + +There remains the supreme mystery of the vices of the American taxicab. +I sought an explanation of this from various persons, and never got one +that was convincing. The most frequent explanation, at any rate in New +York, was that the great hotels were responsible for the vices of the +American taxicab, by reason of their alleged outrageous charges to the +companies for the privilege of waiting for hire at their august +porticos. I listened with respect, but with incredulity. If the +taxicabs were merely very dear, I could understand; if they were +merely very bad, I could understand; if they were merely numerically +insufficient for the number of people willing to pay for taxicabs, I +could understand. But that they should be at once very dear, very bad, +and most inconveniently scarce, baffled and still baffles me. The sum of +real annoyance daily inflicted on a rich and busy but craven-hearted +city like New York by the eccentricity of its taxicab organization must +be colossal. + +As to the condition of the roadways, the vocabulary of blame had been +exhausted long before I arrived. Two things, however, struck me in New +York which I had not heard of by report: the greasiness of the streets, +transforming every automobile into a skidding death-trap at the least +sign of moisture, and the leisureliness of the road-works. The busiest +part of Thirty-fourth Street, for example--no mean artery, either--was +torn up when I came into New York, and it was still torn up when I left. +And, lastly, why are there no island refuges on Fifth Avenue? Even at +the intersection of Fifth and Broadway there is no oasis for the pursued +wayfarer. Every European city has long ago decided that the provision of +island refuges in main thoroughfares is an act of elementary justice to +the wayfarer in his unequal and exhausting struggle with wheeled +traffic. + +All these criticisms, which are severe but honest, would lose much of +their point if the general efficiency of the United States and its +delightful genius for organization were not so obvious and so impressive +to the European. In fact, it is precisely the brilliant practical +qualities of the country which place its idiosyncrasies in the matter +of transit in so startling a light.... I would not care to close this +section without a grateful reference to the very natty electric coupés, +usually driven by ladies, which are so refreshing a feature of the +streets of Chicago, and to the virtues of American private automobiles +in general. + + * * * * * + +It is remarkable that a citizen who cheerfully and negligently submits +to so many various inconveniences outside his home should insist on +having the most comfortable home in the world, as the American citizen +unquestionably has! Once, when in response to an interviewer I had +become rather lyrical in praise of I forget what phenomenon in the +United States, a Philadelphia evening newspaper published an editorial +article in criticism of my views. This article was entitled "Offensive +Flattery." Were I to say freely all that I thought of the American +private house, large or small, I might expose myself again to the same +accusation. + +[Illustration: THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY +ASSORTED.] + +When I began to make the acquaintance of the American private house, I +felt like one who, son of an exiled mother, had been born abroad and had +at length entered his real country. That is to say, I felt at home. I +felt that all this practical comfort and myself had been specially +destined for each other since the beginning of time, and that fate was +at last being fulfilled. Freely I admit that until I reached America I +had not understood what real domestic comfort, generously conceived, +could be. Certainly I had always in this particular quarreled with my +own country, whose average notion of comfort still is to leave the +drawing-room (temperature 70°--near the fire) at midnight, pass by a +windswept hall and staircase (temperature 55°) to a bedroom full of fine +fresh air (temperature 50° to 40°), and in that chamber, having removed +piece by piece every bit of warm clothing, to slip, imperfectly +protected, between icy sheets and wait for sleep. Certainly I had always +contested the joyfulness of that particular process; but my imagination +had fallen short of the delicious innumerable realities of comfort in an +American home. + +Now, having regained the "barbaric seats" whence I came, I read with a +peculiar expression the advertisements of fashionable country and town +residences to rent or for sale in England. Such as: "Choice residence. +Five reception-rooms. Sixteen bedrooms. Bathroom--" Or: "Thoroughly +up-to-date mansion. Six reception-rooms. Splendid hall. Billiard-room. +Twenty-four bedrooms. Two bath-rooms--" I read this literature (to be +discovered textually every week in the best illustrated weeklies), and I +smile. Also I wonder, faintly blushing, what Americans truly _do_ think +of the residential aspects of European house-property when they first +see it. And I wonder, without blushing, to what miraculous degree of +perfected comfort Americans would raise all their urban traffic if only +they cared enough to keep the professional politician out of their +streets as strictly as they keep him out of their houses. + + * * * * * + +The great American hotel, too, is a wondrous haven for the European who +in Europe has only tasted comfort in his dreams. The calm orderliness of +the bedroom floors, the adequacy of wardrobes and lamps, the reckless +profusion of clean linen, that charming notice which one finds under +one's door in the morning, "You were called at seven-thirty, and +answered," the fundamental principle that a bedroom without a bath-room +is not a bedroom, the magic laundry which returns your effects duly +starched in eight hours, the bells which are answered immediately, the +thickness of the walls, the radiator in the elevator-shaft, the +celestial invention of the floor-clerk--I could catalogue the civilizing +features of the American hotel for pages. But the great American hotel +is a classic, and to praise it may seem inept. My one excuse for doing +so is that I have ever been a devotee of hotels, and once indeed wrote a +whole book about one. When I told the best interviewer in the United +States that my secret ambition had always been to be the manager of a +grand hotel, I was quite sincere. And whenever I saw the manager of a +great American hotel traversing with preoccupied and yet aquiline glance +his corridors and public rooms, I envied him acutely. + +[Illustration: THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS +SPLENDOR] + +The hospitality of those corridors and public rooms is so wide and +comprehensive that the ground floor and mezzanine of a really big hotel +in the United States offer a spectacle of humanity such as cannot be +seen in Europe; they offer also a remarkable contrast to the +tranquillity of their own upper stories, where any eccentricity is +vigorously discouraged. I think that it must be the vast tumult and +promiscuity of the ground floor which is responsible for the relative +inferiority of the restaurant in a great American hotel. A restaurant +should be a paramount unit, but as a fact in these hotels it is no +more than an item in a series of resorts, several of which equal if they +do not surpass it in popular interest. The Americans, I found, would +show more interest in the barber-shop than in the restaurant. (And to +see the American man of business, theoretically in a hurry, having his +head bumped about by a hair-cutter, his right hand tended by one +manicurist, his left hand tended by another manicurist, his boots +polished by a lightning shiner, and his wits polished by the two +manicurists together--the whole simultaneously--this spectacle in itself +was possibly a reflection on the American's sense of proportion.) +Further, a restaurant should be a sacred retreat, screened away from the +world; which ideal is foreign to the very spirit of the great American +hotel. + +I do not complain that the representative celebrated restaurants fail to +achieve an absolutely first-class cuisine. No large restaurant, either +in the United States or out of it, can hope to achieve an absolutely +first-class cuisine. The peerless restaurant is and must be a little +one. Nor would I specially complain of the noise and thronging of the +great restaurants, the deafening stridency of their music, the artistic +violence of their decorations; these features of fashionable restaurants +are now universal throughout the world, and the philosopher adapts +himself to them. (Indeed, in favor of New York I must say that in one of +the largest of its restaurants I heard a Chopin ballade well played on a +good piano--and it was listened to in appreciative silence; event quite +unique in my experience. Also, the large restaurant whose cuisine +nearest approaches the absolutely first-class is in New York, and not in +Europe.) Nor would I complain that the waiter in the great restaurant +neither understands English nor speaks a tongue which resembles English, +for this characteristic, too, is very marked across the Atlantic. (One +night, in a Boston hotel, after lingual difficulties with a head-waiter, +I asked him in French if he was not French. He cuttingly replied in +waiter's American: "I _was_ French, but now I am an American." In +another few years that man will be referring to Great Britain as "the +old country.") ... + +No; what disconcerts the European in the great American restaurant is +the excessive, the occasionally maddening slowness of the service, and +the lack of interest in the service. Touching the latter defect, the +waiter is not impolite; he is not neglectful. But he is, too often, +passively hostile, or, at best, neutral. He, or his chief, has +apparently not grasped the fact that buying a meal is not like buying a +ton of coal. If the purchaser is to get value for his money, he must +enjoy his meal; and if he is to enjoy the meal, it must not merely be +efficiently served, but it must be efficiently served in a sympathetic +atmosphere. The supreme business of a good waiter is to create this +atmosphere.... True, that even in the country which has carried cookery +and restaurants to loftier heights than any other--I mean, of course, +Belgium, the little country of little restaurants--the subtle ether +which the truly civilized diner demands is rare enough. But in the great +restaurants of the great cities of America it is, I fancy, rarer than +anywhere else. + + + + +VI + +SPORT AND THE THEATER + + +I remember thinking, long before I came to the United States, at the +time when the anti-gambling bill was a leading topic of American +correspondence in European newspapers, that a State whose public opinion +would allow even the discussion of a regulation so drastic could not +possibly regard "sport" as sport is regarded in Europe. It might be very +fond of gambling, but it could not be afflicted with the particular +mania which in Europe amounts to a passion, if not to a religion. And +when the project became law, and horse-racing was most beneficially and +admirably abolished in the northeastern portion of the Republic, I was +astonished. No such law could be passed in any European country that I +knew. The populace would not suffer it; the small, intelligent minority +would not care enough to support it; and the wealthy oligarchical +priest-patrons of sport would be seriously convinced that it involved +the ruin of true progress and the end of all things. Such is the +sacredness of sport in Europe, where governments audacious enough to +attack and overthrow the state-church have never dared to suggest the +suppression of the vice by which alone the main form of sport lives ... + +So that I did not expect to find the United States a very "sporting" +country. And I did not so find it. I do not wish to suggest that, in my +opinion, there is no "sport" in the United States, but only that there +is somewhat less than in Western Europe; as I have already indicated, +the differences between one civilization and another are always slight, +though they are invariably exaggerated by rumor. + +I know that the "sporting instinct"--a curious combination of the +various instincts for fresh air, destruction, physical prowess, +emulation, devotion, and betting--is tolerably strong in America. I +could name a list of American sports as long as the list of dutiable +articles in the customs tariff. I am aware that over a million golf +balls are bought (and chiefly lost) in the United States every year. I +know that no residence there is complete without its lawn-tennis court. +I accept the statement that its hunting is unequaled. I have admired the +luxury and completeness of its country clubs. Its yachting is renowned. +Its horse-shows, to which enthusiasts repair in automobiles, are +wondrous displays of fashion. But none of these things is democratic; +none enters into the life of the mass of the people. Nor can that fierce +sport be called quite democratic which depends exclusively upon, and is +limited to, the universities. A six-day cycling contest and a +Presidential election are, of course, among the very greatest sporting +events in the world, but they do not occur often enough to merit +consideration as constant factors of national existence. + +[Illustration: THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION] + +Baseball remains a formidable item, yet scarcely capable of balancing +the scale against the sports--football, cricket, racing, pelota, +bull-fighting--which, in Europe, impassion the common people, and draw +most of their champions from the common people. In Europe the +advertisement hoardings--especially in the provinces--proclaim sport +throughout every month of the year; not so in America. In Europe the +most important daily news is still the sporting news, as any editor will +tell you; not so in America, despite the gigantic headings of the +evening papers at certain seasons. + +But how mighty, nevertheless, is baseball! Its fame floats through +Europe as something prodigious, incomprehensible, romantic, and +terrible. After being entertained at early lunch in the correct hotel +for this kind of thing, I was taken, in a state of great excitement, by +a group of excited business men, and flashed through Central Park in an +express automobile to one of the great championship games. I noted the +excellent arrangements for dealing with feverish multitudes. I noted the +splendid and ornate spaciousness of the grand-stand crowned with +innumerable eagles, and the calm, matter-of-fact tone in which a friend +informed me that the grand-stand had been burned down six months ago. I +noted the dreadful prominence of advertisements, and particularly of +that one which announced "the 3-dollar hat with the 5-dollar look," all +very European! It was pleasant to be convinced in such large letters +that even shrewd America is not exempt from that universal human naïveté +which is ready to believe that in some magic emporium a philanthropist +is always waiting to give five dollars' worth of goods in exchange for +three dollars of money. + +Then I braced my intelligence to an understanding of the game, which, +thanks to its classical simplicity, and to some training in the finesse +of cricket and football, I did soon grasp in its main outlines. A +beautiful game, superbly played. We reckon to know something of ball +games in Europe; we reckon to be connoisseurs; and the old footballer +and cricketer in me came away from that immense inclosure convinced that +baseball was a game of the very first class, and that those players were +the most finished exponents of it. I was informed that during the winter +the players condescended to follow the law and other liberal +professions. But, judging from their apparent importance in the public +eye, I should not have been surprised to learn that during the winter +they condescended to be Speakers of the House of Representatives or +governors of States. It was a relief to know that in the matter of +expenses they were treated more liberally than the ambassadors of the +Republic. + +They seemed to have carried the art of pitching a ball to a more +wondrous degree of perfection than it has ever been carried in cricket. +The absolute certitude of the fielding and accuracy of the throwing was +profoundly impressive to a connoisseur. Only in a certain lack of +elegance in gesture, and in the unshaven dowdiness of the ground on +which it was played, could this game be said to be inferior to the noble +spectacle of cricket. In broad dramatic quality I should place it above +cricket, and on a level with Association football. + +In short, I at once became an enthusiast for baseball. For nine innings +I watched it with interest unabated, until a vast purple shadow, +creeping gradually eastward, had obscurely veiled the sublime legend of +the 3-dollar hat with the 5-dollar look. I began to acquire the proper +cries and shouts and menaces, and to pass comments on the play which I +was assured were not utterly foolish. In my honest yearning to feel +myself a habitué, I did what everybody else did and even attacked a +morsel of chewing-gum; but all that a European can say of this singular +substance is that it is, finally, eternal and unconquerable. One slip I +did quite innocently make. I rose to stretch myself after the sixth +inning instead of half-way through the seventh. Happily a friend with +marked presence of mind pulled me down to my seat again, before I had +had time fully to commit this horrible sacrilege. When the game was +finished I surged on to the enormous ground, and was informed by +innerring experts of a few of the thousand subtle tactical points which +I had missed. And lastly, I was flung up onto the Elevated platform, +littered with pieces of newspaper, and through a landscape of slovenly +apartment-houses, punctuated by glimpses of tremendous quantities of +drying linen, I was shot out of New York toward a calm week-end. + +Yes, a grand game, a game entirely worthy of its reputation! If the +professional matador and gladiator business is to be carried on at all, +a better exemplification of it than baseball offers could hardly be +found or invented. But the beholding crowd, and the behavior of the +crowd, somewhat disappointed me. My friends said with intense pride that +forty thousand persons were present. The estimate proved to be an +exaggeration; but even had it not been, what is forty thousand to the +similar crowds in Europe? In Europe forty thousand people will often +assemble to watch an ordinary football match. And for a "Final," the +record stands at something over a hundred thousand. It should be +remembered, too, in forming the comparison, that many people in the +Eastern States frequent the baseball grounds because they have been +deprived of their horse-racing. Further, the New York crowd, though +fairly excited, was not excited as sporting excitement is understood in, +for instance, the Five Towns. The cheering was good, but it was not the +cheering of frenzied passion. The anathemas, though hearty, lacked that +religious sincerity which a truly sport-loving populace will always put +into them. The prejudice in favor of the home team, the cruel, frank +unfairness toward the visiting team, were both insufficiently +accentuated. The menaces were merely infantile. I inquired whether the +referee or umpire, or whatever the arbiter is called in America, ever +went in danger of life or limb, or had to be protected from a homicidal +public by the law in uniform. And I was shocked by a negative answer. +Referees in Europe have been smuggled off the ground in the center of a +cocoon of policemen, have even been known to spend a fortnight in bed, +after giving a decision adverse to the home team!... More evidence that +the United States is not in the full sense a sporting country! + + * * * * * + +Of the psychology of the great common multitude of baseball "bleachers," +I learned almost nothing. But as regards the world of success and luxury +(which, of course, held me a willing captive firmly in its soft and +powerful influence throughout my stay), I should say that there was an +appreciable amount of self-hypnotism in its attitude toward baseball. As +if the thriving and preoccupied business man murmured to his soul, when +the proper time came: "By the way, these baseball championships are +approaching. It is right and good for me that I should be boyishly +excited, and I will be excited. I must not let my interest in baseball +die. Let's look at the sporting-page and see how things stand. And I'll +have to get tickets, too!" Hence possibly what seemed to me a +superficiality and factitiousness in the excitement of the more +expensive seats, and a too-rapid effervescence and finish of the +excitement when the game was over. + +The high fever of inter-university football struck me as a more +authentic phenomenon. Indeed, a university town in the throes of an +important match offers a psychological panorama whose genuineness can +scarcely be doubted. Here the young men communicate the sacred contagion +to their elders, and they also communicate it to the young women, who, +in turn, communicate it to the said elders--and possibly the indirect +method is the surer! I visited a university town in order to witness a +match of the highest importance. Unfortunately, and yet fortunately, my +whole view of it was affected by a mere nothing--a trifle which the +newspapers dealt with in two lines. + +When I reached the gates of the arena in the morning, to get a glimpse +of a freshmen's match, an automobile was standing thereat. In the +automobile was a pile of rugs, and sticking out of the pile of rugs in +an odd, unnatural, horizontal way was a pair of muddy football boots. +These boots were still on the feet of a boy, but all the rest of his +unconscious and smashed body was hidden beneath the rugs. The automobile +vanished, and so did my peace of mind. It seemed to me tragic that that +burly infant under the rugs should have been martyrized at a poor little +morning match in front of a few sparse hundreds of spectators and tens +of thousands of unresponsive empty benches. He had not had even the +glory and meed of a great multitude's applause. When I last inquired +about him, at the end of the day, he was still unconscious, and that was +all that could be definitely said of him; one heard that it was his +features that had chiefly suffered in the havoc, that he had been +defaced. If I had not happened to see those muddy football boots +sticking out, I should have heard vaguely of the accident, and remarked +philosophically that it was a pity, but that accidents would occur, and +there would have been the end of my impression. Only I just did happen +to see those muddy boots sticking out. + +[Illustration: THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE +AIR] + +When we came away from the freshmen's match, the charming roads of the +town, bordered by trees and by the agreeable architecture of mysterious +clubs, were beginning to be alive and dangerous with automobiles and +carriages, and pretty girls and proud men, and flags and flowers, and +colored favors and shoutings. Salutes were being exchanged at every +yard. The sense of a mighty and culminating event sharpened the air. The +great inn was full of jollity and excitement, and the reception-clerks +thereof had the negligent mien of those who know that every bedroom +is taken and every table booked. The club (not one of the mysterious +ones, but an ingenuous plain club of patriarchs who had once been young +in the university and were now defying time) was crammed with amiable +confusion, and its rich carpets protected for the day against the feet +of bald lads, who kept aimlessly walking up-stairs and down-stairs and +from room to room, out of mere friendly exuberance. + +And after the inn and the club I was conducted into a true American +home, where the largest and most free hospitality was being practised +upon a footing of universal intimacy. You ate standing; you ate sitting; +you ate walking the length of the long table; you ate at one small +table, and then you ate at another. You talked at random to strangers +behind and strangers before. And when you couldn't think of anything to +say, you just smiled inclusively. You knew scarcely anybody's name, but +the heart of everybody. Impossible to be ceremonious! When a young woman +bluntly inquired the significance of that far-away look in your eye, +impossible not to reply frankly that you were dreaming of a second +helping of a marvelous pie up there at the end of the long table; and +impossible not to eat all the three separate second helpings that were +instantly thrust upon you! The chatter and the good-nature were +enormous. This home was an expression of the democracy of the university +at its best. Fraternity was abroad; kindliness was abroad; and therefore +joy. Whatever else was taught at the university, these were taught, and +they were learnt. If a publicist asked me what American civilization had +achieved, I would answer that among other things it had achieved this +hour in this modest home. + +Occasionally a face would darken and a voice grow serious, exposing the +terrible secret apprehensions, based on expert opinion, that the home +side could not win. But the cloud would pass. And occasionally there +would be a reference to the victim whose muddy boots I had seen. +"Dreadful, isn't it?" and a twinge of compassion for the victim or for +his mother! But the cloud would immediately pass. + +And then we all had to leave, for none must be late on this solemn and +gay occasion. And now the roads were so many converging torrents of +automobiles and carriages, and excitement had developed into fever. Life +was at its highest, and the world held but one problem ... Sign that +reaction was approaching! + +A proud spectacle for the agitated vision, when the vast business of +filling the stands had been accomplished, and the eye ranged over acres +of black hats and variegated hats, hats flowered and feathered, and +plain male caps--a carpet intricately patterned with the rival colors! +At a signal the mimic battle began. And in a moment occurred the first +casualty--most grave of a series of casualties. A pale hero, with a +useless limb, was led off the field amid loud cheers. Then it was that I +became aware of some dozens of supplementary heroes shivering beneath +brilliant blankets under the lee of the stands. In this species of +football every casualty was foreseen, and the rules allowed it to be +repaired. Not two teams, but two regiments, were, in fact, fighting. And +my European ideal of sport was offended. + +Was it possible that a team could be permitted to replace a wounded man +by another, and so on ad infinitum? Was it possible that a team need not +abide by its misfortunes? Well, it was! I did not like this. It seemed +to me that the organizers, forgetting that this was a mimic battle, had +made it into a real battle, and that there was an imperfect appreciation +of what strictly amateur sport is. The desire to win, laudable and +essential in itself, may by excessive indulgence become a morbid +obsession. Surely, I thought, and still think, the means ought to suit +the end! An enthusiast for American organization, I was nevertheless +forced to conclude that here organization is being carried too far, +outraging the sense of proportion and of general fitness. For me, such +organization disclosed even a misapprehension as to the principal aim +and purpose of a university. If ever the fate of the Republic should +depend on the result of football matches, then such organization would +be justifiable, and courses of intellectual study might properly be +suppressed. Until that dread hour I would be inclined to dwell heavily +on the admitted fact that a football match is not Waterloo, but simply a +transient game in which two sets of youngsters bump up against one +another in opposing endeavors to put a bouncing toy on two different +spots of the earth's surface. The ultimate location of the inflated +bauble will not affect the national destiny, and such moral value as the +game has will not be increased but diminished by any enlargement of +organization. After all, if the brains of the world gave themselves +exclusively to football matches, the efficiency of football matches +would be immensely improved--but what then?... I seemed to behold on +this field the American passion for "getting results"--which I admire +very much; but it occurred to me that that passion, with its eyes fixed +hungrily on the result it wants, may sometimes fail to see that it is +getting a number of other results which it emphatically doesn't want. + +[Illustration: THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD] + +Another example of excessive organization presented itself to me in the +almost military arrangements for shrieking the official yells. I was +sorry for the young men whose duty it was, by the aid of megaphones and +of grotesque and undignified contortions, to encourage and even force +the spectators to emit in unison the complex noises which constitute the +yell. I have no doubt that my pity was misdirected, for these young men +were obviously content with themselves; still, I felt sorry for them. +Assuming for an instant that the official yell is not monstrously absurd +and surpassingly ugly, admitting that it is a beautiful series of +sounds, enheartening, noble, an utterance worthy of a great and ancient +university at a crisis, even then one is bound to remember that its +essential quality should be its spontaneity. Enthusiasm cannot be +created at the word of command, nor can heroes be inspired by cheers +artificially produced under megaphonic intimidation. Indeed, no moral +phenomenon could be less hopeful to heroes than a perfunctory response +to a military order for enthusiasm. Perfunctory responses were frequent. +Partly, no doubt, because the imperious young men with megaphones would +not leave us alone. Just when we were nicely absorbed in the caprices of +the ball they would call us off and compel us to execute their +preposterous chorus; and we--the spectators--did not always like it. + +And the difficulty of following the game was already acute enough! +Whenever the play quickened in interest we stood up. In fact, we were +standing up and sitting down throughout the afternoon. And as we all +stood up and we all sat down together, nobody gained any advantage from +these muscular exercises. We saw no better, and we saw no worse. Toward +the end we stood on the seats, with the same result. We behaved in +exactly the child-like manner of an Italian audience at a fashionable +concert. And to crown all, an aviator had the ineffably bad taste and +the culpable foolhardiness to circle round and round within a few dozen +yards of our heads. + +In spite of all this, the sum of one's sensations amounted to lively +pleasure. The pleasure would have been livelier if university football +were a better game than in candid truth it is. At this juncture I seem +to hear a million voices of students and ex-students roaring out at me +with menaces that the game is perfect and the greatest of all games. A +national game always was and is perfect. This particular game was +perfect years ago. Nevertheless, I learned that it had recently been +improved, in deference to criticisms. Therefore, it is now pluperfect. I +was told on the field--and sharply--that experience of it was needed for +the proper appreciation of its finesse. Admitted! But just as devotees +of a favorite author will put sublime significances into his least +phrase, so will devotees of a game put marvels of finesse into its +clumsiest features. The process is psychological. I was new to this +particular game, but I had been following various footballs with my feet +or with my eyes for some thirty years, and I was not to be bullied out +of my opinion that the American university game, though goodish, lacked +certain virtues. Its characteristics tend ever to a too close formation, +and inevitably favor tedium and monotony. In some aspects an unemotional +critic might occasionally be tempted to call it naïve and barbaric. But +I was not unemotional. I recognize, and in my own person I proved, that +as a vehicle for emotion the American university game will serve. What +else is such a game for? In the match I witnessed there were some really +great moments, and one or two masterly exhibitions of skill and force. +And as "my" side won, against all odds, I departed in a state of +felicity. + + * * * * * + +If the great cities of the East and Middle West are not strikingly +sportive, perhaps the reason is that they are impassioned theater-goers; +they could not well be both, at any rate without neglecting the +financial pursuits which are their chief real amusement and hobby. I +mention the theaters in connection with sports, rather than in +connection with the arts, because the American drama is more closely +related to sporting diversions than to dramatic art. If this seems a +hard saying, I will add that I am ready to apply it with similar force +to the English and French drama, and, indeed, to almost all modern drama +outside Germany. It was astonishing to me that America, unhampered by +English traditions, should take seriously, for instance, the fashionable +and utterly meretricious French dramatists, who receive nothing but a +chilly ridicule from people of genuine discrimination in Paris. Whatever +American dramatists have to learn, they will not learn it in Paris; and +I was charmed once to hear a popular New York playwright, one who +sincerely and frankly wrote for money alone, assert boldly that the +notoriously successful French plays were bad, and clumsily bad. It was a +proof of taste. As a rule, one finds the popular playwright taking off +his hat to contemporaries who at best are no better than his equals. + +A few minor cases apart, the drama is artistically negligible throughout +the world; but if there is a large hope for it in any special country, +that country is the United States. The extraordinary prevalence of big +theaters, the quickly increasing number of native dramatists, the +enormous profits of the successful ones--it is simply inconceivable in +the face of the phenomena, and of the educational process so rapidly +going on, that serious and first-class creative artists shall not arise +in America. Nothing is more likely to foster the production of +first-class artists than the existence of a vast machinery for winning +money and glory. When I reflect that there are nearly twice as many +first-class theaters in New York as in London, and that a very +successful play in New York plays to eighteen thousand dollars a week, +while in London ten thousand dollars a week is enormous, and that the +American public has a preference for its own dramatists, I have little +fear for the artistic importance of the drama of the future in America. +And from the discrepancy between my own observations and the +observations of a reliable European critic in New York only five years +ago, I should imagine that appreciable progress had already been made, +though I will not pretend that I was much impressed by the achievements +up to date, either of playwrights, actors, or audiences. A huge popular +institution, however, such as the American theatrical system, is always +interesting to the amateur of human nature. + +The first thing noted by the curious stranger in American theaters is +that American theatrical architects have made a great discovery--namely, +that every member of the audience goes to the play with a desire to be +able to see and hear what passes on the stage. This happy American +discovery has not yet announced itself in Europe, where in almost every +theater seats are impudently sold, and idiotically bought, from which it +is impossible to see and hear what passes on the stage. (A remarkable +continent, Europe!) Apart from this most important point, American +theaters are not, either without or within, very attractive. The +auditoriums, to a European, have a somewhat dingy air. Which air is no +doubt partly due to the non-existence of a rule in favor of evening +dress (never again shall I gird against the rule in Europe!), but it is +due also to the oddly inefficient illumination during the entr'actes, +and to the unsatisfactory schemes of decoration. + +The interior of a theater ought to be magnificent, suggesting pleasure, +luxury, and richness; it ought to create an illusion of rather riotous +grandeur. The rare architects who have understood this seem to have lost +their heads about it, with such wild and capricious results as the new +opera-house in Philadelphia. I could not restrain my surprise that the +inhabitants of the Quaker City had not arisen with pickaxes and razed +this architectural extravaganza to the ground. But Philadelphia is a +city startlingly unlike its European reputation. Throughout my too-brief +sojourn in it I did not cease to marvel at its liveliness. I heard more +picturesque and pyrotechnic wit at one luncheon in Philadelphia than at +any two repasts outside it. The spacious gaiety and lavishness of its +marts enchanted me. It must have a pretty weakness for the most costly +old books and manuscripts. I never was nearer breaking the Sixth +Commandment than in one of its homes, where the Countess of Pembroke's +own copy of Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_--a unique and utterly +un-Quakerish treasure--was laid trustfully in my hands by the regretted +and charming Harry Widener. + +To return. The Metropolitan Opera-House in New York is a much more +satisfactory example of a theatrical interior. Indeed, it is very fine, +especially when strung from end to end of its first tier with pearls, as +I saw it. Impossible to find fault with its mundane splendor. And let me +urge that impeccable mundane splendor, despite facile arguments to the +contrary, is a very real and worthy achievement. It is regrettable, by +the way, that the entrances and foyers to these grandiose interiors +should be so paltry, slatternly, and inadequate. If the entrances to the +great financial establishments reminded me of opera-houses, the +entrances to opera-houses did not! + +Artistically, of course, the spectacle of a grand-opera season in an +American city is just as humiliating as it is in the other Anglo-Saxon +country. It was disconcerting to see Latin or German opera given +exactly--with no difference at all; same Latin or German artists and +conductors, same conventions, same tricks--in New York or Philadelphia +as in Europe. And though the wealthy audiences behaved better than +wealthy audiences at Covent Garden (perhaps because the boxes are less +like inclosed pews than in London), it was mortifying to detect the +secret disdain for art which was expressed in the listless late +arrivings and the relieved early departures. The which disdain for art +was, however, I am content to think, as naught in comparison with the +withering artistic disdain felt, and sometimes revealed, by those Latin +and German artists for Anglo-Saxon Philistinism. I seem to be able to +read the sarcastic souls of these accomplished and sensitive aliens, +when they assure newspaper reporters that New York, Chicago, Boston, +Philadelphia, and London are really musical. The sole test of a musical +public is that it should be capable of self-support--I mean that it +should produce a school of creative and executive artists of its own, +whom it likes well enough to idolize and to enrich, and whom the rest of +the world will respect. This is a test which can be safely applied to +Germany, Russia, Italy, and France. And in certain other arts it is a +test which can be applied to Anglo-Saxondom--but not in music. In +America and England music is still mainly a sportive habit. + +When I think of the exoticism of grand opera in New York, my mind at +once turns, in contrast, to the natural raciness of such modest +creations as those offered by Mr. George Cohan at his theater on +Broadway. Here, in an extreme degree, you get a genuine instance of a +public demand producing the desired artist on the spot. Here is +something really and honestly and respectably American. And why it +should be derided by even the most lofty pillars of American taste, I +cannot imagine. (Or rather, I can imagine quite well.) For myself, I +spent a very agreeable evening in witnessing "The Little Millionaire." I +was perfectly conscious of the blatancy of the methods that achieved it. +I saw in it no mark of genius. But I did see in it a very various talent +and an all-round efficiency; and, beneath the blatancy, an admirable +direct simplicity and winning unpretentiousness. I liked the ingenuity +of the device by which, in the words of the programme, the action of Act +II was "not interrupted by musical numbers." The dramatic construction +of this act was so consistently clever and right and effective that more +ambitious dramatists might study it with advantage. Another +point--though the piece was artistically vulgar, it was not vulgar +otherwise. It contained no slightest trace of the outrageous salacity +and sottishness which disfigure the great majority of successful musical +comedies. It was an honest entertainment. But to me its chief value and +interest lay in the fact that while watching it I felt that I was really +in New York, and not in Vienna, Paris, or London. + +Of the regular theater I did not see nearly enough to be able to +generalize even for my own private satisfaction. I observed, and +expected to observe, that the most reactionary quarters were the most +respected. It is the same everywhere. When a manager, having discovered +that two real clocks in one real room never strike simultaneously, put +two real clocks on the stage, and made one strike after the other; or +when a manager mimicked, with extraordinary effects of restlessness, a +life-sized telephone-exchange on the stage--then was I bound to hear of +"artistic realism" and "a fine production"! But such feats of +truthfulness do not consort well with chocolate sentimentalities and +wilful falsities of action and dialogue. They caused me to doubt whether +I was not in London. + +The problem-plays which I saw were just as futile and exasperating as +the commercial English and French varieties of the problem-play, though +they had a trifling advantage over the English in that their most +sentimental passages were lightened by humor, and the odiously insincere +felicity of their conclusions was left to the imagination instead of +being acted ruthlessly out on the boards. The themes of these plays +showed the usual obsession, and were manipulated in the usual attempt to +demonstrate that the way of transgressors is not so very hard after all. +They threw, all unconsciously, strange side-lights on the American man's +private estimate of the American woman, and the incidence of the +applause was extremely instructive. + +The most satisfactory play that I saw, "Bought and Paid For," by George +Broadhurst, was not a problem-play, though Mr. Broadhurst is also a +purveyor of problem-plays. It was just an unpretentious fairy-tale about +the customary millionaire and the customary poor girl. The first act +was maladroit, but the others made me think that "Bought and Paid For" +was one of the best popular commercial Anglo-Saxon plays I had ever seen +anywhere. There were touches of authentic realism at the very crisis at +which experience had taught one to expect a crass sentimentality. The +fairy-tale was well told, with some excellent characterization, and very +well played. Indeed, Mr. Frank Craven's rendering of the incompetent +clerk was a masterly and unforgettable piece of comedy. I enjoyed +"Bought and Paid For," and it is on the faith of such plays, imperfect +and timid as they are, that I establish my prophecy of a more glorious +hereafter for the American drama. + + + + +VII + +EDUCATION AND ART + + +I had my first glimpses of education in America from the purser of an +illustrious liner, who affirmed the existence of a dog--in fact, his own +dog--so highly educated that he habitually followed and understood human +conversations, and that in order to keep secrets from the animal it was +necessary to spell out the keyword of a sentence instead of pronouncing +it. After this I seemed somehow to be prepared for the American infant +who, when her parents discomfited her just curiosity by the same mean +adult dodge of spelling words, walked angrily out of the room with the +protest: "There's too blank much education in this house for me!" +Nevertheless, she proudly and bravely set herself to learn to spell; +whereupon her parents descended to even worse depths of baseness, and in +her presence would actually whisper in each other's ear. She merely +inquired, with grimness: "What's the good of being educated, anyway? +First you spell words, and when I can spell then you go and whisper!" +And received no adequate answer, naturally. + +This captivating creature, whose society I enjoyed at frequent intervals +throughout my stay in America, was a mirror in which I saw the whole +American race of children--their independence, their self-confidence, +their adorable charm, and their neat sauciness. "What _is_ father?" she +asked one day. Now her father happened to be one of the foremost +humorists in the United States; she was baldly informed that he was a +humorist. "What _is_ a humorist?" she went on, ruthlessly, and learned +that a humorist was a person who wrote funny things to make people +laugh. "Well," she said, "I don't honestly think he's very funny at +home." It was naught to her that humorists are not paid to be funny at +home, and that in truth they never under any circumstances are very +funny at home. She just hurled her father from his niche--and then went +forth and boasted of him as a unique peculiarity in fathers, as an +unrivaled ornament of her career on earth; for no other child in the +vicinity had a professional humorist for parent. Her gestures and accent +typified for me the general attitude of youngest America, in process of +education, toward the older generation: an astonishing, amusing, +exquisite, incomprehensible mixture of affection, admiration, trust, and +rather casual tolerating scorn. The children of most countries display a +similar phenomenon, but in America the phenomenon is more acute and +disconcerting than elsewhere. + +One noon, in perfect autumn weather, I was walking down the main road of +a residential suburb, and observing the fragile-wheeled station-wagons, +and the ice-wagons enormously labeled "DANGER" (perhaps by the gastric +experts of the medical faculty), and the Colonial-style dwellings, and +the "tinder" boarding-houses, and the towering boot-shine stands, and +the roast-chestnut emporia, and the gasometers flanking a noble and +beautiful river--I was observing all this when a number of young men and +maids came out of a high-school and unconsciously assumed possession of +the street. It was a great and impressive sight; it was a delightful +sight. They were so sure of themselves, the maids particularly; so +interested in themselves, so happy, so eager, so convinced (without any +conceit) that their importance transcended all other importances, so +gently pitiful toward men and women of forty-five, and so positive that +the main function of elders was to pay school-fees, that I was thrilled +thereby. Seldom has a human spectacle given me such exciting pleasure as +this gave. (And they never suspected it, those preoccupied demigods!) It +was the sheer pride of life that I saw passing down the street and +across the badly laid tram-lines! I had never seen anything like it. I +immediately desired to visit schools. Profoundly ignorant of educational +methods, and with a strong distaste for teaching, I yet wanted to know +and understand all about education in America in one moment--the +education that produced that superb stride and carriage in the street! I +failed, of course, in my desire--not from lack of facilities offered, +but partly from lack of knowledge to estimate critically what I saw, and +from lack of time. My experiences, however, though they left my mind +full of enigmas, were wondrous. I asked to inspect one of the best +schools in New York. Had I been a dispassionate sociological student, I +should probably have asked to inspect one of the worst schools in New +York--perhaps one of the gaunt institutions to be found, together with a +cinema-palace and a bank, in almost every block on the East Side. But I +asked for one of the best, and I was shown the Horace Mann School. + + * * * * * + +The Horace Mann School proved to be a palace where a thousand children +and their teachers lived with extreme vivacity in an atmosphere of ozone +from which all draughts and chilliness had been eliminated. As a +malcontent native of the Isle of Chilly Draughts, this attribute of the +atmosphere of the Horace Mann School impressed me. Dimensionally I found +that the palace had a beginning but no end. I walked through leagues of +corridors and peeped into unnumbered class-rooms, in each of which +children were apparently fiercely dragging knowledge out of nevertheless +highly communicative teachers; and the children got bigger and bigger, +and then diminished for a while, and then grew again, and kept on +growing, until I at last entered a palatial kitchen where some two dozen +angels, robed in white but for the moment uncrowned, were eagerly +crowding round a paradisiacal saucepan whose magic contents formed the +subject of a lecture by one of them. Now these angels were not cherubs; +they were full grown; they never would be any taller than they were; and +I asked up to what age angels were kept at school in America. Whereupon +I learned that I had insensibly passed from the school proper into a +training-school for teachers; but at what point the school proper ended +I never did learn. It seems to me that if I had penetrated through seven +more doors I should have reached Columbia University itself, without +having crossed a definite dividing-line; and, anyhow, the circumstance +was symbolic. + +Reluctantly I left the incredible acres of technical apparatus +munificently provided in America for the training of teachers, and, +having risen to the roof and seen infants thereon grabbing at +instruction in the New York breeze, I came again to the more normal +regions of the school. Here, as everywhere else in the United States +(save perhaps the cloak-room department of the Metropolitan +Opera-House), what chiefly struck me was the brilliant organization of +the organism. There was nothing that had not been thought of. A +handsomely dressed mother came into the organism and got as far as the +antechamber of the principal's room. The organization had foreseen her, +had divined that that mother's child was the most important among a +thousand children--indeed, the sole child of any real importance--had +arranged that her progress should be arrested at just that stage, and +had stationed a calm and diplomatic woman to convince her that her child +was indeed the main preoccupation of the Horace Mann School. A pretty +sight--the interview! It charmed me as the sight of an ingenious engine +in motion will charm an engineer. + +The individual class-rooms, in some of which I lingered at leisure, were +tonic, bracing, inspiring, and made me ashamed because I was not young. +I saw geography being taught with the aid of a stereoscopic +magic-lantern. After a view of the high street of a village in North +Russia had been exposed and explained by a pupil, the teacher said: "If +anybody has any questions to ask, let him stand up." And the whole class +leaped furiously to its feet, blotting out the entire picture with black +shadows of craniums and starched pinafores. The whole class might have +been famishing. In another room I saw the teaching of English +composition. Although when I went to school English composition was +never taught, I have gradually acquired a certain interest in the +subject, and I feel justified in asserting that the lesson was admirably +given. It was, in fact, the best example of actual pedagogy that I met +with in the United States. "Now can any one tell me--" began the +mistress. A dozen arms of boys and girls shot up with excessive +violence, and, having shot up, they wiggled and waggled with ferocious +impatience in the air; it was a miracle that they remained attached to +their respective trunks; it was assuredly an act of daring on the part +of the intrepid mistress to choose between them. + +"How children have changed since my time!" I said to the principal +afterward. "We never used to fling up our hands like that. We just put +them up.... But perhaps it's because they're Americans--" + +"It's probably because of the ventilation," said the principal, calmly +corrective. "We never have the windows open winter or summer, but the +ventilation is perfect." + +I perceived that it indeed must be because of the ventilation. + +More and more startled, as I went along, by the princely lavishness of +every arrangement, I ventured to surmise that it must all cost a great +deal. + +"The fees are two hundred and eighty-five dollars in the Upper School." + +"Yes, I expected they would be high," I said. + +"Not at all. They are the lowest in New York. Smart private schools +will charge five or six hundred dollars a year." + +Exhausted, humbled, I at last quitted the warmed Horace Mann ozone for +the harsh and searching atmosphere of the street. And I gazed up at the +pile, and saw all its interiors again in my mind. I had not grasped the +half nor the quarter of what had been so willingly and modestly shown to +me. I had formed no theory as to the value of some of the best juvenile +education in the Eastern States. But I had learned one thing. I knew the +secret of the fine, proud bearing of young America. A child is not a +fool; a child is almost always uncannily shrewd. And when it sees a +splendid palace provided for it, when it sees money being showered upon +hygienic devices for its comfort, even upon trifles for its distraction, +when it sees brains all bent on discovering the best, nicest ways of +dealing with its instincts, when it sees itself the center of a +magnificent pageant, ritual, devotion, almost worship, it naturally +lifts its chin, puts its shoulders back, steps out with a spring, and +glances down confidently upon the whole world. Who wouldn't? + + * * * * * + +It was an exciting day for me when I paid a call next door to Horace +Mann and visited Columbia University. For this was my first visit of +inspection to any university of any kind, either in the New World or in +the Old. As for an English university education, destiny had deprived me +of its advantages and of its perils. I could not haughtily compare +Columbia with Oxford or Cambridge, because I had never set foot even in +their towns. I had no standards whatever of comparison. + +I arose and went out to lunch on that morning, and left the lunch before +anybody else and rushed in an automobile to Columbia; but football had +already begun for the day in the campus costing two million dollars, and +classes were over. I saw five or more universities while I was in +America, but I was not clever enough to catch one of them in the act of +instruction. What I did see was the formidable and magnificent machine, +the apparatus of learning, supine in repose. + +And if the spectacle was no more than a promise, it was a very dazzling +promise. No European with any imagination could regard Columbia as other +than a miracle. Nearly the whole of the gigantic affair appeared to have +been brought into being, physically, in less than twenty years. Building +after building, device after device, was dated subsequent to 1893. And +to my mind that was just the point of the gigantic affair. Universities +in Europe are so old. And there are universities in America which are +venerable. A graduate of the most venerable of them told me that +Columbia was not "really" a university. Well, it did seem unreal, though +not in his sense; it seemed magic. The graduate in question told me that +a university could not be created by a stroke of the wand. And yet there +staring me in the face was the evidence that a university not merely +could be created by a stroke of the wand, but had been. (I am aware of +Columbia's theoretic age and of her insistence on it.) The wand is a +modern invention; to deny its effective creative faculty is absurd. + +Of course I know what the graduate meant. I myself, though I had not +seen Oxford nor Cambridge, was in truth comparing Columbia with my dream +of Oxford and Cambridge, to her disadvantage. I was capable of saying to +myself: "All this is terribly new. All this lacks tradition." Criticism +fatuous and mischievous, if human! It would be as sapient to imprison +the entire youth of a country until it had ceased to commit the offense +of being young. Tradition was assuredly not apparent in the atmosphere +of Columbia. Moreover, some of her architecture was ugly. On the other +hand, some of it was beautiful to the point of nobility. The library, +for instance: a building in which no university and no age could feel +anything but pride. And far more important than stone or marble was the +passionate affection for Columbia which I observed in certain of her +sons who had nevertheless known other universities. A passionate +affection also perhaps brought into being since 1893, but not to be +surpassed in honest fervency and loyalty by influences more venerable! + +Columbia was full of piquancies for me. It delighted me that the Dean of +Science was also consulting engineer to the university. That was +characteristic and fine. And how splendidly unlike Oxford! I liked the +complete life-sized railroad locomotive in the engineering-shops, and +the Greek custom in the baths; and the students' notion of coziness in +the private dens full of shelves, photographs, and disguised beds; and +the visibility of the president; and his pronounced views as to the +respective merits of New York newspapers; and the eagerness of a young +professor of literature in the Faculty Club to defend against my +attacks English Professor A.C. Bradley. I do believe that I even liked +the singular sight of a Chinaman tabulating from the world's press, in +the modern-history laboratory, a history of the world day by day. I can +hardly conceive a wilder, more fearfully difficult way of trying to +acquire the historical sense than this voyaging through hot, fresh +newspapers, nor one more probably destined to failure (I should have +liked to see some of the two-monthly résumés which students in this +course are obliged to write); but I liked the enterprise and the +originality and the daring of the idea; I liked its disdain of +tradition. And, after all, is it weirder than the common traditional +method? + +[Illustration: UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA] + +To the casual visitor, such as myself, unused either to universities or +to the vastness of the American scale, Columbia could be little save an +enormous and overwhelming incoherence. It so chiefly remains in my mind. +But the ingenious humanity running through the whole conception of it +was touching and memorable. And although I came away from my visit still +perfectly innocent of any broad theory as to ultimate educational values +in America, I came away also with a deeper and more reassuring +conviction that America was intensely interested in education, and that +all that America had to do in order to arrive at real national, racial +results was to keep on being intensely interested. When America shall +have so far outclassed Europe as to be able to abolish, in university +examinations, what New York picturesquely calls "the gumshoe squad" (of +course now much more brilliantly organized in America than in +Europe), then we shall begin to think that, under the stroke of the +wand, at least one real national, racial result has been attained! + + * * * * * + +When I set eyes on the sixty buildings which constitute the visible part +of Harvard University, I perceived that, just as Kensington had without +knowing it been imitating certain streets of Boston, so certain lost +little old English towns that even American tourists have not yet +reached had without knowing it been imitating the courts and chimneys +and windows and doorways and luscious brickwork of Harvard. Harvard had +a very mellow look indeed. No trace of the wand! The European in search +of tradition would find it here in bulk. I should doubt whether at +Harvard modern history is studied through the daily paper--unless +perchance it be in Harvard's own daily paper. The considerableness of +Harvard was attested for me by the multiplicity of its press organs. I +dare say that Harvard is the only university in the world the offices of +whose comic paper are housed in a separate and important building. If +there had been a special press-building for Harvard's press, I should +have been startled. But when I beheld the mere comic organ in a spacious +and costly detached home that some London dailies would envy, I was +struck dumb. That sole fact indicated the scale of magnificence at +Harvard, and proved that the phenomenon of gold-depreciation has +proceeded further at Harvard than at any other public institution in the +world. + +The etiquette of Harvard is nicely calculated to heighten the material +splendor of the place. Thus it is etiquette for the president, during +his term of office, to make a present of a building or so to the +university. Now buildings at Harvard have adopted the excellent habit of +never costing less than about half a million dollars. It is also +etiquette that the gifts to the university from old students shall touch +a certain annual sum; they touch it. Withal, there is no architectural +ostentation at Harvard. All the buildings are artistically modest; many +are beautiful; scarcely one that clashes with the sober and subtle +attractiveness of the whole aggregation. Nowhere is the eye offended. +One looks upon the crimson façades with the same lenient love as marks +one's attitude toward those quaint and lovely English houses (so +familiar to American visitors to our isle) that are all picturesqueness +and no bath-room. That is the external effect. Assuredly entering some +of those storied doorways, one would anticipate inconveniences and what +is called "Old World charm" within. + +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. + +And as I came out of the final portal I happened to meet a student +actually carrying his own portmanteau--and rather tugging at it. I +regretted this chance. The spectacle clashed, and ought to have been +contrary to etiquette. That student should in propriety have been +followed by a Nigerian, Liberian, or Senegambian, carrying his +portmanteau. + +My visits to other universities were about as brief, stirring, +suggestive, and incomplete as those to Columbia and Harvard. I repeat +that I never actually saw the educational machine in motion. What it +seemed to me that I saw in each case was a tremendous mechanical +apparatus at rest, a rich, empty frame, an organism waiting for the word +that would break its trance. The fault was, of course, wholly mine. I +find upon reflection that the universities which I recall with the most +sympathy are those in which I had the largest opportunity of listening +to the informal talk of the faculty and its wife. I heard some mighty +talking upon occasion--and in particular I sat willing at the feet of a +president who could mingle limericks and other drollery, the humanities, +science, modern linguistics, and economics in a manner which must surely +make him historic. + + * * * * * + +Education, like most things except high-class cookery, must be judged by +ultimate results; and though it may not be possible to pass any verdict +on current educational methods (especially when you do not happen to +have even seen them in action), one can to a certain extent assess the +values of past education by reference to the demeanor of adults who have +been through it. One of the chief aims of education should be to +stimulate the great virtue of curiosity. The worst detractors of the +American race--and there are some severe ones in New York, London, and +Paris!--will not be able to deny that an unusually active curiosity is a +marked characteristic of the race. Only they twist that very +characteristic into an excuse for still further detraction. They will, +for example, point to the "hordes" (a word which they regard as +indispensable in this connection) of American tourists who insist on +seeing everything of historic or artistic interest that is visible in +Europe. The plausible argument is that the mass of such tourists are +inferior in intellect and taste to the general level of Europeans who +display curiosity about history or art. Which is probably true. But it +ought to be remembered by us Europeans (and in sackcloth!) that the mass +of us with money to spend on pleasure are utterly indifferent to history +and art. The European dilettante goes to the Uffizi and sees a +shopkeeper from Milwaukee gazing ignorantly at a masterpiece, and says: +"How inferior this shopkeeper from Milwaukee is to me! The American is +an inartistic race!" But what about the shopkeeper from Huddersfield or +Amiens? The shopkeeper from Huddersfield or Amiens will be flirting +about on some entirely banal beach--Scarborough or Trouville--and for +all he knows or cares Leonardo da Vinci might have been a cabman; and +yet the loveliest things in the world are, relatively speaking, at his +door! When the European shopkeeper gets as far as Lucerne in August, he +thinks that a journey of twenty-four hours entitles him to rank a little +lower than Columbus. It was an enormous feat for him to reach Lucerne, +and he must have credit for it, though his interest in art is in no wise +thereby demonstrated. One has to admit that he now goes to Lucerne in +hordes. Praise be to him! But I imagine that the American horde +"hustling for culture" in no matter what historic center will compare +pretty favorably with the European horde in such spots as Lucerne. + +All general curiosity is, to my mind, righteousness, and I so count it +to the American. Not that I think that American curiosity is always the +highest form of curiosity, or that it is not limited. With its apparent +omnivorousness it is often superficial and too easily satisfied--particularly +by mere words. Very seldom is it profound. It is apt to browse agreeably +on externals. The American, like Anglo-Saxons generally, rarely shows a +passionate and yet honest curiosity about himself or his country, which +is curiosity at its finest. He will divide things into pleasant and +unpleasant, and his curiosity is trained to stop at the frontier of the +latter--an Anglo-Saxon device for being comfortable in your mind! He +likes to know what others think of him and his country, but he is not +very keen on knowing what he really thinks on these subjects himself. +The highest form of curiosity is apt to be painful sometimes. (And yet +who that has practised it would give it up?) It also demands +intellectual honesty--a quality which has been denied by Heaven to all +Anglo-Saxon races, but which nevertheless a proper education ought in +the end to achieve. Were I asked whether I saw in America any +improvement upon Britain in the supreme matter of intellectual honesty, +I should reply, No. I seemed to see in America precisely the same +tendency as in Britain to pretend, for the sake of instant comfort, that +things are not what they are, the same timid but determined dislike of +the whole truth, the same capacity to be shocked by notorious and +universal phenomena, the same delusion that a refusal to look at these +phenomena is equivalent to the destruction of these phenomena, the same +flaccid sentimentality which vitiates practically all Anglo-Saxon art. +And I have stood in the streets of New York, as I have stood in the +streets of London, and longed with an intense nostalgia for one hour of +Paris, where, amid a deplorable decadence, intellectual honesty is +widely discoverable, and where absolutely straight thinking and talking +is not mistaken for cynicism. + + * * * * * + +Another test of education is the feeling for art, and the creation of an +environment which encourages the increase of artistic talent. (And be it +noted in passing that the intellectually honest races, the Latin, have +been the most artistic, for the mere reason that intellectual dishonesty +is just sentimentality, and sentimentality is the destroying poison of +art.) Now the most exacerbating experience that fell to me in +America--and it fell more than once--was to hear in discreetly lighted +and luxurious drawing-rooms, amid various mural proofs of trained taste, +and usually from the lips of an elegantly Europeanized American woman +with a sad, agreeable smile: "There is no art in the United States.... I +feel like an exile." A number of these exiles, each believing himself or +herself to be a solitary lamp in the awful darkness, are dotted up and +down the great cities, and it is a curious fact that they bitterly +despise one another. In so doing they are not very wrong. For, in the +first place, these people, like nearly all dilettanti of art, are +extremely unreliable judges of racial characteristics. Their mentality +is allied to that of the praisers of time past, who, having read _Tom +Jones_ and _Clarissa_, are incapable of comprehending that the immense +majority of novels produced in the eighteenth century were nevertheless +terrible rubbish. They go to a foreign land, deliberately confine their +attention to the artistic manifestations of that country, and then +exclaim in ecstasy: "What an artistic country this is! How different +from my own!" To the same class belong certain artistic visitors to the +United States who, having in their own country deliberately cut +themselves off from intercourse with ordinary inartistic persons, visit +America, and, meeting there the average man and woman in bulk, frown +superiorly and exclaim: "This Philistine race thinks of nothing but +dollars!" They cannot see the yet quite evident truth that the rank and +file of every land is about equally inartistic. Modern Italy may in the +mass be more lyrical than America, but in either architecture or +painting Italy is simply not to be named with America. + +[Illustration: MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS--UNIVERSITY OF +CHICAGO] + +Further, and in the second place, these people never did and never will +look in the right quarters for vital art. A really original artist +struggling under their very noses has small chance of being recognized +by them, the reason being that they are imitative, with no real opinion +of their own. They associate art with Florentine frames, matinée hats, +distant museums, and clever talk full of allusions to the dead. It would +not occur to them to search for American art in the architecture of +railway stations and the draftsmanship and sketch-writing of +newspapers and magazines, because they have not the wit to learn that +genuine art flourishes best in the atmosphere of genuine popular demand. + +Even so, with all their blindness, it is unnatural that they should not +see and take pride in the spectacular historical facts which prove their +country to be less negligible in art than they would assert. I do not +mean the existence in America of huge and glorious collections of +European masters. I have visited some of these collections, and have +taken keen pleasure therein. But I perceive in them no national +significance--no more national significance than I perceive in the +endowment of splendid orchestras to play foreign music under foreign +conductors, or in the fashionable crowding of classical concerts. +Indeed, it was a somewhat melancholy experience to spend hours in a +private palace crammed with artistic loveliness that was apparently +beloved and understood, and to hear not one single word disclosing the +slightest interest in modern American art. No, as a working artist +myself, I was more impressed and reassured by such a sight as the Innes +room at the colossal Art Institute of Chicago than by all the +collections of old masters in America, though I do not regard Innes as a +very distinguished artist. The aforesaid dilettanti would naturally +condescend to the Innes room at Chicago's institute, as to the +long-sustained, difficult effort which is being made by a school of +Chicago sculptors for the monumental ornamentation of Chicago. But the +dilettanti have accomplished a wonderful feat of unnaturalness in +forgetting that their poor, inartistic Philistine country did provide, +_inter alia_, the great writer who has influenced French imaginative +writers more deeply than any other foreign writer since Byron--Edgar +Allan Poe; did produce one of the world's supreme poets--Whitman; did +produce the greatest pure humorist of modern times; did produce the +miraculous Henry James; did produce Stanford White and the incomparable +McKim; and did produce the only two Anglo-Saxon personalities who in +graphic art have been able to impose themselves on modern +Europe--Whistler and John Sargent. + + * * * * * + +In the matter of graphic art, I have known so many American painters in +Paris that I was particularly anxious to see what American painting was +like at home. My first adventures were not satisfactory. I trudged +through enormous exhibitions, and they filled me with just the same +feeling of desolation and misery that I experienced at the Royal +Academy, London, or the Société des Artistes Français, Paris. In miles +of slippery exercise I saw almost nothing that could interest an +intelligent amateur who had passed a notable portion of his life in +studios. The first modern American painting that arrested me was one by +Grover, of Chicago. I remember it with gratitude. Often, especially in +New York, I was called upon by stay-at-home dilettanti to admire the +work of some shy favorite, and with the best will in the world I could +not, on account of his too obvious sentimentality. In Boston I was +authoritatively informed that the finest painting in the whole world was +at that moment being done by a group of Boston artists in Boston. But as +I had no opportunity to see their work, I cannot offer an opinion on +the proud claim. My gloom was becoming permanent, when one wet day I +invaded, not easily, the Macdowell Club, and, while listening to a +chorus rehearsal of Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" made the acquaintance of +really interesting pictures by artists such as Irving R. Wiles, Jonas +Lie, Henri, Mrs. Johansen, and Brimley, of whom previously I had known +nothing. From that moment I progressed. I met the work of James Preston, +and of other men who can truly paint. + +All these, however, with all their piquant merits, were Parisianized. +They could have put up a good show in Paris and emerged from French +criticism with dignity. Whereas there is one American painter who has +achieved a reputation on the tongues of men in Europe without (it is +said) having been influenced by Europe, or even having exhibited there. +I mean Winslow Homer. I had often heard of Winslow Homer from +connoisseurs who had earned my respect, and assuredly one of my reasons +for coming to America was to see Winslow Homer's pictures. My first +introduction to his oil-paintings was a shock. I did not like them, and +I kept on not liking them. I found them theatrical and violent in +conception, rather conventional in design, and repellent in color. I +thought the painter's attitude toward sea and rock and sky decidedly +sentimental beneath its wilful harshness. And I should have left America +with broken hopes of Winslow Homer if an enthusiast for State-patronized +art had not insisted on taking me to the State Museum at Indianapolis. +In this agreeable and interesting museum there happened to be a +temporary loan exhibit of water-colors by Winslow Homer. Which +water-colors were clearly the productions of a master. They forced me to +reconsider my views of Homer's work in general. They were beautiful; +they thrilled; they were genuine American; there is nothing else like +them. I shall never forget the pleasure I felt in unexpectedly +encountering these summary and highly distinguished sketches in the +quietude of Indianapolis. I would have liked to collect a trainful of +New York, Chicago, and Boston dilettanti, and lead them by the ears to +the unpretentious museum at Indianapolis, and force them to regard +fixedly these striking creations. Not that I should expect appreciation +from them! (Indianapolis, I discovered, was able to keep perfectly calm +in front of the Winslow Homer water-colors.) But their observations +would have been diverting. + + + + +VIII + +CITIZENS + + +Nothing in New York fascinated me as much as the indications of the vast +and multitudinous straitened middle-class life that is lived there; the +average, respectable, difficult, struggling existence. I would always +regard this medium plane of the social organism with more interest than +the upper and lower planes. And in New York the enormity of it becomes +spectacular. As I passed in Elevated trains across the end of street +after street, and street after street, and saw so many of them just +alike, and saw so many similar faces mysteriously peering in the same +posture between the same curtains through the same windows of the same +great houses; and saw canaries in cages, and enfeebled plants in pots, +and bows of ribbon, and glints of picture-frames; and saw crowd after +dense crowd fighting down on the cobbled roads for the fearful privilege +of entering a surface-car--I had, or seemed to have, a composite vision +of the general life of the city. + +And what sharpened and stimulated the vision more than anything else was +the innumerable flashing glimpses of immense torn clouds of clean linen, +or linen almost clean, fluttering and shaking in withdrawn courtyards +between rows and rows of humanized windows. This domestic detail, +repugnant possibly to some, was particularly impressive to me; it was +the visible index of what life really is on a costly rock ruled in all +material essentials by trusts, corporations, and the grand principle of +tipping. + +I would have liked to live this life, for a space, in any one of half a +million restricted flats, with not quite enough space, not quite enough +air, not quite enough dollars, and a vast deal too much continual strain +on the nerves. I would have liked to come to close quarters with it, and +get its subtle and sinister toxin incurably into my system. Could I have +done so, could I have participated in the least of the uncountable daily +dramas of which the externals are exposed to the gaze of any starer in +an Elevated, I should have known what New York truly meant to +New-Yorkers, and what was the real immediate effect of average education +reacting on average character in average circumstances; and the +knowledge would have been precious and exciting beyond all knowledge of +the staggering "wonders" of the capital. But, of course, I could not +approach so close to reality; the visiting stranger seldom can; he must +be content with his imaginative visions. + +[Illustration: PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK +WOMAN] + +Now and then I had the good-fortune to come across illuminating stories +of New York dailiness, tales of no important event, but which lit up for +me the whole expanse of existence in the hinterlands of the Elevated. +As, for instance, the following. The tiny young wife of the ambitious +and feverish young man is coming home in the winter afternoon. She is +forced to take the street-car, and in order to take it she is forced to +fight. To fight, physically, is part of the daily round of the +average fragile, pale, indomitable New York woman. In the swaying crowd +she turns her head several times, and in tones of ever-increasing +politeness requests a huge male animal behind her to refrain from +pushing. He does not refrain. Being skilled, as a mariner is skilled in +beaching himself and a boat on a surfy shore, she does ultimately +achieve the inside of the car, and she sinks down therein apparently +exhausted. The huge male animal follows, and as he passes her, +infuriated by her indestructible politeness, he sticks his head against +her little one and says, threateningly, "What's the matter with you, +anyway?" He could crush her like a butterfly, and, moreover, she is +about ready to faint. But suddenly, in uncontrollable anger, she lifts +that tiny gloved hand and catches the huge male animal a smart smack in +the face. "Can't you be polite?" she hisses. Then she drops back, +blushing, horrified by what she has done. She sees another man throw the +aghast male animal violently out of the car, and then salute her with: +"Madam, I take off my hat to you." And the tired car settles down to +apathy, for, after all, the incident is in its essence part of the +dailiness of New York. + +The young wife gets home, obsessed by the fact that she has struck a man +in the face in a public vehicle. She is still blushing when she relates +the affair in a rush of talk to another young wife in the flat next to +hers. "For Heaven's sake don't tell my husband," she implores. "If he +knew he'd leave me forever!" And the young husband comes home, after his +own personal dose of street-car, preoccupied, fatigued, nervous, hungry, +demanding to be loved. And the young wife has to behave as though she +had been lounging all the afternoon in a tea-gown on a soft sofa. +Curious that, although she is afraid of her husband's wrath, the +temptation to tell him grows stronger! Indeed, is it not a rather fine +thing that she has done, and was not the salute of the admiring male +flattering and sweet? Not many tiny wives would have had the pluck to +slap a brute's face. She tells the young husband. It is an error of tact +on her part. For he, secretly exacerbated, was waiting for just such an +excuse to let himself go. He is angry, he is outraged--as she had said +he would be. What--his wife, _his_-etc., etc.! + +A night full of everything except sleep; full of Elevated and rumbling +cars, and trumps of autos, and the eternal liveliness of the cobbled +street, and all incomprehensible noises, and stuffiness, and the sense +of other human beings too close above, too close below, and to the left +and to the right, and before and behind, the sense that there are too +many people on earth! What New-Yorker does not know the wakings after +the febrile doze that ends such a night? The nerves like taut strings; +love turned into homicidal hatred; and the radiator damnably tapping, +tapping!... The young husband afoot and shaved and inexpensively +elegant, and he is demanding his fried eggs. The young wife is afoot, +too, manoeuvering against the conspiracies of the janitor, who lives far +below out of sight, but who permeates her small flat like a malignant +influence.... Hear the whistling of the dumb-waiter!... Eggs are +demanded, authoritatively, bitterly. If glances could kill, not only +that flat but the whole house would be strewn with corpses.... Eggs!... + +Something happens, something arrives, something snaps; a spell is broken +and horror is let loose. "Take your eggs!" cries the tiny wife, in a +passion. The eggs fly across the table, and the front of a man's suit is +ruined. She sits down and fairly weeps, appalled at herself. Last +evening she was punishing males; this morning she turns eggs into +missiles, she a loving, an ambitious, an intensely respectable young +wife! As for him, he sits motionless, silent, decorated with the colors +of eggs, a graduate of a famous university. Calamity has brought him +also to his senses. Still weeping, she puts on her hat and jacket. +"Where are you going?" he asks, solemnly, no longer homicidal, no longer +hungry. "I must hurry to the cleaners for your other suit!" says she, +tragic. And she hurries.... + +A shocking story, a sordid story, you say. Not a bit! They are young; +they have the incomparable virtue of youthfulness. It is naught, all +that! The point of the story is that it illustrates New York--a New York +more authentic than the spaciousness of upper Fifth Avenue or the +unnatural dailiness of grand hotels. I like it. + + * * * * * + +You may see that couple later in a suburban house--a real home for the +time being, with a colorable imitation of a garden all about it, and the +"finest suburban railway service in the world": the whole being a frame +and environment for the rearing of children. I have sat at dinner in +such houses, and the talk was of nothing but children; and anybody who +possessed any children, or any reliable knowledge of the ways of +children, was sure of a respectable hearing and warm interest. If one +said, "By the way, I think I may have a photograph of the kid in my +pocket," every eye would reply immediately: "Out with it, man--or +woman!--and don't pretend you don't always carry the photograph with you +on purpose to show it off!" In such a house it is proved that children +are unmatched as an exhaustless subject of conversation. And the +conversation is rendered more thrilling by the sense of partially tamed +children-children fully aware of their supremacy--prowling to and fro +unseen in muddy boots and torn pinafores, and speculating in their +realistic way upon the mysteriousness of adults. + +"We are keen on children here," says the youngish father, frankly. He is +altered now from the man he was when he inhabited a diminutive flat in +the full swirl of New York. His face is calmer, milder, more benevolent, +and more resignedly worried. And assuredly no one would recognize in him +the youth who howled murderously at university football matches and +cried with monstrous ferocity at sight of danger from the opposing +colors: "Kill him! Kill him for me! I can't stand his red stockings +coming up the field!" Yet it is the same man. And this father, too, is +the fruit of university education; and further, one feels that his +passion for his progeny is one of the chief causes of American interest +in education. He and his like are at the root of the modern +university--not the millionaires. In Chicago I was charmed to hear it +stoutly and even challengingly maintained that the root of Chicago +University was not Mr. Rockefeller, but the parents of Chicago. + +Assuming that the couple have no children, there is a good chance of +catching them later, splendidly miserable, in a high-class +apartment-house, where the entire daily adventure of living is taken out +of your hands and done for you, and you pay a heavy price in order to be +deprived of one of the main interests of existence. The apartment-house +ranks in my opinion among the more pernicious influences in American +life. As an institution it is unhappily establishing itself in England, +and in England it is terrible. I doubt if it is less terrible in its +native land. It is anti-social because it works always against the +preservation of the family unit, and because it is unfair to children, +and because it prevents the full flowering of an individuality. (Nobody +can be himself in an apartment-house; if he tried that game he would +instantly be thrown out.) It is immoral because it fosters bribery and +because it is pretentious itself and encourages pretense in its victims. +It is unfavorable to the growth of taste because its decorations and +furniture are and must be ugly; they descend to the artistic standard of +the vulgarest people in it, and have not even the merit of being the +expression of any individuality at all. It is enervating because it +favors the creation of a race that can do absolutely nothing for itself. +It is unhealthy because it is sometimes less clean than it seems, and +because often it forces its victims to eat in a dining-room whose walls +are a distressing panorama of Swiss scenery, and because its cuisine is +and must be at best mediocre, since meals at once sound and showy +cannot be prepared wholesale. + +Some apartment-houses are better than others; many are possibly marvels +of organization and value for money. But none can wholly escape the +indictment. The institution itself, though it may well be a natural and +inevitable by-product of racial evolution, is bad. An experienced +dweller in apartment-houses said to me, of a seeming-magnificent house +which I had visited and sampled: "We pay six hundred dollars for two +poor little rooms and a bath-room, and twenty-five dollars a week for +board, whether we eat or not. The food is very bad. It is all kept hot +for about an hour, on steam, so that every dish tastes of laundry. +Everything is an extra. Telephone--lights--tips--especially tips. I tip +everybody. I even tip the _chef_. I tip the _chef_ so that, when I am +utterly sick of his fanciness and prefer a mere chop or a steak, he will +choose me an eatable chop or steak. And that's how things go on!" + +My true and candid friend, the experienced dweller in apartment-houses, +was, I have good reason to believe, an honorable man. And it is +therefore a considerable tribute to the malefic influence of +apartment-house life that he had no suspicion of the gross anti-social +immorality of his act in tipping the _chef_. Clearly it was an act +calculated to undermine the _chef's_ virtue. If all the other +experienced dwellers did the same, it was also a silly act, producing no +good effect at all. But if only a few of them did it, then it was an act +which resulted in the remainder of the victims being deprived of their +full, fair chance of getting eatable chops or steaks. My friend's +proper course was obviously to have kicked up a row, and to have kicked +up a row in a fashion so clever that the management would not put him +into the street. He ought to have organized a committee of protest, he +ought to have convened meetings for the outlet of public opinion, he +ought to have persevered day after day and evening after evening, until +the management had been forced to exclude uneatable chops and steaks +utterly from their palatial premises and to exact the honest performance +of duty from each and all of the staff. In the end it would have dawned +upon the management that inedible food was just as much out of place in +the restaurant as counterfeit bills and coins at the cash-desk. The +proper course would have been difficult and tiresome. The proper course +often is. My friend took the easy, wicked course. That is to say, he +exhibited a complete lack of public spirit. + + * * * * * + +An apartment-house is only an apartment-house; whereas the republic is +the republic. And yet I permit myself to think that the one may +conceivably be the mirror of the other. And I do positively think that +American education does not altogether succeed in the very important +business of inculcating public spirit into young citizens. I judge +merely by results. Most peoples fail in the high quality of public +spirit; and the American perhaps not more so than the rest. Perhaps all +I ought to say is that according to my own limited observation public +spirit is not among the shining attributes of the United States citizen. +And even to that statement there will be animated demur. For have not +the citizens of the United States been conspicuous for their public +spirit?... + +It depends on what is meant by public spirit--that is, public spirit in +its finer forms. I know what I do _not_ mean by public spirit. I was +talking once to a member of an important and highly cultivated social +community, and he startled me by remarking: + +"The major vices do not exist in this community at all." + +I was prepared to credit that such Commandments as the Second and Sixth +were not broken in that community. But I really had doubts about some +others, such as the Seventh and Tenth. However, he assured me that such +transgressions were unknown. + +"What do you _do_ here?" I asked. + +He replied: "We live for social service--for each other." + +The spirit characterizing that community would never be described by me +as public spirit. I should fit it with a word which will occur at once +to every reader. + +On the other hand, I cannot admit as proof of public spirit the +prevalent American habit of giving to the public that which is useless +to oneself--no matter how immense the quantity given, and no matter how +admirable the end in view. When you have got the money it is rather easy +to sit down and write a check for five million dollars, and so bring a +vast public institution into being. It is still easier to leave the same +sum by testament. These feats are an affair of five minutes or so; they +cost simply nothing in time or comfort or peace of mind. If they are +illustrations of public spirit, it is a low and facile form of public +spirit. + +True public spirit is equally difficult for the millionaire and for the +clerk. It is, in fact, very tedious work. It implies the quiet daily +determination to get eatable chops and steaks by honest means, chiefly +for oneself, but incidentally for everybody else. It necessitates +trouble and inconvenience. I was in a suburban house one night, and it +was the last night for registering names on an official list of voters +before an election; it was also a rainy night. The master of the house +awaited a carriage, which was to be sent up by a candidate, at the +candidate's expense, to take him to the place of registration. Time grew +short. + +"Shall you walk there if the carriage doesn't come?" I asked, and gazed +firmly at the prospective voter. + +At that moment the carriage came. We drove forth together, and in a +cabin warmed by a stove and full of the steam of mackintoshes I saw an +interesting part of the American Constitution at work--four hatted +gentlemen writing simultaneously the same particulars in four similar +ledgers, while exhorting a fifth to keep the stove alight. An +acquaintance came in who had trudged one mile through the rain. That +acquaintance showed public spirit. In the ideal community a candidate +for election will not send round carriages in order, at the last moment, +to induce citizens to register; in the ideal community citizens will +regard such an attention as in the nature of an insult. + +I was told that millionaires and presidents of trusts were chiefly +responsible for any backwardness of public spirit in the United States. +I had heard and read the same thing about the United States in England. +I was therefore curious to meet these alleged sinister creatures. And +once, at a repast, I encountered quite a bunch of millionaire-presidents. +I had them on my right hand and on my left. No two were in the least +alike. In my simplicity I had expected a type--formidable, intimidating. +One bubbled with jollity; obviously he "had not a care in the world." +Another was grave. I talked with the latter, but not easily. He was +taciturn. Or he may have been feeling his way. Or he may have been not +quite himself. Even millionaire-presidents must be self-conscious. Just +as a notorious author is too often rendered uneasy by the consciousness +of his notoriety, so even a millionaire-president may sometimes have a +difficulty in being quite natural. However, he did ultimately talk. It +became clear to me that he was an extremely wise and sagacious man. The +lines of his mouth were ruthlessly firm, yet he showed a general +sympathy with all classes of society, and he met my radicalism quite +half-way. On woman's suffrage he was very fair-minded. As to his own +work, he said to me that when a New York paper asked him to go and be +cross-examined by its editorial board he willingly went, because he had +nothing to conceal. He convinced me of his uprightness and of his +benevolence. He showed a nice regard for the claims of the Republic, and +a proper appreciation of what true public spirit is. + +Some time afterward I was talking to a very prominent New York editor, +and the conversation turned to millionaires, whereupon for about half an +hour the editor agreeably recounted circumstantial stories of the +turpitude of celebrated millionaires--stories which he alleged to be +authentic and undeniable in every detail. I had to gasp. "But surely--" +I exclaimed, and mentioned the man who had so favorably impressed me. + +"Well," said the editor, reluctantly, after a pause, "I admit he has +_the new sense of right and wrong_ to a greater extent than any of his +rivals." + +I italicize the heart of the phrase, because it is italicized in my +memory. No words that I heard in the United States more profoundly +struck me. Yet the editor had used them quite ingenuously, unaware that +he was saying anything singular!... Since when is the sense of right and +wrong "new" in America? + +Perhaps all that the editor meant was that public spirit in its higher +forms was growing in the United States, and beginning to show itself +spectacularly here and there in the immense drama of commercial and +industrial policies. That public spirit is growing, I believe. It +chanced that I found the basis of my belief more in Chicago than +anywhere else. + + * * * * * + +I have hitherto said nothing of the "folk"--the great mass of the +nation, who live chiefly by the exercise, in one way or another, of +muscular power or adroitness, and who, if they possess drawing-rooms, do +not sit in them. Like most writers, when I have used such phrases as +"the American people" I have meant that small dominant minority which +has the same social code as myself. Goethe asserted that the folk were +the only real people. I do not agree with him, for I have never found +one city more real than another city, nor one class of people more real +than another class. Still, he was Goethe, and the folk, though +mysterious, are very real; and, since they constitute perhaps +five-sixths of the nation, it would be singular to ignore them. I had +two brief glimpses of them, and the almost theatrical contrast of these +two glimpses may throw further light upon the question just discussed. + +I evaded Niagara and the Chicago Stock-yards, but I did not evade the +"East Side" of New York. The East Side insisted on being seen, and I was +not unwilling. In charge of a highly erudite newspaper man, and of an +amiable Jewish detective, who, originally discovered by Colonel +Roosevelt, had come out first among eighteen hundred competitors in a +physical examination, my particular friend and I went forth one +intemperate night to "do" the East Side in an automobile. We saw the +garlanded and mirrored core of "Sharkey's" saloon, of which the most +interesting phenomenon was a male pianist who would play the piano +without stopping till 2.30 A.M. With about two thousand other persons, +we had the privilege of shaking hands with Sharkey. We saw another +saloon, frequented by murderers who resembled shop assistants. We saw a +Hebraic theater, whose hospitable proprietor informed us how he had +discovered a great play-writing genius, and how on the previous Saturday +night he had turned away seven thousand patrons for lack of room! +Certainly on our night the house was crammed; and the play seemed of +realistic quality, and the actresses effulgently lovely. We saw a Polack +dancing-hall, where the cook-girls were slatterns, but romantic +slatterns. We saw Seward Park, which is the dormitory of the East Side +in summer. We saw a van clattering off with prisoners to the night +court. We saw illustrious burglars, "gunmen," and "dukes" of famous +streets--for we had but to raise a beckoning finger, and they approached +us, grinning, out of gloomy shadows. (And very ordinary they seemed in +spite of slashed faces!) + +We even saw Chinatown, and the wagonettes of tourists stationary in its +streets. I had suspected that Chinatown was largely a show for tourists. +When I asked how it existed, I was told that the two thousand Chinese of +Chinatown lived on the ten thousand Chinese who came into it from all +quarters on Sundays, and I understood. As a show it lacked +convincingness--except the delicatessen-shop, whose sights and odors +silenced criticism. It had the further disadvantage, by reason of its +tawdry appeals of color and light, of making one feel like a tourist. +Above a certain level of culture, no man who is a tourist has the +intellectual honesty to admit to himself that he is a tourist. Such +honesty is found only on the lower levels. The detective saved our pride +from time to time by introducing us to sights which the despicable +ordinary tourists cannot see. It was a proud moment for us when we +assisted at a conspiratorial interview between our detective and the +"captain of the precincts." And it was a proud moment when in an +inconceivable retreat we were permitted to talk with an aged Chinese +actor and view his collection of flowery hats. It was a still prouder +(and also a subtly humiliating) moment when we were led through +courtyards and beheld in their cloistral aloofness the American +legitimate wives of wealthy China-men, sitting gorgeous, with the +quiescence of odalisques, in gorgeous uncurtained interiors. I was glad +when one of the ladies defied the detective by abruptly swishing down +her blind. + +But these affairs did not deeply stir my imagination. More engaging was +the detective's own habit of stopping the automobile every hundred yards +or so in order to point out the exact spot on which a murder, or several +murders, had been committed. Murder was his chief interest. I noticed +the same trait in many newspaper men, who would sit and tell excellent +murder stories by the hour. But murder was so common on the East Side +that it became for me curiously puerile--a sort of naughtiness whose +punishment, to be effective, ought to wound, rather than flatter, the +vanity of the child-minded murderers. More engaging still was the +extraordinary frequency of banks--some with opulent illuminated +signs--and of cinematograph shows. In the East End of London or of Paris +banks are assuredly not a feature of the landscape--and for good reason. +The cinematograph is possibly, on the whole, a civilizing agent; it +might easily be the most powerful force on the East Side. I met the +gentleman who "controlled" all the cinematographs, and was reputed to +make a million dollars a year net therefrom. He did not appear to be a +bit weighed down, either by the hugeness of his opportunity or by the +awfulness of his responsibility. + +[Illustration: THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE] + +The supreme sensation of the East Side is the sensation of its +astounding populousness. The most populous street in the +world--Rivington Street--is a sight not to be forgotten. Compared to +this, an up-town thoroughfare of crowded middle-class flats is the +open country--is an uninhabited desert! The architecture seemed to sweat +humanity at every window and door. The roadways were often impassable. +The thought of the hidden interiors was terrifying. Indeed, the hidden +interiors would not bear thinking about. The fancy shunned them--a +problem not to be settled by sudden municipal edicts, but only by the +efflux of generations. Confronted by this spectacle of sickly-faced +immortal creatures, who lie closer than any other wild animals would +lie; who live picturesque, feverish, and appalling existences; who amuse +themselves, who enrich themselves, who very often lift themselves out of +the swarming warren and leave it forever, but whose daily experience in +the warren is merely and simply horrible--confronted by this +incomparable and overwhelming phantasmagoria (for such it seems), one is +foolishly apt to protest, to inveigh, to accuse. The answer to futile +animadversions was in my particular friend's query: "Well, what are you +going to do about it?" + + * * * * * + +My second glimpse of the folk was at quite another end of the city of +New York--namely, the Bronx. I was urgently invited to go and see how +the folk lived in the Bronx; and, feeling convinced that a place with a +name so remarkable must itself be remarkable, I went. The center of the +Bronx is a racket of Elevated, bordered by banks, theaters, and other +places of amusement. As a spectacle it is decent, inspiring confidence +but not awe, and being rather repellent to the sense of beauty. Nobody +could call it impressive. Yet I departed from the Bronx very +considerably impressed. It is the interiors of the Bronx homes that are +impressive. I was led to a part of the Bronx where five years previously +there had been six families, and where there are now over two thousand +families. This was newest New York. No obstacle impeded my invasion of +the domestic privacies of the Bronx. The mistresses of flats showed me +round everything with politeness and with obvious satisfaction. A stout +lady, whose husband was either an artisan or a clerk, I forget which, +inducted me into a flat of four rooms, of which the rent was twenty-six +dollars a month. She enjoyed the advantages of central heating, gas, and +electricity; and among the landlord's fixtures were a refrigerator, a +kitchen range, a bookcase, and a sideboard. Such amenities for the +people--for the _petits gens_--simply do not exist in Europe; they do +not even exist for the wealthy in Europe. But there was also the +telephone, the house exchange being in charge of the janitor's +daughter--a pleasing occupant of the entrance-hall. I was told that the +telephone, with a "nickel" call, increased the occupancy of the Bronx +flats by ten per cent. + +Thence I visited the flat of a doctor--a practitioner who would be the +equivalent of a "shilling" doctor in a similar quarter of London. Here +were seven rooms, at a rent of forty-five dollars a month, and no end of +conveniences--certainly many more than in any flat that I had ever +occupied myself! I visited another house and saw similar interiors. And +now I began to be struck by the splendor and the cleanliness of the +halls, landings, and staircases: marble halls, tesselated landings, and +stairs out of Holland; the whole producing a gorgeous effect--to match +the glory of the embroidered pillow-cases in the bedrooms. On the roofs +were drying-grounds, upon which each tenant had her rightful "day," so +that altercations might not arise. I saw an empty flat. The professional +vermin exterminator had just gone--for the landlord-company took no +chances in this detail of management. + +Then I was lifted a little higher in the social-financial scale, to a +building of which the entrance-hall reminded me of the foyers of grand +hotels. A superb negro held dominion therein, but not over the telephone +girl, who ran the exchange ten hours a day for twenty-five dollars a +month, which, considering that the janitor received sixty-five dollars +and his rooms, seemed to me to be somewhat insufficient. In this house +the corridors were broader, and to the conveniences was added a +mail-shoot, a device which is still regarded in Europe as the final word +of plutocratic luxury rampant. The rents ran to forty-eight dollars a +month for six rooms. In this house I was asked by hospitable tenants +whether I was not myself, and, when I had admitted that I was myself, +books of which I had been guilty were produced, and I was called upon to +sign them. + +The fittings and decorations of all these flats were artistically +vulgar, just as they are in flats costing a thousand dollars a month, +but they were well executed, and resulted in a general harmonious effect +of innocent prosperity. The people whom I met showed no trace of the +influence of those older artistic civilizations whose charm seems subtly +to pervade the internationalism of the East Side. In certain strata and +streaks of society on the East Side things artistic and intellectual are +comprehended with an intensity of emotion and understanding impossible +to Anglo-Saxons. This I know. + +The Bronx is different. The Bronx is beginning again, at a stage earlier +than art, and beginning better. It is a place for those who have learnt +that physical righteousness has got to be the basis of all future +progress. It is a place to which the fit will be attracted, and where +the fit will survive. It has rather a harsh quality. It reminded me of a +phrase used by an American at the head of an enormous business. He had +been explaining to me how he tried a man in one department, and, if he +did not shine in that, then in another, and in another, and so on. "And +if you find in the end that he's honest but not efficient?" I asked. +"Then," was the answer, "we think he's entitled to die, and we fire +him." + +The Bronx presented itself to me as a place where the right of the +inefficient to expire would be cheerfully recognized. The district that +I inspected was certainly, as I say, for the fit. Efficiency in physical +essentials was inculcated--and practised--by the landlord-company, whose +constant aim seemed to be to screw up higher and higher the self-respect +of its tenants. That the landlord-company was not a band of +philanthropists, but a capitalistic group in search of dividends, I +would readily admit. But that it should find its profit in the business +of improving the standard of existence and appealing to the pride of the +folk was to me a wondrous sign of the essential vigor of American +civilization, and a proof that public spirit, unostentatious as a coral +insect, must after all have long been at work somewhere. + +Compare the East Side with the Bronx fully, and one may see, perhaps +roughly, a symbol of what is going forward in America. Nothing, I should +imagine, could be more interesting to a sociological observer than that +actual creation of a city of homes as I saw it in the Bronx. I saw the +home complete, and I saw the home incomplete, with wall-papers not on, +with the roof not on. Why, I even saw, further out, the ground being +leveled and the solid rock drilled where now, most probably, actual +homes are inhabited and babies have been born! And I saw further than +that. Nailed against a fine and ancient tree, in the midst of a desolate +waste, I saw a board with these words: "A new Subway station will be +erected on this corner." There are legendary people who have eyes to see +the grass growing. I have seen New York growing. It was a hopeful sight, +too. + + * * * * * + +At this point my impressions of America come to an end, for the present. +Were I to assert, in the phrase conventionally proper to such an +occasion, that no one can be more sensible than myself of the manifold +defects, omissions, inexactitudes, gross errors, and general lack of +perspective which my narrative exhibits, I should assert the thing which +is not. I have not the slightest doubt that a considerable number of +persons are more sensible than myself of my shortcomings; for on the +subject of America I do not even know enough to be fully aware of my own +ignorance. Still, I am fairly sensible of the enormous imperfection and +rashness of this book. When I regard the map and see the trifling +extent of the ground that I covered--a scrap tucked away in the +northeast corner of the vast multi-colored territory--I marvel at the +assurance I displayed in choosing my title. Indeed, I have yet to see +your United States. Any Englishman visiting the country for the second +time, having begun with New York, ought to go round the world and enter +by San Francisco, seeing Seattle before Baltimore and Denver before +Chicago. His perspective might thus be corrected in a natural manner, +and the process would in various ways be salutary. It is a nice question +how many of the opinions formed on the first visit--and especially the +most convinced and positive opinions--would survive the ordeal of the +second. + +As for these brief chapters, I hereby announce that I am not prepared +ultimately to stand by any single view which they put forward. There is +naught in them which is not liable to be recanted. The one possible +justification of them is that they offer to the reader the one thing +that, in the very nature of the case, a mature and accustomed observer +could not offer--namely, an immediate account (as accurate as I could +make it) of the first tremendous impact of the United States on a mind +receptive and unprejudiced. The greatest social historian, the most +conscientious writer, could not recapture the sensations of that first +impact after further intercourse had scattered them. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Your United States, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR UNITED STATES *** + +***** This file should be named 15063-8.txt or 15063-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/0/6/15063/ + +Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Your United States + Impressions of a first visit + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: February 15, 2005 [EBook #15063] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR UNITED STATES *** + + + + +Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<h1>YOUR UNITED STATES</h1> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="frontispiece" id="frontispiece"></a> +<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" +alt="THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT" +title="THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + + + + +<div><br /></div> +<h1>YOUR</h1> +<h1>UNITED STATES</h1> +<div><br /></div> +<h2>IMPRESSIONS OF A FIRST VISIT</h2> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>ARNOLD BENNETT</h2> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<h3>ILLUSTRATED BY</h3> +<h2>FRANK CRAIG</h2> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p class="center"> +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> +NEW YORK AND LONDON<br /> +MCMXII<br /> +</p> + + + + +<p class="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS<br /> +<br /> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /> +<br /> +PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1912<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div style="margin-left: 40%; margin-right: 15%;"> +<p> + <a href="#I"><b>I. THE FIRST NIGHT</b></a><br /> + <a href="#II"><b>II. STREETS</b></a><br /> + <a href="#III"><b>III. THE CAPITOL AND OTHER SITES</b></a><br /> + <a href="#IV"><b>IV. SOME ORGANIZATIONS</b></a><br /> + <a href="#V"><b>V. TRANSIT AND HOTELS</b></a><br /> + <a href="#VI"><b>VI. SPORT AND THE THEATER</b></a><br /> + <a href="#VII"><b>VII. EDUCATION AND ART</b></a><br /> + <a href="#VIII"><b>VIII. CITIZENS</b></a><br /> + </p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + +<p class="center"> +<b>ILLUSTRATIONS</b><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#frontispiece">THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT</a> <br /> +<a href="#disembarking">DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK</a> <br /> +<a href="#p016">THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWDED SKY-SCRAPERS</a> <br /> +<a href="#p020">BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT</a><br /> +<a href="#p034">A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET</a><br /> +<a href="#p036">A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER</a><br /> +<a href="#p038">THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT</a><br /> +<a href="#p042">A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO</a> <br /> +<a href="#p044">A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE—CHICAGO</a> <br /> +<a href="#p050">THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL</a> <br /> +<a href="#p052">ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE</a><br /> +<a href="#p054">ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO—THE CAPITOL</a> <br /> +<a href="#p056">UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL</a> <br /> +<a href="#p060">THE PROMENADE—CITY POINT, BOSTON</a> <br /> +<a href="#p064">THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB—OVERLOOKING THE HARBOR</a><br /> +<a href="#p074">AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE</a><br /> +<a href="#p086">LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB</a><br /> +<a href="#p090">A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG</a><br /> +<a href="#p094">ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY</a> <br /> +<a href="#p100">IN THE PARLOR-CAR</a><br /> +<a href="#p108">BREAKFAST EN ROUTE</a><br /> +<a href="#p112">IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING STREAM</a><br /> +<a href="#p114">THE STRAP-HANGERS</a> <br /> +<a href="#p116">THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED</a><br /> +<a href="#p118">THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS SPLENDOR</a> <br /> +<a href="#p124">THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION</a> <br /> +<a href="#p130">THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR</a> <br /> +<a href="#p134">THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD</a> <br /> +<a href="#p156">UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS—UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA</a> <br /> +<a href="#p164">MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS—UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO</a><br /> +<a href="#p172">PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN</a><br /> +<a href="#p186">THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE</a><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>YOUR UNITED STATES</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I" />I</h2> + +<h2>THE FIRST NIGHT</h2> + + +<p>I sat with a melting ice on my plate, and my gaze on a very distant +swinging door, through which came and went every figure except the +familiar figure I desired. The figure of a woman came. She wore a +pale-blue dress and a white apron and cap, and carried a dish in +uplifted hands, with the gesture of an acolyte. On the bib of the apron +were two red marks, and as she approached, tripping, scornful, +unheeding, along the interminable carpeted aisle, between serried tables +of correct diners, the vague blur of her face gradually developed into +features, and the two red marks on her stomacher grew into two rampant +lions, each holding a globe in its ferocious paws; and she passed on, +bearing away the dish and these mysterious symbols, and lessened into a +puppet on the horizon of the enormous hall, and finally vanished through +another door. She was succeeded by men, all bearing dishes, but none of +them so inexorably scornful as she, and none of them disappearing where +she had disappeared; every man relented and stopped at some table or +other. But the figure I desired remained invisible, and my ice +continued to melt, in accordance with chemical law. The orchestra in the +gallery leaped suddenly into the rag-time without whose accompaniment it +was impossible, anywhere in the civilized world, to dine correctly. That +rag-time, committed, I suppose, originally by some well-intentioned if +banal composer in the privacy of his study one night, had spread over +the whole universe of restaurants like a pest, to the exasperation of +the sensitive, but evidently to the joy of correct diners. Joy shone in +the elated eyes of the four hundred persons correctly dining together in +this high refectory, and at the end there was honest applause!... And +yet you never encountered a person who, questioned singly, did not agree +and even assert of his own accord that music at meals is an outrageous +nuisance!...</p> + + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="disembarking" id="disembarking"></a> +<img src="images/disembarking.jpg" +alt="DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK" +title="DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK</b></p> +<div><br /></div><div><br /></div> + + +<p>However, my desired figure was at length manifest. The man came hurrying +and a little breathless, with his salver, at once apologetic and +triumphant. My ice was half liquid. Had I not the right to reproach him, +in the withering, contemptuous tone which correct diners have learned to +adopt toward the alien serfs who attend them? I had not. I had neither +the right nor the courage nor the wish. This man was as Anglo-Saxon as +myself. He had, with all his deference, the mien of the race. When he +dreamed of paradise, he probably did not dream of the <i>caisse</i> of a +cosmopolitan Grand Hotel in Switzerland. When he spoke English he was +not speaking a foreign language. And this restaurant was one of the +extremely few fashionable Anglo-Saxon restaurants left in the world, +where an order given in English is understood at the first try, and +where the English language is not assassinated and dismembered by +menials who despise it, menials who slang one another openly in the +patois of Geneva, Luxembourg, or Naples. A singular survival, this +restaurant!... Moreover, the man was justified in his triumphant air. +Not only had he most intelligently brought me a fresh ice, but he had +brought the particular kind of rusk for which I had asked. There were +over thirty dishes on the emblazoned menu, and of course I had wanted +something that was not on it: a peculiar rusk, a rusk recondite and +unheard of by my fellow-diners. The man had hopefully said that he +"would see." And here lay the rusk, magically obtained. I felicitated +him, as an equal. And then, having consumed the ice and the fruits of +the hot-house, I arose and followed in the path of the lion-breasted +woman, and arrived at an elevator, and was wafted aloft by a boy of +sixteen who did nothing else from 6 A.M. till midnight (so he said) but +ascend and descend in that elevator. By the discipline of this inspiring +and jocund task he was being prepared for manhood and the greater +world!... And yet, what would you? Elevators must have boys, and even +men. Civilization is not so simple as it may seem to the passionate +reformer and lover of humanity.</p> + +<p>Later, in the vast lounge above the restaurant, I formed one of a group +of men, most of whom had acquired fame, and had the slight agreeable +self-consciousness that fame gives; and I listened, against a background +of the ever-insistent music, to one of those endless and multifarious +reminiscent conversations that are heard only in such places. The +companion on my right would tell how he had inhabited a house in Siam, +next to the temple in front of which the corpses of people too poor to +be burned were laid out, after surgical preliminaries, to be devoured by +vultures, and how the vultures, when gorged, would flap to the roof of +his house and sit there in contemplation. And the companion on my left +would tell how, when he was unfamous and on his beam-ends, he would stay +in bed with a sham attack of influenza, and on the day when a chance +offered itself would get up and don his only suit—a glorious one—and, +fitting an eye-glass into his eye because it made him look older, would +go forth to confront the chance. And then the talk might be interrupted +in order to consult the morning paper, and so settle a dispute about the +exact price of Union Pacifics. And then an Italian engineer would tell +about sport in the woods of Maine, a perfect menagerie of wild animals +where it was advisable to use a revolver lest the excessive noise of a +fowling-piece should disturb the entire forest, and how once he had shot +seven times at an imperturbable partridge showing its head over a tree, +and missed seven times, and how the partridge had at last flown off, +with a flicker of plumage that almost said aloud, "Well, I really can't +wait any longer!" And then might follow a simply tremendous discussion +about the digestibility of buckwheat-cakes.</p> + +<p>And then the conversation of every group in the lounge would be stopped +by the entry of a page bearing a telegram and calling out in the voice +of destiny the name of him to whom the telegram was addressed. And then +another companion would relate in intricate detail a recent excursion +into Yucatan, speaking negligently—as though it were a trifle—of the +extraordinary beauty of the women of Yucatan, and in the end making +quite plain his conviction that no other women were as beautiful as the +women of Yucatan. And then the inevitable Mona Lisa would get onto the +carpet, and one heard, apropos, of the theft of Adam mantelpieces from +Russell Square, and of superb masterpieces of paint rotting with damp in +neglected Venetian churches, and so on and so on, until one had the +melancholy illusion that the whole art world was going or gone to +destruction. But this subject did not really hold us, for the reason +that, beneath a blasé exterior, we were all secretly preoccupied by the +beauty of the women of Yucatan and wondering whether we should ever get +to Yucatan.... And then, looking by accident away, I saw the dim, +provocative faces of girls in white jerseys and woolen caps peering from +without through the dark double windows of the lounge. And I was glad +when somebody suggested that it was time to take a turn. And outside, in +the strong wind, abaft the four funnels of the <i>Lusitania</i>, a star +seemed to be dancing capriciously around and about the masthead light. +And it was difficult to believe that the masthead and its light, and not +the star, were dancing.</p> + +<p>From the lofty promenade deck the Atlantic wave is a little enough +thing, so far down beneath you that you can scarcely even sniff its +salty tang. But when the elevator-boy—always waiting for me—had +lowered me through five floors, I stood on tiptoe and gazed through the +thick glass of a porthole there; and the flying Atlantic wave, +theatrically moonlit now, was very near. Suddenly something jumped up +and hit the glass of the port-hole a fearful, crashing blow that made me +draw away my face in alarm; and the solid ground on which I stood +vibrated for an instant. It was the Atlantic wave, caressing. Anybody on +the other side of this thin, nicely painted steel plate (I thought) +would be in a rather hopeless situation. I turned away, half shivering, +from the menace. All was calm and warm and reassuring within the +ship.... In the withdrawn privacy of my berth, with the curtains closed +over the door and Murray Gilchrist's new novel in my hand and a poised +electric lamp over my head, I looked about as I lay, and everything was +still except a towel that moved gently, almost imperceptibly, to and +fro. Yet the towel had copied the immobility of the star. It alone did +not oscillate. Forty-five thousand tons were swaying; but not that +towel. The sense of actual present romance was too strong to let me +read. I extinguished the light, and listened in the dark to the faint +straining noises of the enormous organism. I thought: "This magic thing +is taking me <i>there</i>! In three days I shall be on that shore." Terrific +adventure! The rest of the passengers were merely going to America.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The magic thing was much more magic than I had conceived. The next +morning, being up earlier than usual and wandering about on strange, +inclosed decks unfamiliar to my feet, I beheld astonishing unsuspected +populations of men and women—crowds of them—a healthy, powerful, +prosperous, independent, somewhat stern and disdainful multitude, it +seemed to me. Those muscular, striding girls in caps and shawls would +not yield an inch to me in their promenade; they brushed strongly and +carelessly past me; had I been a ghost they would have walked through +me. They were, and had been, all living—eating and sleeping—somewhere +within the vessel, and I had not imagined it! It is true that some ass +in the saloon had already calculated for my benefit that there were +"three thousand <i>souls</i> on board!" (The solemn use of the word "souls" +in this connection by a passenger should stamp a man forever.) But such +numerical statements do not really arouse the imagination. I had to see +with my eyes. And I did see with my eyes. That afternoon a high officer +of the ship, spiriting me away from the polite flirtations and pastimes +of the upper decks, carried me down to more exciting scenes. And I saw a +whole string of young women inoculated against smallpox, under the +interested gaze of a crowd of men ranged on a convenient staircase. And +a little later I saw a whole string of men inoculated against smallpox, +under the interested gaze of a crowd of young women ranged on a +convenient staircase.</p> + +<p>"They're having their sweet revenge," said the high officer, indicating +the young women. He was an epigrammatic and terse speaker. When I +reflected aloud upon the order and discipline of service which was +necessary to maintain more than a thousand roughish persons in idleness, +cleanliness, health, peace, and content, in the inelastic forward spaces +of the ship, he said with a certain grimness: "Everything has to be +screwed up as tight as you can screw it. And you must keep to the +round. What you do to-day you must do to-morrow. But what you don't do +to-day you can't get done to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it proved to be a very human world, a world in which the +personal equation counted. I remember that while some four hundred in +one long hall were applauding "Home, Sweet Home," very badly fiddled by +a gay man on a stool ("Home, Sweet Home"—and half of them +Scandinavians!), and another four hundred or so were sitting expectant +on those multifarious convenient staircases or wandering in and out of +the maze of cubicles that contained fifteen hundred separate berths, and +a third four hundred or so in another long hall were consuming a huge +tea offered to them by a cohort of stewards in white—I remember that +while all this was going forward and the complex mechanism of the +kitchen was in full strain a little, untidy woman, with an infant +dragging at one hand and a mug in the other, strolled nonchalantly into +the breathless kitchen, and said to a hot cook, "Please will you give me +a drop o' milk for this child?" And under the military gaze of the high +officer, too! Something awful should have happened. The engines ought to +have stopped. The woman ought to have been ordered out to instant +execution. The engines did seem to falter for a moment. But the high +officer grimly smiled, and they went on again. "Give me yer mug, +mother," said the cook. And the untidy woman went off with her booty.</p> + +<p>"Now I'll show you the first-class kitchens," the high officer said, and +guided me through uncharted territories to chambers where spits were +revolving in front of intense heat, and where a confectionery business +proceeded, night and day, and dough was mixed by electricity, and +potatoes peeled by the same, and where a piece of clockwork lifted an +egg out of boiling water after it had lain therein the number of seconds +prescribed by you. And there, pinned to a board, was the order I had +given for a special dinner that night. And there, too, more impressive +even than that order, was a list of the several hundred stewards, +together with a designation of the post of each in case of casualty. I +noticed that thirty or forty of them were told off "to control +passengers." After all, we were in the midst of the Atlantic, and in a +crisis the elevator-boys themselves would have more authority than any +passenger, however gorgeous. A thought salutary for gorgeous +passengers—that they were in the final resort mere fool bodies to be +controlled! After I had seen the countless store-rooms, in the recesses +of each of which was hidden a clerk with a pen behind his ear and a +nervous and taciturn air, and passed on to the world of the second +cabin, which was a surprisingly brilliant imitation of the great world +of the saloon, I found that I held a much-diminished opinion of the +great world of the saloon, which I now perceived to be naught but a thin +crust or artificial gewgaw stuck over the truly thrilling parts of the +ship.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, till the next day that I realized what the most +thrilling part of the ship was. Under the protection of another high +officer I had climbed to the bridge—seventy-five feet above the level +of the sea—which bridge had been very seriously disestablished by an +ambitious wave a couple of years before—and had there inspected the +devices for detecting and extinguishing fires in distant holds by merely +turning a handle, and the charts and the telephones and the telegraphs, +and the under-water signaling, and the sounding-tubes, and the officers' +piano; and I had descended by way of the capstan-gear (which, being +capable of snapping a chain that would hold two hundred and sixty tons +in suspension, was suitably imprisoned in a cage, like a fierce wild +animal) right through the length of the vessel to the wheel-house aft. +It was comforting to know that if six alternative steering-wheels were +smashed, one after another, there remained a seventh gear to be worked, +chiefly by direct force of human arm. And, after descending several more +stories, I had seen the actual steering—the tremendous affair moving to +and fro, majestic and apparently capricious, in obedience to the light +touch of a sailor six hundred feet distant. And then I had seen the four +shafts, revolving lazily one hundred and eighty-four to the minute; and +got myself involved in dangerous forests of greasy machinery, whizzing +all deserted in a very high temperature under electric bulbs. Only at +rare intervals did I come across a man in brown doing nothing in +particular—as often as not gazing at a dial; there were dials +everywhere, showing pressures and speeds. And then I had come to the +dynamo-room, where the revolutions were twelve hundred to the minute, +and then to the turbines themselves—insignificant little things, with +no swagger of huge crank and piston, disappointing little things that +developed as much as one-third of the horse-power required for all the +electricity of New York.</p> + +<p>And then, lastly, when I had supposed myself to be at the rock-bottom +of the steamer, I had been instructed to descend in earnest, and I went +down and down steel ladders, and emerged into an enormous, an incredible +cavern, where a hundred and ninety gigantic furnaces were being fed +every ten minutes by hundreds of tiny black dolls called firemen. I, +too, was a doll as I looked up at the high white-hot mouth of a furnace +and along the endless vista of mouths.... Imagine hell with the addition +of electric light, and you have it!... And up-stairs, far above on the +surface of the water, confectioners were making fancy cakes, and the +elevator-boy was doing his work!... Yes, the inferno was the most +thrilling part of the ship; and no other part of the ship could hold a +candle to it. And I remained of this conviction even when I sat in the +captain's own room, smoking his august cigars and turning over his +books. I no longer thought, "Every revolution of the propellers brings +me nearer to that shore." I thought, "Every shovelful flung into those +white-hot mouths brings me nearer."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is an absolute fact that, four hours before we could hope to +disembark, ladies in mantles and shore hats (seeming fantastic and +enormous after the sobriety of ship attire), and gentlemen in shore hats +and dark overcoats, were standing in attitudes of expectancy in the +saloon-hall, holding wraps and small bags: some of their faces had never +been seen till then in the public resorts of the ship. Excitement will +indeed take strange forms. For myself, although I was on the threshold +of the greatest adventure of my life, I was unaware of being excited—I +had not even "smelled" land, to say nothing of having seen it—until, +when it was quite dark, I descried a queerly arranged group of +different-colored lights in the distance—yellow, red, green, and what +not. My thoughts ran instantly to Coney Island. I knew that Coney was an +island, and that it was a place where people had to be attracted and +distracted somehow, and I decided that these illuminations were a device +of the pleasure-mongers of Coney. And when the ship began to salute +these illuminations with answering flares I thought the captain was a +rather good-natured man to consent thus to amuse the populace. But when +we slowed, our propellers covering the calm sea with acres of foam, and +the whole entire illuminations began to approach us in a body, I +perceived that my Coney Island was merely another craft, but a very +important and official craft. An extremely small boat soon detached +itself from this pyrotechnical craft and came with a most extraordinary +leisureness toward a white square of light that had somehow broken forth +in the blackness of our side. And looking down from the topmost deck, I +saw, far below, the tiny boat maneuver on the glinting wave into the +reflection of our electricity and three mysterious men climb up from her +and disappear into us. Then it was that I grew really excited, +uncomfortably excited. The United States had stretched out a tentacle.</p> + +<p>In no time at all, as it seemed, another and more formidable tentacle +had folded round me—in the shape of two interviewers. (How these men +had got on board—and how my own particular friend had got on board—I +knew not, for we were yet far from quay-side.) I had been hearing all my +life about the sublime American institution of the interview. I had been +warned by Americans of its piquant dangers. And here I was suddenly up +against it! Beneath a casual and jaunty exterior, I trembled. I wanted +to sit, but dared not. They stood; I stood. These two men, however, were +adepts. They had the better qualities of American dentists. Obviously +they spent their lives in meeting notorieties on inbound steamers, and +made naught of it. They were middle-aged, disillusioned, tepidly polite, +conscientious, and rapid. They knew precisely what they wanted and how +to get it. Having got it, they raised their hats and went. Their printed +stories were brief, quite unpretentious, and inoffensive—though one of +them did let out that the most salient part of me was my teeth, and the +other did assert that I behaved like a school-boy. (Doubtless the result +of timidity trying to be dignified—this alleged school-boyishness!)</p> + +<p>I liked these men. But they gave me an incomplete idea of the race of +interviewers in the United States. There is a variety of interviewers +very different from them. I am, I think, entitled to consider myself a +fairly first-class authority on all varieties of interviewer, not only +in New York but in sundry other great cities. My initiation was brief, +but it was thorough. Many varieties won my regard immediately, and kept +it; but I am conscious that my sympathy with one particular brand +(perhaps not numerous) was at times imperfect. The brand in question, as +to which I was amiably cautioned before even leaving the steamer, is +usually very young, and as often a girl as a youth. He or she cheerfully +introduces himself or herself with a hint that of course it is an awful +bore to be interviewed, but he or she has a job to do and he or she must +be allowed to do it. Just so! But the point which, in my audacity, I +have occasionally permitted to occur to me is this: Is this sort of +interviewer capable of doing the job allotted to him? I do not mind +slips of reporting, I do not mind a certain agreeable malice (indeed, I +reckon to do a bit in that line myself). I do not even mind hasty +misrepresentations (for, after all, we are human, and the millennium is +still unannounced); but I do object to inefficiency—especially in +America, where sundry kinds of efficiency have been carried farther than +any efficiency was ever carried before.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p016" id="p016"></a> +<img src="images/p016.jpg" +alt="THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWDED SKY-SCRAPERS" +title="THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWDED SKY-SCRAPERS" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWDED SKY-SCRAPERS</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Now this sort of interviewer too often prefaces the operation itself by +the remark that he really doesn't know what question to ask you. (Too +often I have been tempted to say: "Why not ask me to write the interview +for you? It will save you trouble.") Having made this remark, the +interviewer usually proceeds to give a sketch of her own career, +together with a conspectus of her opinions on everything, a reference to +her importance in the interviewing world, and some glimpse of the amount +of her earnings. This achieved, she breaks off breathless and reproaches +you: "But, my dear man, you aren't saying anything at all. You really +must say something." ("My dear man" is the favorite form of address of +this sort of interviewer when she happens to be a girl.) Too often I +have been tempted to reply: "Cleopatra, or Helen, which of us is +being interviewed?" When he has given you a chance to talk, this sort of +interviewer listens, helps, corrects, advises, but never makes a note. +The result the next morning is the anticipated result. The average +newspaper reader gathers that an extremely brilliant young man or woman +has held converse with a very commonplace stranger who, being confused +in his or her presence, committed a number of absurdities which offered +a strong and painful contrast to the cleverness and wisdom of the +brilliant youth. This result apparently satisfies the average newspaper +reader, but it does not satisfy the expert. Immediately after my first +bout with interviewers I was seated at a table in the dining-saloon of +the ship with my particular friend and three or four friendly, quiet, +modest, rather diffident human beings whom I afterward discovered to be +among the best and most experienced newspaper men in New York—not +interviewers.</p> + +<p>Said one of them:</p> + +<p>"Not every interviewer in New York knows how to <i>write</i>—how to put a +sentence together decently. And there are perhaps a few who don't +accurately know the difference between impudence and wit."</p> + +<p>A caustic remark, perhaps. But I have noticed that when the variety of +interviewing upon which I have just animadverted becomes the topic, +quiet, reasonable Americans are apt to drop into causticity.</p> + +<p>Said another:</p> + +<p>"I was a reporter for twelve years, but I was cured of personalities at +an early stage—and by a nigger, too! I had been interviewing a nigger +prize-fighter, and I'd made some remarks about the facial +characteristics of niggers in general. Some other nigger wrote me a long +letter of protest, and it ended like this: 'I've never seen you. But +I've seen your portraits, and let me respectfully tell you that <i>you're</i> +no Lillian Russell.'"</p> + +<p>Some mornings I, too, might have sat down and written, from visual +observation, "Let me respectfully tell you that <i>you're</i> no Lillian +Russell."</p> + +<p>Said a third among my companions:</p> + +<p>"No importance whatever is attached to a certain kind of interview in +the United States."</p> + +<p>Which I found, later, was quite true in theory, but not in practice. +Whenever, in that kind of interview, I had been made to say something +more acutely absurd and maladroit than usual, my friends who watched +over me, and to whom I owe so much that cannot be written, were a little +agitated—for about half an hour; in about half an hour the matter had +somehow passed from their minds.</p> + +<p>"Supposing I refuse to talk to that sort of interviewer?" I asked, at +the saloon table.</p> + +<p>"The interviews will appear all the same," was the reply.</p> + +<p>My subsequent experience contradicted this. On the rare occasions when I +refused to be interviewed, what appeared was not an interview, but +invective.</p> + +<p>Let me not be misunderstood. I have been speaking of only one brand of +American interviewer. I encountered a couple of really admirable women +interviewers, not too young, and a confraternity of men who did not +disdain an elementary knowledge of their business. One of these arrived +with a written list of questions, took a shorthand note of all I said, +and then brought me a proof to correct. In interviewing this amounts +almost to genius.... I have indicated what to me seems a +defect—trifling, possibly, but still a defect—in the brilliant +organization of the great national sport of interviewing. Were this +defect removed, as it could be, the institution might be as perfect as +the American oyster. Than which nothing is more perfect.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"You aren't drinking your coffee," said some one, inspecting my cup at +the saloon table.</p> + +<p>"No," I answered, firmly; for when the smooth efficiency of my human +machine is menaced I am as faddy and nervous as a marine engineer over +lubrication. "If I did, I shouldn't sleep."</p> + +<p>"And what of it?" demanded my particular friend, challengingly.</p> + +<p>It was a rebuke. It was as if he had said, "On this great night, when +you enter my wondrous and romantic country for the first time, what does +it matter whether you sleep or not?"</p> + +<p>I saw the point. I drank the coffee. The romantic sense, which had been +momentarily driven back by the discussion of general ideas, swept over +me again.... In fact, through the saloon windows could be seen all the +Battery end of New York and the first vague visions of sky-scrapers.... +Then-the moments refused to be counted—we were descending by lifts and +by gangways from the high upper decks of the ship down onto the rocky +ground of the United States. I don't think that any American ever set +foot in Europe with a more profound and delicious thrill than that which +affected me at that instant.... I was there!... The official and +unofficial activities of the quay passed before me like a dream.... I +heard my name shouted by a man in a formidably severe uniform, and I +thought, "Thus early have I somehow violated the Constitution of these +States?" But it was only a telegram for me.... And then I was in a most +rickety and confined taxi, and the taxi was full to the brim with +luggage, two friends, and me. And I was off into New York.</p> + +<p>At the center of the first cross-roads I saw a splendid and erect +individual, flashing forth authority, gaiety, and utter smartness in the +gloom. Impossible not to believe that he was the owner of all the +adjacent ground, disguised as a cavalry officer on foot.</p> + +<p>"What is that archduke?" I inquired.</p> + +<p>"He's just a cop."</p> + +<p>I knew then that I was in a great city.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p020" id="p020"></a> +<img src="images/p020.jpg" +alt="BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT" +title="BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>The rest of the ride was an enfevered phantasmagoria. We burst startlingly +into a very remarkable deep glade—on the floor of it long and +violent surface-cars, a few open shops and bars with commissionaires at +the doors, vehicles dipping and rising out of holes in the ground, vistas +of forests of iron pillars, on the top of which ran deafening, glittering +trains, as on a tight-rope; above all that, a layer of darkness; and above +the layer of darkness enormous moving images of things in +electricity—a mastodon kitten playing with a ball of thread, an +umbrella in a shower of rain, siphons of soda-water being emptied and +filled, gigantic horses galloping at full speed, and an incredible +heraldry of chewing-gum.... Sky-signs! In Europe I had always inveighed +manfully against sky-signs. But now I bowed the head, vanquished. These +sky-signs annihilated argument. Moreover, had they not been made possible +by the invention of a European, and that European an intimate friend of my +own?...</p> + +<p>"I suppose this is Broadway?" I ventured.</p> + +<p>It was. That is to say, it was one of the Broadways. There are several +different ones. What could be more different from this than the +down-town Broadway of Trinity Church and the crowded sky-scrapers? And +even this Broadway could differ from itself, as I knew later on an +election night.... I was overpowered by Broadway.</p> + +<p>"You must not expect me to talk," I said.</p> + +<p>We drew up in front of a huge hotel and went into the bar, huge and +gorgeous to match, shimmering with white bartenders and a variegated +population of men-about-town. I had never seen such a bar.</p> + +<p>"Two Polands and a Scotch highball," was the order. Of which +geographical language I understood not a word.</p> + +<p>"See the fresco," my particular friend suggested. And from his tone, at +once modestly content and artificially careless, I knew that that +nursery-rhyme fresco was one of the sights of the pleasure quarter of +New York, and that I ought to admire it. Well, I did admire it. I found +it rather fine and apposite. But the free-luncheon counter, as a sight, +took my fancy more. Here it was, the free-luncheon counter of which the +European reads—generously loaded, and much freer than the air.</p> + +<p>"Have something?"</p> + +<p>I would not. They could shame me into drinking coffee, but they could +not shame me into eating corned beef and granite biscuits at eleven +o'clock at night. The Poland water sufficed me.</p> + +<p>We swept perilously off again into the welter. That same evening three +of my steamer companions were thrown out of a rickety taxi into a hole +in the ground in the middle of New York, with the result that one of +them spent a week in a hotel bed, under doctor and nurse. But I went +scatheless. Such are the hazards of life.... We arrived at a terminus. +And it was a great terminus. A great terminus is an inhospitable place. +And just here, in the perfection of the manner in which my minutest +comfort was studied and provided for, I began to appreciate the +significance of American hospitality—that combination of eager +good-nature, Oriental lavishness, and sheer brains. We had time to +spare. Close to the terminus we had passed by a hotel whose summit, for +all my straining out of the window of the cab, I had been unable to +descry. I said that I should really like to see the top of that hotel. +No sooner said than done. I saw the highest hotel I had ever seen. We +went into the hotel, teeming like the other one, and from an agreeable +and lively young dandy bought three cigars out of millions of cigars. +Naught but bank-notes seemed to be current. The European has an awe of +bank-notes, whatever their value.</p> + +<p>Then we were in the train, and the train was moving. And every few +seconds it shot past the end of a long, straight, lighted +thoroughfare—scores upon scores of them, with a wider and more +brilliant street interspersed among them at intervals. And I forgot at +what hundredth street the train paused before rolling finally out of New +York. I had had the feeling of a vast and metropolitan city. I thought, +"Whatever this is or is not, it is a metropolis, and will rank with the +best of 'em." I had lived long in more than one metropolis, and I knew +the proud and the shameful unmistakable marks of the real thing. And I +was aware of a poignant sympathy with those people and those mysterious +generations who had been gradually and yet so rapidly putting together, +girder by girder and tradition by tradition, all unseen by me till then, +this illustrious, proud organism, with its nobility and its baseness, +its rectitude and its mournful errors, its colossal sense of life. I +liked New York irrevocably.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II" />II</h2> + +<h2>STREETS</h2> + + +<p>When I first looked at Fifth Avenue by sunlight, in the tranquillity of +Sunday morning, and when I last set eyes on it, in the ordinary peevish +gloom of a busy sailing-day, I thought it was the proudest thoroughfare +I had ever seen anywhere. The revisitation of certain European capitals +has forced me to modify this judgment; but I still think that Fifth +Avenue, if not unequaled, is unsurpassed.</p> + +<p>One afternoon I was driving up Fifth Avenue in the company of an +architectural expert who, with the incredible elastic good nature of +American business men, had abandoned his affairs for half a day in order +to go with me on a voyage of discovery, and he asked me, so as to get +some basis of understanding or disagreement, what building in New York +had pleased me most. I at once said the University Club—to my mind a +masterpiece. He approved, and a great peace filled our automobile; in +which peace we expanded. He asked me what building in the world made the +strongest appeal to me, and I at once said the Strozzi Palace at +Florence. Whereat he was decidedly sympathetic.</p> + +<p>"Fifth Avenue," I said, "always reminds me of Florence and the +Strozzi.... The cornices, you know."</p> + +<p>He stopped the automobile under the Gorham store and displayed to me +the finest cornice in New York, and told me how Stanford White had put +up several experimental cornices there before arriving at finality. +Indeed, a great cornice! I admit I was somewhat dashed by the +information that most cornices in New York are made of cast iron; but +only for a moment! What, after all, do I care what a cornice is made of, +so long as it juts proudly out from the façade and helps the street to a +splendid and formidable sky-line? I had neither read nor heard a word of +the cornices of New York, and yet for me New York was first and last the +city of effective cornices! (Which merely shows how eyes differ!) The +cornice must remind you of Italy, and through Italy of the Renaissance. +And is it not the boast of the United States to be a renaissance? I +always felt that there was something obscurely symbolic in the New York +cornice—symbolic of the necessary qualities of a renaissance, half +cruel and half humane.</p> + +<p>The critical European excusably expects a very great deal from Fifth +Avenue, as being the principal shopping street of the richest community +in the world. (I speak not of the residential blocks north of +Fifty-ninth Street, whose beauty and interest fall perhaps far short of +their pretensions.) And the critical European will not be disappointed, +unless his foible is to be disappointed—as, in fact, occasionally +happens. Except for the miserly splitting, here and there in the older +edifices, of an inadequate ground floor into a mezzanine and a shallow +box (a device employed more frankly and usefully with an outer flight of +steps on the East Side), there is nothing mean in the whole street from +the Plaza to Washington Square. A lot of utterly mediocre architecture +there is, of course—the same applies inevitably to every long street in +every capital—but the general effect is homogeneous and fine, and, +above, all, grandly generous. And the alternation of high and low +buildings produces not infrequently the most agreeable architectural +accidents: for example, seen from about Thirtieth Street, the +pale-pillared, squat structure of the Knickerbocker Trust against a +background of the lofty red of the Æolian Building.... And then, that +great white store on the opposite pavement! The single shops, as well as +the general stores and hotels on Fifth Avenue, are impressive in the +lavish spaciousness of their disposition. Neither stores nor shops could +have been conceived, or could be kept, by merchants without genuine +imagination and faith.</p> + +<p>And the glory of the thoroughfare inspires even those who only walk up +and down it. It inspires particularly the mounted policeman as he reigns +over a turbulent crossing. It inspires the women, and particularly the +young women, as they pass in front of the windows, owning their contents +in thought. I sat once with an old, white-haired, and serious gentleman, +gazing through glass at Fifth Avenue, and I ventured to say to him, +"There are fine women on Fifth Avenue." "By Jove!" he exclaimed, with +deep conviction, and his eyes suddenly fired, "there are!" On the whole, +I think that, in their carriages or on their feet, they know a little +better how to do justice to a fine thoroughfare than the women of any +other capital in my acquaintance. I have driven rapidly in a fast car, +clinging to my hat and my hair against the New York wind, from one end +of Fifth Avenue to the other, and what with the sunshine, and the flags +wildly waving in the sunshine, and the blue sky and the cornices jutting +into it and the roofs scraping it, and the large whiteness of the +stores, and the invitation of the signs, and the display of the windows, +and the swift sinuousness of the other cars, and the proud opposing +processions of American subjects—what with all this and with the +supreme imperialism of the mounted policeman, I have been positively +intoxicated!</p> + +<p>And yet possibly the greatest moment in the life of Fifth Avenue is at +dusk, when dusk falls at tea-time. The street lamps flicker into a +steady, steely blue, and the windows of the hotels and restaurants throw +a yellow radiance; all the shops—especially the jewelers' shops—become +enchanted treasure-houses, whose interiors recede away behind their +façades into infinity; and the endless files of innumerable vehicles, +interlacing and swerving, put forth each a pair of glittering eyes. Come +suddenly upon it all, from the leafy fastnesses of Central Park, round +the corner from the Plaza Hotel, and wait your turn until the arm of the +policeman, whose blue coat is now whitened with dust, permits your +restive chauffeur to plunge down into the main currents of the city.... +You will have then the most grandiose impression that New York is, in +fact, inhabited; and that even though the spectacular luxury of New York +be nearly as much founded upon social injustice and poverty as any +imperfect human civilization in Europe, it is a boon to be alive +therein!... In half an hour, in three-quarters of an hour, the vitality +is clean gone out of the street. The shops have let down their rich +gathered curtains, the pavements are deserted, and the roadway is no +longer perilous. And nothing save a fire will arouse Fifth Avenue till +the next morning. Even on an election night the sole sign in Fifth +Avenue of the disorder of politics will be a few long strips of +tape-paper wreathing in the breeze on the asphalt under the lonely +lamps.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is not easy for a visiting stranger in New York to get away from +Fifth Avenue. The street seems to hold him fast. There might almost as +well be no other avenues; and certainly the word "Fifth" has lost all +its numerical significance in current usage. A youthful musical student, +upon being asked how many symphonies Beethoven had composed, replied +four, and obstinately stuck to it that Beethoven had only composed four. +Called upon to enumerate the four, he answered thus, the C minor, the +Eroica, the Pastoral, and the Ninth. "Ninth" had lost its numerical +significance for that student. A similar phenomenon of psychology has +happened with the streets and avenues of New York. Europeans are apt to +assume that to tack numbers instead of names on to the thoroughfares of +a city is to impair their identities and individualities. Not a bit! The +numbers grow into names. That is all. Such is the mysterious poetic +force of the human mind! That curt word "Fifth" signifies as much to the +New-Yorker as "Boulevard des Italiens" to the Parisian. As for the +possibility of confusion, would any New-Yorker ever confuse Fourteenth +with Thirteenth or Fifteenth Street, or Twenty-third with Twenty-second +or Twenty-fourth, or Forty-second with One Hundred and Forty-second, or +One Hundred and Twenty-fifth with anything else whatever? Yes, when the +Parisian confuses the Champs Elysées with the Avenue de l'Opéra! When +the Parisian arrives at this stage—even then Fifth Avenue will not be +confused with Sixth!</p> + +<p>One day, in the unusual silence of an election morning, I absolutely +determined to see something of the New York that lies beyond Fifth +Avenue, and I slipped off westward along Thirty-fourth Street, feeling +adventurous. The excursion was indeed an adventure. I came across +Broadway and Sixth Avenue together! Sixth Avenue, with its barbaric +paving, surely could not be under the same administration as Fifth! +Between Sixth and Seventh I met a sinister but genial ruffian, proudly +wearing the insignia of Tammany; and soon I met a lot more of them: +jolly fellows, apparently, yet somehow conveying to me the suspicion +that in a saloon shindy they might prove themselves my superiors. (I was +told in New York, and by the best people in New York, that Tammany was a +blot on the social system of the city. But I would not have it so. I +would call it a part of the social system, just as much a part of the +social system, and just as expressive of the national character, as the +fine schools, the fine hospitals, the superlative business +organizations, or Mr. George M. Cohan's Theater. A civilization is +indivisibly responsible for itself. It may not, on the Day of Judgment, +or any other day, lessen its collective responsibility by baptizing +certain portions of its organism as extraneous "blots" dropped thereon +from without.) To continue—after Seventh Avenue the declension was +frank. In the purlieus of the Five Towns themselves—compared with which +Pittsburg is seemingly Paradise—I have never trod such horrific +sidewalks. I discovered huge freight-trains shunting all over Tenth and +Eleventh Avenues, and frail flying bridges erected from sidewalk to +sidewalk, for the convenience of a brave and hardy populace. I was +surrounded in the street by menacing locomotives and crowds of Italians, +and in front of me was a great Italian steamer. I felt as though Fifth +Avenue was a three days' journey away, through a hostile country. And +yet I had been walking only twenty minutes! I regained Fifth with +relief, and had learned a lesson. In future, if asked how many avenues +there are in New York I would insist that there are three: Lexington, +Madison, and Fifth.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The chief characteristic of Broadway is its interminability. Everybody +knows, roughly, where it begins, but I doubt if even the topographical +experts of Albany know just where it ends. It is a street that inspires +respect rather than enthusiasm. In the daytime all the uptown portion of +it—and as far down-town as Ninth Street—has a provincial aspect. If +Fifth Avenue is metropolitan and exclusive, Broadway is not. Broadway +lacks distinction, it lacks any sort of impressiveness, save in its +first two miles, which do—especially the southern mile—strike you with +a vague and uneasy awe. And it was here that I experienced my keenest +disappointment in the United States.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p034" id="p034"></a> +<img src="images/p034.jpg" +alt="A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET" +title="A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET" /> +<p class="center"><b>A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET</b></p> +</div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>I went through sundry disappointments. I had expected to be often asked +how much I earned. I never was asked. I had expected to be often +informed by casual acquaintances of their exact income. Nobody, save an +interviewer or so and the president of a great trust, ever passed me +even a hint as to the amount of his income. I had expected to find an +inordinate amount of tippling in clubs and hotels. I found, on the +contrary, a very marked sobriety. I had expected to receive many hard +words and some insolence from paid servants, such as train-men, +tram-men, lift-boys, and policemen. From this class, as from the others, +I received nothing but politeness, except in one instance. That +instance, by the way, was a barber in an important hotel, whom I had +most respectfully requested to refrain from bumping my head about. +"Why?" he demanded. "Because I've got a headache," I said. "Then why +didn't you tell me at first?" he crushed me. "Did you expect me to be a +thought-reader?" But, indeed, I could say a lot about American barbers. +I had expected to have my tempting fob snatched. It was not snatched. I +had expected to be asked, at the moment of landing, for my mature +opinion of the United States, and again at intervals of about a quarter +of an hour, day and night, throughout my stay. But I had been in America +at least ten days before the question was put to me, even in jest. I had +expected to be surrounded by boasting and impatient vanity concerning +the achievements of the United States and the citizens thereof. I +literally never heard a word of national boasting, nor observed the +slightest impatience under criticism.... I say I had expected these +things. I would be more correct to say that I <i>should</i> have expected +them if I had had a rumor—believing mind: which I have not.</p> + +<p>But I really did expect to witness an overwhelming violence of traffic +and movement in lower Broadway and the renowned business streets in its +vicinity. And I really was disappointed by the ordinariness of the +scene, which could be well matched in half a dozen places in Europe, and +beaten in one or two. If but once I had been shoved into the gutter by a +heedless throng going furiously upon its financial ways, I should have +been content.... The legendary "American rush" is to me a fable. Whether +it ever existed I know not; but I certainly saw no trace of it, either +in New York or Chicago. I dare say I ought to have gone to Seattle for +it. My first sight of a stock-market roped off in the street was an +acute disillusionment. In agitation it could not have competed with a +sheep-market. In noise it was a muffled silence compared with the fine +racket that enlivens the air outside the Paris Bourse. I saw also an +ordinary day in the Stock Exchange. Faint excitations were afloat in +certain corners, but I honestly deemed the affair tame. A vast litter of +paper on the floor, a vast assemblage of hats pitched on the tops of +telephone-boxes—these phenomena do not amount to a hustle. Earnest +students of hustle should visit Paris or Milan. The fact probably is +that the perfecting of mechanical contrivances in the United States has +killed hustle as a diversion for the eyes and ears. The mechanical side +of the Exchange was wonderful and delightful.</p> + +<p>The sky-scrapers that cluster about the lower end of Broadway—their +natural home—were as impressive as I could have desired, but not +architecturally. For they could only be felt, not seen. And even in +situations where the sky-scraper is properly visible, it is, as a rule, +to my mind, architecturally a failure. I regret for my own sake that I +could not be more sympathetic toward the existing sky-scraper as an +architectural entity, because I had assuredly no European prejudice +against the sky-scraper as such. The objection of most people to the +sky-scraper is merely that it is unusual—the instinctive objection of +most people to everything that is original enough to violate tradition! +I, on the contrary, as a convinced modernist, would applaud the +unusualness of the sky-scraper. Nevertheless, I cannot possibly share +the feelings of patriotic New-Yorkers who discover architectural +grandeur in, say, the Flat Iron Building or the Metropolitan Life +Insurance Building. To me they confuse the poetical idea of these +buildings with the buildings themselves. I eagerly admit that the bold, +prow-like notion of the Flat Iron cutting northward is a splendid +notion, an inspiring notion; it thrills. But the building itself is +ugly—nay, it is adverbially ugly; and no reading of poetry <i>into</i> it +will make it otherwise.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p036" id="p036"></a> +<img src="images/p036.jpg" +alt="A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER" +title="A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Similarly, the Metropolitan Building is tremendous. It is a grand sight, +but it is an ugly sight. The men who thought of it, who first conceived +the notion of it, were poets. They said, "We will cause to be +constructed the highest building in the world; we will bring into +existence the most amazing advertisement that an insurance company +ever had." That is good; it is superb; it is a proof of heroic +imagination. But the actual designers of the building did not rise to +the height of it; and if any poetry is left in it, it is not their +fault. Think what McKim might have accomplished on that site, and in +those dimensions!</p> + +<p>Certain architects, feeling the lack of imagination in the execution of +these enormous buildings, have set their imagination to work, but in a +perverse way and without candidly recognizing the conditions imposed +upon them by the sky-scraper form: and the result here and there has +been worse than dull; it has been distressing. But here and there, too, +one sees the evidence of real understanding and taste. If every tenant +of a sky-scraper demands—as I am informed he does—the same windows, +and radiators under every window, then the architect had better begin by +accepting that demand openly, with no fanciful or pseudo-imaginative +pretense that things are not what they are. The Ashland Building, on +Fourth Avenue, where the architectural imagination has exercised itself +soberly, honestly, and obediently, appeared to me to be a satisfactory +and agreeable sky-scraper; and it does not stand alone as the promise +that a new style will ultimately be evolved.</p> + +<p>In any case, a great deal of the poetry of New York is due to the +sky-scraper. At dusk the effect of the massed sky-scrapers illuminated +from within, as seen from any high building up-town, is prodigiously +beautiful, and it is unique in the cities of this world. The early night +effect of the whole town, topped by the aforesaid Metropolitan tower, +seen from the New Jersey shore, is stupendous, and resembles some +enchanted city of the next world rather than of this. And the fact that +a very prominent item in the perspective is a fiery representation of a +frothing glass of beer inconceivably large—well, this fact too has its +importance.</p> + +<p>But in the sky-scrapers there is a deeper romanticism than that which +disengages itself from them externally. You must enter them in order to +appreciate them, in order to respond fully to their complex appeal. +Outside, they often have the air of being nothing in particular; at best +the façade is far too modest in its revelation of the interior. You can +quite easily walk by a sky-scraper on Broadway without noticing it. But +you cannot actually go into the least of them and not be impressed. You +are in a palace. You are among marbles and porphyries. You breathe +easily in vast and brilliant foyers that never see daylight. And then +you come to those mysterious palisaded shafts with which the building +and every other building in New York is secretly honeycombed, and the +palisade is opened and an elevator snatches you up. I think of American +cities as enormous agglomerations in whose inmost dark recesses +innumerable elevators are constantly ascending and descending, like the +angels of the ladder....</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p038" id="p038"></a> +<img src="images/p038.jpg" +alt="THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT" +title="THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>The elevator ejects you. You are taken into dazzling daylight, into what +is modestly called a business office; but it resembles in its grandeur +no European business office, save such as may have been built by an +American. You look forth from a window, and lo! New York and the Hudson +are beneath you, and you are in the skies. And in the warmed stillness +of the room you hear the wind raging and whistling, as you would have +imagined it could only rage and whistle in the rigging of a three-master +at sea. There are, however, a dozen more stories above this story. You +walk from chamber to chamber, and in answer to inquiry learn that the +rent of this one suite-among so many-is over thirty-six thousand dollars +a year! And you reflect that, to the beholder in the street, all that is +represented by one narrow row of windows, lost in a diminishing +chess-board of windows. And you begin to realize what a sky-scraper is, +and the poetry of it.</p> + +<p>More romantic even than the sky-scraper finished and occupied is the +sky-scraper in process of construction. From no mean height, listening +to the sweet drawl of the steam-drill, I have watched artisans like +dwarfs at work still higher, among knitted steel, seen them balance +themselves nonchalantly astride girders swinging in space, seen them +throwing rivets to one another and never missing one; seen also a huge +crane collapse under an undue strain, and, crumpling like tinfoil, +carelessly drop its load onto the populous sidewalk below. That +particular mishap obviously raised the fear of death among a +considerable number of people, but perhaps only for a moment. Anybody in +America will tell you without a tremor (but with pride) that each story +of a sky-scraper means a life sacrificed. Twenty stories—twenty men +snuffed out; thirty stories—thirty men. A building of some sixty +stories is now going up—sixty corpses, sixty funerals, sixty domestic +hearths to be slowly rearranged, and the registrars alone know how many +widows, orphans, and other loose by-products!</p> + +<p>And this mortality, I believe, takes no account of the long battles +that are sometimes fought, but never yet to a finish, in the steel webs +of those upper floors when the labor-unions have a fit of objecting more +violently than usual to non-union labor. In one celebrated building, I +heard, the non-unionists contracted an unfortunate habit of getting +crippled; and three of them were indiscreet enough to put themselves +under a falling girder that killed them, while two witnesses who were +ready to give certain testimony in regard to the mishap vanished +completely out of the world, and have never since been heard of. And so +on. What more natural than that the employers should form a private +association for bringing to a close these interesting hazards? You may +see the leading spirit of the association. You may walk along the street +with him. He knows he is shadowed, and he is quite cheerful about it. +His revolver is always very ready for an emergency. Nobody seems to +regard this state of affairs as odd enough for any prolonged comment. +There it is! It is accepted. It is part of the American dailiness. +Nobody, at any rate in the comfortable clubs, seems even to consider +that the original cause of the warfare is aught but a homicidal +cussedness on the part of the unions.... I say that these accidents and +these guerrillas mysteriously and grimly proceeding in the skyey fabric +of metal-ribbed constructions, do really form part of the poetry of life +in America—or should it be the poetry of death? Assuredly they are a +spectacular illustration of that sublime, romantic contempt for law and +for human life which, to a European, is the most disconcerting factor +in the social evolution of your States. I have sat and listened to tales +from journalists and other learned connoisseurs till—But enough!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When I left New York and went to Washington I was congratulated on +having quitted the false America for the real. When I came to Boston I +received the sympathies of everybody in Boston on having been put off +for so long with spurious imitations of America, and a sigh of happy +relief went up that I had at length got into touch with a genuine +American city. When, after a long pilgrimage, I attained Chicago, I was +positively informed that Chicago alone was the gate of the United +States, and that everything east of Chicago was negligible and even +misleading. And when I entered Indianapolis I discovered that Chicago +was a mushroom and a suburb of Warsaw, and that its pretension to +represent the United States was grotesque, the authentic center of the +United States being obviously Indianapolis.... The great towns love thus +to affront one another, and their demeanor in the game resembles the +gamboling of young tigers—it is half playful and half ferocious. For +myself, I have to say that my heart was large enough to hold all I saw. +While I admit that Indianapolis struck me as very characteristically +American, I assert that the unreality of New York escaped me. It +appeared to me that New York was quite a real city, and European +geographies (apt to err, of course, in matters of detail) usually locate +it in America.</p> + +<p>Having regard to the healthy mutual jealousy of the great towns, I feel +that I am carrying audacity to the point of foolhardiness when I state +that the streets of every American city I saw reminded me on the whole +rather strongly of the streets of all the others. What inhabitants of +what city could forgive this? Yet I must state it. Much of what I have +said of the streets of New York applies, in my superficial opinion, for +instance, to the streets of Chicago. It is well known that to the +Chinaman all Westerners look alike. No tourist on his first visit to a +country so astonishing as the United States is very different from a +Chinaman; the tourist should reconcile himself to that deep truth. It is +desolating to think that a second visit will reveal to me the blindness, +the distortions, and the wrong-headedness of my first. But even as a +Chinaman I did notice subtle differences between New York and Chicago. +As one who was brought up in a bleak and uncanny climate, where soft +coal is in universal use, I at once felt more at home in Chicago than I +could ever do in New York. The old instinct to wash the hands and change +the collar every couple of hours instantly returned to me in Chicago, +together with the old comforting conviction that a harsh climate is a +climate healthy for body and spirit. And, because it is laden with soot, +the air of Chicago is a great mystifier and beautifier. Atmospheric +effects may be seen there that are unobtainable without the combustion +of soft coal. Talk, for example, as much as you please about the +electric sky-signs of Broadway—not all of them together will write as +much poetry on the sky as the single word "Illinois" that hangs without +a clue to its suspension in the murky dusk over Michigan Avenue. The +visionary aspects of Chicago are incomparable.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p042" id="p042"></a> +<img src="images/p042.jpg" +alt="A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO" +title="A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO" /> +<p class="center"><b>A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO</b></p> +</div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Another difference, of quite another order, between New York and +Chicago is that Chicago is self-conscious. New York is not; no +metropolis ever is. You are aware of the self-consciousness of Chicago +as soon as you are aware of its bitumen. The quality demands sympathy, +and wins it by its wistfulness. Chicago is openly anxious about its +soul. I liked that. I wish I could see a livelier anxiety concerning the +municipal soul in certain cities of Europe.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the least subtle difference between New York and Chicago springs +from the fact that the handsomest part of New York is the center of New +York, whereas the center of Chicago is disappointing. It does not +impress. I was shown, in the center of Chicago, the first sky-scraper +that the world had ever seen. I visited with admiration what was said to +be the largest department store in the world. I visited with a natural +rapture the largest book-store in the world. I was informed (but +respectfully doubt) that Chicago is the greatest port in the world. I +could easily credit, from the evidence of my own eyes, that it is the +greatest railway center in the world. But still my imagination was not +fired, as it has been fired again and again by far lesser and far less +interesting places. Nobody could call Wabash Avenue spectacular, and +nobody surely would assert that State Street is on a plane with the +collective achievements of the city of which it is the principal +thoroughfare. The truth is that Chicago lacks at present a +rallying-point—some Place de la Concorde or Arc de Triomphe—something +for its biggest streets to try to live up to. A convocation of elevated +railroads is not enough. It seemed to me that Jackson Boulevard or Van +Buren Street, with fine crescents abutting opposite Grant Park and +Garfield Park, and a magnificent square at the intersection of Ashland +Avenue, might ultimately be the chief sight and exemplar of Chicago. Why +not? Should not the leading thoroughfare lead boldly to the lake instead +of shunning it? I anticipate the time when the municipal soul of Chicago +will have found in its streets as adequate expression as it has already +found in its boulevards.</p> + +<p>Perhaps if I had not made the "grand tour" of those boulevards, I might +have been better satisfied with the streets of Chicago. The excursion, +in an automobile, occupied something like half of a frosty day that +ended in torrents of rain—apparently a typical autumn day in Chicago! +Before it had proceeded very far I knew that there was a sufficient +creative imagination on the shore of Lake Michigan to carry through any +municipal enterprise, however vast, to a generous and final conclusion. +The conception of those boulevards discloses a tremendous audacity and +faith. And as you roll along the macadam, threading at intervals a +wide-stretching park, you are overwhelmed—at least I was—by the +completeness of the scheme's execution and the lavishness with which the +system is in every detail maintained and kept up.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p044" id="p044"></a> +<img src="images/p044.jpg" +alt="A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE—CHICAGO" +title="A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE—CHICAGO" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE—CHICAGO</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>You stop to inspect a conservatory, and find yourself in a really +marvelous landscape garden, set with statues, all under glass and +heated, where the gaffers of Chicago are collected together to discuss +interminably the exciting politics of a city anxious about its soul. And +while listening to them with one ear, with the other you may catch +the laconic tale of a park official's perilous and successful vendetta +against the forces of graft.</p> + +<p>And then you resume the circuit and accomplish many more smooth, +curving, tree-lined miles, varied by a jolting section, or by the faint +odor of the Stock-yards, or by a halt to allow the longest freight-train +in the world to cross your path. You have sighted in the distance +universities, institutions, even factories; you have passed through many +inhabited portions of the endless boulevard, but you have not actually +touched hands with the city since you left it at the beginning of the +ride. Then at last, as darkness falls, you feel that you are coming to +the city again, but from another point of the compass. You have rounded +the circle of its millions. You need only think of the unkempt, shabby, +and tangled outskirts of New York, or of any other capital city, to +realize the miracle that Chicago has put among her assets ...</p> + +<p>You descry lanes of water in the twilight, and learn that in order to +prevent her drainage from going into the lake Chicago turned a river +back in its course and compelled it to discharge ultimately into the +Mississippi. That is the story. You feel that it is exactly what +Chicago, alone among cities, would have the imagination and the courage +to do. Some man must have risen from his bed one morning with the idea, +"Why not make the water flow the other way?" And then gone, perhaps +diffidently, to his fellows in charge of the city with the suggestive +query, "Why not make the water flow the other way?" And been laughed at! +Only the thing was done in the end! I seem to have heard that there was +an epilogue to this story, relating how certain other great cities +showed a narrow objection to Chicago draining herself in the direction +of the Mississippi, and how Chicago, after all, succeeded in persuading +those whom it was necessary to persuade that, whereas her drainage was +unsuited to Lake Michigan, it would consort well with the current of the +Mississippi.</p> + +<p>And then, in the night and in the rain, you swerve round some corner +into the straight, by Grant Park, in full sight of one of the most +dazzling spectacles that Chicago or any other city can offer—Michigan +Avenue on a wet evening. Each of the thousands of electric standards in +Michigan Avenue is a cluster of six huge globes (and yet they will tell +you in Paris that the Rue de la Paix is the best-lit street in the +world), and here and there is a red globe of warning. The two lines of +light pour down their flame into the pool which is the roadway, and you +travel continually toward an incandescent floor without ever quite +reaching it, beneath mysterious words of fire hanging in the invisible +sky!... The automobile stops. You get out, stiff, and murmur something +inadequate about the length and splendor of those boulevards. "Oh," you +are told, carelessly, "those are only the interior boulevards.... +Nothing! You should see our exterior boulevards—not quite finished +yet!"</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III" />III</h2> + +<h2>THE CAPITOL AND OTHER SITES</h2> + + +<p>"Here, Jimmy!" said, briskly, a middle-aged administrative person in +easy attire, who apparently had dominion over the whole floor beneath +the dome. A younger man, also in easy attire, answered the call with an +alert smile. The elder pointed sideways with his head at my two friends +and myself, and commanded, "Run them through in thirty minutes!" Then, +having reached the center of a cuspidor with all the precision of a +character in a Californian novel, he added benevolently to Jimmy, "Make +it a dollar for them." And Jimmy, consenting, led us away.</p> + +<p>In this episode Europe was having her revenge on the United States, and +I had planned it. How often, in half a hundred cities of Europe, had I +not observed the American citizen seeing the sights thereof at high +speed? Yes, even in front of the Michael Angelo sculptures in the Medici +Chapel at Florence had I seen him, watch in hand, and heard him murmur +"Bully!" to the sculptures and the time of the train to his wife in one +breath! Now it was impossible for me to see Washington under the normal +conditions of a session. And so I took advantage of the visit to +Washington of two friends on business to see Washington hastily, as an +excursionist pure and simple. I said to the United States, grimly: "The +most important and the most imposing thing in all America is surely the +Capitol at Washington. Well, I will see it as you see the sacred sights +of Europe. By me Europe shall be revenged."</p> + +<p>Thus it came about that we had hired a kind of carriage known as a +"sea-going hack," driven by a negro in dark blue, who was even more +picturesque than the negroes in white who did the menial work in the +classic hotel, and had set forth frankly as excursionists into the +streets of Washington, and presently through the celebrated Pennsylvania +Avenue had achieved entrance into the Capitol.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p050" id="p050"></a> +<img src="images/p050.jpg" +alt="THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL" +title="THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>It was a breathless pilgrimage—this seeing of the Capitol. And yet an +impressive one. The Capitol is a great place. I was astonished—and I +admit at once I ought not to have been astonished—that the Capitol +appeals to the historic sense just as much as any other vast legislative +palace of the world—and perhaps more intimately than some. The sequence +of its endless corridors and innumerable chambers, each associated with +event or tradition, begets awe. I think it was in the rich Senatorial +reception-room that I first caught myself being surprised that the heavy +gilded and marmoreal sumptuosity of the decorations recalled the average +European palace. Why should I have been expecting the interior of the +Capitol to consist of austere bare walls and unornamented floors? +Perhaps it was due to some thought of Abraham Lincoln. But whatever its +cause, the expectation was naïve and derogatory. The young guide, Jimmy, +who by birth and genius evidently belonged to the universal race of +guides, was there to keep my ideas right and my eyes open. He was +infinitely precious, and after his own fashion would have done honor to +any public monument in the East. Such men are only bred in the very +shadow of genuine history.</p> + +<p>"See," he said, touching a wall. "Painted by celebrated Italian artist +to look like bas-relief! But put your hand flat against it, and you'll +see it isn't carved!" One might have been in Italy.</p> + +<p>And a little later he was saying of other painting:</p> + +<p>"Although painted in eighteen hundred sixty-five—forty-six years +ago—you notice the flesh tints are as fresh as if painted yesterday!"</p> + +<p>This, I think, was the finest remark I ever heard a guide make—until +this same guide stepped in front of a portrait of Henry Clay, and, after +a second's hesitation, threw off airily, patronizingly:</p> + +<p>"Henry Clay—quite a good statesman!"</p> + +<p>But I also contributed my excursionist's share to these singular +conversations. In the swathed Senate Chamber I noticed two +holland-covered objects that somehow reminded me of my youth and of +religious dissent. I guessed that the daily proceedings of the Senate +must be opened with devotional exercises, and these two objects seemed +to me to be proper—why, I cannot tell—to the United States Senate; but +there was one point that puzzled me.</p> + +<p>"Why," I asked, "do you have <i>two</i> harmoniums?"</p> + +<p>"Harmoniums, sir!" protested the guide, staggered. "Those are roll-top +desks."</p> + +<p>If only the floor could have opened and swallowed me up, as it opens +and swallows up the grand piano at the Thomas concerts in Chicago!</p> + +<p>Neither the Senate Chamber nor the Congress Chamber was as imposing to +me as the much less spacious former Senate Chamber and the former +Congress Chamber. The old Senate Chamber, being now transferred to the +uses of supreme justice, was closed on the day of our visit, owing to +the funeral of a judge. Europeans would have acquiesced in the firm +negative of its locked doors. But my friends, being American, would not +acquiesce. The mere fact that the room was not on view actually +sharpened their desire that I should see it. They were deaf to +refusals.... I saw that room. And I was glad that I saw it, for in its +august simplicity it was worth seeing. The spirit of the early history +of the United States seemed to reside in that hemicycle; and the crape +on the vacated and peculiar chair added its own effect.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p052" id="p052"></a> +<img src="images/p052.jpg" +alt="ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE" +title="ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE" /> +<p class="center"><b>ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE</b></p> +</div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>My first notion on entering the former Congress Chamber was that I was +in presence of the weirdest collection of ugly statues that I had ever +beheld. Which impression, the result of shock, was undoubtedly false. On +reflection I am convinced that those statues of the worthies of the +different States are not more ugly than many statues I could point to in +no matter what fane, museum, or palace of Europe. Their ugliness is only +different from our accustomed European ugliness. The most crudely ugly +mural decorations in the world are to be found all over Italy—the home +of sublime frescos. The most atrociously debased architecture in the +world is to be found in France—the home of sober artistic tradition. +Europe is simply peppered everywhere with sculpture whose appalling +mediocrity defies competition. But when the European meets ugly +sculpture or any ugly form of art in the New World, his instinct is to +exclaim, "Of course!" His instinct is to exclaim, "This beats +everything!" The attitude will not bear examination. And lo! I was +adopting it myself.</p> + +<p>"And here's Frances Willard!" cried, ecstatically, a young woman in one +of the numerous parties of excursionists whose more deliberate paths +through the Capitol we were continually crossing in our swift course.</p> + +<p>And while, upon the spot where John Quincy Adams fell, I pretended to +listen to the guide, who was proving to me from a distance that the +place was as good a whispering-gallery as any in Europe, I thought: "And +why should not Frances Willard's statue be there? I am glad it is there. +And I am glad to see these groups of provincials admiring with open +mouths the statues of the makers of their history, though the statues +are chiefly painful." And I thought also: "New York may talk, and +Chicago may talk, and Boston may talk, but it is these groups of +provincials who are the real America." They were extraordinarily like +people from the Five Towns—that is to say, extraordinarily like +comfortable average people everywhere.</p> + +<p>We were outside again, under one of the enormous porticos of the +Capitol. The guide was receiving his well-earned dollar. The faithful +fellow had kept nicely within the allotted limit of half an hour.</p> + +<p>"Now we'll go and see the Congressional Library," said my particular +friend.</p> + +<p>But I would not. I had put myself in a position to retort to any +sight-seeing American in Europe that I had seen his Capitol in thirty +minutes, and I was content. I determined to rest on my laurels. +Moreover, I had discovered that conventional sight-seeing is a very +exhausting form of activity. I would visit neither the Library of +Congress, nor the Navy Department, nor the Pension Bureau, nor the +Dead-Letter Museum, nor the Zoological Park, nor the White House, nor +the National Museum, nor the Lincoln Museum, nor the Smithsonian +Institution, nor the Treasury, nor any other of the great spectacles of +Washington. We just resumed the sea-going hack and drove indolently to +and fro in avenues and parks, tasting the general savor of the city's +large pleasantness. And we had not gone far before we got into the +clutches of the police.</p> + +<p>"I don't know who you are," said a policeman, as he stopped our +sea-going hack. "I don't know who you are," he repeated, cautiously, as +one accustomed to policing the shahs and grand viziers of the earth, +"but it's my duty to tell you your coachman crossed over on the wrong +side of the lamp-post. It's not allowed, and he knows it as well as I +do."</p> + +<p>We admitted by our shamed silence that we had no special "pull" in +Washington; the wise negro said not a word; and we crept away from the +policeman's wrath, and before I knew it we were up against the +Washington Monument—one of those national calamities which ultimately +happen to every country, and of which the supreme example is, of course, +the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p054" id="p054"></a> +<img src="images/p054.jpg" +alt="ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO—THE CAPITOL" +title="ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO—THE CAPITOL" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO—THE CAPITOL</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>When I drove into the magnificent railway station late that +night—true American rain was descending in sheets—I was carrying away +with me an impression, as it were, of a gigantic plantation of public +edifices in a loose tangle and undergrowth of thoroughfares: which +seemed proper for a legislative and administrative metropolis. I was +amused to reflect how the city, like most cities, had extended in +precisely the direction in which its founders had never imagined it +would extend; and naturally I was astonished by the rapidity of its +development. (One of my friends, who was not old, had potted wild game +in a marsh that is now a park close to the Capitol.) I thought that the +noble wings of the Capitol were architecturally much superior to the +central portion of it. I remembered a dazzling glimpse of the White +House as a distinguished little building. I feared that ere my next +visit the indefatigable energy of America would have rebuilt +Pennsylvania Avenue, especially the higgledy-piggledy and picturesque +and untidy portion of it that lies nearest to the Capitol, and I hoped +that in doing so the architects would at any rate not carry the cornice +to such excess as it has been carried in other parts of the town. And, +finally, I was slightly scared by the prevalence of negroes. It seemed +to me as if in Washington I had touched the fringe of the negro problem.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was in a different and a humbler spirit that I went to Boston. I had +received more warnings and more advice about Boston than about all the +other cities put together. And, in particular, the greatest care had +been taken to permeate my whole being with the idea that Boston was +"different." In some ways it proved so to be. One difference forced +itself upon me immediately I left the station for the streets—the +quaint, original odor of the taxis. When I got to the entirely admirable +hotel I found a book in a prominent situation on the writing-table in my +room. In many hotels this book would have been the Bible. But here it +was the catalogue of the hotel library; it ran to a hundred and +eighty-two pages. On the other hand, there was no bar in the hotel, and +no smoking-room. I make no comments; I draw no conclusions; I state the +facts.</p> + +<p>The warnings continued after my arrival. I was informed by I don't know +how many persons that Boston was "a circular city," with a topography +calculated to puzzle the simple. This was true. I usually go about in +strange places with a map, but I found the map of Boston even more +complex than the city it sought to explain. If I did not lose myself, it +was because I never trusted myself alone; other people lost me.</p> + +<p>Within an hour or so I had been familiarized by Bostonians with a whole +series of apparently stock jokes concerning and against Boston, such as +that one hinging on the phrase "cold roast Boston," and that other one +about the best thing in Boston being the five o'clock train to New York +(I do not vouch for the hour of departure). Even in Cambridge, a less +jocular place, a joke seemed to be immanent, to the effect that though +you could always tell a Harvard man, you could not tell him much.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p056" id="p056"></a> +<img src="images/p056.jpg" +alt="UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL" +title="UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Matters more serious awaited me. An old resident of Boston took me +out for privacy onto the Common and whispered in my ear: "This is the +most snobbish city in the whole world. There is no real democracy here. +The first thing people do when they get to know you is to show you their +family tree and prove that they came over in the <i>Mayflower</i>." And so he +ran on, cursing Boston up hill and down dale. Nevertheless, he was very +proud of his Boston. Had I agreed with the condemnation, he might have +thrown me into the artificial brook. Another great Bostonian expert, +after leading me on to admit that I had come in order to try to learn +the real Boston, turned upon me with ferocious gaiety, thus: "You will +not learn the real Boston. You cannot. The real Boston is the old Back +Bay folk, who gravitate eternally between Beacon Street and State Street +and the Somerset Club, and never go beyond. They confuse New England +with the created universe, and it is impossible that you should learn +them. Nobody could learn them in less than twenty years' intense study +and research."</p> + +<p>Cautioned, and even intimidated, I thought it would be safest just to +take Boston as Boston came, respectfully but casually. And as the +hospitality of Boston was prodigious, splendid, unintermittent, and most +delightfully unaffected, I had no difficulty whatever in taking Boston +as she came. And my impressions began to emerge, one after another, from +the rich and cloudy confusion of novel sensations.</p> + +<p>What primarily differentiates Boston from all the other cities I saw is +this: It is finished; I mean complete. Of the other cities, while +admitting their actual achievement, one would say, and their own +citizens invariably do say, "They will be ..." Boston is.</p> + +<p>Another leading impression, which remains with me, is that Boston is not +so English as it perhaps imagines itself to be. An interviewer (among +many) came to see me about Boston, and he came with the fixed and sole +notion in his head that Boston was English. He would have it that Boston +was English. Worn down by his persistency, I did, as a fact, admit in +one obscure corner of the interview that Boston had certain English +characteristics. The scare-head editor of the interviewing paper, +looking through his man's copy for suitable prey, came across my +admission. It was just what he wanted; it was what he was thirsting for. +In an instant the scare-head was created: "Boston as English as a +muffin!" An ideal scare-head! That I had never used the word "muffin" or +any such phrase was a detail exquisitely unimportant. The scare-head was +immense. It traveled in fine large type across the continent. I met it +for weeks afterward in my press-cuttings, and I doubt if Boston was +altogether delighted with the comparison. I will not deny that Boston is +less strikingly un-English than sundry other cities. I will not deny +that I met men in Boston of a somewhat pronounced English type. I will +not deny that in certain respects old Kensington reminds me of a street +here and there in Boston—such as Mount Vernon Street or Chestnut +Street. But I do maintain that the Englishness of Boston has been +seriously exaggerated.</p> + +<p>And still another very striking memory of Boston—indeed, perhaps, the +paramount impression!—is that it contains the loveliest modern thing I +saw in America—namely, the Puvis de Chavannes wall-paintings on the +grand staircase of the Public Library. The Library itself is a beautiful +building, but it holds something more beautiful. Never shall I forget my +agitation on beholding these unsurpassed works of art, which alone would +suffice to make Boston a place of pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>When afterward I went back to Paris, the painters' first question was: +"<i>Et les Puvis à Boston—vous les avez vus? Qu'est-ce que vous en +dites?</i>"</p> + +<p>It was very un-English on the part of Boston to commission these austere +and classical works. England would never have done it. The nationality +of the greatest decorative painter of modern times would have offended +her sense of fitness. What—a French painter officially employed on an +English public building? Unthinkable! England would have insisted on an +English painter—or, at worst, an American. It is strange that a +community which had the wit to honor itself by employing Puvis de +Chavannes should be equally enthusiastic about the frigid +theatricalities of an E.A. Abbey or the forbidding and opaque intricate +dexterity of a John Sargent in the same building. Or, rather, it is not +strange, for these contradictions are discoverable everywhere in the +patronage of the arts.</p> + +<p>It was from the Public Library that some friends and I set out on a +little tour of Boston. Whether we went north, south, east, or west I +cannot tell, for this was one of the few occasions when the extreme +variousness of a city has deprived me definitely of a sense of +direction; but I know that we drove many miles through magnificent +fenny parks, whose roads were reserved to pleasure, and that at length, +after glimpsing famous houses and much of the less centralized wealth +and ease of Boston, we came out upon the shores of the old harbor, and +went into a yacht-club-house with a glorious prospect. Boston has more +book-shops to the acre than any city within my knowledge except Aberdeen +(not North Carolina, but Scotland). Its book-shops, however, are as +naught to its yacht clubs. And for one yacht club I personally would +sacrifice many book-shops. It was an exciting moment in my life when, +after further wandering on and off coast roads, and through curving, +cobbled, rackety streets, and between thunderous tram-cars and under +deafening elevated lines, I was permitted to enter the celestial and +calm precincts of the Boston Yacht Club itself, which overlooks another +harbor. The acute and splendid nauticality of this club, all fashioned +out of an old warehouse, stamps Boston as a city which has comprehended +the sea. I saw there the very wheel of the <i>Spray</i>, the cockboat in +which the regretted Slocum wafted himself round the world! I sat in an +arm-chair which would have suited Falstaff, and whose tabular arms would +have held all Falstaff's tankards, and gazed through a magnified +port-hole at a six-masted schooner as it crossed the field of vision! +And I had never even dreamed that a six-masted schooner existed! It was +with difficulty that I left the Boston Yacht Club. Indeed, I would only +leave it in order to go and see the frigate <i>Constitution</i>, the ship +which was never defeated, and which assuredly, after over a hundred and +ten years of buoyant life, remains the most truly English thing in +Boston. The afternoon teas of Boston are far less English than that grim +and majestic craft.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p060" id="p060"></a> +<img src="images/p060.jpg" +alt="THE PROMENADE—CITY POINT, BOSTON" +title="THE PROMENADE—CITY POINT, BOSTON" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE PROMENADE—CITY POINT, BOSTON</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>We passed into the romantic part of Boston, skirting vast +wool-warehouses and other enormous establishments bearing such Oriental +signs as "Coffee and Spices." And so into a bewildering congeries of +crowded streets, where every name on the walls seemed to be Italian, and +where every corner was dangerous with vegetable-barrows, tram-cars, and +perambulators; through this quarter the legend of Paul Revere seemed to +float like a long wisp of vapor. And then I saw the Christopher Wren +spire of Paul Revere's signal-church, closed now—but whether because +the congregation had dwindled to six or for some more recondite reason I +am not clear. And then I beheld the delightful, elegant fabric of the +old State House, with the memories of massacre round about it, and the +singular spectacle of the Lion and the Unicorn on its roof. Too proudly +negligent had Boston been to remove those symbols!</p> + +<p>And finally we rolled into the central and most circular shopping +quarter, as different from the Italian quarter as the Italian quarter +was different from Copley Square; and its heart was occupied by a +graveyard. And here I had to rest.</p> + +<p>The second portion of the itinerary began with the domed State Capitol, +an impressive sight, despite its strange coloring, and despite its +curious habit of illuminating itself at dark, as if in competition with +such establishments as the "Bijou Dream," on the opposite side of the +Common. Here I first set eyes on Beacon Street, familiar—indeed, +classic—to the European student of American literature. Commonwealth +Avenue, I have to confess, I had never heard of till I saw it. These +interminable and gorgeous thoroughfares, where each massive abode is a +costly and ceremonial organization of the most polished and civilized +existence, leave the simple European speechless—especially when he +remembers the swampy origin of the main part of the ground.... The +inscrutable, the unknowable Back Bay!</p> + +<p>Here, indeed, is evidence of a society in equilibrium, and therefore of +a society which will receive genuinely new ideas with an extreme, if +polite, caution, while welcoming with warm suavity old ideas that +disguise themselves as novelties!</p> + +<p>It was a tremendous feat to reclaim from ooze the foundation of Back +Bay. Such feats are not accomplished in Europe; they are not even +imaginatively conceived there. And now that the great business is +achieved, the energy that did it, restless and unoccupied, is seeking +another field. I was informed that Boston is dreaming of the +construction of an artificial island in the midst of the river Charles, +with the hugest cathedral in the world thereon, and the most gorgeous +bridges that ever spanned a fine stream. With proper deference, it is to +be hoped that Boston, forgetting this infelicitous caprice, will +remember in time that she alone among the great cities of America is +complete. A project that would consort well with the genius of Chicago +might disserve Boston in the eyes of those who esteem a sense of fitness +to be among the major qualifications for the true art of life. And, in +the matter of the art of daily living, Boston as she is has a great deal +to teach to the rest of the country, and little to learn. Such is the +diffident view of a stranger.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Cambridge is separated from Boston by the river Charles and by piquant +jealousies that tickle no one more humorously than those whom, +theoretically, they stab. From the east bank Cambridge is academic, and +therefore negligible; from the west, Boston dwindles to a mere quay +where one embarks for Europe.</p> + +<p>What struck me first about Cambridge was that it must be the only city +of its size and amenity in the United States without an imposing hotel. +It is difficult to imagine any city in the United States minus at least +two imposing hotels, with a barber's shop in the basement and a world's +fair in the hall. But one soon perceives that Cambridge is a city apart. +In visual characteristics it must have changed very little, and it will +never change with facility. Boston is pre-eminently a town of +traditions, but the traditions have to be looked for. Cambridge is +equally a town of traditions, but the traditions stare you in the face.</p> + +<p>My first halt was in front of the conspicuous home of James Russell +Lowell. Now in the far recesses of the Five Towns I was brought up on +"My Study Windows." My father, who would never accept the authority of +an encyclopedia when his children got him in a corner on some debated +question of fact, held James Russell Lowell as the supreme judge of +letters, from whom not even he could appeal (It is true, he had never +heard of Ste. Beuve, and regarded Matthew Arnold as a modern fad.) And +there were the study windows of James Russell Lowell! And his house in +its garden was only one of hundreds of similar houses standing in like +old gardens.</p> + +<p>It was highly agreeable to learn that some of the pre-Revolution houses +had not yet left the occupation of the families which built them. +Beautiful houses, a few of them, utterly dissimilar from anything on the +other side of the Atlantic! Did not William Morris always maintain that +wood was and forever would be the most suitable material for building a +house? On the side of the railroad track near Toledo I saw frame houses, +whose architecture is debased from this Cambridge architecture, blown +clean over by the gale. But the gale that will deracinate Cambridge has +not yet begun to rage.... I rejoiced to see the house of Longfellow. In +spite of the fact that he wrote "The Wreck of the <i>Hesperus</i>," he seems +to keep his position as the chief minor poet of the English language. +And the most American and the most wistful thing in Cambridge was that +the children of Cambridge had been guided to buy and make inalienable +the land in front of his house, so that his descendant might securely +enjoy the free prospect that Longfellow enjoyed. In what other country +would just such a delicate, sentimental homage have been paid in just +such an ingeniously fanciful manner?<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1" /><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1" /><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This story was related to me by a resident of Cambridge. +Mr. Richard H. Dana, Longfellow's son-in-law, has since informed me that +it is quite untrue. I regret that it is quite untrue. It ought to have +been quite true. The land in question was given by Longfellow's children +to the Longfellow Memorial Association, who gave it to the city of +Cambridge. The general children of Cambridge did give to Longfellow an +arm-chair made from the wood of a certain historic "spreading +chestnut-tree," under which stood a certain historic village smithy; and +with this I suppose I must be content.—A.B.</p></div> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p064" id="p064"></a> +<img src="images/p064.jpg" +alt="THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB—OVERLOOKING THE RIVER" +title="THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB—OVERLOOKING THE RIVER" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB—OVERLOOKING THE RIVER</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>After I had passed the Longfellow house it began to rain, and dusk +began to gather in the recesses between the houses; and my memory is +that, with an athletic and tireless companion, I walked uncounted +leagues through endless avenues of Cambridge homes toward a promised +club that seemed ever to retreat before us with the shyness of a fawn. +However, we did at length capture it. This club was connected with +Harvard, and I do not propose to speak of Harvard in the present +chapter.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The typical Cambridge house as I saw it persists in my recollection as +being among the most characteristic and comfortable of "real" American +phenomena. And one reason why I insisted, in a previous chapter, on the +special Americanism of Indianapolis is that Indianapolis is full of a +modified variety of these houses which is even more characteristically +American—to my mind—than the Cambridge style itself. Indianapolis +being by general consent the present chief center of letters in the +United States, it is not surprising that I, an author, knew more people +from Indianapolis than from any other city. Indeed, I went to +Indianapolis simply because I had old friends there, and not at all in +the hope of inspecting a city characteristically American. It was quite +startlingly different from the mental picture I had formed of it.</p> + +<p>I think that in order to savor Indianapolis properly one should approach +it as I approached it—in an accommodation-train on a single track, a +train with a happy-go-lucky but still agreeable service in its +restaurant-car, a train that halts at every barn-door in the vast flat, +featureless fields of yellow stubble, rolling sometimes over a muddy, +brown river, and skirting now and then a welcome wooded cleft in the +monotony of the landscape. The scenes at those barn-doors were full of +the picturesque and of the racy. A farmer with a gun and a brace of +rabbits and a dog leaping up at them, while two young women talked to or +at the farmer from a distance; a fat little German girl in a Scotch +frock, cleaning outside windows with the absorbed seriousness of a +grandmother; a group of boys dividing their attention between her and +the train; an old woman driving a cart, and a negro gesticulating and +running after the cart; and all of them, save the nigger, wearing +gloves—presumably as a protection against the strong wind that swept +through the stubble and shook the houses and the few trees. Those +houses, in all their summariness and primitive crudity, yet reminded one +of the Cambridge homes; they exhibited some remains of the +pre-Revolution style.</p> + +<p>And then you come to the inevitable State Fair grounds, and the environs +of the city which is the capital and heart of all those plains.</p> + +<p>And after you have got away from the railroad station and the imposing +hotels and the public monuments and the high central buildings—an +affair of five minutes in an automobile—you discover yourself in long, +calm streets of essential America. These streets are rectangular; the +streets of Cambridge abhor the straight line. They are full everywhere +of maple-trees. And on either side they are bordered with homes—each +house detached, each house in its own fairly spacious garden, each +house individual and different from all the rest. Few of the houses are +large; on the other hand, none of them is small: this is the region of +the solid middle class, the class which loves comfort and piques itself +on its amenities, but is a little ashamed or too timid to be luxurious.</p> + +<p>Architecturally the houses represent a declension from the purity of +earlier Cambridge. Scarcely one is really beautiful. The style is +debased. But then, it possesses the advantage of being modernized; it +has not the air of having strayed by accident into the wrong century. +And, moreover, it is saved from condemnation by its sobriety and by its +honest workmanship. It is the expression of a race incapable of looking +foolish, of being giddy, of running to extremes. It is the expression of +a race that both clung to the past and reached out to the future; that +knew how to make the best of both worlds; that keenly realized the value +of security because it had been through insecurity. You can see that all +these houses were built by people who loved "a bit of property," and to +whom a safe and dignified roof was the final ambition achieved. Why! I +do believe that there are men and women behind some of those curtains to +this day who haven't quite realized that the Indians aren't coming any +more, and that there is permanently enough wood in the pile, and that +quinine need no longer figure in the store cupboard as a staple article +of diet! I do believe that there are minor millionaires in some of those +drawing-rooms who wonder whether, out-soaring the ambition of a bit of +property, they would be justified in creeping down-town and buying a +cheap automobile!... These are the people who make the link between the +academic traditionalism of Cambridge and such excessively modern +products of evolution as their own mayor, Mr. Shanks, protector of the +poor. They are not above forming deputations to parley with their own +mayor.... I loved them. Their drawing-rooms were full of old silver, and +book-gossip, and Victorian ladies apparently transported direct from the +more aristocratic parts of the Five Towns, who sat behind trays and +poured out tea from the identical tea-pot that my grandmother used to +keep in a green bag.</p> + +<p>In the outer suburbs of the very largest cities I saw revulsions against +the wholesale barracky conveniences of the apartment-house, in the shape +of little colonies of homes, consciously but superficially imitating the +Cambridge-Indianapolis tradition—with streets far more curvily winding +than the streets of Cambridge, and sidewalks of a strip of concrete +between green turf-bands that recalled the original sidewalks of +Indianapolis and even of the rural communities around Indianapolis. Cozy +homes, each in its own garden, with its own clothes-drier, and each +different from all the rest! Homes that the speculative builder, recking +not of the artistic sobriety, had determined should be picturesque at +any cost of capricious ingenuity! And not secure homes, because, though +they were occupied by their owners, their owners had not built them—had +only bought them, and would sell them as casually as they had bought. +The apartment-house will probably prove stronger than these throwbacks. +And yet the time will come when even the apartment-house will be +regarded as a picturesque survival. Into what novel architecture and +organization of living it will survive I should not care to prophesy, +but I am convinced that the future will be quite as interestingly human +as the present is, and as the past was.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV" />IV</h2> + +<h2>SOME ORGANIZATIONS</h2> + +<p>"What strikes and frightens the backward European as much as anything in +the United States is the efficiency and fearful universality of the +telephone. Just as I think of the big cities as agglomerations pierced +everywhere by elevator-shafts full of movement, so I think of them as +being threaded, under pavements and over roofs and between floors and +ceilings and between walls, by millions upon millions of live filaments +that unite all the privacies of the organism—and destroy them in order +to make one immense publicity! I do not mean that Europe has failed to +adopt the telephone, nor that in Europe there are no hotels with the +dreadful curse of an active telephone in every room. But I do mean that +the European telephone is a toy, and a somewhat clumsy one, compared +with the inexorable seriousness of the American telephone. Many +otherwise highly civilized Europeans are as timid in addressing a +telephone as they would be in addressing a royal sovereign. The average +European middle-class householder still speaks of his telephone, if he +has one, in the same falsely casual tone as the corresponding American +is liable to speak of his motor-car. It is naught—a negligible +trifle—but somehow it comes into the conversation!</p> + +<p>"How odd!" you exclaim. And you are right. It is we Europeans who are +wrong, through no particular fault of our own.</p> + +<p>The American is ruthlessly logical about the telephone. The only +occasion on which I was in really serious danger of being taken for a +madman in the United States was when, in a Chicago hotel, I permanently +removed the receiver from the telephone in a room designed (doubtless +ironically) for slumber. The whole hotel was appalled. Half Chicago +shuddered. In response to the prayer of a deputation from the management +I restored the receiver. On the horrified face of the deputation I could +read the unspoken query: "Is it conceivable that you have been in this +country a month without understanding that the United States is +primarily nothing but a vast congeries of telephone-cabins?" Yes, I +yielded and admired! And I surmise that on my next visit I shall find a +telephone on every table of every restaurant that respects itself.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p074" id="p074"></a> +<img src="images/p074.jpg" +alt="AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE" +title="AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>It is the efficiency of the telephone that makes it irresistible to a +great people whose passion is to "get results"—the instancy with which +the communication is given, and the clear loudness of the telephone's +voice in reply to yours: phenomena utterly unknown in Europe. Were I to +inhabit the United States, I too should become a victim of the telephone +habit, as it is practised in its most advanced form in those suburban +communities to which I have already incidentally referred at the end of +the previous chapter. There a woman takes to the telephone as women in +more decadent lands take to morphia. You can see her at morn at her +bedroom window, pouring confidences into her telephone, thus +combining the joy of an innocent vice with the healthy freshness of +breeze and sunshine. It has happened to me to sit in a drawing-room, +where people gathered round the telephone as Europeans gather round a +fire, and to hear immediately after the ejaculation of a number into the +telephone a sharp ring from outside through the open window, and then to +hear in answer to the question, "What are you going to wear to-night?" +two absolutely simultaneous replies, one loudly from the telephone +across the room, and the other faintlier from a charming human voice +across the garden: "I don't know. What are you?" Such may be the +pleasing secondary scientific effect of telephoning to the lady next +door on a warm afternoon.</p> + +<p>Now it was obvious that behind the apparently simple exterior aspects of +any telephone system there must be an intricate and marvelous secret +organization. In Europe my curiosity would probably never have been +excited by the thought of that organization—at home one accepts +everything as of course!—but, in the United States, partly because the +telephone is so much more wonderful and terrible there, and partly +because in a foreign land one is apt to have strange caprices, I allowed +myself to become the prey of a desire to see the arcanum concealed at +the other end of all the wires; and thus, one day, under the high +protection of a demigod of the electrical world, I paid a visit to a +telephone-exchange in New York, and saw therein what nine hundred and +ninety-nine out of every thousand of the most ardent telephone-users +seldom think about and will never see.</p> + +<p>A murmuring sound, as of an infinity of scholars in a prim school +conning their lessons, and a long row of young women seated in a dim +radiance on a long row of precisely similar stools, before a long +apparatus of holes and pegs and pieces of elastic cord, all extremely +intent: that was the first broad impression. One saw at once that none +of these young women had a single moment to spare; they were all +involved in the tremendous machine, part of it, keeping pace with it and +in it, and not daring to take their eyes off it for an instant, lest +they should sin against it. What they were droning about it was +impossible to guess; for if one stationed oneself close to any +particular rapt young woman, she seemed to utter no sound, but simply +and without ceasing to peg and unpeg holes at random among the thousands +of holes before her, apparently in obedience to the signaling of faint, +tiny lights that in thousands continually expired and were rekindled. +(It was so that these tiny lights should be distinguishable that the +illumination of the secret and finely appointed chamber was kept dim.) +Throughout the whole length of the apparatus the colored elastic cords +to which the pegs were attached kept crossing one another in fantastic +patterns.</p> + +<p>We who had entered were ignored. We might have been ghosts, invisible +and inaudible. Even the supervisors, less-young women set in authority, +did not turn to glance at us as they moved restlessly peering behind the +stools. And yet somehow I could hear the delicate shoulders of all the +young women saying, without speech: "Here come these tyrants and +taskmasters again, who have invented this exercise which nearly but not +quite cracks our little brains for us! They know exactly how much they +can get out of us, and they get it. They are cleverer than us and more +powerful than us; and we have to submit to their discipline. But—" And +afar off I could hear: "What are you going to wear to-night?" "Will you +dine with me to-night?" "I want two seats." "Very well, thanks, and how +is Mrs....?" "When can I see you to-morrow?" "I'll take your offer for +those bonds." ... And I could see the interiors of innumerable offices +and drawing-rooms.... But of course I could hear and see nothing really +except the intent drone and quick gesturing of those completely absorbed +young creatures in the dim radiance, on stools precisely similar.</p> + +<p>I understood why the telephone service was so efficient. I understood +not merely from the demeanor of the long row of young women, but from +everything else I had seen in the exact and diabolically ingenious +ordering of the whole establishment.</p> + +<p>We were silent for a time, as though we had entered a church. We were, +perhaps unconsciously, abashed by the intensity of the absorption of +these neat young women. After a while one of the guides, one of the +inscrutable beings who had helped to invent and construct the astounding +organism, began in a low voice on the forlorn hope of making me +comprehend the mechanism of a telephone-call and its response. And I +began on the forlorn hope of persuading him by intelligent acting that I +did comprehend. We each made a little progress. I could not tell him +that, though I genuinely and humbly admired his particular variety of +genius, what interested me in the affair was not the mechanics, but the +human equation. As a professional reader of faces, I glanced as well as +I could sideways at those bent girls' faces to see if they were happy. +An absurd inquiry! Do <i>I</i> look happy when I'm at work, I wonder! Did +they then look reasonably content? Well, I came to the conclusion that +they looked like most other faces—neither one thing nor the other. +Still, in a great establishment, I would sooner search for sociological +information in the faces of the employed than in the managerial rules.</p> + +<p>"What do they earn?" I asked, when we emerged from the ten-atmosphere +pressure of that intense absorption. (Of course I knew that no young +women could possibly for any length of time be as intensely absorbed as +these appeared to be. But the illusion was there, and it was effective.)</p> + +<p>I learned that even the lowest beginner earned five dollars a week. It +was just the sum I was paying for a pair of clean sheets every night at +a grand hotel. And that the salary rose to six, seven, eight, eleven, +and even fourteen dollars for supervisors, who, however, had to stand on +their feet seven and a half hours a day, as shop-girls do for ten hours +a day; and that in general the girls had thirty minutes for lunch, and a +day off every week, and that the Company supplied them gratuitously with +tea, coffee, sugar, couches, newspapers, arm-chairs, and fresh air, of +which last fifty fresh cubic feet were pumped in for every operator +every minute.</p> + +<p>"Naturally," I was told, "the discipline is strict. There are test +wires.... We can check the 'time elements.' ... We keep a record of +every call. They'll take a dollar a week less in an outside place—for +instance, a hotel.... Their average stay here is thirty months."</p> + +<p>And I was told the number of exchanges there were in New York, exactly +like the one I was seeing.</p> + +<p>A dollar a week less in a hotel! How feminine! And how masculine! And +how wise for one sort of young woman, and how foolish for another!... +Imagine quitting that convent with its guaranteed fresh air, and its +couches and sugar and so on, for the rough hazards and promiscuities of +a hotel! On the other hand, imagine not quitting it!</p> + +<p>Said the demigod of the electrical world, condescendingly: "All this +telephone business is done on a mere few hundred horse-power. Come away, +and I'll show you electricity in bulk."</p> + +<p>And I went away with him, thoughtful. In spite of the inhuman perfection +of its functioning, that exchange was a very human place indeed. It +brilliantly solved some problems; it raised others. Excessively +difficult to find any fault whatever in it! A marvelous service, +achieved under strictly hygienic conditions—and young women must make +their way through the world! And yet—Yes, a very human place indeed!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The demigods of the electric world do not condescend to move about in +petrol motor-cars. In the exercise of a natural and charming coquetry +they insist on electrical traction, and it was in the most modern and +soundless electric brougham that we arrived at nightfall under the +overhanging cornice-eaves of two gigantic Florentine palaces—just such +looming palaces, they appeared in the dark, as may be seen in any +central street of Florence, with a cinema-show blazing its signs on the +ground floor, and Heaven knows what remnants of Italian aristocracy in +the mysterious upper stories. Having entered one of the palaces, +simultaneously with a tornado of wind, we passed through long, deserted, +narrow galleries, lined with thousands of small, caged compartments +containing "transformers," and on each compartment was a label bearing +always the same words: "Danger, 6,600 volts." "Danger, 6,600 volts." +"Danger, 6,600 volts." A wondrous relief when we had escaped with our +lives from the menace of those innumerable volts! And then we stood on a +high platform surrounded by handles, switches, signals—apparatus enough +to put all New York into darkness, or to annihilate it in an instant by +the unloosing of terrible cohorts of volts!—and faced an enormous white +hall, sparsely peopled by a few colossal machines that seemed to be +revolving and oscillating about their business with the fatalism of +conquered and resigned leviathans. Immaculately clean, inconceivably +tidy, shimmering with brilliant light under its lofty and beautiful +ceiling, shaking and roaring with the terrific thunder of its own +vitality, this hall in which no common voice could make itself heard +produced nevertheless an effect of magical stillness, silence, and +solitude. We were alone in it, save that now and then in the far-distant +spaces a figure might flit and disappear between the huge glinting +columns of metal. It was a hall enchanted and inexplicable. I understood +nothing of it. But I understood that half the electricity of New York +was being generated by its engines of a hundred and fifty thousand +horse-power, and that if the spell were lifted the elevators of New York +would be immediately paralyzed, and the twenty million lights expire +beneath the eyes of a startled population. I could have gazed at it to +this day, and brooded to this day upon the human imaginations that had +perfected it; but I was led off, hypnotized, to see the furnaces and +boilers under the earth. And even there we were almost alone, to such an +extent had one sort of senseless matter been compelled to take charge of +another sort of senseless matter. The odyssey of the coal that was +lifted high out of ships on the tide beyond, to fall ultimately into the +furnaces within, scarcely touched by the hand-wielded shovel, was by +itself epical. Fresh air pouring in at the rate of twenty-four million +cubic feet per hour cooled the entire palace, and gave to these +stoke-holes the uncanny quality of refrigerators. The lowest horror of +the steamship had been abolished here.</p> + +<p>I was tempted to say: "This alone is fit to be called the heart of New +York!"</p> + +<p>They took me to the twin palace, and on the windy way thither figures +were casually thrown at me. As that a short circuit may cause the +machines to surge wildly into the sudden creation of six million +horse-power of electricity, necessitating the invention of other +machines to control automatically these perilous vagaries! As that in +the down-town district the fire-engine was being abolished because, at a +signal, these power-houses could in thirty seconds concentrate on any +given main a pressure of three hundred pounds to the square inch, +lifting jets of water perhaps above the roofs of sky-scrapers! As that +the city could fine these power-houses at the rate of five hundred +dollars a minute for any interruption of the current longer than three +minutes—but the current had never failed for a single second! As that +in one year over two million dollars' worth of machinery had been +scrapped!... And I was aware that it was New York I was in, and not +Timbuctoo.</p> + +<p>In the other palace it appeared that the great American scrapping +process was even yet far from complete. At first sight this other seemed +to resemble the former one, but I was soon instructed that the former +one was as naught to this one, for here the turbine—the "strong, silent +man" among engines—was replacing the racket of cylinder and crank. +Statistics are tiresome and futile to stir the imagination. I disdain +statistics, even when I assimilate them. And yet when my attention was +directed to one trifling block of metal, and I was told that it was the +most powerful "unit" in the world, and that it alone would make +electricity sufficient for the lighting of a city of a quarter of a +million people, I felt that statistics, after all, could knock you a +staggering blow.... In this other palace, too, was the same solitude of +machinery, attending most conscientiously and effectively to itself. A +singularly disconcerting spectacle! And I reflected that, according to +dreams already coming true, the telephone-exchange also would soon be a +solitude of clicking contact-points, functioning in mystic certitude, +instead of a convent of girls requiring sugar and couches, and thirsting +for love. A singularly disconcerting prospect!</p> + +<p>But was it necessary to come to America in order to see and describe +telephone-exchanges and electrical power-houses? Do not these wonders +exist in all the cities of earth? They do, but not to quite the same +degree of wondrousness. Hat-shops, and fine hat-shops, exist in New +York, but not to quite the same degree of wondrousness as in Paris. +People sing in New York, but not with quite the same natural lyricism as +in Naples. The great civilizations all present the same features; but it +is just the differences in degree between the same feature in this +civilization and in that—it is just these differences which together +constitute and illustrate the idiosyncrasy of each. It seems to me that +the brains and the imagination of America shone superlatively in the +conception and ordering of its vast organizations of human beings, and +of machinery, and of the two combined. By them I was more profoundly +attracted, impressed, and inspired than by any other non-spiritual +phenomena whatever in the United States. For me they were the proudest +material achievements, and essentially the most poetical achievements, +of the United States. And that is why I am dwelling on them.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Further, there are business organizations in America of a species which +do not flourish at all in Europe. For example, the "mail-order house," +whose secrets were very generously displayed to me in Chicago—a +peculiar establishment which sells merely everything (except +patent-medicines)—on condition that you order it by post. Go into that +house with money in your palm, and ask for a fan or a flail or a +fur-coat or a fountain-pen or a fiddle, and you will be requested to +return home and write a letter about the proposed purchase, and stamp +the letter and drop it into a mail-box, and then to wait till the +article arrives at your door. That house is one of the most spectacular +and pleasing proofs that the inhabitants of the United States are thinly +scattered over an enormous area, in tiny groups, often quite isolated +from stores. On the day of my visit sixty thousand letters had been +received, and every executable order contained in these was executed +before closing time, by the co-ordinated efforts of over four thousand +female employees and over three thousand males. The conception would +make Europe dizzy. Imagine a merchant in Moscow trying to inaugurate +such a scheme!</p> + +<p>A little machine no bigger than a soup-plate will open hundreds of +envelops at once. They are all the same, those envelops; they have even +less individuality than sheep being sheared, but when the contents of +one—any one at random—are put into your hand, something human and +distinctive is put into your hand. I read the caligraphy on a blue sheet +of paper, and it was written by a woman in Wyoming, a neat, earnest, +harassed, and possibly rather harassing woman, and she wanted all sorts +of things and wanted them intensely—I could see that with clearness. +This complex purchase was an important event in her year. So far as her +imagination went, only one mail-order would reach the Chicago house that +morning, and the entire establishment would be strained to meet it.</p> + +<p>Then the blue sheet was taken from me and thrust into the system, and +therein lost to me. I was taken to a mysteriously rumbling shaft of +broad diameter, that pierced all the floors of the house and had +trap-doors on each floor. And when one of the trap-doors was opened I +saw packages of all descriptions racing after one another down spiral +planes within the shaft. There were several of these great shafts—with +divisions for mail, express, and freight traffic—and packages were +ceaselessly racing down all of them, laden with the objects desired by +the woman of Wyoming and her fifty-nine-thousand-odd fellow-customers of +the day. At first it seemed to me impossible that that earnest, +impatient woman in Wyoming should get precisely what she wanted; it +seemed to me impossible that some mistake should not occur in all that +noisy fever of rushing activity. But after I had followed an order, and +seen it filled and checked, my opinion was that a mistake would be the +most miraculous phenomenon in that establishment. I felt quite reassured +on behalf of Wyoming.</p> + +<p>And then I was suddenly in a room where six hundred billing-machines +were being clicked at once by six hundred young women, a fantastic aural +nightmare, though none of the young women appeared to be conscious that +anything bizarre was going on.... And then I was in a printing-shop, +where several lightning machines spent their whole time every day in +printing the most popular work of reference in the United States, a +bulky book full of pictures, with an annual circulation of five and a +half million copies—the general catalogue of the firm. For the first +time I realized the true meaning of the word "popularity "—and +sighed....</p> + +<p>And then it was lunch-time for about a couple of thousand employees, +and in the boundless restaurant I witnessed the working of the devices +which enabled these legions to choose their meals, and pay for them +(cost price) in a few moments, and without advanced mathematical +calculations. The young head of the restaurant showed me, with pride, a +menu of over a hundred dishes—Austrian, German, Hungarian, Italian, +Scotch, French, and American; at prices from one cent up as high as ten +cents (prime roast-beef)—and at the foot of the menu was his personal +appeal: "<i>I</i> desire to extend to you a cordial invitation to inspect," +etc. "<i>My</i> constant aim will be," etc. Yet it was not <i>his</i> restaurant. +It was the firm's restaurant. Here I had a curious illustration of an +admirable characteristic of American business methods that was always +striking me—namely, the real delegation of responsibility. An American +board of direction will put a man in charge of a department, as a +viceroy over a province, saying, as it were: "This is yours. Do as you +please with it. We will watch the results." A marked contrast this with +the centralizing of authority which seems to be ever proceeding in +Europe, and which breeds in all classes at all ages—especially in +France—a morbid fear and horror of accepting responsibility.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p086" id="p086"></a> +<img src="images/p086.jpg" +alt="LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB" +title="LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Later, I was on the ground level, in the midst of an enormous apparent +confusion—the target for all the packages and baskets, big and little, +that shot every instant in a continuous stream from those spiral planes, +and slid dangerously at me along the floors. Here were the packers. I +saw a packer deal with a collected order, and in this order were a +number of tiny cookery utensils, a four-cent curling-iron, a brush, and +two incredibly ugly pink china mugs, inscribed in cheap gilt +respectively with the words "Father" and "Mother." Throughout my stay in +America no moment came to me more dramatically than this moment, and +none has remained more vividly in my mind. All the daily domestic life +of the small communities in the wilds of the West and the Middle West, +and in the wilds of the back streets of the great towns, seemed to be +revealed to me by the contents of that basket, as the packer wrapped up +and protected one article after another. I had been compelled to abandon +a visitation of the West and of the small communities everywhere, and I +was sorry. But here in a microcosm I thought I saw the simple reality of +the backbone of all America, a symbol of the millions of the little +plain people, who ultimately make possible the glory of the +world-renowned streets and institutions in dazzling cities.</p> + +<p>There was something indescribably touching in that curling-iron and +those two mugs. I could see the table on which the mugs would soon +proudly stand, and "father" and "mother" and children thereat, and I +could see the hand heating the curling-iron and applying it. I could see +the whole little home and the whole life of the little home.... And +afterward, as I wandered through the warehouses—pyramids of the same +chair, cupboards full of the same cheap violin, stacks of the same album +of music, acres of the same carpet and wallpaper, tons of the same +gramophone, hundreds of tons of the same sewing-machine and +lawn-mower—I felt as if I had been made free of the secrets of every +village in every State of the Union, and as if I had lived in every +little house and cottage thereof all my life! Almost no sense of beauty +in those tremendous supplies of merchandise, but a lot of honesty, +self-respect, and ambition fulfilled. I tell you I could hear the +engaged couples discussing ardently over the pages of the catalogue what +manner of bedroom suite they would buy, and what design of sideboard....</p> + +<p>Finally, I arrived at the firm's private railway station, where a score +or more trucks were being laden with the multifarious boxes, bales, and +parcels, all to leave that evening for romantic destinations such as +Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming. Yes, the package of the woman of Wyoming's +desire would ultimately be placed somewhere in one of those trucks! It +was going to start off toward her that very night!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Impressive as this establishment was, finely as it illustrated the +national genius for organization, it yet lacked necessarily, on account +of the nature of its activity, those outward phenomena of splendor which +charm the stranger's eye in the great central houses of New York, and +which seem designed to sum up all that is most characteristic and most +dazzling in the business methods of the United States. These central +houses are not soiled by the touch of actual merchandise. Nothing more +squalid than ink ever enters their gates. They traffic with symbols +only, and the symbols, no matter what they stand for, are never in +themselves sordid. The men who have created these houses seem to have +realized that, from their situation and their importance, a special +effort toward representative magnificence was their pleasing duty, and +to have made the effort with a superb prodigality and an astounding +ingenuity.</p> + +<p>Take, for a good, glorious example, the very large insurance company, +conscious that the eyes of the world are upon it, and that the entire +United States is expecting it to uphold the national pride. All the +splendors of all the sky-scrapers are united in its building. Its foyer +and grand staircase will sustain comparison with those of the Paris +Opéra. You might think you were going into a place of entertainment! +And, as a fact, you are! This affair, with nearly four thousand clerks, +is the huge toy and pastime of a group of millionaires who have +discovered a way of honestly amusing themselves while gaining applause +and advertisement. Within the foyer and beyond the staircase, notice the +outer rooms, partitioned off by bronze grilles, looming darkly gorgeous +in an eternal windowless twilight studded with the beautiful glowing +green disks of electric-lamp shades; and under each disk a human head +bent over the black-and-red magic of ledgers! The desired effect is at +once obtained, and it is wonderful. Then lose yourself in and out of the +ascending and descending elevators, and among the unending multitudes of +clerks, and along the corridors of marble (total length exactly measured +and recorded). You will be struck dumb. And immediately you begin to +recover your speech you will be struck dumb again....</p> + +<p>Other houses, as has been seen, provide good meals for their employees +at cost price. This house, then, will provide excellent meals, free of +charge! It will install the most expensive kitchens and richly spacious +restaurants. It will serve the delicate repasts with dignity. "Does all +this lessen the wages?" No, not in theory. But in practice, and whether +the management wishes or not, it must come out of the wages. "Why do you +do it?" you ask the departmental chief, who apparently gets far more fun +out of the contemplation of these refectories than out of the +contemplation of premiums received and claims paid. "It is better for +the employees," he says. "But we do it because it is better for us. It +pays us. Good food, physical comfort, agreeable environment, scientific +ventilation—all these things pay us. We get results from them." He does +not mention horses, but you feel that the comparison is with horses. A +horse, or a clerk, or an artisan—it pays equally well to treat all of +them well. This is one of the latest discoveries of economic science, a +discovery not yet universally understood.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p090" id="p090"></a> +<img src="images/p090.jpg" +alt="A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG" +title="A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>I say you do not mention horses, and you certainly must not hint that +the men in authority may have been actuated by motives of humanity. You +must believe what you are told—that the sole motive is to get results. +The eagerness with which all heads of model establishments would disavow +to me any thought of being humane was affecting in its <i>naïveté</i>; it had +that touch of ingenuous wistfulness which I remarked everywhere in +America—and nowhere more than in the demeanor of many mercantile +highnesses. (I hardly expect Americans to understand just what I mean +here.) It was as if they would blush at being caught in an act of +humanity, like school-boys caught praying. Still, to my mind, the +white purity of their desire to get financial results was often muddied +by the dark stain of a humane motive. I may be wrong (as people say), +but I know I am not (as people think).</p> + +<p>The further you advance into the penetralia of this arch-exemplar of +American organization and profusion, the more you are amazed by the +imaginative perfection of its detail: as well in the system of filing +for instant reference fifty million separate documents, as in the +planning of a concert-hall for the diversion of the human machines.</p> + +<p>As we went into the immense concert-hall a group of girls were giving an +informal concert among themselves. When lunch is served on the premises +with chronographic exactitude, the thirty-five minutes allowed for the +meal give an appreciable margin for music and play. A young woman was +just finishing a florid song. The concert was suspended, and the whole +party began to move humbly away at this august incursion.</p> + +<p>"Sing it again; do, please!" the departmental chief suggested. And the +florid song was nervously sung again; we applauded, the artiste bowed as +on a stage, and the group fled, the thirty-five minutes being doubtless +up. The departmental chief looked at me in silence, content, as much as +to say: "This is how we do business in America." And I thought, "Yet +another way of getting results!"</p> + +<p>But sometimes the creators of the organization, who had provided +everything, had been obliged to confess that they had omitted from their +designs certain factors of evolution. Hat-cupboards were a feature of +the women's offices—delightful specimens of sound cabinetry. And still, +millinery was lying about all over the place, giving it an air of +feminine occupation that was extremely exciting to a student on his +travels. The truth was that none of those hats would go into the +cupboards. Fashion had worsted the organization completely. Departmental +chiefs had nothing to do but acquiesce in this startling untidiness. +Either they must wait till the circumference of hats lessened again, or +they must tear down the whole structure and rebuild it with due regard +to hats.</p> + +<p>Finally, we approached the sacred lair and fastness of the president, +whose massive portrait I had already seen on several walls. Spaciousness +and magnificence increased. Ceilings rose in height, marble was softened +by the thick pile of carpets. Mahogany and gold shone more luxuriously. +I was introduced into the vast antechamber of the presidential +secretaries, and by the chief of them inducted through polished and +gleaming barriers into the presence-chamber itself: a noble apartment, +an apartment surpassing dreams and expectations, conceived and executed +in a spirit of majestic prodigality. The president had not been afraid. +And his costly audacity was splendidly justified of itself. This man had +a sense of the romantic, of the dramatic, of the fit. And the qualities +in him and his <i>état major</i> which had commanded the success of the +entire enterprise were well shown in the brilliant symbolism of that +room's grandiosity.... And there was the president's portrait again, +gorgeously framed.</p> + +<p>He came in through another door, an old man of superb physique, and +after a little while he was relating to me the early struggles of his +company. "My wife used to say that for ten years she never saw me," he +remarked.</p> + +<p>I asked him what his distractions were, now that the strain was over and +his ambitions so gloriously achieved. He replied that occasionally he +went for a drive in his automobile.</p> + +<p>"And what do you do with yourself in the evenings?" I inquired.</p> + +<p>He seemed a little disconcerted by this perhaps unaccustomed bluntness.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, casually, "I read insurance literature."</p> + +<p>He had the conscious mien and manners of a reigning prince. His courtesy +and affability were impeccable and charming. In the most profound sense +this human being had succeeded, for it was impossible to believe that, +had he to live his life again, he would live it very differently.</p> + +<p>Such a type of man is, of course, to be found in nearly every country; +but the type flourishes with a unique profusion and perfection in the +United States; and in its more prominent specimens the distinguishing +idiosyncrasy of the average American successful man of business is +magnified for our easier inspection. The rough, broad difference between +the American and the European business man is that the latter is anxious +to leave his work, while the former is anxious to get to it. The +attitude of the American business man toward his business is +pre-eminently the attitude of an artist. You may say that he loves +money. So do we all—artists particularly. No stock-broker's private +journal could be more full of dollars than Balzac's intimate +correspondence is full of francs. But whereas the ordinary artist loves +money chiefly because it represents luxury, the American business man +loves it chiefly because it is the sole proof of success in his +endeavor. He loves his business. It is not his toil, but his hobby, +passion, vice, monomania—any vituperative epithet you like to bestow on +it! He does not look forward to living in the evening; he lives most +intensely when he is in the midst of his organization. His instincts are +best appeased by the hourly excitements of a good, scrimmaging +commercial day. He needs these excitements as some natures need alcohol. +He cannot do without them.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p094" id="p094"></a> +<img src="images/p094.jpg" +alt="ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY" +title="ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>On no other hypothesis can the unrivaled ingenuity and splendor and +ruthlessness of American business undertakings be satisfactorily +explained. They surpass the European, simply because they are never out +of the thoughts of their directors, because they are adored with a fine +frenzy. And for the same reason they are decked forth in magnificence. +Would a man enrich his office with rare woods and stuffs and marbles if +it were not a temple? Would he bestow graces on the environment if while +he was in it the one idea at the back of his head was the anticipation +of leaving it? Watch American business men together, and if you are a +European you will clearly perceive that they are devotees. They are open +with one another, as intimates are. Jealousy and secretiveness are much +rarer among them than in Europe. They show off their respective +organizations with pride and with candor. They admire one another +enormously. Hear one of them say enthusiastically of another: "It was a +great idea he had—connecting his New York and his Philadelphia places +by wireless—a great idea!" They call one another by their Christian +names, fondly. They are capable of wonderful friendships in business. +They are cemented by one religion—and it is not golf. For them the +journey "home" is often not the evening journey, but the morning +journey. Call this a hard saying if you choose: it is true. Could a man +be happy long away from a hobby so entrancing, a toy so intricate and +marvelous, a setting so splendid? Is it strange that, absorbed in that +wondrous satisfying hobby, he should make love with the nonchalance of +an animal? At which point I seem to have come dangerously near to the +topic of the singular position of the American woman, about which +everybody is talking....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V" />V</h2> + +<h2>TRANSIT AND HOTELS</h2> + + +<p>The choice of such a trite topic as the means of travel may seem to +denote that my observations in the United States must have been +superficial. They were. I never hoped that they would be otherwise. In +seven weeks (less one day) I could not expect to penetrate very far +below the engaging surface of things. Nor did I unnaturally attempt to +do so; for the evidence of the superficies is valuable, and it can only +be properly gathered by the stranger at first sight. Among the scenes +and phenomena that passed before me I of course remember best those +which interested me most. Railroads and trains have always appealed to +me; I have often tried to express my sense of their romantic savor. And +I was eager to see and appreciate these particular manifestations of +national character in America.</p> + +<p>It happily occurred that my first important journey from New York was on +the Pennsylvania Road.</p> + +<p>"I'll meet you at the station," I said to my particular friend.</p> + +<p>"Oh no!" he answered, positively. "I'll pick you up on my way."</p> + +<p>The fact was that not for ten thousand dollars would he have missed the +spectacle of my sensations as I beheld for the first time the most +majestic terminus in the world! He alone would usher me into the gates +of that marvel! I think he was not disappointed. I frankly surrendered +myself to the domination of this extraordinary building. I did not +compare. I knew there could be no comparison. Whenever afterward I +heard, as I often did, enlightened, Europe-loving citizens of the United +States complain that the United States was all very well, but there was +no art in the United States, the image of this tremendous masterpiece +would rise before me, and I was inclined to say: "Have you ever crossed +Seventh Avenue, or are you merely another of those who have been to +Europe and learned nothing?" The Pennsylvania station is full of the +noble qualities that fine and heroic imagination alone can give. That +there existed a railroad man poetic and audacious enough to want it, +architects with genius powerful enough to create it, and a public with +heart enough to love it—these things are for me a surer proof that the +American is a great race than the existence of any quantity of wealthy +universities, museums of classic art, associations for prison reform, or +deep-delved safe-deposit vaults crammed with bonds. Such a monument does +not spring up by chance; it is part of the slow flowering of a nation's +secret spirit!</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p100" id="p100"></a> +<img src="images/p100.jpg" +alt="IN THE PARLOR-CAR" +title="IN THE PARLOR-CAR" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>IN THE PARLOR-CAR</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>The terminus emerged brilliantly from an examination of the complicated +detail, both esthetic and practical, that is embedded in the apparent +simplicity of its vast physiognomy. I discovered everything in it proper +to a station, except trains. Not a sign of a train. My impulse was to +ask, "Is this the tomb of Alexander J. Cassatt, or is it a cathedral, or +is it, after all, a railroad station?" Then I was led with due +ceremony across the boundless plains of granite to a secret staircase, +guarded by lions in uniform, and at the foot of this staircase, hidden +like a shame or a crime, I found a resplendent train, the Congressional +Limited. It was not the Limited of my dreams; but it was my first +American Limited, and I boarded it in a condition of excitement. I +criticized, of course, for every experienced traveler has decided views +concerning <i>trains de luxe</i>. The cars impressed rather than charmed me. +I preferred, and still prefer, the European variety of Pullman. (Yes, I +admit we owe it entirely to America!) And then there is a harsh, +inhospitable quality about those all-steel cars. They do not yield. You +think you are touching wood, and your knuckles are abraded. The +imitation of wood is a triumph of mimicry, but by no means a triumph of +artistic propriety. Why should steel be made to look like wood?... +Fireproof, you say. But is anything fireproof in the United States, +except perhaps Tammany Hall? Has not the blazing of fireproof +constructions again and again singed off the eyebrows of dauntless +firemen? My impression is that "fireproof," in the American tongue, is +one of those agreeable but quite meaningless phrases which adorn the +languages of all nations. Another such phrase, in the American tongue, +is "right away!" ...</p> + +<p>I sat down in my appointed place in the all-steel car, and, turning over +the pages of a weekly paper, saw photographs of actual collisions, +showing that in an altercation between trains the steel-and-wood car +could knock the all-steel car into a cocked hat!... The decoration of +the all-steel car does not atone for its probable combustibility and its +proved fragility. In particular, the smoking-cars of all the Limiteds I +intrusted myself to were defiantly and wilfully ugly. Still, a fine, +proud train, handsome in some ways! And the trainmen were like admirals, +captains, and first officers pacing bridges; clearly they owned the +train, and had kindly lent it to the Pennsylvania R.R. Their demeanor +expressed a rare sense of ownership and also of responsibility. While +very polite, they condescended. A strong contrast to the miserable +European "guard"—for all his silver buttons! I adventured into the +observation-car, of which institution I had so often heard Americans +speak with pride, and speculated why, here as in all other cars, the +tops of the windows were so low that it was impossible to see the upper +part of the thing observed (roofs, telegraph-wires, tree-foliage, +hill-summits, sky) without bending the head and cricking the neck. I do +not deny that I was setting a high standard of perfection, but then I +had heard so much all my life about American Limiteds!</p> + +<p>The Limited started with exactitude, and from the observation-car I +watched the unrolling of the wondrous Hudson tunnel—one of the major +sights of New York, and a thing of curious beauty.... The journey passed +pleasantly, with no other episode than that of dinner, which cost a +dollar and was worth just about a dollar, despite the mutton. And with +exactitude we arrived at Washington—another splendid station. I +generalized thus: "It is certain that this country understands railroad +stations." I was, however, fresh in the country, and had not then seen +New Haven station, which, as soon as it is quite done with, ought to be +put in a museum.</p> + +<p>We returned from Washington by a night train; we might have taken a day +train, but it was pointed out to me that I ought to get into "form" for +certain projected long journeys into the West. At midnight I was +brusquely introduced to the American sleeping-car. I confess that I had +not imagined anything so appalling as the confined, stifling, malodorous +promiscuity of the American sleeping-car, where men and women are herded +together on shelves under the drastic control of an official aided by +negroes. I care not to dwell on the subject.... I have seen European +prisons, but in none that I have seen would such a system be tolerated, +even by hardened warders and governors; and assuredly, if it were, +public opinion would rise in anger and destroy it. I have not been in +Siberian prisons, but I remember reading George Kennan's description of +their mild horrors, and I am surprised that he should have put himself +to the trouble of such a tedious journey when he might have discovered +far more exciting material on any good road around New York. However, +nobody seemed to mind, such is the force of custom—and I did not mind +very much, because my particular friend, intelligently foreseeing my +absurd European prejudices, had engaged for us a state-room.</p> + +<p>This state-room, or suite—for it comprised two apartments—was a +beautiful and aristocratic domain. The bedchamber had a fan that would +work at three speeds like an automobile, and was an enchanting toy. In +short, I could find no fault with the accommodation. It was perfect, +and would have remained perfect had the train remained in the station. +Unfortunately, the engine-driver had the unhappy idea of removing the +train from the station. He seemed to be an angry engine-driver, and his +gesture was that of a man setting his teeth and hissing: "Now, then, +come out of that, you sluggards!" and giving a ferocious tug. There was +a fearful jerk, and in an instant I understood why sleeping-berths in +America are always arranged lengthwise with the train. If they were not, +the passengers would spend most of the night in getting up off the floor +and climbing into bed again. A few hundred yards out of the station the +engine-driver decided to stop, and there was the same fearful jerk and +concussion. Throughout the night he stopped and he started at frequent +intervals, and always with the fearful jerk. Sometimes he would slow +down gently and woo me into a false tranquillity, but only to finish +with the same jerk rendered more shocking by contrast.</p> + +<p>The bedchamber was delightful, the lavatory amounted to a boudoir, the +reading-lamp left nothing to desire, the ventilation was a continuous +vaudeville entertainment, the watch-pocket was adorable, the mattress +was good. Even the road-bed was quite respectable—not equal to the best +I knew, probably, but it had the great advantage of well-tied rails, so +that as the train passed from one rail-length to the next you felt no +jar, a bliss utterly unknown in Europe. The secret of a satisfactory +"sleeper," however, does not lie in the state-room, nor in the +glittering lavatory, nor in the lamp, nor in the fan, nor in the +watch-pocket, nor in the bed, nor even in the road-bed. It lies in the +mannerisms of that brave fellow out there in front of you on the engine, +in the wind and the rain. But no one in all America seemed to appreciate +this deep truth. For myself, I was inclined to go out to the +engine-driver and say to him: "Brother, are you aware—you cannot +be—that the best European trains start with the imperceptible +stealthiness of a bad habit, so that it is impossible to distinguish +motion from immobility, and come to rest with the softness of doves +settling on the shoulders of a young girl?" ... If the fault is not the +engine-driver's, then are the brakes to blame? Inconceivable!... All +American engine-drivers are alike; and I never slept a full hour in any +American "sleeper," what with stops, starts, hootings, tollings, +whizzings round sharp corners, listening to the passage of +freight-trains, and listening to haughty conductor-admirals who +quarreled at length with newly arrived voyagers at 2 or 3 A.M.! I do not +criticize; I state. I also blame myself. There are those who could +sleep. But not everybody could sleep. Well and heartily do I remember +the moment when another friend of mine, in the midst of an interminable +scolding that was being given by a nasal-voiced conductor to a passenger +just before the dawn, exposed his head and remarked: "Has it occurred to +you that this is a sleeping-car?" In the swift silence the whirring of +my private fan could be heard.</p> + +<p>I arrived in New York from Washington, as I arrived at all my +destinations after a night journey, in a state of enfeebled +submissiveness, and I retired to bed in a hotel. And for several hours +the hotel itself would stop and start with a jerk and whiz round +corners.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For many years I had dreamed of traveling by the great, the unique, the +world-renowned New York-Chicago train; indeed, it would not be a gross +exaggeration to say that I came to America in order to take that train; +and at length time brought my dream true. I boarded the thing in New +York, this especial product of the twentieth century, and yet another +thrilling moment in my life came and went! I boarded it with pride; +everybody boarded it with pride; and in every eye was the gleam: "This +is the train of trains, and I have my state-room on it." Perhaps I was +ever so slightly disappointed with the dimensions and appointments of +the state-room—I may have been expecting a whole car to myself—but the +general self-conscious smartness of the train reassured me. I wandered +into the observation-car, and saw my particular friend proudly employ +the train-telephone to inform his office that he had caught the train. I +saw also the free supply of newspapers, the library of books, the +typewriting-machine, and the stenographer by its side—all as promised. +And I knew that at the other end of the train was a dining-car, a +smoking-car, and a barber-shop. I picked up the advertising literature +scattered about by a thoughtful Company, and learned therefrom that this +train was not a mere experiment; it was the finished fruit of many +experiments, and that while offering the conveniences of a hotel or a +club, it did with regularity what it undertook to do in the way of +speed and promptness. The pamphlet made good reading!...</p> + +<p>I noted that it pleased the Company to run two other very important +trains out of the terminus simultaneously with the unique train. +Bravado, possibly; but bravado which invited the respect of all those +who admire enterprise! I anticipated with pleasure the noble spectacle +of these three trains sailing forth together on three parallel tracks; +which pleasure was denied me. We for Chicago started last; we started +indeed, according to my poor European watch, from fifteen to thirty +seconds late!... No matter! I would not stickle for seconds: +particularly as at Chicago, by the terms of a contract which no company +in Europe would have had the grace to sign, I was to receive, for any +unthinkable lateness, compensation at the rate of one cent for every +thirty-six seconds!</p> + +<p>Within a quarter of an hour it became evident that that train had at +least one great quality—it moved. As, in the deepening dusk, we swung +along the banks of the glorious Hudson, veiled now in the vaporous +mysteries following a red sunset, I was obliged to admit with increasing +enthusiasm that that train did move. Even the persecutors of Galileo +would never have had the audacity to deny that that train moved. And one +felt, comfortably, that the whole Company, with all the Company's +resources, was watching over its flying pet, giving it the supreme right +of way and urging it forward by hearty good-will. One felt also that the +moment had come for testing the amenities of the hotel and the club.</p> + +<p>"Tea, please," I said, jauntily, confidently, as we entered the +spotless and appetizing restaurant-car.</p> + +<p>The extremely polite and kind captain of the car was obviously taken +aback. But he instinctively grasped that the reputation of the train +hung in the balance, and he regained his self-possession.</p> + +<p>"Tea?" His questioning inflection delicately hinted: "Try not to be too +eccentric."</p> + +<p>"Tea."</p> + +<p>"Here?"</p> + +<p>"Here."</p> + +<p>"I can serve it here, of course," said the captain, persuasively. "But +if you don't mind I should prefer to serve it in your state-room."</p> + +<p>We reluctantly consented. The tea was well made and well served.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p108" id="p108"></a> +<img src="images/p108.jpg" +alt="BREAKFAST EN ROUTE" +title="BREAKFAST EN ROUTE" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>BREAKFAST EN ROUTE</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>In an instant, as it seemed, we were crossing a dark river, on which +reposed several immense, many-storied river-steamers, brilliantly lit. I +had often seen illustrations of these craft, but never before the +reality. A fine sight-and it made me think of Mark Twain's incomparable +masterpiece, <i>Life on the Mississippi</i>, for which I would sacrifice the +entire works of Thackeray and George Eliot. We ran into a big town, full +of electric signs, and stopped. Albany! One minute late! I descended to +watch the romantic business of changing engines. I felt sure that +changing the horses of a fashionable mail-coach would be as nothing to +this. The first engine had already disappeared. The new one rolled +tremendous and overpowering toward me; its wheels rose above my head, +and the driver glanced down at me as from a bedroom window. I was +sensible of all the mystery and force of the somber monster; I felt the +mystery of the unknown railway station, and of the strange illuminated +city beyond. And I had a corner in my mind for the thought: "Somewhere +near me Broadway actually ends." Then, while dark men under the ray of a +lantern fumbled with the gigantic couplings, I said to myself that if I +did not get back to my car I should probably be left behind. I regained +my state-room and waited, watch in hand, for the jerk of restarting. I +waited half an hour. Some mishap with the couplings! We left Albany +thirty-three minutes late. Habitués of the train affected nonchalance. +One of them offered to bet me that "she would make it up." The admirals +and captains avoided our gaze.</p> + +<p>We dined, <i>à la carte</i>; the first time I had ever dined <i>à la carte</i> on +any train. An excellent dinner, well and sympathetically served. The +mutton was impeccable. And in another instant, as it seemed, we were +running, with no visible flags, through an important and showy street of +a large town, and surface-cars were crossing one another behind us. I +had never before seen an express train let loose in the middle of an +unprotected town, and I was <i>naïf</i> enough to be startled. But a huge +electric sign—"Syracuse bids you welcome"—tranquilized me. We briefly +halted, and drew away from the allurement of those bright streets into +the deep, perilous shade of the open country.</p> + +<p>I went to bed. The night differed little from other nights spent in +American sleeping-cars, and I therefore will not describe it in detail. +To do so might amount to a solecism. Enough to say that the jerkings +were possibly less violent and certainly less frequent than usual, +while, on the other hand, the halts were strangely long; one, indeed, +seemed to last for hours; I had to admit to myself that I had been to +sleep and dreamed this stoppage.</p> + +<p>From a final cat-nap I at last drew up my blind to greet the oncoming +day, and was rewarded by one of the finest and most poetical views I +have ever seen: a misty, brown river flanked by a jungle of dark reddish +and yellowish chimneys and furnaces that covered it with shifting +canopies of white steam and of smoke, varying from the delicatest grays +to intense black; a beautiful dim gray sky lightening, and on the ground +and low, flat roofs a thin crust of snow: Toledo! A wonderful and +inspiring panorama, just as romantic in its own way as any Spanish +Toledo. Yet I regretted its name, and I regretted the grotesque names of +other towns on the route—Canaan, Syracuse, Utica, Geneva, Ceylon, +Waterloo, and odd combinations ending in "burg." The names of most of +the States are superb. What could be more beautiful than Ohio, Idaho, +Kentucky, Iowa, Missouri, Wyoming, Illinois—above all, Illinois? +Certain cities, too, have grand names. In its vocal quality "Chicago" is +a perfect prince among names. But the majority of town names in America +suffer, no doubt inevitably, from a lack of imagination and of +reflection. They have the air of being bought in haste at a big +advertising "ready-for-service" establishment.</p> + +<p>Remembering in my extreme prostration that I was in a hotel and club, +and not in an experiment, I rang the bell, and a smiling negro +presented himself. It was only a quarter to seven in Toledo, but I was +sustained in my demeanor by the fact that it was a quarter to eight in +New York.</p> + +<p>"Will you bring me some tea, please?"</p> + +<p>He was sympathetic, but he said flatly I couldn't have tea, nor +anything, and that nobody could have anything at all for an hour and a +half, as there would be no restaurant-car till Elkhart, and Elkhart was +quite ninety miles off. He added that an engine had broken down at +Cleveland.</p> + +<p>I lay in collapse for over an hour, and then, summoning my manhood, +arose. On the previous evening the hot-water tap of my toilette had +yielded only cold water. Not wishing to appear hypercritical, I had said +nothing, but I had thought. I now casually turned on the cold-water tap +and was scalded by nearly boiling water. The hot-water tap still yielded +cold water. Lest I should be accused of inventing this caprice of +plumbing in a hotel and club, I give the name of the car. It was +appropriately styled "Watertown" (compartment E).</p> + +<p>In the corridor an admiral, audaciously interrogated, admitted that the +train was at that moment two hours and ten minutes late. As for Elkhart, +it seemed to be still about ninety miles away. I went into the +observation-saloon to cheer myself up by observing, and was struck by a +chill, and by the chilly, pinched demeanor of sundry other passengers, +and by the apologetic faces of certain captains. Already in my +state-room my senses had suspected a chill; but I had refused to believe +my senses. I knew and had known all my life that American trains were +too hot, and I had put down the supposed chill to a psychological +delusion. It was, however, no delusion. As we swept through a snowy +landscape the apologetic captains announced sadly that the engine was +not sparing enough steam to heat the whole of the train. We put on +overcoats and stamped our feet.</p> + +<p>The train was now full of ravening passengers. And as Elkhart with +infinite shyness approached, the ravening passengers formed in files in +the corridors, and their dignity was jerked about by the speed of the +icy train, and they waited and waited, like mendicants at the kitchen +entrance of a big restaurant. And at long last, when we had ceased to +credit that any such place as Elkhart existed, Elkhart arrived. Two +restaurant-cars were coupled on, and, as it were, instantly put to the +sack by an infuriated soldiery. The food was excellent, and newspapers +were distributed with much generosity, but some passengers, including +ladies, had to stand for another twenty minutes famished at the door of +the first car, because the breakfasting accommodation of this particular +hotel and club was not designed on the same scale as its bedroom +accommodation. We reached Chicago one hundred and ten minutes late. And +to compensate me for the lateness, and for the refrigeration, and for +the starvation, and for being forced to eat my breakfast hurriedly under +the appealing, reproachful gaze of famishing men and women, an official +at the Lasalle station was good enough to offer me a couple of dollars. +I accepted them....</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p112" id="p112"></a> +<img src="images/p112.jpg" +alt="IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING STREAM" +title="IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING STREAM" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING STREAM</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>An unfortunate accident, you say. It would be more proper to say a +series of accidents. I think "the greatest train in the world" is +entitled to one accident, but not to several. And when, in addition to +being a train, it happens to be a hotel and club, and not an experiment, +I think that a system under which a serious breakdown anywhere between +Syracuse and Elkhart (about three-quarters of the entire journey) is +necessarily followed by starvation—I think that such a system ought to +be altered—by Americans. In Europe it would be allowed to continue +indefinitely.</p> + +<p>Beyond question my experience of American trains led me to the general +conclusion that the best of them were excellent. Nevertheless, I saw +nothing in the organization of either comfort, luxury, or safety to +justify the strange belief of Americans that railroad traveling in the +United States is superior to railroad traveling in Europe. Merely from +habit, I prefer European trains on the whole. It is perhaps also merely +from habit that Americans prefer American trains.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As regards methods of transit other than ordinary railroad trains, I +have to admit a certain general disappointment in the United States. The +Elevated systems in the large cities are the terrible result of an +original notion which can only be called unfortunate. They must either +depopulate the streets through which they run or utterly destroy the +sensibility of the inhabitants; and they enormously increase and +complicate the dangers of the traffic beneath them. Indeed, in the view +of the unaccustomed stranger, every Elevated is an affliction so +appallingly hideous that no degree of convenience could atone for its +horror. The New York Subway is a masterpiece of celerity, and in other +ways less evil than an Elevated, but in the minimum decencies of travel +it appeared to me to be inferior to several similar systems in Europe.</p> + +<p>The surface-cars in all the large cities that I saw were less smart and +less effective than those in sundry European capitals. In Boston +particularly I cannot forget the excessive discomfort of a journey to +Cambridge, made in the company of a host who had a most beautiful house, +and who gave dinners of the last refinement, but who seemed +unaccountably to look on the car journey as a sort of pleasant +robustious outing. Nor can I forget—also in Boston—the spectacle of +the citizens of Brookline—reputed to be the wealthiest suburb in the +world—strap-hanging and buffeted and flung about on the way home from +church, in surface-cars which really did carry inadequacy and brutality +to excess.</p> + +<p>The horse-cabs of Chicago had apparently been imported second-hand +immediately after the great fire from minor towns in Italy.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p114" id="p114"></a> +<img src="images/p114.jpg" +alt="THE STRAP-HANGERS" +title="THE STRAP-HANGERS" /> +<p class="center"><b>THE STRAP-HANGERS</b></p> +</div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>There remains the supreme mystery of the vices of the American taxicab. +I sought an explanation of this from various persons, and never got one +that was convincing. The most frequent explanation, at any rate in New +York, was that the great hotels were responsible for the vices of the +American taxicab, by reason of their alleged outrageous charges to the +companies for the privilege of waiting for hire at their august +porticos. I listened with respect, but with incredulity. If the +taxicabs were merely very dear, I could understand; if they were +merely very bad, I could understand; if they were merely numerically +insufficient for the number of people willing to pay for taxicabs, I +could understand. But that they should be at once very dear, very bad, +and most inconveniently scarce, baffled and still baffles me. The sum of +real annoyance daily inflicted on a rich and busy but craven-hearted +city like New York by the eccentricity of its taxicab organization must +be colossal.</p> + +<p>As to the condition of the roadways, the vocabulary of blame had been +exhausted long before I arrived. Two things, however, struck me in New +York which I had not heard of by report: the greasiness of the streets, +transforming every automobile into a skidding death-trap at the least +sign of moisture, and the leisureliness of the road-works. The busiest +part of Thirty-fourth Street, for example—no mean artery, either—was +torn up when I came into New York, and it was still torn up when I left. +And, lastly, why are there no island refuges on Fifth Avenue? Even at +the intersection of Fifth and Broadway there is no oasis for the pursued +wayfarer. Every European city has long ago decided that the provision of +island refuges in main thoroughfares is an act of elementary justice to +the wayfarer in his unequal and exhausting struggle with wheeled +traffic.</p> + +<p>All these criticisms, which are severe but honest, would lose much of +their point if the general efficiency of the United States and its +delightful genius for organization were not so obvious and so impressive +to the European. In fact, it is precisely the brilliant practical +qualities of the country which place its idiosyncrasies in the matter +of transit in so startling a light.... I would not care to close this +section without a grateful reference to the very natty electric coupés, +usually driven by ladies, which are so refreshing a feature of the +streets of Chicago, and to the virtues of American private automobiles +in general.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is remarkable that a citizen who cheerfully and negligently submits +to so many various inconveniences outside his home should insist on +having the most comfortable home in the world, as the American citizen +unquestionably has! Once, when in response to an interviewer I had +become rather lyrical in praise of I forget what phenomenon in the +United States, a Philadelphia evening newspaper published an editorial +article in criticism of my views. This article was entitled "Offensive +Flattery." Were I to say freely all that I thought of the American +private house, large or small, I might expose myself again to the same +accusation.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p116" id="p116"></a> +<img src="images/p116.jpg" +alt="THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED." +title="THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>When I began to make the acquaintance of the American private house, I +felt like one who, son of an exiled mother, had been born abroad and had +at length entered his real country. That is to say, I felt at home. I +felt that all this practical comfort and myself had been specially +destined for each other since the beginning of time, and that fate was +at last being fulfilled. Freely I admit that until I reached America I +had not understood what real domestic comfort, generously conceived, +could be. Certainly I had always in this particular quarreled with my +own country, whose average notion of comfort still is to leave the +drawing-room (temperature 70°—near the fire) at midnight, pass by a +windswept hall and staircase (temperature 55°) to a bedroom full of fine +fresh air (temperature 50° to 40°), and in that chamber, having removed +piece by piece every bit of warm clothing, to slip, imperfectly +protected, between icy sheets and wait for sleep. Certainly I had always +contested the joyfulness of that particular process; but my imagination +had fallen short of the delicious innumerable realities of comfort in an +American home.</p> + +<p>Now, having regained the "barbaric seats" whence I came, I read with a +peculiar expression the advertisements of fashionable country and town +residences to rent or for sale in England. Such as: "Choice residence. +Five reception-rooms. Sixteen bedrooms. Bathroom—" Or: "Thoroughly +up-to-date mansion. Six reception-rooms. Splendid hall. Billiard-room. +Twenty-four bedrooms. Two bath-rooms—" I read this literature (to be +discovered textually every week in the best illustrated weeklies), and I +smile. Also I wonder, faintly blushing, what Americans truly <i>do</i> think +of the residential aspects of European house-property when they first +see it. And I wonder, without blushing, to what miraculous degree of +perfected comfort Americans would raise all their urban traffic if only +they cared enough to keep the professional politician out of their +streets as strictly as they keep him out of their houses.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The great American hotel, too, is a wondrous haven for the European who +in Europe has only tasted comfort in his dreams. The calm orderliness of +the bedroom floors, the adequacy of wardrobes and lamps, the reckless +profusion of clean linen, that charming notice which one finds under +one's door in the morning, "You were called at seven-thirty, and +answered," the fundamental principle that a bedroom without a bath-room +is not a bedroom, the magic laundry which returns your effects duly +starched in eight hours, the bells which are answered immediately, the +thickness of the walls, the radiator in the elevator-shaft, the +celestial invention of the floor-clerk—I could catalogue the civilizing +features of the American hotel for pages. But the great American hotel +is a classic, and to praise it may seem inept. My one excuse for doing +so is that I have ever been a devotee of hotels, and once indeed wrote a +whole book about one. When I told the best interviewer in the United +States that my secret ambition had always been to be the manager of a +grand hotel, I was quite sincere. And whenever I saw the manager of a +great American hotel traversing with preoccupied and yet aquiline glance +his corridors and public rooms, I envied him acutely.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p118" id="p118"></a> +<img src="images/p118.jpg" +alt="THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS SPLENDOR" +title="THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS SPLENDOR" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS SPLENDOR</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>The hospitality of those corridors and public rooms is so wide and +comprehensive that the ground floor and mezzanine of a really big hotel +in the United States offer a spectacle of humanity such as cannot be +seen in Europe; they offer also a remarkable contrast to the +tranquillity of their own upper stories, where any eccentricity is +vigorously discouraged. I think that it must be the vast tumult and +promiscuity of the ground floor which is responsible for the relative +inferiority of the restaurant in a great American hotel. A restaurant +should be a paramount unit, but as a fact in these hotels it is no +more than an item in a series of resorts, several of which equal if they +do not surpass it in popular interest. The Americans, I found, would +show more interest in the barber-shop than in the restaurant. (And to +see the American man of business, theoretically in a hurry, having his +head bumped about by a hair-cutter, his right hand tended by one +manicurist, his left hand tended by another manicurist, his boots +polished by a lightning shiner, and his wits polished by the two +manicurists together—the whole simultaneously—this spectacle in itself +was possibly a reflection on the American's sense of proportion.) +Further, a restaurant should be a sacred retreat, screened away from the +world; which ideal is foreign to the very spirit of the great American +hotel.</p> + +<p>I do not complain that the representative celebrated restaurants fail to +achieve an absolutely first-class cuisine. No large restaurant, either +in the United States or out of it, can hope to achieve an absolutely +first-class cuisine. The peerless restaurant is and must be a little +one. Nor would I specially complain of the noise and thronging of the +great restaurants, the deafening stridency of their music, the artistic +violence of their decorations; these features of fashionable restaurants +are now universal throughout the world, and the philosopher adapts +himself to them. (Indeed, in favor of New York I must say that in one of +the largest of its restaurants I heard a Chopin ballade well played on a +good piano—and it was listened to in appreciative silence; event quite +unique in my experience. Also, the large restaurant whose cuisine +nearest approaches the absolutely first-class is in New York, and not in +Europe.) Nor would I complain that the waiter in the great restaurant +neither understands English nor speaks a tongue which resembles English, +for this characteristic, too, is very marked across the Atlantic. (One +night, in a Boston hotel, after lingual difficulties with a head-waiter, +I asked him in French if he was not French. He cuttingly replied in +waiter's American: "I <i>was</i> French, but now I am an American." In +another few years that man will be referring to Great Britain as "the +old country.") ...</p> + +<p>No; what disconcerts the European in the great American restaurant is +the excessive, the occasionally maddening slowness of the service, and +the lack of interest in the service. Touching the latter defect, the +waiter is not impolite; he is not neglectful. But he is, too often, +passively hostile, or, at best, neutral. He, or his chief, has +apparently not grasped the fact that buying a meal is not like buying a +ton of coal. If the purchaser is to get value for his money, he must +enjoy his meal; and if he is to enjoy the meal, it must not merely be +efficiently served, but it must be efficiently served in a sympathetic +atmosphere. The supreme business of a good waiter is to create this +atmosphere.... True, that even in the country which has carried cookery +and restaurants to loftier heights than any other—I mean, of course, +Belgium, the little country of little restaurants—the subtle ether +which the truly civilized diner demands is rare enough. But in the great +restaurants of the great cities of America it is, I fancy, rarer than +anywhere else.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI" />VI</h2> + +<h2>SPORT AND THE THEATER</h2> + + +<p>I remember thinking, long before I came to the United States, at the +time when the anti-gambling bill was a leading topic of American +correspondence in European newspapers, that a State whose public opinion +would allow even the discussion of a regulation so drastic could not +possibly regard "sport" as sport is regarded in Europe. It might be very +fond of gambling, but it could not be afflicted with the particular +mania which in Europe amounts to a passion, if not to a religion. And +when the project became law, and horse-racing was most beneficially and +admirably abolished in the northeastern portion of the Republic, I was +astonished. No such law could be passed in any European country that I +knew. The populace would not suffer it; the small, intelligent minority +would not care enough to support it; and the wealthy oligarchical +priest-patrons of sport would be seriously convinced that it involved +the ruin of true progress and the end of all things. Such is the +sacredness of sport in Europe, where governments audacious enough to +attack and overthrow the state-church have never dared to suggest the +suppression of the vice by which alone the main form of sport lives ...</p> + +<p>So that I did not expect to find the United States a very "sporting" +country. And I did not so find it. I do not wish to suggest that, in my +opinion, there is no "sport" in the United States, but only that there +is somewhat less than in Western Europe; as I have already indicated, +the differences between one civilization and another are always slight, +though they are invariably exaggerated by rumor.</p> + +<p>I know that the "sporting instinct"—a curious combination of the +various instincts for fresh air, destruction, physical prowess, +emulation, devotion, and betting—is tolerably strong in America. I +could name a list of American sports as long as the list of dutiable +articles in the customs tariff. I am aware that over a million golf +balls are bought (and chiefly lost) in the United States every year. I +know that no residence there is complete without its lawn-tennis court. +I accept the statement that its hunting is unequaled. I have admired the +luxury and completeness of its country clubs. Its yachting is renowned. +Its horse-shows, to which enthusiasts repair in automobiles, are +wondrous displays of fashion. But none of these things is democratic; +none enters into the life of the mass of the people. Nor can that fierce +sport be called quite democratic which depends exclusively upon, and is +limited to, the universities. A six-day cycling contest and a +Presidential election are, of course, among the very greatest sporting +events in the world, but they do not occur often enough to merit +consideration as constant factors of national existence.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p124" id="p124"></a> +<img src="images/p124.jpg" +alt="THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION" +title="THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Baseball remains a formidable item, yet scarcely capable of balancing +the scale against the sports—football, cricket, racing, pelota, +bull-fighting—which, in Europe, impassion the common people, and draw +most of their champions from the common people. In Europe the +advertisement hoardings—especially in the provinces—proclaim sport +throughout every month of the year; not so in America. In Europe the +most important daily news is still the sporting news, as any editor will +tell you; not so in America, despite the gigantic headings of the +evening papers at certain seasons.</p> + +<p>But how mighty, nevertheless, is baseball! Its fame floats through +Europe as something prodigious, incomprehensible, romantic, and +terrible. After being entertained at early lunch in the correct hotel +for this kind of thing, I was taken, in a state of great excitement, by +a group of excited business men, and flashed through Central Park in an +express automobile to one of the great championship games. I noted the +excellent arrangements for dealing with feverish multitudes. I noted the +splendid and ornate spaciousness of the grand-stand crowned with +innumerable eagles, and the calm, matter-of-fact tone in which a friend +informed me that the grand-stand had been burned down six months ago. I +noted the dreadful prominence of advertisements, and particularly of +that one which announced "the 3-dollar hat with the 5-dollar look," all +very European! It was pleasant to be convinced in such large letters +that even shrewd America is not exempt from that universal human naïveté +which is ready to believe that in some magic emporium a philanthropist +is always waiting to give five dollars' worth of goods in exchange for +three dollars of money.</p> + +<p>Then I braced my intelligence to an understanding of the game, which, +thanks to its classical simplicity, and to some training in the finesse +of cricket and football, I did soon grasp in its main outlines. A +beautiful game, superbly played. We reckon to know something of ball +games in Europe; we reckon to be connoisseurs; and the old footballer +and cricketer in me came away from that immense inclosure convinced that +baseball was a game of the very first class, and that those players were +the most finished exponents of it. I was informed that during the winter +the players condescended to follow the law and other liberal +professions. But, judging from their apparent importance in the public +eye, I should not have been surprised to learn that during the winter +they condescended to be Speakers of the House of Representatives or +governors of States. It was a relief to know that in the matter of +expenses they were treated more liberally than the ambassadors of the +Republic.</p> + +<p>They seemed to have carried the art of pitching a ball to a more +wondrous degree of perfection than it has ever been carried in cricket. +The absolute certitude of the fielding and accuracy of the throwing was +profoundly impressive to a connoisseur. Only in a certain lack of +elegance in gesture, and in the unshaven dowdiness of the ground on +which it was played, could this game be said to be inferior to the noble +spectacle of cricket. In broad dramatic quality I should place it above +cricket, and on a level with Association football.</p> + +<p>In short, I at once became an enthusiast for baseball. For nine innings +I watched it with interest unabated, until a vast purple shadow, +creeping gradually eastward, had obscurely veiled the sublime legend of +the 3-dollar hat with the 5-dollar look. I began to acquire the proper +cries and shouts and menaces, and to pass comments on the play which I +was assured were not utterly foolish. In my honest yearning to feel +myself a habitué, I did what everybody else did and even attacked a +morsel of chewing-gum; but all that a European can say of this singular +substance is that it is, finally, eternal and unconquerable. One slip I +did quite innocently make. I rose to stretch myself after the sixth +inning instead of half-way through the seventh. Happily a friend with +marked presence of mind pulled me down to my seat again, before I had +had time fully to commit this horrible sacrilege. When the game was +finished I surged on to the enormous ground, and was informed by +innerring experts of a few of the thousand subtle tactical points which +I had missed. And lastly, I was flung up onto the Elevated platform, +littered with pieces of newspaper, and through a landscape of slovenly +apartment-houses, punctuated by glimpses of tremendous quantities of +drying linen, I was shot out of New York toward a calm week-end.</p> + +<p>Yes, a grand game, a game entirely worthy of its reputation! If the +professional matador and gladiator business is to be carried on at all, +a better exemplification of it than baseball offers could hardly be +found or invented. But the beholding crowd, and the behavior of the +crowd, somewhat disappointed me. My friends said with intense pride that +forty thousand persons were present. The estimate proved to be an +exaggeration; but even had it not been, what is forty thousand to the +similar crowds in Europe? In Europe forty thousand people will often +assemble to watch an ordinary football match. And for a "Final," the +record stands at something over a hundred thousand. It should be +remembered, too, in forming the comparison, that many people in the +Eastern States frequent the baseball grounds because they have been +deprived of their horse-racing. Further, the New York crowd, though +fairly excited, was not excited as sporting excitement is understood in, +for instance, the Five Towns. The cheering was good, but it was not the +cheering of frenzied passion. The anathemas, though hearty, lacked that +religious sincerity which a truly sport-loving populace will always put +into them. The prejudice in favor of the home team, the cruel, frank +unfairness toward the visiting team, were both insufficiently +accentuated. The menaces were merely infantile. I inquired whether the +referee or umpire, or whatever the arbiter is called in America, ever +went in danger of life or limb, or had to be protected from a homicidal +public by the law in uniform. And I was shocked by a negative answer. +Referees in Europe have been smuggled off the ground in the center of a +cocoon of policemen, have even been known to spend a fortnight in bed, +after giving a decision adverse to the home team!... More evidence that +the United States is not in the full sense a sporting country!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Of the psychology of the great common multitude of baseball "bleachers," +I learned almost nothing. But as regards the world of success and luxury +(which, of course, held me a willing captive firmly in its soft and +powerful influence throughout my stay), I should say that there was an +appreciable amount of self-hypnotism in its attitude toward baseball. As +if the thriving and preoccupied business man murmured to his soul, when +the proper time came: "By the way, these baseball championships are +approaching. It is right and good for me that I should be boyishly +excited, and I will be excited. I must not let my interest in baseball +die. Let's look at the sporting-page and see how things stand. And I'll +have to get tickets, too!" Hence possibly what seemed to me a +superficiality and factitiousness in the excitement of the more +expensive seats, and a too-rapid effervescence and finish of the +excitement when the game was over.</p> + +<p>The high fever of inter-university football struck me as a more +authentic phenomenon. Indeed, a university town in the throes of an +important match offers a psychological panorama whose genuineness can +scarcely be doubted. Here the young men communicate the sacred contagion +to their elders, and they also communicate it to the young women, who, +in turn, communicate it to the said elders—and possibly the indirect +method is the surer! I visited a university town in order to witness a +match of the highest importance. Unfortunately, and yet fortunately, my +whole view of it was affected by a mere nothing—a trifle which the +newspapers dealt with in two lines.</p> + +<p>When I reached the gates of the arena in the morning, to get a glimpse +of a freshmen's match, an automobile was standing thereat. In the +automobile was a pile of rugs, and sticking out of the pile of rugs in +an odd, unnatural, horizontal way was a pair of muddy football boots. +These boots were still on the feet of a boy, but all the rest of his +unconscious and smashed body was hidden beneath the rugs. The automobile +vanished, and so did my peace of mind. It seemed to me tragic that that +burly infant under the rugs should have been martyrized at a poor little +morning match in front of a few sparse hundreds of spectators and tens +of thousands of unresponsive empty benches. He had not had even the +glory and meed of a great multitude's applause. When I last inquired +about him, at the end of the day, he was still unconscious, and that was +all that could be definitely said of him; one heard that it was his +features that had chiefly suffered in the havoc, that he had been +defaced. If I had not happened to see those muddy football boots +sticking out, I should have heard vaguely of the accident, and remarked +philosophically that it was a pity, but that accidents would occur, and +there would have been the end of my impression. Only I just did happen +to see those muddy boots sticking out.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p130" id="p130"></a> +<img src="images/p130.jpg" +alt="THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR" +title="THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>When we came away from the freshmen's match, the charming roads of the +town, bordered by trees and by the agreeable architecture of mysterious +clubs, were beginning to be alive and dangerous with automobiles and +carriages, and pretty girls and proud men, and flags and flowers, and +colored favors and shoutings. Salutes were being exchanged at every +yard. The sense of a mighty and culminating event sharpened the air. The +great inn was full of jollity and excitement, and the reception-clerks +thereof had the negligent mien of those who know that every bedroom +is taken and every table booked. The club (not one of the mysterious +ones, but an ingenuous plain club of patriarchs who had once been young +in the university and were now defying time) was crammed with amiable +confusion, and its rich carpets protected for the day against the feet +of bald lads, who kept aimlessly walking up-stairs and down-stairs and +from room to room, out of mere friendly exuberance.</p> + +<p>And after the inn and the club I was conducted into a true American +home, where the largest and most free hospitality was being practised +upon a footing of universal intimacy. You ate standing; you ate sitting; +you ate walking the length of the long table; you ate at one small +table, and then you ate at another. You talked at random to strangers +behind and strangers before. And when you couldn't think of anything to +say, you just smiled inclusively. You knew scarcely anybody's name, but +the heart of everybody. Impossible to be ceremonious! When a young woman +bluntly inquired the significance of that far-away look in your eye, +impossible not to reply frankly that you were dreaming of a second +helping of a marvelous pie up there at the end of the long table; and +impossible not to eat all the three separate second helpings that were +instantly thrust upon you! The chatter and the good-nature were +enormous. This home was an expression of the democracy of the university +at its best. Fraternity was abroad; kindliness was abroad; and therefore +joy. Whatever else was taught at the university, these were taught, and +they were learnt. If a publicist asked me what American civilization had +achieved, I would answer that among other things it had achieved this +hour in this modest home.</p> + +<p>Occasionally a face would darken and a voice grow serious, exposing the +terrible secret apprehensions, based on expert opinion, that the home +side could not win. But the cloud would pass. And occasionally there +would be a reference to the victim whose muddy boots I had seen. +"Dreadful, isn't it?" and a twinge of compassion for the victim or for +his mother! But the cloud would immediately pass.</p> + +<p>And then we all had to leave, for none must be late on this solemn and +gay occasion. And now the roads were so many converging torrents of +automobiles and carriages, and excitement had developed into fever. Life +was at its highest, and the world held but one problem ... Sign that +reaction was approaching!</p> + +<p>A proud spectacle for the agitated vision, when the vast business of +filling the stands had been accomplished, and the eye ranged over acres +of black hats and variegated hats, hats flowered and feathered, and +plain male caps—a carpet intricately patterned with the rival colors! +At a signal the mimic battle began. And in a moment occurred the first +casualty—most grave of a series of casualties. A pale hero, with a +useless limb, was led off the field amid loud cheers. Then it was that I +became aware of some dozens of supplementary heroes shivering beneath +brilliant blankets under the lee of the stands. In this species of +football every casualty was foreseen, and the rules allowed it to be +repaired. Not two teams, but two regiments, were, in fact, fighting. And +my European ideal of sport was offended.</p> + +<p>Was it possible that a team could be permitted to replace a wounded man +by another, and so on ad infinitum? Was it possible that a team need not +abide by its misfortunes? Well, it was! I did not like this. It seemed +to me that the organizers, forgetting that this was a mimic battle, had +made it into a real battle, and that there was an imperfect appreciation +of what strictly amateur sport is. The desire to win, laudable and +essential in itself, may by excessive indulgence become a morbid +obsession. Surely, I thought, and still think, the means ought to suit +the end! An enthusiast for American organization, I was nevertheless +forced to conclude that here organization is being carried too far, +outraging the sense of proportion and of general fitness. For me, such +organization disclosed even a misapprehension as to the principal aim +and purpose of a university. If ever the fate of the Republic should +depend on the result of football matches, then such organization would +be justifiable, and courses of intellectual study might properly be +suppressed. Until that dread hour I would be inclined to dwell heavily +on the admitted fact that a football match is not Waterloo, but simply a +transient game in which two sets of youngsters bump up against one +another in opposing endeavors to put a bouncing toy on two different +spots of the earth's surface. The ultimate location of the inflated +bauble will not affect the national destiny, and such moral value as the +game has will not be increased but diminished by any enlargement of +organization. After all, if the brains of the world gave themselves +exclusively to football matches, the efficiency of football matches +would be immensely improved—but what then?... I seemed to behold on +this field the American passion for "getting results"—which I admire +very much; but it occurred to me that that passion, with its eyes fixed +hungrily on the result it wants, may sometimes fail to see that it is +getting a number of other results which it emphatically doesn't want.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p134" id="p134"></a> +<img src="images/p134.jpg" +alt="THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD" +title="THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Another example of excessive organization presented itself to me in the +almost military arrangements for shrieking the official yells. I was +sorry for the young men whose duty it was, by the aid of megaphones and +of grotesque and undignified contortions, to encourage and even force +the spectators to emit in unison the complex noises which constitute the +yell. I have no doubt that my pity was misdirected, for these young men +were obviously content with themselves; still, I felt sorry for them. +Assuming for an instant that the official yell is not monstrously absurd +and surpassingly ugly, admitting that it is a beautiful series of +sounds, enheartening, noble, an utterance worthy of a great and ancient +university at a crisis, even then one is bound to remember that its +essential quality should be its spontaneity. Enthusiasm cannot be +created at the word of command, nor can heroes be inspired by cheers +artificially produced under megaphonic intimidation. Indeed, no moral +phenomenon could be less hopeful to heroes than a perfunctory response +to a military order for enthusiasm. Perfunctory responses were frequent. +Partly, no doubt, because the imperious young men with megaphones would +not leave us alone. Just when we were nicely absorbed in the caprices of +the ball they would call us off and compel us to execute their +preposterous chorus; and we—the spectators—did not always like it.</p> + +<p>And the difficulty of following the game was already acute enough! +Whenever the play quickened in interest we stood up. In fact, we were +standing up and sitting down throughout the afternoon. And as we all +stood up and we all sat down together, nobody gained any advantage from +these muscular exercises. We saw no better, and we saw no worse. Toward +the end we stood on the seats, with the same result. We behaved in +exactly the child-like manner of an Italian audience at a fashionable +concert. And to crown all, an aviator had the ineffably bad taste and +the culpable foolhardiness to circle round and round within a few dozen +yards of our heads.</p> + +<p>In spite of all this, the sum of one's sensations amounted to lively +pleasure. The pleasure would have been livelier if university football +were a better game than in candid truth it is. At this juncture I seem +to hear a million voices of students and ex-students roaring out at me +with menaces that the game is perfect and the greatest of all games. A +national game always was and is perfect. This particular game was +perfect years ago. Nevertheless, I learned that it had recently been +improved, in deference to criticisms. Therefore, it is now pluperfect. I +was told on the field—and sharply—that experience of it was needed for +the proper appreciation of its finesse. Admitted! But just as devotees +of a favorite author will put sublime significances into his least +phrase, so will devotees of a game put marvels of finesse into its +clumsiest features. The process is psychological. I was new to this +particular game, but I had been following various footballs with my feet +or with my eyes for some thirty years, and I was not to be bullied out +of my opinion that the American university game, though goodish, lacked +certain virtues. Its characteristics tend ever to a too close formation, +and inevitably favor tedium and monotony. In some aspects an unemotional +critic might occasionally be tempted to call it naïve and barbaric. But +I was not unemotional. I recognize, and in my own person I proved, that +as a vehicle for emotion the American university game will serve. What +else is such a game for? In the match I witnessed there were some really +great moments, and one or two masterly exhibitions of skill and force. +And as "my" side won, against all odds, I departed in a state of +felicity.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>If the great cities of the East and Middle West are not strikingly +sportive, perhaps the reason is that they are impassioned theater-goers; +they could not well be both, at any rate without neglecting the +financial pursuits which are their chief real amusement and hobby. I +mention the theaters in connection with sports, rather than in +connection with the arts, because the American drama is more closely +related to sporting diversions than to dramatic art. If this seems a +hard saying, I will add that I am ready to apply it with similar force +to the English and French drama, and, indeed, to almost all modern drama +outside Germany. It was astonishing to me that America, unhampered by +English traditions, should take seriously, for instance, the fashionable +and utterly meretricious French dramatists, who receive nothing but a +chilly ridicule from people of genuine discrimination in Paris. Whatever +American dramatists have to learn, they will not learn it in Paris; and +I was charmed once to hear a popular New York playwright, one who +sincerely and frankly wrote for money alone, assert boldly that the +notoriously successful French plays were bad, and clumsily bad. It was a +proof of taste. As a rule, one finds the popular playwright taking off +his hat to contemporaries who at best are no better than his equals.</p> + +<p>A few minor cases apart, the drama is artistically negligible throughout +the world; but if there is a large hope for it in any special country, +that country is the United States. The extraordinary prevalence of big +theaters, the quickly increasing number of native dramatists, the +enormous profits of the successful ones—it is simply inconceivable in +the face of the phenomena, and of the educational process so rapidly +going on, that serious and first-class creative artists shall not arise +in America. Nothing is more likely to foster the production of +first-class artists than the existence of a vast machinery for winning +money and glory. When I reflect that there are nearly twice as many +first-class theaters in New York as in London, and that a very +successful play in New York plays to eighteen thousand dollars a week, +while in London ten thousand dollars a week is enormous, and that the +American public has a preference for its own dramatists, I have little +fear for the artistic importance of the drama of the future in America. +And from the discrepancy between my own observations and the +observations of a reliable European critic in New York only five years +ago, I should imagine that appreciable progress had already been made, +though I will not pretend that I was much impressed by the achievements +up to date, either of playwrights, actors, or audiences. A huge popular +institution, however, such as the American theatrical system, is always +interesting to the amateur of human nature.</p> + +<p>The first thing noted by the curious stranger in American theaters is +that American theatrical architects have made a great discovery—namely, +that every member of the audience goes to the play with a desire to be +able to see and hear what passes on the stage. This happy American +discovery has not yet announced itself in Europe, where in almost every +theater seats are impudently sold, and idiotically bought, from which it +is impossible to see and hear what passes on the stage. (A remarkable +continent, Europe!) Apart from this most important point, American +theaters are not, either without or within, very attractive. The +auditoriums, to a European, have a somewhat dingy air. Which air is no +doubt partly due to the non-existence of a rule in favor of evening +dress (never again shall I gird against the rule in Europe!), but it is +due also to the oddly inefficient illumination during the entr'actes, +and to the unsatisfactory schemes of decoration.</p> + +<p>The interior of a theater ought to be magnificent, suggesting pleasure, +luxury, and richness; it ought to create an illusion of rather riotous +grandeur. The rare architects who have understood this seem to have lost +their heads about it, with such wild and capricious results as the new +opera-house in Philadelphia. I could not restrain my surprise that the +inhabitants of the Quaker City had not arisen with pickaxes and razed +this architectural extravaganza to the ground. But Philadelphia is a +city startlingly unlike its European reputation. Throughout my too-brief +sojourn in it I did not cease to marvel at its liveliness. I heard more +picturesque and pyrotechnic wit at one luncheon in Philadelphia than at +any two repasts outside it. The spacious gaiety and lavishness of its +marts enchanted me. It must have a pretty weakness for the most costly +old books and manuscripts. I never was nearer breaking the Sixth +Commandment than in one of its homes, where the Countess of Pembroke's +own copy of Sir Philip Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i>—a unique and utterly +un-Quakerish treasure—was laid trustfully in my hands by the regretted +and charming Harry Widener.</p> + +<p>To return. The Metropolitan Opera-House in New York is a much more +satisfactory example of a theatrical interior. Indeed, it is very fine, +especially when strung from end to end of its first tier with pearls, as +I saw it. Impossible to find fault with its mundane splendor. And let me +urge that impeccable mundane splendor, despite facile arguments to the +contrary, is a very real and worthy achievement. It is regrettable, by +the way, that the entrances and foyers to these grandiose interiors +should be so paltry, slatternly, and inadequate. If the entrances to the +great financial establishments reminded me of opera-houses, the +entrances to opera-houses did not!</p> + +<p>Artistically, of course, the spectacle of a grand-opera season in an +American city is just as humiliating as it is in the other Anglo-Saxon +country. It was disconcerting to see Latin or German opera given +exactly—with no difference at all; same Latin or German artists and +conductors, same conventions, same tricks—in New York or Philadelphia +as in Europe. And though the wealthy audiences behaved better than +wealthy audiences at Covent Garden (perhaps because the boxes are less +like inclosed pews than in London), it was mortifying to detect the +secret disdain for art which was expressed in the listless late +arrivings and the relieved early departures. The which disdain for art +was, however, I am content to think, as naught in comparison with the +withering artistic disdain felt, and sometimes revealed, by those Latin +and German artists for Anglo-Saxon Philistinism. I seem to be able to +read the sarcastic souls of these accomplished and sensitive aliens, +when they assure newspaper reporters that New York, Chicago, Boston, +Philadelphia, and London are really musical. The sole test of a musical +public is that it should be capable of self-support—I mean that it +should produce a school of creative and executive artists of its own, +whom it likes well enough to idolize and to enrich, and whom the rest of +the world will respect. This is a test which can be safely applied to +Germany, Russia, Italy, and France. And in certain other arts it is a +test which can be applied to Anglo-Saxondom—but not in music. In +America and England music is still mainly a sportive habit.</p> + +<p>When I think of the exoticism of grand opera in New York, my mind at +once turns, in contrast, to the natural raciness of such modest +creations as those offered by Mr. George Cohan at his theater on +Broadway. Here, in an extreme degree, you get a genuine instance of a +public demand producing the desired artist on the spot. Here is +something really and honestly and respectably American. And why it +should be derided by even the most lofty pillars of American taste, I +cannot imagine. (Or rather, I can imagine quite well.) For myself, I +spent a very agreeable evening in witnessing "The Little Millionaire." I +was perfectly conscious of the blatancy of the methods that achieved it. +I saw in it no mark of genius. But I did see in it a very various talent +and an all-round efficiency; and, beneath the blatancy, an admirable +direct simplicity and winning unpretentiousness. I liked the ingenuity +of the device by which, in the words of the programme, the action of Act +II was "not interrupted by musical numbers." The dramatic construction +of this act was so consistently clever and right and effective that more +ambitious dramatists might study it with advantage. Another +point—though the piece was artistically vulgar, it was not vulgar +otherwise. It contained no slightest trace of the outrageous salacity +and sottishness which disfigure the great majority of successful musical +comedies. It was an honest entertainment. But to me its chief value and +interest lay in the fact that while watching it I felt that I was really +in New York, and not in Vienna, Paris, or London.</p> + +<p>Of the regular theater I did not see nearly enough to be able to +generalize even for my own private satisfaction. I observed, and +expected to observe, that the most reactionary quarters were the most +respected. It is the same everywhere. When a manager, having discovered +that two real clocks in one real room never strike simultaneously, put +two real clocks on the stage, and made one strike after the other; or +when a manager mimicked, with extraordinary effects of restlessness, a +life-sized telephone-exchange on the stage—then was I bound to hear of +"artistic realism" and "a fine production"! But such feats of +truthfulness do not consort well with chocolate sentimentalities and +wilful falsities of action and dialogue. They caused me to doubt whether +I was not in London.</p> + +<p>The problem-plays which I saw were just as futile and exasperating as +the commercial English and French varieties of the problem-play, though +they had a trifling advantage over the English in that their most +sentimental passages were lightened by humor, and the odiously insincere +felicity of their conclusions was left to the imagination instead of +being acted ruthlessly out on the boards. The themes of these plays +showed the usual obsession, and were manipulated in the usual attempt to +demonstrate that the way of transgressors is not so very hard after all. +They threw, all unconsciously, strange side-lights on the American man's +private estimate of the American woman, and the incidence of the +applause was extremely instructive.</p> + +<p>The most satisfactory play that I saw, "Bought and Paid For," by George +Broadhurst, was not a problem-play, though Mr. Broadhurst is also a +purveyor of problem-plays. It was just an unpretentious fairy-tale about +the customary millionaire and the customary poor girl. The first act +was maladroit, but the others made me think that "Bought and Paid For" +was one of the best popular commercial Anglo-Saxon plays I had ever seen +anywhere. There were touches of authentic realism at the very crisis at +which experience had taught one to expect a crass sentimentality. The +fairy-tale was well told, with some excellent characterization, and very +well played. Indeed, Mr. Frank Craven's rendering of the incompetent +clerk was a masterly and unforgettable piece of comedy. I enjoyed +"Bought and Paid For," and it is on the faith of such plays, imperfect +and timid as they are, that I establish my prophecy of a more glorious +hereafter for the American drama.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII" />VII</h2> + +<h2>EDUCATION AND ART</h2> + + +<p>I had my first glimpses of education in America from the purser of an +illustrious liner, who affirmed the existence of a dog—in fact, his own +dog—so highly educated that he habitually followed and understood human +conversations, and that in order to keep secrets from the animal it was +necessary to spell out the keyword of a sentence instead of pronouncing +it. After this I seemed somehow to be prepared for the American infant +who, when her parents discomfited her just curiosity by the same mean +adult dodge of spelling words, walked angrily out of the room with the +protest: "There's too blank much education in this house for me!" +Nevertheless, she proudly and bravely set herself to learn to spell; +whereupon her parents descended to even worse depths of baseness, and in +her presence would actually whisper in each other's ear. She merely +inquired, with grimness: "What's the good of being educated, anyway? +First you spell words, and when I can spell then you go and whisper!" +And received no adequate answer, naturally.</p> + +<p>This captivating creature, whose society I enjoyed at frequent intervals +throughout my stay in America, was a mirror in which I saw the whole +American race of children—their independence, their self-confidence, +their adorable charm, and their neat sauciness. "What <i>is</i> father?" she +asked one day. Now her father happened to be one of the foremost +humorists in the United States; she was baldly informed that he was a +humorist. "What <i>is</i> a humorist?" she went on, ruthlessly, and learned +that a humorist was a person who wrote funny things to make people +laugh. "Well," she said, "I don't honestly think he's very funny at +home." It was naught to her that humorists are not paid to be funny at +home, and that in truth they never under any circumstances are very +funny at home. She just hurled her father from his niche—and then went +forth and boasted of him as a unique peculiarity in fathers, as an +unrivaled ornament of her career on earth; for no other child in the +vicinity had a professional humorist for parent. Her gestures and accent +typified for me the general attitude of youngest America, in process of +education, toward the older generation: an astonishing, amusing, +exquisite, incomprehensible mixture of affection, admiration, trust, and +rather casual tolerating scorn. The children of most countries display a +similar phenomenon, but in America the phenomenon is more acute and +disconcerting than elsewhere.</p> + +<p>One noon, in perfect autumn weather, I was walking down the main road of +a residential suburb, and observing the fragile-wheeled station-wagons, +and the ice-wagons enormously labeled "DANGER" (perhaps by the gastric +experts of the medical faculty), and the Colonial-style dwellings, and +the "tinder" boarding-houses, and the towering boot-shine stands, and +the roast-chestnut emporia, and the gasometers flanking a noble and +beautiful river—I was observing all this when a number of young men and +maids came out of a high-school and unconsciously assumed possession of +the street. It was a great and impressive sight; it was a delightful +sight. They were so sure of themselves, the maids particularly; so +interested in themselves, so happy, so eager, so convinced (without any +conceit) that their importance transcended all other importances, so +gently pitiful toward men and women of forty-five, and so positive that +the main function of elders was to pay school-fees, that I was thrilled +thereby. Seldom has a human spectacle given me such exciting pleasure as +this gave. (And they never suspected it, those preoccupied demigods!) It +was the sheer pride of life that I saw passing down the street and +across the badly laid tram-lines! I had never seen anything like it. I +immediately desired to visit schools. Profoundly ignorant of educational +methods, and with a strong distaste for teaching, I yet wanted to know +and understand all about education in America in one moment—the +education that produced that superb stride and carriage in the street! I +failed, of course, in my desire—not from lack of facilities offered, +but partly from lack of knowledge to estimate critically what I saw, and +from lack of time. My experiences, however, though they left my mind +full of enigmas, were wondrous. I asked to inspect one of the best +schools in New York. Had I been a dispassionate sociological student, I +should probably have asked to inspect one of the worst schools in New +York—perhaps one of the gaunt institutions to be found, together with a +cinema-palace and a bank, in almost every block on the East Side. But I +asked for one of the best, and I was shown the Horace Mann School.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Horace Mann School proved to be a palace where a thousand children +and their teachers lived with extreme vivacity in an atmosphere of ozone +from which all draughts and chilliness had been eliminated. As a +malcontent native of the Isle of Chilly Draughts, this attribute of the +atmosphere of the Horace Mann School impressed me. Dimensionally I found +that the palace had a beginning but no end. I walked through leagues of +corridors and peeped into unnumbered class-rooms, in each of which +children were apparently fiercely dragging knowledge out of nevertheless +highly communicative teachers; and the children got bigger and bigger, +and then diminished for a while, and then grew again, and kept on +growing, until I at last entered a palatial kitchen where some two dozen +angels, robed in white but for the moment uncrowned, were eagerly +crowding round a paradisiacal saucepan whose magic contents formed the +subject of a lecture by one of them. Now these angels were not cherubs; +they were full grown; they never would be any taller than they were; and +I asked up to what age angels were kept at school in America. Whereupon +I learned that I had insensibly passed from the school proper into a +training-school for teachers; but at what point the school proper ended +I never did learn. It seems to me that if I had penetrated through seven +more doors I should have reached Columbia University itself, without +having crossed a definite dividing-line; and, anyhow, the circumstance +was symbolic.</p> + +<p>Reluctantly I left the incredible acres of technical apparatus +munificently provided in America for the training of teachers, and, +having risen to the roof and seen infants thereon grabbing at +instruction in the New York breeze, I came again to the more normal +regions of the school. Here, as everywhere else in the United States +(save perhaps the cloak-room department of the Metropolitan +Opera-House), what chiefly struck me was the brilliant organization of +the organism. There was nothing that had not been thought of. A +handsomely dressed mother came into the organism and got as far as the +antechamber of the principal's room. The organization had foreseen her, +had divined that that mother's child was the most important among a +thousand children—indeed, the sole child of any real importance—had +arranged that her progress should be arrested at just that stage, and +had stationed a calm and diplomatic woman to convince her that her child +was indeed the main preoccupation of the Horace Mann School. A pretty +sight—the interview! It charmed me as the sight of an ingenious engine +in motion will charm an engineer.</p> + +<p>The individual class-rooms, in some of which I lingered at leisure, were +tonic, bracing, inspiring, and made me ashamed because I was not young. +I saw geography being taught with the aid of a stereoscopic +magic-lantern. After a view of the high street of a village in North +Russia had been exposed and explained by a pupil, the teacher said: "If +anybody has any questions to ask, let him stand up." And the whole class +leaped furiously to its feet, blotting out the entire picture with black +shadows of craniums and starched pinafores. The whole class might have +been famishing. In another room I saw the teaching of English +composition. Although when I went to school English composition was +never taught, I have gradually acquired a certain interest in the +subject, and I feel justified in asserting that the lesson was admirably +given. It was, in fact, the best example of actual pedagogy that I met +with in the United States. "Now can any one tell me—" began the +mistress. A dozen arms of boys and girls shot up with excessive +violence, and, having shot up, they wiggled and waggled with ferocious +impatience in the air; it was a miracle that they remained attached to +their respective trunks; it was assuredly an act of daring on the part +of the intrepid mistress to choose between them.</p> + +<p>"How children have changed since my time!" I said to the principal +afterward. "We never used to fling up our hands like that. We just put +them up.... But perhaps it's because they're Americans—"</p> + +<p>"It's probably because of the ventilation," said the principal, calmly +corrective. "We never have the windows open winter or summer, but the +ventilation is perfect."</p> + +<p>I perceived that it indeed must be because of the ventilation.</p> + +<p>More and more startled, as I went along, by the princely lavishness of +every arrangement, I ventured to surmise that it must all cost a great +deal.</p> + +<p>"The fees are two hundred and eighty-five dollars in the Upper School."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I expected they would be high," I said.</p> + +<p>"Not at all. They are the lowest in New York. Smart private schools +will charge five or six hundred dollars a year."</p> + +<p>Exhausted, humbled, I at last quitted the warmed Horace Mann ozone for +the harsh and searching atmosphere of the street. And I gazed up at the +pile, and saw all its interiors again in my mind. I had not grasped the +half nor the quarter of what had been so willingly and modestly shown to +me. I had formed no theory as to the value of some of the best juvenile +education in the Eastern States. But I had learned one thing. I knew the +secret of the fine, proud bearing of young America. A child is not a +fool; a child is almost always uncannily shrewd. And when it sees a +splendid palace provided for it, when it sees money being showered upon +hygienic devices for its comfort, even upon trifles for its distraction, +when it sees brains all bent on discovering the best, nicest ways of +dealing with its instincts, when it sees itself the center of a +magnificent pageant, ritual, devotion, almost worship, it naturally +lifts its chin, puts its shoulders back, steps out with a spring, and +glances down confidently upon the whole world. Who wouldn't?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was an exciting day for me when I paid a call next door to Horace +Mann and visited Columbia University. For this was my first visit of +inspection to any university of any kind, either in the New World or in +the Old. As for an English university education, destiny had deprived me +of its advantages and of its perils. I could not haughtily compare +Columbia with Oxford or Cambridge, because I had never set foot even in +their towns. I had no standards whatever of comparison.</p> + +<p>I arose and went out to lunch on that morning, and left the lunch before +anybody else and rushed in an automobile to Columbia; but football had +already begun for the day in the campus costing two million dollars, and +classes were over. I saw five or more universities while I was in +America, but I was not clever enough to catch one of them in the act of +instruction. What I did see was the formidable and magnificent machine, +the apparatus of learning, supine in repose.</p> + +<p>And if the spectacle was no more than a promise, it was a very dazzling +promise. No European with any imagination could regard Columbia as other +than a miracle. Nearly the whole of the gigantic affair appeared to have +been brought into being, physically, in less than twenty years. Building +after building, device after device, was dated subsequent to 1893. And +to my mind that was just the point of the gigantic affair. Universities +in Europe are so old. And there are universities in America which are +venerable. A graduate of the most venerable of them told me that +Columbia was not "really" a university. Well, it did seem unreal, though +not in his sense; it seemed magic. The graduate in question told me that +a university could not be created by a stroke of the wand. And yet there +staring me in the face was the evidence that a university not merely +could be created by a stroke of the wand, but had been. (I am aware of +Columbia's theoretic age and of her insistence on it.) The wand is a +modern invention; to deny its effective creative faculty is absurd.</p> + +<p>Of course I know what the graduate meant. I myself, though I had not +seen Oxford nor Cambridge, was in truth comparing Columbia with my dream +of Oxford and Cambridge, to her disadvantage. I was capable of saying to +myself: "All this is terribly new. All this lacks tradition." Criticism +fatuous and mischievous, if human! It would be as sapient to imprison +the entire youth of a country until it had ceased to commit the offense +of being young. Tradition was assuredly not apparent in the atmosphere +of Columbia. Moreover, some of her architecture was ugly. On the other +hand, some of it was beautiful to the point of nobility. The library, +for instance: a building in which no university and no age could feel +anything but pride. And far more important than stone or marble was the +passionate affection for Columbia which I observed in certain of her +sons who had nevertheless known other universities. A passionate +affection also perhaps brought into being since 1893, but not to be +surpassed in honest fervency and loyalty by influences more venerable!</p> + +<p>Columbia was full of piquancies for me. It delighted me that the Dean of +Science was also consulting engineer to the university. That was +characteristic and fine. And how splendidly unlike Oxford! I liked the +complete life-sized railroad locomotive in the engineering-shops, and +the Greek custom in the baths; and the students' notion of coziness in +the private dens full of shelves, photographs, and disguised beds; and +the visibility of the president; and his pronounced views as to the +respective merits of New York newspapers; and the eagerness of a young +professor of literature in the Faculty Club to defend against my +attacks English Professor A.C. Bradley. I do believe that I even liked +the singular sight of a Chinaman tabulating from the world's press, in +the modern-history laboratory, a history of the world day by day. I can +hardly conceive a wilder, more fearfully difficult way of trying to +acquire the historical sense than this voyaging through hot, fresh +newspapers, nor one more probably destined to failure (I should have +liked to see some of the two-monthly résumés which students in this +course are obliged to write); but I liked the enterprise and the +originality and the daring of the idea; I liked its disdain of +tradition. And, after all, is it weirder than the common traditional +method?</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p156" id="p156"></a> +<img src="images/p156.jpg" +alt="UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS—UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA" +title="UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS—UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS—UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>To the casual visitor, such as myself, unused either to universities or +to the vastness of the American scale, Columbia could be little save an +enormous and overwhelming incoherence. It so chiefly remains in my mind. +But the ingenious humanity running through the whole conception of it +was touching and memorable. And although I came away from my visit still +perfectly innocent of any broad theory as to ultimate educational values +in America, I came away also with a deeper and more reassuring +conviction that America was intensely interested in education, and that +all that America had to do in order to arrive at real national, racial +results was to keep on being intensely interested. When America shall +have so far outclassed Europe as to be able to abolish, in university +examinations, what New York picturesquely calls "the gumshoe squad" (of +course now much more brilliantly organized in America than in +Europe), then we shall begin to think that, under the stroke of the +wand, at least one real national, racial result has been attained!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When I set eyes on the sixty buildings which constitute the visible part +of Harvard University, I perceived that, just as Kensington had without +knowing it been imitating certain streets of Boston, so certain lost +little old English towns that even American tourists have not yet +reached had without knowing it been imitating the courts and chimneys +and windows and doorways and luscious brickwork of Harvard. Harvard had +a very mellow look indeed. No trace of the wand! The European in search +of tradition would find it here in bulk. I should doubt whether at +Harvard modern history is studied through the daily paper—unless +perchance it be in Harvard's own daily paper. The considerableness of +Harvard was attested for me by the multiplicity of its press organs. I +dare say that Harvard is the only university in the world the offices of +whose comic paper are housed in a separate and important building. If +there had been a special press-building for Harvard's press, I should +have been startled. But when I beheld the mere comic organ in a spacious +and costly detached home that some London dailies would envy, I was +struck dumb. That sole fact indicated the scale of magnificence at +Harvard, and proved that the phenomenon of gold-depreciation has +proceeded further at Harvard than at any other public institution in the +world.</p> + +<p>The etiquette of Harvard is nicely calculated to heighten the material +splendor of the place. Thus it is etiquette for the president, during +his term of office, to make a present of a building or so to the +university. Now buildings at Harvard have adopted the excellent habit of +never costing less than about half a million dollars. It is also +etiquette that the gifts to the university from old students shall touch +a certain annual sum; they touch it. Withal, there is no architectural +ostentation at Harvard. All the buildings are artistically modest; many +are beautiful; scarcely one that clashes with the sober and subtle +attractiveness of the whole aggregation. Nowhere is the eye offended. +One looks upon the crimson façades with the same lenient love as marks +one's attitude toward those quaint and lovely English houses (so +familiar to American visitors to our isle) that are all picturesqueness +and no bath-room. That is the external effect. Assuredly entering some +of those storied doorways, one would anticipate inconveniences and what +is called "Old World charm" within.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And as I came out of the final portal I happened to meet a student +actually carrying his own portmanteau—and rather tugging at it. I +regretted this chance. The spectacle clashed, and ought to have been +contrary to etiquette. That student should in propriety have been +followed by a Nigerian, Liberian, or Senegambian, carrying his +portmanteau.</p> + +<p>My visits to other universities were about as brief, stirring, +suggestive, and incomplete as those to Columbia and Harvard. I repeat +that I never actually saw the educational machine in motion. What it +seemed to me that I saw in each case was a tremendous mechanical +apparatus at rest, a rich, empty frame, an organism waiting for the word +that would break its trance. The fault was, of course, wholly mine. I +find upon reflection that the universities which I recall with the most +sympathy are those in which I had the largest opportunity of listening +to the informal talk of the faculty and its wife. I heard some mighty +talking upon occasion—and in particular I sat willing at the feet of a +president who could mingle limericks and other drollery, the humanities, +science, modern linguistics, and economics in a manner which must surely +make him historic.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Education, like most things except high-class cookery, must be judged by +ultimate results; and though it may not be possible to pass any verdict +on current educational methods (especially when you do not happen to +have even seen them in action), one can to a certain extent assess the +values of past education by reference to the demeanor of adults who have +been through it. One of the chief aims of education should be to +stimulate the great virtue of curiosity. The worst detractors of the +American race—and there are some severe ones in New York, London, and +Paris!—will not be able to deny that an unusually active curiosity is a +marked characteristic of the race. Only they twist that very +characteristic into an excuse for still further detraction. They will, +for example, point to the "hordes" (a word which they regard as +indispensable in this connection) of American tourists who insist on +seeing everything of historic or artistic interest that is visible in +Europe. The plausible argument is that the mass of such tourists are +inferior in intellect and taste to the general level of Europeans who +display curiosity about history or art. Which is probably true. But it +ought to be remembered by us Europeans (and in sackcloth!) that the mass +of us with money to spend on pleasure are utterly indifferent to history +and art. The European dilettante goes to the Uffizi and sees a +shopkeeper from Milwaukee gazing ignorantly at a masterpiece, and says: +"How inferior this shopkeeper from Milwaukee is to me! The American is +an inartistic race!" But what about the shopkeeper from Huddersfield or +Amiens? The shopkeeper from Huddersfield or Amiens will be flirting +about on some entirely banal beach—Scarborough or Trouville—and for +all he knows or cares Leonardo da Vinci might have been a cabman; and +yet the loveliest things in the world are, relatively speaking, at his +door! When the European shopkeeper gets as far as Lucerne in August, he +thinks that a journey of twenty-four hours entitles him to rank a little +lower than Columbus. It was an enormous feat for him to reach Lucerne, +and he must have credit for it, though his interest in art is in no wise +thereby demonstrated. One has to admit that he now goes to Lucerne in +hordes. Praise be to him! But I imagine that the American horde +"hustling for culture" in no matter what historic center will compare +pretty favorably with the European horde in such spots as Lucerne.</p> + +<p>All general curiosity is, to my mind, righteousness, and I so count it +to the American. Not that I think that American curiosity is always the +highest form of curiosity, or that it is not limited. With its apparent +omnivorousness it is often superficial and too easily +satisfied—particularly by mere words. Very seldom is it profound. It is +apt to browse agreeably on externals. The American, like Anglo-Saxons +generally, rarely shows a passionate and yet honest curiosity about +himself or his country, which is curiosity at its finest. He will divide +things into pleasant and unpleasant, and his curiosity is trained to +stop at the frontier of the latter—an Anglo-Saxon device for being +comfortable in your mind! He likes to know what others think of him and +his country, but he is not very keen on knowing what he really thinks on +these subjects himself. The highest form of curiosity is apt to be +painful sometimes. (And yet who that has practised it would give it up?) +It also demands intellectual honesty—a quality which has been denied by +Heaven to all Anglo-Saxon races, but which nevertheless a proper +education ought in the end to achieve. Were I asked whether I saw in +America any improvement upon Britain in the supreme matter of +intellectual honesty, I should reply, No. I seemed to see in America +precisely the same tendency as in Britain to pretend, for the sake of +instant comfort, that things are not what they are, the same timid but +determined dislike of the whole truth, the same capacity to be shocked +by notorious and universal phenomena, the same delusion that a refusal +to look at these phenomena is equivalent to the destruction of these +phenomena, the same flaccid sentimentality which vitiates practically +all Anglo-Saxon art. And I have stood in the streets of New York, as I +have stood in the streets of London, and longed with an intense +nostalgia for one hour of Paris, where, amid a deplorable decadence, +intellectual honesty is widely discoverable, and where absolutely +straight thinking and talking is not mistaken for cynicism.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Another test of education is the feeling for art, and the creation of an +environment which encourages the increase of artistic talent. (And be it +noted in passing that the intellectually honest races, the Latin, have +been the most artistic, for the mere reason that intellectual dishonesty +is just sentimentality, and sentimentality is the destroying poison of +art.) Now the most exacerbating experience that fell to me in +America—and it fell more than once—was to hear in discreetly lighted +and luxurious drawing-rooms, amid various mural proofs of trained taste, +and usually from the lips of an elegantly Europeanized American woman +with a sad, agreeable smile: "There is no art in the United States.... I +feel like an exile." A number of these exiles, each believing himself or +herself to be a solitary lamp in the awful darkness, are dotted up and +down the great cities, and it is a curious fact that they bitterly +despise one another. In so doing they are not very wrong. For, in the +first place, these people, like nearly all dilettanti of art, are +extremely unreliable judges of racial characteristics. Their mentality +is allied to that of the praisers of time past, who, having read <i>Tom +Jones</i> and <i>Clarissa</i>, are incapable of comprehending that the immense +majority of novels produced in the eighteenth century were nevertheless +terrible rubbish. They go to a foreign land, deliberately confine their +attention to the artistic manifestations of that country, and then +exclaim in ecstasy: "What an artistic country this is! How different +from my own!" To the same class belong certain artistic visitors to the +United States who, having in their own country deliberately cut +themselves off from intercourse with ordinary inartistic persons, visit +America, and, meeting there the average man and woman in bulk, frown +superiorly and exclaim: "This Philistine race thinks of nothing but +dollars!" They cannot see the yet quite evident truth that the rank and +file of every land is about equally inartistic. Modern Italy may in the +mass be more lyrical than America, but in either architecture or +painting Italy is simply not to be named with America.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p164" id="p164"></a> +<img src="images/p164.jpg" +alt="MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS—UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO" +title="MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS—UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS—UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Further, and in the second place, these people never did and never will +look in the right quarters for vital art. A really original artist +struggling under their very noses has small chance of being recognized +by them, the reason being that they are imitative, with no real opinion +of their own. They associate art with Florentine frames, matinée hats, +distant museums, and clever talk full of allusions to the dead. It would +not occur to them to search for American art in the architecture of +railway stations and the draftsmanship and sketch-writing of +newspapers and magazines, because they have not the wit to learn that +genuine art flourishes best in the atmosphere of genuine popular demand.</p> + +<p>Even so, with all their blindness, it is unnatural that they should not +see and take pride in the spectacular historical facts which prove their +country to be less negligible in art than they would assert. I do not +mean the existence in America of huge and glorious collections of +European masters. I have visited some of these collections, and have +taken keen pleasure therein. But I perceive in them no national +significance—no more national significance than I perceive in the +endowment of splendid orchestras to play foreign music under foreign +conductors, or in the fashionable crowding of classical concerts. +Indeed, it was a somewhat melancholy experience to spend hours in a +private palace crammed with artistic loveliness that was apparently +beloved and understood, and to hear not one single word disclosing the +slightest interest in modern American art. No, as a working artist +myself, I was more impressed and reassured by such a sight as the Innes +room at the colossal Art Institute of Chicago than by all the +collections of old masters in America, though I do not regard Innes as a +very distinguished artist. The aforesaid dilettanti would naturally +condescend to the Innes room at Chicago's institute, as to the +long-sustained, difficult effort which is being made by a school of +Chicago sculptors for the monumental ornamentation of Chicago. But the +dilettanti have accomplished a wonderful feat of unnaturalness in +forgetting that their poor, inartistic Philistine country did provide, +<i>inter alia</i>, the great writer who has influenced French imaginative +writers more deeply than any other foreign writer since Byron—Edgar +Allan Poe; did produce one of the world's supreme poets—Whitman; did +produce the greatest pure humorist of modern times; did produce the +miraculous Henry James; did produce Stanford White and the incomparable +McKim; and did produce the only two Anglo-Saxon personalities who in +graphic art have been able to impose themselves on modern +Europe—Whistler and John Sargent.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the matter of graphic art, I have known so many American painters in +Paris that I was particularly anxious to see what American painting was +like at home. My first adventures were not satisfactory. I trudged +through enormous exhibitions, and they filled me with just the same +feeling of desolation and misery that I experienced at the Royal +Academy, London, or the Société des Artistes Français, Paris. In miles +of slippery exercise I saw almost nothing that could interest an +intelligent amateur who had passed a notable portion of his life in +studios. The first modern American painting that arrested me was one by +Grover, of Chicago. I remember it with gratitude. Often, especially in +New York, I was called upon by stay-at-home dilettanti to admire the +work of some shy favorite, and with the best will in the world I could +not, on account of his too obvious sentimentality. In Boston I was +authoritatively informed that the finest painting in the whole world was +at that moment being done by a group of Boston artists in Boston. But as +I had no opportunity to see their work, I cannot offer an opinion on +the proud claim. My gloom was becoming permanent, when one wet day I +invaded, not easily, the Macdowell Club, and, while listening to a +chorus rehearsal of Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" made the acquaintance of +really interesting pictures by artists such as Irving R. Wiles, Jonas +Lie, Henri, Mrs. Johansen, and Brimley, of whom previously I had known +nothing. From that moment I progressed. I met the work of James Preston, +and of other men who can truly paint.</p> + +<p>All these, however, with all their piquant merits, were Parisianized. +They could have put up a good show in Paris and emerged from French +criticism with dignity. Whereas there is one American painter who has +achieved a reputation on the tongues of men in Europe without (it is +said) having been influenced by Europe, or even having exhibited there. +I mean Winslow Homer. I had often heard of Winslow Homer from +connoisseurs who had earned my respect, and assuredly one of my reasons +for coming to America was to see Winslow Homer's pictures. My first +introduction to his oil-paintings was a shock. I did not like them, and +I kept on not liking them. I found them theatrical and violent in +conception, rather conventional in design, and repellent in color. I +thought the painter's attitude toward sea and rock and sky decidedly +sentimental beneath its wilful harshness. And I should have left America +with broken hopes of Winslow Homer if an enthusiast for State-patronized +art had not insisted on taking me to the State Museum at Indianapolis. +In this agreeable and interesting museum there happened to be a +temporary loan exhibit of water-colors by Winslow Homer. Which +water-colors were clearly the productions of a master. They forced me to +reconsider my views of Homer's work in general. They were beautiful; +they thrilled; they were genuine American; there is nothing else like +them. I shall never forget the pleasure I felt in unexpectedly +encountering these summary and highly distinguished sketches in the +quietude of Indianapolis. I would have liked to collect a trainful of +New York, Chicago, and Boston dilettanti, and lead them by the ears to +the unpretentious museum at Indianapolis, and force them to regard +fixedly these striking creations. Not that I should expect appreciation +from them! (Indianapolis, I discovered, was able to keep perfectly calm +in front of the Winslow Homer water-colors.) But their observations +would have been diverting.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII" />VIII</h2> + +<h2>CITIZENS</h2> + + +<p>Nothing in New York fascinated me as much as the indications of the vast +and multitudinous straitened middle-class life that is lived there; the +average, respectable, difficult, struggling existence. I would always +regard this medium plane of the social organism with more interest than +the upper and lower planes. And in New York the enormity of it becomes +spectacular. As I passed in Elevated trains across the end of street +after street, and street after street, and saw so many of them just +alike, and saw so many similar faces mysteriously peering in the same +posture between the same curtains through the same windows of the same +great houses; and saw canaries in cages, and enfeebled plants in pots, +and bows of ribbon, and glints of picture-frames; and saw crowd after +dense crowd fighting down on the cobbled roads for the fearful privilege +of entering a surface-car—I had, or seemed to have, a composite vision +of the general life of the city.</p> + +<p>And what sharpened and stimulated the vision more than anything else was +the innumerable flashing glimpses of immense torn clouds of clean linen, +or linen almost clean, fluttering and shaking in withdrawn courtyards +between rows and rows of humanized windows. This domestic detail, +repugnant possibly to some, was particularly impressive to me; it was +the visible index of what life really is on a costly rock ruled in all +material essentials by trusts, corporations, and the grand principle of +tipping.</p> + +<p>I would have liked to live this life, for a space, in any one of half a +million restricted flats, with not quite enough space, not quite enough +air, not quite enough dollars, and a vast deal too much continual strain +on the nerves. I would have liked to come to close quarters with it, and +get its subtle and sinister toxin incurably into my system. Could I have +done so, could I have participated in the least of the uncountable daily +dramas of which the externals are exposed to the gaze of any starer in +an Elevated, I should have known what New York truly meant to +New-Yorkers, and what was the real immediate effect of average education +reacting on average character in average circumstances; and the +knowledge would have been precious and exciting beyond all knowledge of +the staggering "wonders" of the capital. But, of course, I could not +approach so close to reality; the visiting stranger seldom can; he must +be content with his imaginative visions.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p172" id="p172"></a> +<img src="images/p172.jpg" +alt="PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN" +title="PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>Now and then I had the good-fortune to come across illuminating stories +of New York dailiness, tales of no important event, but which lit up for +me the whole expanse of existence in the hinterlands of the Elevated. +As, for instance, the following. The tiny young wife of the ambitious +and feverish young man is coming home in the winter afternoon. She is +forced to take the street-car, and in order to take it she is forced to +fight. To fight, physically, is part of the daily round of the +average fragile, pale, indomitable New York woman. In the swaying crowd +she turns her head several times, and in tones of ever-increasing +politeness requests a huge male animal behind her to refrain from +pushing. He does not refrain. Being skilled, as a mariner is skilled in +beaching himself and a boat on a surfy shore, she does ultimately +achieve the inside of the car, and she sinks down therein apparently +exhausted. The huge male animal follows, and as he passes her, +infuriated by her indestructible politeness, he sticks his head against +her little one and says, threateningly, "What's the matter with you, +anyway?" He could crush her like a butterfly, and, moreover, she is +about ready to faint. But suddenly, in uncontrollable anger, she lifts +that tiny gloved hand and catches the huge male animal a smart smack in +the face. "Can't you be polite?" she hisses. Then she drops back, +blushing, horrified by what she has done. She sees another man throw the +aghast male animal violently out of the car, and then salute her with: +"Madam, I take off my hat to you." And the tired car settles down to +apathy, for, after all, the incident is in its essence part of the +dailiness of New York.</p> + +<p>The young wife gets home, obsessed by the fact that she has struck a man +in the face in a public vehicle. She is still blushing when she relates +the affair in a rush of talk to another young wife in the flat next to +hers. "For Heaven's sake don't tell my husband," she implores. "If he +knew he'd leave me forever!" And the young husband comes home, after his +own personal dose of street-car, preoccupied, fatigued, nervous, hungry, +demanding to be loved. And the young wife has to behave as though she +had been lounging all the afternoon in a tea-gown on a soft sofa. +Curious that, although she is afraid of her husband's wrath, the +temptation to tell him grows stronger! Indeed, is it not a rather fine +thing that she has done, and was not the salute of the admiring male +flattering and sweet? Not many tiny wives would have had the pluck to +slap a brute's face. She tells the young husband. It is an error of tact +on her part. For he, secretly exacerbated, was waiting for just such an +excuse to let himself go. He is angry, he is outraged—as she had said +he would be. What—his wife, <i>his</i>-etc., etc.!</p> + +<p>A night full of everything except sleep; full of Elevated and rumbling +cars, and trumps of autos, and the eternal liveliness of the cobbled +street, and all incomprehensible noises, and stuffiness, and the sense +of other human beings too close above, too close below, and to the left +and to the right, and before and behind, the sense that there are too +many people on earth! What New-Yorker does not know the wakings after +the febrile doze that ends such a night? The nerves like taut strings; +love turned into homicidal hatred; and the radiator damnably tapping, +tapping!... The young husband afoot and shaved and inexpensively +elegant, and he is demanding his fried eggs. The young wife is afoot, +too, manoeuvering against the conspiracies of the janitor, who lives far +below out of sight, but who permeates her small flat like a malignant +influence.... Hear the whistling of the dumb-waiter!... Eggs are +demanded, authoritatively, bitterly. If glances could kill, not only +that flat but the whole house would be strewn with corpses.... Eggs!...</p> + +<p>Something happens, something arrives, something snaps; a spell is broken +and horror is let loose. "Take your eggs!" cries the tiny wife, in a +passion. The eggs fly across the table, and the front of a man's suit is +ruined. She sits down and fairly weeps, appalled at herself. Last +evening she was punishing males; this morning she turns eggs into +missiles, she a loving, an ambitious, an intensely respectable young +wife! As for him, he sits motionless, silent, decorated with the colors +of eggs, a graduate of a famous university. Calamity has brought him +also to his senses. Still weeping, she puts on her hat and jacket. +"Where are you going?" he asks, solemnly, no longer homicidal, no longer +hungry. "I must hurry to the cleaners for your other suit!" says she, +tragic. And she hurries....</p> + +<p>A shocking story, a sordid story, you say. Not a bit! They are young; +they have the incomparable virtue of youthfulness. It is naught, all +that! The point of the story is that it illustrates New York—a New York +more authentic than the spaciousness of upper Fifth Avenue or the +unnatural dailiness of grand hotels. I like it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>You may see that couple later in a suburban house—a real home for the +time being, with a colorable imitation of a garden all about it, and the +"finest suburban railway service in the world": the whole being a frame +and environment for the rearing of children. I have sat at dinner in +such houses, and the talk was of nothing but children; and anybody who +possessed any children, or any reliable knowledge of the ways of +children, was sure of a respectable hearing and warm interest. If one +said, "By the way, I think I may have a photograph of the kid in my +pocket," every eye would reply immediately: "Out with it, man—or +woman!—and don't pretend you don't always carry the photograph with you +on purpose to show it off!" In such a house it is proved that children +are unmatched as an exhaustless subject of conversation. And the +conversation is rendered more thrilling by the sense of partially tamed +children-children fully aware of their supremacy—prowling to and fro +unseen in muddy boots and torn pinafores, and speculating in their +realistic way upon the mysteriousness of adults.</p> + +<p>"We are keen on children here," says the youngish father, frankly. He is +altered now from the man he was when he inhabited a diminutive flat in +the full swirl of New York. His face is calmer, milder, more benevolent, +and more resignedly worried. And assuredly no one would recognize in him +the youth who howled murderously at university football matches and +cried with monstrous ferocity at sight of danger from the opposing +colors: "Kill him! Kill him for me! I can't stand his red stockings +coming up the field!" Yet it is the same man. And this father, too, is +the fruit of university education; and further, one feels that his +passion for his progeny is one of the chief causes of American interest +in education. He and his like are at the root of the modern +university—not the millionaires. In Chicago I was charmed to hear it +stoutly and even challengingly maintained that the root of Chicago +University was not Mr. Rockefeller, but the parents of Chicago.</p> + +<p>Assuming that the couple have no children, there is a good chance of +catching them later, splendidly miserable, in a high-class +apartment-house, where the entire daily adventure of living is taken out +of your hands and done for you, and you pay a heavy price in order to be +deprived of one of the main interests of existence. The apartment-house +ranks in my opinion among the more pernicious influences in American +life. As an institution it is unhappily establishing itself in England, +and in England it is terrible. I doubt if it is less terrible in its +native land. It is anti-social because it works always against the +preservation of the family unit, and because it is unfair to children, +and because it prevents the full flowering of an individuality. (Nobody +can be himself in an apartment-house; if he tried that game he would +instantly be thrown out.) It is immoral because it fosters bribery and +because it is pretentious itself and encourages pretense in its victims. +It is unfavorable to the growth of taste because its decorations and +furniture are and must be ugly; they descend to the artistic standard of +the vulgarest people in it, and have not even the merit of being the +expression of any individuality at all. It is enervating because it +favors the creation of a race that can do absolutely nothing for itself. +It is unhealthy because it is sometimes less clean than it seems, and +because often it forces its victims to eat in a dining-room whose walls +are a distressing panorama of Swiss scenery, and because its cuisine is +and must be at best mediocre, since meals at once sound and showy +cannot be prepared wholesale.</p> + +<p>Some apartment-houses are better than others; many are possibly marvels +of organization and value for money. But none can wholly escape the +indictment. The institution itself, though it may well be a natural and +inevitable by-product of racial evolution, is bad. An experienced +dweller in apartment-houses said to me, of a seeming-magnificent house +which I had visited and sampled: "We pay six hundred dollars for two +poor little rooms and a bath-room, and twenty-five dollars a week for +board, whether we eat or not. The food is very bad. It is all kept hot +for about an hour, on steam, so that every dish tastes of laundry. +Everything is an extra. Telephone—lights—tips—especially tips. I tip +everybody. I even tip the <i>chef</i>. I tip the <i>chef</i> so that, when I am +utterly sick of his fanciness and prefer a mere chop or a steak, he will +choose me an eatable chop or steak. And that's how things go on!"</p> + +<p>My true and candid friend, the experienced dweller in apartment-houses, +was, I have good reason to believe, an honorable man. And it is +therefore a considerable tribute to the malefic influence of +apartment-house life that he had no suspicion of the gross anti-social +immorality of his act in tipping the <i>chef</i>. Clearly it was an act +calculated to undermine the <i>chef's</i> virtue. If all the other +experienced dwellers did the same, it was also a silly act, producing no +good effect at all. But if only a few of them did it, then it was an act +which resulted in the remainder of the victims being deprived of their +full, fair chance of getting eatable chops or steaks. My friend's +proper course was obviously to have kicked up a row, and to have kicked +up a row in a fashion so clever that the management would not put him +into the street. He ought to have organized a committee of protest, he +ought to have convened meetings for the outlet of public opinion, he +ought to have persevered day after day and evening after evening, until +the management had been forced to exclude uneatable chops and steaks +utterly from their palatial premises and to exact the honest performance +of duty from each and all of the staff. In the end it would have dawned +upon the management that inedible food was just as much out of place in +the restaurant as counterfeit bills and coins at the cash-desk. The +proper course would have been difficult and tiresome. The proper course +often is. My friend took the easy, wicked course. That is to say, he +exhibited a complete lack of public spirit.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>An apartment-house is only an apartment-house; whereas the republic is +the republic. And yet I permit myself to think that the one may +conceivably be the mirror of the other. And I do positively think that +American education does not altogether succeed in the very important +business of inculcating public spirit into young citizens. I judge +merely by results. Most peoples fail in the high quality of public +spirit; and the American perhaps not more so than the rest. Perhaps all +I ought to say is that according to my own limited observation public +spirit is not among the shining attributes of the United States citizen. +And even to that statement there will be animated demur. For have not +the citizens of the United States been conspicuous for their public +spirit?...</p> + +<p>It depends on what is meant by public spirit—that is, public spirit in +its finer forms. I know what I do <i>not</i> mean by public spirit. I was +talking once to a member of an important and highly cultivated social +community, and he startled me by remarking:</p> + +<p>"The major vices do not exist in this community at all."</p> + +<p>I was prepared to credit that such Commandments as the Second and Sixth +were not broken in that community. But I really had doubts about some +others, such as the Seventh and Tenth. However, he assured me that such +transgressions were unknown.</p> + +<p>"What do you <i>do</i> here?" I asked.</p> + +<p>He replied: "We live for social service—for each other."</p> + +<p>The spirit characterizing that community would never be described by me +as public spirit. I should fit it with a word which will occur at once +to every reader.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, I cannot admit as proof of public spirit the +prevalent American habit of giving to the public that which is useless +to oneself—no matter how immense the quantity given, and no matter how +admirable the end in view. When you have got the money it is rather easy +to sit down and write a check for five million dollars, and so bring a +vast public institution into being. It is still easier to leave the same +sum by testament. These feats are an affair of five minutes or so; they +cost simply nothing in time or comfort or peace of mind. If they are +illustrations of public spirit, it is a low and facile form of public +spirit.</p> + +<p>True public spirit is equally difficult for the millionaire and for the +clerk. It is, in fact, very tedious work. It implies the quiet daily +determination to get eatable chops and steaks by honest means, chiefly +for oneself, but incidentally for everybody else. It necessitates +trouble and inconvenience. I was in a suburban house one night, and it +was the last night for registering names on an official list of voters +before an election; it was also a rainy night. The master of the house +awaited a carriage, which was to be sent up by a candidate, at the +candidate's expense, to take him to the place of registration. Time grew +short.</p> + +<p>"Shall you walk there if the carriage doesn't come?" I asked, and gazed +firmly at the prospective voter.</p> + +<p>At that moment the carriage came. We drove forth together, and in a +cabin warmed by a stove and full of the steam of mackintoshes I saw an +interesting part of the American Constitution at work—four hatted +gentlemen writing simultaneously the same particulars in four similar +ledgers, while exhorting a fifth to keep the stove alight. An +acquaintance came in who had trudged one mile through the rain. That +acquaintance showed public spirit. In the ideal community a candidate +for election will not send round carriages in order, at the last moment, +to induce citizens to register; in the ideal community citizens will +regard such an attention as in the nature of an insult.</p> + +<p>I was told that millionaires and presidents of trusts were chiefly +responsible for any backwardness of public spirit in the United States. +I had heard and read the same thing about the United States in England. +I was therefore curious to meet these alleged sinister creatures. And +once, at a repast, I encountered quite a bunch of +millionaire-presidents. I had them on my right hand and on my left. No +two were in the least alike. In my simplicity I had expected a +type—formidable, intimidating. One bubbled with jollity; obviously he +"had not a care in the world." Another was grave. I talked with the +latter, but not easily. He was taciturn. Or he may have been feeling his +way. Or he may have been not quite himself. Even millionaire-presidents +must be self-conscious. Just as a notorious author is too often rendered +uneasy by the consciousness of his notoriety, so even a +millionaire-president may sometimes have a difficulty in being quite +natural. However, he did ultimately talk. It became clear to me that he +was an extremely wise and sagacious man. The lines of his mouth were +ruthlessly firm, yet he showed a general sympathy with all classes of +society, and he met my radicalism quite half-way. On woman's suffrage he +was very fair-minded. As to his own work, he said to me that when a New +York paper asked him to go and be cross-examined by its editorial board +he willingly went, because he had nothing to conceal. He convinced me of +his uprightness and of his benevolence. He showed a nice regard for the +claims of the Republic, and a proper appreciation of what true public +spirit is.</p> + +<p>Some time afterward I was talking to a very prominent New York editor, +and the conversation turned to millionaires, whereupon for about half an +hour the editor agreeably recounted circumstantial stories of the +turpitude of celebrated millionaires—stories which he alleged to be +authentic and undeniable in every detail. I had to gasp. "But surely—" +I exclaimed, and mentioned the man who had so favorably impressed me.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the editor, reluctantly, after a pause, "I admit he has +<i>the new sense of right and wrong</i> to a greater extent than any of his +rivals."</p> + +<p>I italicize the heart of the phrase, because it is italicized in my +memory. No words that I heard in the United States more profoundly +struck me. Yet the editor had used them quite ingenuously, unaware that +he was saying anything singular!... Since when is the sense of right and +wrong "new" in America?</p> + +<p>Perhaps all that the editor meant was that public spirit in its higher +forms was growing in the United States, and beginning to show itself +spectacularly here and there in the immense drama of commercial and +industrial policies. That public spirit is growing, I believe. It +chanced that I found the basis of my belief more in Chicago than +anywhere else.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I have hitherto said nothing of the "folk"—the great mass of the +nation, who live chiefly by the exercise, in one way or another, of +muscular power or adroitness, and who, if they possess drawing-rooms, do +not sit in them. Like most writers, when I have used such phrases as +"the American people" I have meant that small dominant minority which +has the same social code as myself. Goethe asserted that the folk were +the only real people. I do not agree with him, for I have never found +one city more real than another city, nor one class of people more real +than another class. Still, he was Goethe, and the folk, though +mysterious, are very real; and, since they constitute perhaps +five-sixths of the nation, it would be singular to ignore them. I had +two brief glimpses of them, and the almost theatrical contrast of these +two glimpses may throw further light upon the question just discussed.</p> + +<p>I evaded Niagara and the Chicago Stock-yards, but I did not evade the +"East Side" of New York. The East Side insisted on being seen, and I was +not unwilling. In charge of a highly erudite newspaper man, and of an +amiable Jewish detective, who, originally discovered by Colonel +Roosevelt, had come out first among eighteen hundred competitors in a +physical examination, my particular friend and I went forth one +intemperate night to "do" the East Side in an automobile. We saw the +garlanded and mirrored core of "Sharkey's" saloon, of which the most +interesting phenomenon was a male pianist who would play the piano +without stopping till 2.30 A.M. With about two thousand other persons, +we had the privilege of shaking hands with Sharkey. We saw another +saloon, frequented by murderers who resembled shop assistants. We saw a +Hebraic theater, whose hospitable proprietor informed us how he had +discovered a great play-writing genius, and how on the previous Saturday +night he had turned away seven thousand patrons for lack of room! +Certainly on our night the house was crammed; and the play seemed of +realistic quality, and the actresses effulgently lovely. We saw a Polack +dancing-hall, where the cook-girls were slatterns, but romantic +slatterns. We saw Seward Park, which is the dormitory of the East Side +in summer. We saw a van clattering off with prisoners to the night +court. We saw illustrious burglars, "gunmen," and "dukes" of famous +streets—for we had but to raise a beckoning finger, and they approached +us, grinning, out of gloomy shadows. (And very ordinary they seemed in +spite of slashed faces!)</p> + +<p>We even saw Chinatown, and the wagonettes of tourists stationary in its +streets. I had suspected that Chinatown was largely a show for tourists. +When I asked how it existed, I was told that the two thousand Chinese of +Chinatown lived on the ten thousand Chinese who came into it from all +quarters on Sundays, and I understood. As a show it lacked +convincingness—except the delicatessen-shop, whose sights and odors +silenced criticism. It had the further disadvantage, by reason of its +tawdry appeals of color and light, of making one feel like a tourist. +Above a certain level of culture, no man who is a tourist has the +intellectual honesty to admit to himself that he is a tourist. Such +honesty is found only on the lower levels. The detective saved our pride +from time to time by introducing us to sights which the despicable +ordinary tourists cannot see. It was a proud moment for us when we +assisted at a conspiratorial interview between our detective and the +"captain of the precincts." And it was a proud moment when in an +inconceivable retreat we were permitted to talk with an aged Chinese +actor and view his collection of flowery hats. It was a still prouder +(and also a subtly humiliating) moment when we were led through +courtyards and beheld in their cloistral aloofness the American +legitimate wives of wealthy China-men, sitting gorgeous, with the +quiescence of odalisques, in gorgeous uncurtained interiors. I was glad +when one of the ladies defied the detective by abruptly swishing down +her blind.</p> + +<p>But these affairs did not deeply stir my imagination. More engaging was +the detective's own habit of stopping the automobile every hundred yards +or so in order to point out the exact spot on which a murder, or several +murders, had been committed. Murder was his chief interest. I noticed +the same trait in many newspaper men, who would sit and tell excellent +murder stories by the hour. But murder was so common on the East Side +that it became for me curiously puerile—a sort of naughtiness whose +punishment, to be effective, ought to wound, rather than flatter, the +vanity of the child-minded murderers. More engaging still was the +extraordinary frequency of banks—some with opulent illuminated +signs—and of cinematograph shows. In the East End of London or of Paris +banks are assuredly not a feature of the landscape—and for good reason. +The cinematograph is possibly, on the whole, a civilizing agent; it +might easily be the most powerful force on the East Side. I met the +gentleman who "controlled" all the cinematographs, and was reputed to +make a million dollars a year net therefrom. He did not appear to be a +bit weighed down, either by the hugeness of his opportunity or by the +awfulness of his responsibility.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="p186" id="p186"></a> +<img src="images/p186.jpg" +alt="THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE" +title="THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE" /> +</div> +<p class="center"><b>THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE</b></p> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<p>The supreme sensation of the East Side is the sensation of its +astounding populousness. The most populous street in the +world—Rivington Street—is a sight not to be forgotten. Compared to +this, an up-town thoroughfare of crowded middle-class flats is the +open country—is an uninhabited desert! The architecture seemed to sweat +humanity at every window and door. The roadways were often impassable. +The thought of the hidden interiors was terrifying. Indeed, the hidden +interiors would not bear thinking about. The fancy shunned them—a +problem not to be settled by sudden municipal edicts, but only by the +efflux of generations. Confronted by this spectacle of sickly-faced +immortal creatures, who lie closer than any other wild animals would +lie; who live picturesque, feverish, and appalling existences; who amuse +themselves, who enrich themselves, who very often lift themselves out of +the swarming warren and leave it forever, but whose daily experience in +the warren is merely and simply horrible—confronted by this +incomparable and overwhelming phantasmagoria (for such it seems), one is +foolishly apt to protest, to inveigh, to accuse. The answer to futile +animadversions was in my particular friend's query: "Well, what are you +going to do about it?"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>My second glimpse of the folk was at quite another end of the city of +New York—namely, the Bronx. I was urgently invited to go and see how +the folk lived in the Bronx; and, feeling convinced that a place with a +name so remarkable must itself be remarkable, I went. The center of the +Bronx is a racket of Elevated, bordered by banks, theaters, and other +places of amusement. As a spectacle it is decent, inspiring confidence +but not awe, and being rather repellent to the sense of beauty. Nobody +could call it impressive. Yet I departed from the Bronx very +considerably impressed. It is the interiors of the Bronx homes that are +impressive. I was led to a part of the Bronx where five years previously +there had been six families, and where there are now over two thousand +families. This was newest New York. No obstacle impeded my invasion of +the domestic privacies of the Bronx. The mistresses of flats showed me +round everything with politeness and with obvious satisfaction. A stout +lady, whose husband was either an artisan or a clerk, I forget which, +inducted me into a flat of four rooms, of which the rent was twenty-six +dollars a month. She enjoyed the advantages of central heating, gas, and +electricity; and among the landlord's fixtures were a refrigerator, a +kitchen range, a bookcase, and a sideboard. Such amenities for the +people—for the <i>petits gens</i>—simply do not exist in Europe; they do +not even exist for the wealthy in Europe. But there was also the +telephone, the house exchange being in charge of the janitor's +daughter—a pleasing occupant of the entrance-hall. I was told that the +telephone, with a "nickel" call, increased the occupancy of the Bronx +flats by ten per cent.</p> + +<p>Thence I visited the flat of a doctor—a practitioner who would be the +equivalent of a "shilling" doctor in a similar quarter of London. Here +were seven rooms, at a rent of forty-five dollars a month, and no end of +conveniences—certainly many more than in any flat that I had ever +occupied myself! I visited another house and saw similar interiors. And +now I began to be struck by the splendor and the cleanliness of the +halls, landings, and staircases: marble halls, tesselated landings, and +stairs out of Holland; the whole producing a gorgeous effect—to match +the glory of the embroidered pillow-cases in the bedrooms. On the roofs +were drying-grounds, upon which each tenant had her rightful "day," so +that altercations might not arise. I saw an empty flat. The professional +vermin exterminator had just gone—for the landlord-company took no +chances in this detail of management.</p> + +<p>Then I was lifted a little higher in the social-financial scale, to a +building of which the entrance-hall reminded me of the foyers of grand +hotels. A superb negro held dominion therein, but not over the telephone +girl, who ran the exchange ten hours a day for twenty-five dollars a +month, which, considering that the janitor received sixty-five dollars +and his rooms, seemed to me to be somewhat insufficient. In this house +the corridors were broader, and to the conveniences was added a +mail-shoot, a device which is still regarded in Europe as the final word +of plutocratic luxury rampant. The rents ran to forty-eight dollars a +month for six rooms. In this house I was asked by hospitable tenants +whether I was not myself, and, when I had admitted that I was myself, +books of which I had been guilty were produced, and I was called upon to +sign them.</p> + +<p>The fittings and decorations of all these flats were artistically +vulgar, just as they are in flats costing a thousand dollars a month, +but they were well executed, and resulted in a general harmonious effect +of innocent prosperity. The people whom I met showed no trace of the +influence of those older artistic civilizations whose charm seems subtly +to pervade the internationalism of the East Side. In certain strata and +streaks of society on the East Side things artistic and intellectual are +comprehended with an intensity of emotion and understanding impossible +to Anglo-Saxons. This I know.</p> + +<p>The Bronx is different. The Bronx is beginning again, at a stage earlier +than art, and beginning better. It is a place for those who have learnt +that physical righteousness has got to be the basis of all future +progress. It is a place to which the fit will be attracted, and where +the fit will survive. It has rather a harsh quality. It reminded me of a +phrase used by an American at the head of an enormous business. He had +been explaining to me how he tried a man in one department, and, if he +did not shine in that, then in another, and in another, and so on. "And +if you find in the end that he's honest but not efficient?" I asked. +"Then," was the answer, "we think he's entitled to die, and we fire +him."</p> + +<p>The Bronx presented itself to me as a place where the right of the +inefficient to expire would be cheerfully recognized. The district that +I inspected was certainly, as I say, for the fit. Efficiency in physical +essentials was inculcated—and practised—by the landlord-company, whose +constant aim seemed to be to screw up higher and higher the self-respect +of its tenants. That the landlord-company was not a band of +philanthropists, but a capitalistic group in search of dividends, I +would readily admit. But that it should find its profit in the business +of improving the standard of existence and appealing to the pride of the +folk was to me a wondrous sign of the essential vigor of American +civilization, and a proof that public spirit, unostentatious as a coral +insect, must after all have long been at work somewhere.</p> + +<p>Compare the East Side with the Bronx fully, and one may see, perhaps +roughly, a symbol of what is going forward in America. Nothing, I should +imagine, could be more interesting to a sociological observer than that +actual creation of a city of homes as I saw it in the Bronx. I saw the +home complete, and I saw the home incomplete, with wall-papers not on, +with the roof not on. Why, I even saw, further out, the ground being +leveled and the solid rock drilled where now, most probably, actual +homes are inhabited and babies have been born! And I saw further than +that. Nailed against a fine and ancient tree, in the midst of a desolate +waste, I saw a board with these words: "A new Subway station will be +erected on this corner." There are legendary people who have eyes to see +the grass growing. I have seen New York growing. It was a hopeful sight, +too.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At this point my impressions of America come to an end, for the present. +Were I to assert, in the phrase conventionally proper to such an +occasion, that no one can be more sensible than myself of the manifold +defects, omissions, inexactitudes, gross errors, and general lack of +perspective which my narrative exhibits, I should assert the thing which +is not. I have not the slightest doubt that a considerable number of +persons are more sensible than myself of my shortcomings; for on the +subject of America I do not even know enough to be fully aware of my own +ignorance. Still, I am fairly sensible of the enormous imperfection and +rashness of this book. When I regard the map and see the trifling +extent of the ground that I covered—a scrap tucked away in the +northeast corner of the vast multi-colored territory—I marvel at the +assurance I displayed in choosing my title. Indeed, I have yet to see +your United States. Any Englishman visiting the country for the second +time, having begun with New York, ought to go round the world and enter +by San Francisco, seeing Seattle before Baltimore and Denver before +Chicago. His perspective might thus be corrected in a natural manner, +and the process would in various ways be salutary. It is a nice question +how many of the opinions formed on the first visit—and especially the +most convinced and positive opinions—would survive the ordeal of the +second.</p> + +<p>As for these brief chapters, I hereby announce that I am not prepared +ultimately to stand by any single view which they put forward. There is +naught in them which is not liable to be recanted. The one possible +justification of them is that they offer to the reader the one thing +that, in the very nature of the case, a mature and accustomed observer +could not offer—namely, an immediate account (as accurate as I could +make it) of the first tremendous impact of the United States on a mind +receptive and unprejudiced. The greatest social historian, the most +conscientious writer, could not recapture the sensations of that first +impact after further intercourse had scattered them.</p> + +<div><br /></div> +<p class="center"><em>THE END</em></p> +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Your United States, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR UNITED STATES *** + +***** This file should be named 15063-h.htm or 15063-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/0/6/15063/ + +Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Your United States + Impressions of a first visit + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: February 15, 2005 [EBook #15063] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR UNITED STATES *** + + + + +Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +[Illustration: THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT] + + + + + +YOUR UNITED STATES + +IMPRESSIONS OF A FIRST VISIT + + + +BY +ARNOLD BENNETT + + +ILLUSTRATED BY +FRANK CRAIG + + + + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK AND LONDON +MCMXII + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + +PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1912 + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. PAGE + + I. THE FIRST NIGHT 3 + II. STREETS 27 + III. THE CAPITOL AND OTHER SITES 49 + IV. SOME ORGANIZATIONS 73 + V. TRANSIT AND HOTELS 99 + VI. SPORT AND THE THEATER 123 + VII. EDUCATION AND ART 147 +VIII. CITIZENS 171 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON FOOT _Frontispiece_ +DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK _Facing p._ 10 +THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWED SKY-SCRAPERS 16 +BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT 20 +A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET 34 +A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER 36 +THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT 38 +A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO 42 +A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE--CHICAGO 44 +THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL 50 +ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE 52 +ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO--THE CAPITOL 54 +UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL 56 +THE PROMENADE--CITY POINT, BOSTON 60 +THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB--OVERLOOKING THE HARBOR 64 +AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE 74 +LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB 86 +A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG 90 +ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY 94 +IN THE PARLOR-CAR 100 +BREAKFAST EN ROUTE 108 +IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING STREAM 112 +THE STRAP-HANGERS 114 +THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED 116 +THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS SPLENDOR 118 +THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION 124 +THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR 130 +THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD 134 +UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 156 +MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS--UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 164 +PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN 172 +THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE 186 + + + + +YOUR UNITED STATES + + + + +I + +THE FIRST NIGHT + + +I sat with a melting ice on my plate, and my gaze on a very distant +swinging door, through which came and went every figure except the +familiar figure I desired. The figure of a woman came. She wore a +pale-blue dress and a white apron and cap, and carried a dish in +uplifted hands, with the gesture of an acolyte. On the bib of the apron +were two red marks, and as she approached, tripping, scornful, +unheeding, along the interminable carpeted aisle, between serried tables +of correct diners, the vague blur of her face gradually developed into +features, and the two red marks on her stomacher grew into two rampant +lions, each holding a globe in its ferocious paws; and she passed on, +bearing away the dish and these mysterious symbols, and lessened into a +puppet on the horizon of the enormous hall, and finally vanished through +another door. She was succeeded by men, all bearing dishes, but none of +them so inexorably scornful as she, and none of them disappearing where +she had disappeared; every man relented and stopped at some table or +other. But the figure I desired remained invisible, and my ice +continued to melt, in accordance with chemical law. The orchestra in the +gallery leaped suddenly into the rag-time without whose accompaniment it +was impossible, anywhere in the civilized world, to dine correctly. That +rag-time, committed, I suppose, originally by some well-intentioned if +banal composer in the privacy of his study one night, had spread over +the whole universe of restaurants like a pest, to the exasperation of +the sensitive, but evidently to the joy of correct diners. Joy shone in +the elated eyes of the four hundred persons correctly dining together in +this high refectory, and at the end there was honest applause!... And +yet you never encountered a person who, questioned singly, did not agree +and even assert of his own accord that music at meals is an outrageous +nuisance!... + +However, my desired figure was at length manifest. The man came hurrying +and a little breathless, with his salver, at once apologetic and +triumphant. My ice was half liquid. Had I not the right to reproach him, +in the withering, contemptuous tone which correct diners have learned to +adopt toward the alien serfs who attend them? I had not. I had neither +the right nor the courage nor the wish. This man was as Anglo-Saxon as +myself. He had, with all his deference, the mien of the race. When he +dreamed of paradise, he probably did not dream of the _caisse_ of a +cosmopolitan Grand Hotel in Switzerland. When he spoke English he was +not speaking a foreign language. And this restaurant was one of the +extremely few fashionable Anglo-Saxon restaurants left in the world, +where an order given in English is understood at the first try, and +where the English language is not assassinated and dismembered by +menials who despise it, menials who slang one another openly in the +patois of Geneva, Luxembourg, or Naples. A singular survival, this +restaurant!... Moreover, the man was justified in his triumphant air. +Not only had he most intelligently brought me a fresh ice, but he had +brought the particular kind of rusk for which I had asked. There were +over thirty dishes on the emblazoned menu, and of course I had wanted +something that was not on it: a peculiar rusk, a rusk recondite and +unheard of by my fellow-diners. The man had hopefully said that he +"would see." And here lay the rusk, magically obtained. I felicitated +him, as an equal. And then, having consumed the ice and the fruits of +the hot-house, I arose and followed in the path of the lion-breasted +woman, and arrived at an elevator, and was wafted aloft by a boy of +sixteen who did nothing else from 6 A.M. till midnight (so he said) but +ascend and descend in that elevator. By the discipline of this inspiring +and jocund task he was being prepared for manhood and the greater +world!... And yet, what would you? Elevators must have boys, and even +men. Civilization is not so simple as it may seem to the passionate +reformer and lover of humanity. + +Later, in the vast lounge above the restaurant, I formed one of a group +of men, most of whom had acquired fame, and had the slight agreeable +self-consciousness that fame gives; and I listened, against a background +of the ever-insistent music, to one of those endless and multifarious +reminiscent conversations that are heard only in such places. The +companion on my right would tell how he had inhabited a house in Siam, +next to the temple in front of which the corpses of people too poor to +be burned were laid out, after surgical preliminaries, to be devoured by +vultures, and how the vultures, when gorged, would flap to the roof of +his house and sit there in contemplation. And the companion on my left +would tell how, when he was unfamous and on his beam-ends, he would stay +in bed with a sham attack of influenza, and on the day when a chance +offered itself would get up and don his only suit--a glorious one--and, +fitting an eye-glass into his eye because it made him look older, would +go forth to confront the chance. And then the talk might be interrupted +in order to consult the morning paper, and so settle a dispute about the +exact price of Union Pacifics. And then an Italian engineer would tell +about sport in the woods of Maine, a perfect menagerie of wild animals +where it was advisable to use a revolver lest the excessive noise of a +fowling-piece should disturb the entire forest, and how once he had shot +seven times at an imperturbable partridge showing its head over a tree, +and missed seven times, and how the partridge had at last flown off, +with a flicker of plumage that almost said aloud, "Well, I really can't +wait any longer!" And then might follow a simply tremendous discussion +about the digestibility of buckwheat-cakes. + +And then the conversation of every group in the lounge would be stopped +by the entry of a page bearing a telegram and calling out in the voice +of destiny the name of him to whom the telegram was addressed. And then +another companion would relate in intricate detail a recent excursion +into Yucatan, speaking negligently--as though it were a trifle--of the +extraordinary beauty of the women of Yucatan, and in the end making +quite plain his conviction that no other women were as beautiful as the +women of Yucatan. And then the inevitable Mona Lisa would get onto the +carpet, and one heard, apropos, of the theft of Adam mantelpieces from +Russell Square, and of superb masterpieces of paint rotting with damp in +neglected Venetian churches, and so on and so on, until one had the +melancholy illusion that the whole art world was going or gone to +destruction. But this subject did not really hold us, for the reason +that, beneath a blase exterior, we were all secretly preoccupied by the +beauty of the women of Yucatan and wondering whether we should ever get +to Yucatan.... And then, looking by accident away, I saw the dim, +provocative faces of girls in white jerseys and woolen caps peering from +without through the dark double windows of the lounge. And I was glad +when somebody suggested that it was time to take a turn. And outside, in +the strong wind, abaft the four funnels of the _Lusitania_, a star +seemed to be dancing capriciously around and about the masthead light. +And it was difficult to believe that the masthead and its light, and not +the star, were dancing. + +From the lofty promenade deck the Atlantic wave is a little enough +thing, so far down beneath you that you can scarcely even sniff its +salty tang. But when the elevator-boy--always waiting for me--had +lowered me through five floors, I stood on tiptoe and gazed through the +thick glass of a porthole there; and the flying Atlantic wave, +theatrically moonlit now, was very near. Suddenly something jumped up +and hit the glass of the port-hole a fearful, crashing blow that made me +draw away my face in alarm; and the solid ground on which I stood +vibrated for an instant. It was the Atlantic wave, caressing. Anybody on +the other side of this thin, nicely painted steel plate (I thought) +would be in a rather hopeless situation. I turned away, half shivering, +from the menace. All was calm and warm and reassuring within the +ship.... In the withdrawn privacy of my berth, with the curtains closed +over the door and Murray Gilchrist's new novel in my hand and a poised +electric lamp over my head, I looked about as I lay, and everything was +still except a towel that moved gently, almost imperceptibly, to and +fro. Yet the towel had copied the immobility of the star. It alone did +not oscillate. Forty-five thousand tons were swaying; but not that +towel. The sense of actual present romance was too strong to let me +read. I extinguished the light, and listened in the dark to the faint +straining noises of the enormous organism. I thought: "This magic thing +is taking me _there_! In three days I shall be on that shore." Terrific +adventure! The rest of the passengers were merely going to America. + + * * * * * + +The magic thing was much more magic than I had conceived. The next +morning, being up earlier than usual and wandering about on strange, +inclosed decks unfamiliar to my feet, I beheld astonishing unsuspected +populations of men and women--crowds of them--a healthy, powerful, +prosperous, independent, somewhat stern and disdainful multitude, it +seemed to me. Those muscular, striding girls in caps and shawls would +not yield an inch to me in their promenade; they brushed strongly and +carelessly past me; had I been a ghost they would have walked through +me. They were, and had been, all living--eating and sleeping--somewhere +within the vessel, and I had not imagined it! It is true that some ass +in the saloon had already calculated for my benefit that there were +"three thousand _souls_ on board!" (The solemn use of the word "souls" +in this connection by a passenger should stamp a man forever.) But such +numerical statements do not really arouse the imagination. I had to see +with my eyes. And I did see with my eyes. That afternoon a high officer +of the ship, spiriting me away from the polite flirtations and pastimes +of the upper decks, carried me down to more exciting scenes. And I saw a +whole string of young women inoculated against smallpox, under the +interested gaze of a crowd of men ranged on a convenient staircase. And +a little later I saw a whole string of men inoculated against smallpox, +under the interested gaze of a crowd of young women ranged on a +convenient staircase. + +"They're having their sweet revenge," said the high officer, indicating +the young women. He was an epigrammatic and terse speaker. When I +reflected aloud upon the order and discipline of service which was +necessary to maintain more than a thousand roughish persons in idleness, +cleanliness, health, peace, and content, in the inelastic forward spaces +of the ship, he said with a certain grimness: "Everything has to be +screwed up as tight as you can screw it. And you must keep to the +round. What you do to-day you must do to-morrow. But what you don't do +to-day you can't get done to-morrow." + +Nevertheless, it proved to be a very human world, a world in which the +personal equation counted. I remember that while some four hundred in +one long hall were applauding "Home, Sweet Home," very badly fiddled by +a gay man on a stool ("Home, Sweet Home"--and half of them +Scandinavians!), and another four hundred or so were sitting expectant +on those multifarious convenient staircases or wandering in and out of +the maze of cubicles that contained fifteen hundred separate berths, and +a third four hundred or so in another long hall were consuming a huge +tea offered to them by a cohort of stewards in white--I remember that +while all this was going forward and the complex mechanism of the +kitchen was in full strain a little, untidy woman, with an infant +dragging at one hand and a mug in the other, strolled nonchalantly into +the breathless kitchen, and said to a hot cook, "Please will you give me +a drop o' milk for this child?" And under the military gaze of the high +officer, too! Something awful should have happened. The engines ought to +have stopped. The woman ought to have been ordered out to instant +execution. The engines did seem to falter for a moment. But the high +officer grimly smiled, and they went on again. "Give me yer mug, +mother," said the cook. And the untidy woman went off with her booty. + +"Now I'll show you the first-class kitchens," the high officer said, and +guided me through uncharted territories to chambers where spits were +revolving in front of intense heat, and where a confectionery business +proceeded, night and day, and dough was mixed by electricity, and +potatoes peeled by the same, and where a piece of clockwork lifted an +egg out of boiling water after it had lain therein the number of seconds +prescribed by you. And there, pinned to a board, was the order I had +given for a special dinner that night. And there, too, more impressive +even than that order, was a list of the several hundred stewards, +together with a designation of the post of each in case of casualty. I +noticed that thirty or forty of them were told off "to control +passengers." After all, we were in the midst of the Atlantic, and in a +crisis the elevator-boys themselves would have more authority than any +passenger, however gorgeous. A thought salutary for gorgeous +passengers--that they were in the final resort mere fool bodies to be +controlled! After I had seen the countless store-rooms, in the recesses +of each of which was hidden a clerk with a pen behind his ear and a +nervous and taciturn air, and passed on to the world of the second +cabin, which was a surprisingly brilliant imitation of the great world +of the saloon, I found that I held a much-diminished opinion of the +great world of the saloon, which I now perceived to be naught but a thin +crust or artificial gewgaw stuck over the truly thrilling parts of the +ship. + +It was not, however, till the next day that I realized what the most +thrilling part of the ship was. Under the protection of another high +officer I had climbed to the bridge--seventy-five feet above the level +of the sea--which bridge had been very seriously disestablished by an +ambitious wave a couple of years before--and had there inspected the +devices for detecting and extinguishing fires in distant holds by merely +turning a handle, and the charts and the telephones and the telegraphs, +and the under-water signaling, and the sounding-tubes, and the officers' +piano; and I had descended by way of the capstan-gear (which, being +capable of snapping a chain that would hold two hundred and sixty tons +in suspension, was suitably imprisoned in a cage, like a fierce wild +animal) right through the length of the vessel to the wheel-house aft. +It was comforting to know that if six alternative steering-wheels were +smashed, one after another, there remained a seventh gear to be worked, +chiefly by direct force of human arm. And, after descending several more +stories, I had seen the actual steering--the tremendous affair moving to +and fro, majestic and apparently capricious, in obedience to the light +touch of a sailor six hundred feet distant. And then I had seen the four +shafts, revolving lazily one hundred and eighty-four to the minute; and +got myself involved in dangerous forests of greasy machinery, whizzing +all deserted in a very high temperature under electric bulbs. Only at +rare intervals did I come across a man in brown doing nothing in +particular--as often as not gazing at a dial; there were dials +everywhere, showing pressures and speeds. And then I had come to the +dynamo-room, where the revolutions were twelve hundred to the minute, +and then to the turbines themselves--insignificant little things, with +no swagger of huge crank and piston, disappointing little things that +developed as much as one-third of the horse-power required for all the +electricity of New York. + +And then, lastly, when I had supposed myself to be at the rock-bottom +of the steamer, I had been instructed to descend in earnest, and I went +down and down steel ladders, and emerged into an enormous, an incredible +cavern, where a hundred and ninety gigantic furnaces were being fed +every ten minutes by hundreds of tiny black dolls called firemen. I, +too, was a doll as I looked up at the high white-hot mouth of a furnace +and along the endless vista of mouths.... Imagine hell with the addition +of electric light, and you have it!... And up-stairs, far above on the +surface of the water, confectioners were making fancy cakes, and the +elevator-boy was doing his work!... Yes, the inferno was the most +thrilling part of the ship; and no other part of the ship could hold a +candle to it. And I remained of this conviction even when I sat in the +captain's own room, smoking his august cigars and turning over his +books. I no longer thought, "Every revolution of the propellers brings +me nearer to that shore." I thought, "Every shovelful flung into those +white-hot mouths brings me nearer." + + * * * * * + +It is an absolute fact that, four hours before we could hope to +disembark, ladies in mantles and shore hats (seeming fantastic and +enormous after the sobriety of ship attire), and gentlemen in shore hats +and dark overcoats, were standing in attitudes of expectancy in the +saloon-hall, holding wraps and small bags: some of their faces had never +been seen till then in the public resorts of the ship. Excitement will +indeed take strange forms. For myself, although I was on the threshold +of the greatest adventure of my life, I was unaware of being excited--I +had not even "smelled" land, to say nothing of having seen it--until, +when it was quite dark, I descried a queerly arranged group of +different-colored lights in the distance--yellow, red, green, and what +not. My thoughts ran instantly to Coney Island. I knew that Coney was an +island, and that it was a place where people had to be attracted and +distracted somehow, and I decided that these illuminations were a device +of the pleasure-mongers of Coney. And when the ship began to salute +these illuminations with answering flares I thought the captain was a +rather good-natured man to consent thus to amuse the populace. But when +we slowed, our propellers covering the calm sea with acres of foam, and +the whole entire illuminations began to approach us in a body, I +perceived that my Coney Island was merely another craft, but a very +important and official craft. An extremely small boat soon detached +itself from this pyrotechnical craft and came with a most extraordinary +leisureness toward a white square of light that had somehow broken forth +in the blackness of our side. And looking down from the topmost deck, I +saw, far below, the tiny boat maneuver on the glinting wave into the +reflection of our electricity and three mysterious men climb up from her +and disappear into us. Then it was that I grew really excited, +uncomfortably excited. The United States had stretched out a tentacle. + +In no time at all, as it seemed, another and more formidable tentacle +had folded round me--in the shape of two interviewers. (How these men +had got on board--and how my own particular friend had got on board--I +knew not, for we were yet far from quay-side.) I had been hearing all my +life about the sublime American institution of the interview. I had been +warned by Americans of its piquant dangers. And here I was suddenly up +against it! Beneath a casual and jaunty exterior, I trembled. I wanted +to sit, but dared not. They stood; I stood. These two men, however, were +adepts. They had the better qualities of American dentists. Obviously +they spent their lives in meeting notorieties on inbound steamers, and +made naught of it. They were middle-aged, disillusioned, tepidly polite, +conscientious, and rapid. They knew precisely what they wanted and how +to get it. Having got it, they raised their hats and went. Their printed +stories were brief, quite unpretentious, and inoffensive--though one of +them did let out that the most salient part of me was my teeth, and the +other did assert that I behaved like a school-boy. (Doubtless the result +of timidity trying to be dignified--this alleged school-boyishness!) + +I liked these men. But they gave me an incomplete idea of the race of +interviewers in the United States. There is a variety of interviewers +very different from them. I am, I think, entitled to consider myself a +fairly first-class authority on all varieties of interviewer, not only +in New York but in sundry other great cities. My initiation was brief, +but it was thorough. Many varieties won my regard immediately, and kept +it; but I am conscious that my sympathy with one particular brand +(perhaps not numerous) was at times imperfect. The brand in question, as +to which I was amiably cautioned before even leaving the steamer, is +usually very young, and as often a girl as a youth. He or she cheerfully +introduces himself or herself with a hint that of course it is an awful +bore to be interviewed, but he or she has a job to do and he or she must +be allowed to do it. Just so! But the point which, in my audacity, I +have occasionally permitted to occur to me is this: Is this sort of +interviewer capable of doing the job allotted to him? I do not mind +slips of reporting, I do not mind a certain agreeable malice (indeed, I +reckon to do a bit in that line myself). I do not even mind hasty +misrepresentations (for, after all, we are human, and the millennium is +still unannounced); but I do object to inefficiency--especially in +America, where sundry kinds of efficiency have been carried farther than +any efficiency was ever carried before. + +[Illustration: THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWDED SKY-SCRAPERS] + +Now this sort of interviewer too often prefaces the operation itself by +the remark that he really doesn't know what question to ask you. (Too +often I have been tempted to say: "Why not ask me to write the interview +for you? It will save you trouble.") Having made this remark, the +interviewer usually proceeds to give a sketch of her own career, +together with a conspectus of her opinions on everything, a reference to +her importance in the interviewing world, and some glimpse of the amount +of her earnings. This achieved, she breaks off breathless and reproaches +you: "But, my dear man, you aren't saying anything at all. You really +must say something." ("My dear man" is the favorite form of address of +this sort of interviewer when she happens to be a girl.) Too often I +have been tempted to reply: "Cleopatra, or Helen, which of us is +being interviewed?" When he has given you a chance to talk, this sort of +interviewer listens, helps, corrects, advises, but never makes a note. +The result the next morning is the anticipated result. The average +newspaper reader gathers that an extremely brilliant young man or woman +has held converse with a very commonplace stranger who, being confused +in his or her presence, committed a number of absurdities which offered +a strong and painful contrast to the cleverness and wisdom of the +brilliant youth. This result apparently satisfies the average newspaper +reader, but it does not satisfy the expert. Immediately after my first +bout with interviewers I was seated at a table in the dining-saloon of +the ship with my particular friend and three or four friendly, quiet, +modest, rather diffident human beings whom I afterward discovered to be +among the best and most experienced newspaper men in New York--not +interviewers. + +Said one of them: + +"Not every interviewer in New York knows how to _write_--how to put a +sentence together decently. And there are perhaps a few who don't +accurately know the difference between impudence and wit." + +A caustic remark, perhaps. But I have noticed that when the variety of +interviewing upon which I have just animadverted becomes the topic, +quiet, reasonable Americans are apt to drop into causticity. + +Said another: + +"I was a reporter for twelve years, but I was cured of personalities at +an early stage--and by a nigger, too! I had been interviewing a nigger +prize-fighter, and I'd made some remarks about the facial +characteristics of niggers in general. Some other nigger wrote me a long +letter of protest, and it ended like this: 'I've never seen you. But +I've seen your portraits, and let me respectfully tell you that _you're_ +no Lillian Russell.'" + +Some mornings I, too, might have sat down and written, from visual +observation, "Let me respectfully tell you that _you're_ no Lillian +Russell." + +Said a third among my companions: + +"No importance whatever is attached to a certain kind of interview in +the United States." + +Which I found, later, was quite true in theory, but not in practice. +Whenever, in that kind of interview, I had been made to say something +more acutely absurd and maladroit than usual, my friends who watched +over me, and to whom I owe so much that cannot be written, were a little +agitated--for about half an hour; in about half an hour the matter had +somehow passed from their minds. + +"Supposing I refuse to talk to that sort of interviewer?" I asked, at +the saloon table. + +"The interviews will appear all the same," was the reply. + +My subsequent experience contradicted this. On the rare occasions when I +refused to be interviewed, what appeared was not an interview, but +invective. + +Let me not be misunderstood. I have been speaking of only one brand of +American interviewer. I encountered a couple of really admirable women +interviewers, not too young, and a confraternity of men who did not +disdain an elementary knowledge of their business. One of these arrived +with a written list of questions, took a shorthand note of all I said, +and then brought me a proof to correct. In interviewing this amounts +almost to genius.... I have indicated what to me seems a +defect--trifling, possibly, but still a defect--in the brilliant +organization of the great national sport of interviewing. Were this +defect removed, as it could be, the institution might be as perfect as +the American oyster. Than which nothing is more perfect. + + * * * * * + +"You aren't drinking your coffee," said some one, inspecting my cup at +the saloon table. + +"No," I answered, firmly; for when the smooth efficiency of my human +machine is menaced I am as faddy and nervous as a marine engineer over +lubrication. "If I did, I shouldn't sleep." + +"And what of it?" demanded my particular friend, challengingly. + +It was a rebuke. It was as if he had said, "On this great night, when +you enter my wondrous and romantic country for the first time, what does +it matter whether you sleep or not?" + +I saw the point. I drank the coffee. The romantic sense, which had been +momentarily driven back by the discussion of general ideas, swept over +me again.... In fact, through the saloon windows could be seen all the +Battery end of New York and the first vague visions of sky-scrapers.... +Then-the moments refused to be counted--we were descending by lifts and +by gangways from the high upper decks of the ship down onto the rocky +ground of the United States. I don't think that any American ever set +foot in Europe with a more profound and delicious thrill than that which +affected me at that instant.... I was there!... The official and +unofficial activities of the quay passed before me like a dream.... I +heard my name shouted by a man in a formidably severe uniform, and I +thought, "Thus early have I somehow violated the Constitution of these +States?" But it was only a telegram for me.... And then I was in a most +rickety and confined taxi, and the taxi was full to the brim with +luggage, two friends, and me. And I was off into New York. + +At the center of the first cross-roads I saw a splendid and erect +individual, flashing forth authority, gaiety, and utter smartness in the +gloom. Impossible not to believe that he was the owner of all the +adjacent ground, disguised as a cavalry officer on foot. + +"What is that archduke?" I inquired. + +"He's just a cop." + +I knew then that I was in a great city. + +[Illustration: BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT] + +The rest of the ride was an enfevered phantasmagoria. We burst +startlingly into a very remarkable deep glade--on the floor of it long +and violent surface-cars, a few open shops and bars with commissionaires +at the doors, vehicles dipping and rising out of holes in the ground, +vistas of forests of iron pillars, on the top of which ran deafening, +glittering trains, as on a tight-rope; above all that, a layer of +darkness; and above the layer of darkness enormous moving images of +things in electricity--a mastodon kitten playing with a ball of thread, +an umbrella in a shower of rain, siphons of soda-water being emptied +and filled, gigantic horses galloping at full speed, and an incredible +heraldry of chewing-gum.... Sky-signs! In Europe I had always inveighed +manfully against sky-signs. But now I bowed the head, vanquished. These +sky-signs annihilated argument. Moreover, had they not been made +possible by the invention of a European, and that European an intimate +friend of my own?... + +"I suppose this is Broadway?" I ventured. + +It was. That is to say, it was one of the Broadways. There are several +different ones. What could be more different from this than the +down-town Broadway of Trinity Church and the crowded sky-scrapers? And +even this Broadway could differ from itself, as I knew later on an +election night.... I was overpowered by Broadway. + +"You must not expect me to talk," I said. + +We drew up in front of a huge hotel and went into the bar, huge and +gorgeous to match, shimmering with white bartenders and a variegated +population of men-about-town. I had never seen such a bar. + +"Two Polands and a Scotch highball," was the order. Of which +geographical language I understood not a word. + +"See the fresco," my particular friend suggested. And from his tone, at +once modestly content and artificially careless, I knew that that +nursery-rhyme fresco was one of the sights of the pleasure quarter of +New York, and that I ought to admire it. Well, I did admire it. I found +it rather fine and apposite. But the free-luncheon counter, as a sight, +took my fancy more. Here it was, the free-luncheon counter of which the +European reads--generously loaded, and much freer than the air. + +"Have something?" + +I would not. They could shame me into drinking coffee, but they could +not shame me into eating corned beef and granite biscuits at eleven +o'clock at night. The Poland water sufficed me. + +We swept perilously off again into the welter. That same evening three +of my steamer companions were thrown out of a rickety taxi into a hole +in the ground in the middle of New York, with the result that one of +them spent a week in a hotel bed, under doctor and nurse. But I went +scatheless. Such are the hazards of life.... We arrived at a terminus. +And it was a great terminus. A great terminus is an inhospitable place. +And just here, in the perfection of the manner in which my minutest +comfort was studied and provided for, I began to appreciate the +significance of American hospitality--that combination of eager +good-nature, Oriental lavishness, and sheer brains. We had time to +spare. Close to the terminus we had passed by a hotel whose summit, for +all my straining out of the window of the cab, I had been unable to +descry. I said that I should really like to see the top of that hotel. +No sooner said than done. I saw the highest hotel I had ever seen. We +went into the hotel, teeming like the other one, and from an agreeable +and lively young dandy bought three cigars out of millions of cigars. +Naught but bank-notes seemed to be current. The European has an awe of +bank-notes, whatever their value. + +Then we were in the train, and the train was moving. And every few +seconds it shot past the end of a long, straight, lighted +thoroughfare--scores upon scores of them, with a wider and more +brilliant street interspersed among them at intervals. And I forgot at +what hundredth street the train paused before rolling finally out of New +York. I had had the feeling of a vast and metropolitan city. I thought, +"Whatever this is or is not, it is a metropolis, and will rank with the +best of 'em." I had lived long in more than one metropolis, and I knew +the proud and the shameful unmistakable marks of the real thing. And I +was aware of a poignant sympathy with those people and those mysterious +generations who had been gradually and yet so rapidly putting together, +girder by girder and tradition by tradition, all unseen by me till then, +this illustrious, proud organism, with its nobility and its baseness, +its rectitude and its mournful errors, its colossal sense of life. I +liked New York irrevocably. + + + + +II + +STREETS + + +When I first looked at Fifth Avenue by sunlight, in the tranquillity of +Sunday morning, and when I last set eyes on it, in the ordinary peevish +gloom of a busy sailing-day, I thought it was the proudest thoroughfare +I had ever seen anywhere. The revisitation of certain European capitals +has forced me to modify this judgment; but I still think that Fifth +Avenue, if not unequaled, is unsurpassed. + +One afternoon I was driving up Fifth Avenue in the company of an +architectural expert who, with the incredible elastic good nature of +American business men, had abandoned his affairs for half a day in order +to go with me on a voyage of discovery, and he asked me, so as to get +some basis of understanding or disagreement, what building in New York +had pleased me most. I at once said the University Club--to my mind a +masterpiece. He approved, and a great peace filled our automobile; in +which peace we expanded. He asked me what building in the world made the +strongest appeal to me, and I at once said the Strozzi Palace at +Florence. Whereat he was decidedly sympathetic. + +"Fifth Avenue," I said, "always reminds me of Florence and the +Strozzi.... The cornices, you know." + +He stopped the automobile under the Gorham store and displayed to me +the finest cornice in New York, and told me how Stanford White had put +up several experimental cornices there before arriving at finality. +Indeed, a great cornice! I admit I was somewhat dashed by the +information that most cornices in New York are made of cast iron; but +only for a moment! What, after all, do I care what a cornice is made of, +so long as it juts proudly out from the facade and helps the street to a +splendid and formidable sky-line? I had neither read nor heard a word of +the cornices of New York, and yet for me New York was first and last the +city of effective cornices! (Which merely shows how eyes differ!) The +cornice must remind you of Italy, and through Italy of the Renaissance. +And is it not the boast of the United States to be a renaissance? I +always felt that there was something obscurely symbolic in the New York +cornice--symbolic of the necessary qualities of a renaissance, half +cruel and half humane. + +The critical European excusably expects a very great deal from Fifth +Avenue, as being the principal shopping street of the richest community +in the world. (I speak not of the residential blocks north of +Fifty-ninth Street, whose beauty and interest fall perhaps far short of +their pretensions.) And the critical European will not be disappointed, +unless his foible is to be disappointed--as, in fact, occasionally +happens. Except for the miserly splitting, here and there in the older +edifices, of an inadequate ground floor into a mezzanine and a shallow +box (a device employed more frankly and usefully with an outer flight of +steps on the East Side), there is nothing mean in the whole street from +the Plaza to Washington Square. A lot of utterly mediocre architecture +there is, of course--the same applies inevitably to every long street in +every capital--but the general effect is homogeneous and fine, and, +above, all, grandly generous. And the alternation of high and low +buildings produces not infrequently the most agreeable architectural +accidents: for example, seen from about Thirtieth Street, the +pale-pillared, squat structure of the Knickerbocker Trust against a +background of the lofty red of the AEolian Building.... And then, that +great white store on the opposite pavement! The single shops, as well as +the general stores and hotels on Fifth Avenue, are impressive in the +lavish spaciousness of their disposition. Neither stores nor shops could +have been conceived, or could be kept, by merchants without genuine +imagination and faith. + +And the glory of the thoroughfare inspires even those who only walk up +and down it. It inspires particularly the mounted policeman as he reigns +over a turbulent crossing. It inspires the women, and particularly the +young women, as they pass in front of the windows, owning their contents +in thought. I sat once with an old, white-haired, and serious gentleman, +gazing through glass at Fifth Avenue, and I ventured to say to him, +"There are fine women on Fifth Avenue." "By Jove!" he exclaimed, with +deep conviction, and his eyes suddenly fired, "there are!" On the whole, +I think that, in their carriages or on their feet, they know a little +better how to do justice to a fine thoroughfare than the women of any +other capital in my acquaintance. I have driven rapidly in a fast car, +clinging to my hat and my hair against the New York wind, from one end +of Fifth Avenue to the other, and what with the sunshine, and the flags +wildly waving in the sunshine, and the blue sky and the cornices jutting +into it and the roofs scraping it, and the large whiteness of the +stores, and the invitation of the signs, and the display of the windows, +and the swift sinuousness of the other cars, and the proud opposing +processions of American subjects--what with all this and with the +supreme imperialism of the mounted policeman, I have been positively +intoxicated! + +And yet possibly the greatest moment in the life of Fifth Avenue is at +dusk, when dusk falls at tea-time. The street lamps flicker into a +steady, steely blue, and the windows of the hotels and restaurants throw +a yellow radiance; all the shops--especially the jewelers' shops--become +enchanted treasure-houses, whose interiors recede away behind their +facades into infinity; and the endless files of innumerable vehicles, +interlacing and swerving, put forth each a pair of glittering eyes. Come +suddenly upon it all, from the leafy fastnesses of Central Park, round +the corner from the Plaza Hotel, and wait your turn until the arm of the +policeman, whose blue coat is now whitened with dust, permits your +restive chauffeur to plunge down into the main currents of the city.... +You will have then the most grandiose impression that New York is, in +fact, inhabited; and that even though the spectacular luxury of New York +be nearly as much founded upon social injustice and poverty as any +imperfect human civilization in Europe, it is a boon to be alive +therein!... In half an hour, in three-quarters of an hour, the vitality +is clean gone out of the street. The shops have let down their rich +gathered curtains, the pavements are deserted, and the roadway is no +longer perilous. And nothing save a fire will arouse Fifth Avenue till +the next morning. Even on an election night the sole sign in Fifth +Avenue of the disorder of politics will be a few long strips of +tape-paper wreathing in the breeze on the asphalt under the lonely +lamps. + + * * * * * + +It is not easy for a visiting stranger in New York to get away from +Fifth Avenue. The street seems to hold him fast. There might almost as +well be no other avenues; and certainly the word "Fifth" has lost all +its numerical significance in current usage. A youthful musical student, +upon being asked how many symphonies Beethoven had composed, replied +four, and obstinately stuck to it that Beethoven had only composed four. +Called upon to enumerate the four, he answered thus, the C minor, the +Eroica, the Pastoral, and the Ninth. "Ninth" had lost its numerical +significance for that student. A similar phenomenon of psychology has +happened with the streets and avenues of New York. Europeans are apt to +assume that to tack numbers instead of names on to the thoroughfares of +a city is to impair their identities and individualities. Not a bit! The +numbers grow into names. That is all. Such is the mysterious poetic +force of the human mind! That curt word "Fifth" signifies as much to the +New-Yorker as "Boulevard des Italiens" to the Parisian. As for the +possibility of confusion, would any New-Yorker ever confuse Fourteenth +with Thirteenth or Fifteenth Street, or Twenty-third with Twenty-second +or Twenty-fourth, or Forty-second with One Hundred and Forty-second, or +One Hundred and Twenty-fifth with anything else whatever? Yes, when the +Parisian confuses the Champs Elysees with the Avenue de l'Opera! When +the Parisian arrives at this stage--even then Fifth Avenue will not be +confused with Sixth! + +One day, in the unusual silence of an election morning, I absolutely +determined to see something of the New York that lies beyond Fifth +Avenue, and I slipped off westward along Thirty-fourth Street, feeling +adventurous. The excursion was indeed an adventure. I came across +Broadway and Sixth Avenue together! Sixth Avenue, with its barbaric +paving, surely could not be under the same administration as Fifth! +Between Sixth and Seventh I met a sinister but genial ruffian, proudly +wearing the insignia of Tammany; and soon I met a lot more of them: +jolly fellows, apparently, yet somehow conveying to me the suspicion +that in a saloon shindy they might prove themselves my superiors. (I was +told in New York, and by the best people in New York, that Tammany was a +blot on the social system of the city. But I would not have it so. I +would call it a part of the social system, just as much a part of the +social system, and just as expressive of the national character, as the +fine schools, the fine hospitals, the superlative business +organizations, or Mr. George M. Cohan's Theater. A civilization is +indivisibly responsible for itself. It may not, on the Day of Judgment, +or any other day, lessen its collective responsibility by baptizing +certain portions of its organism as extraneous "blots" dropped thereon +from without.) To continue--after Seventh Avenue the declension was +frank. In the purlieus of the Five Towns themselves--compared with which +Pittsburg is seemingly Paradise--I have never trod such horrific +sidewalks. I discovered huge freight-trains shunting all over Tenth and +Eleventh Avenues, and frail flying bridges erected from sidewalk to +sidewalk, for the convenience of a brave and hardy populace. I was +surrounded in the street by menacing locomotives and crowds of Italians, +and in front of me was a great Italian steamer. I felt as though Fifth +Avenue was a three days' journey away, through a hostile country. And +yet I had been walking only twenty minutes! I regained Fifth with +relief, and had learned a lesson. In future, if asked how many avenues +there are in New York I would insist that there are three: Lexington, +Madison, and Fifth. + + * * * * * + +The chief characteristic of Broadway is its interminability. Everybody +knows, roughly, where it begins, but I doubt if even the topographical +experts of Albany know just where it ends. It is a street that inspires +respect rather than enthusiasm. In the daytime all the uptown portion of +it--and as far down-town as Ninth Street--has a provincial aspect. If +Fifth Avenue is metropolitan and exclusive, Broadway is not. Broadway +lacks distinction, it lacks any sort of impressiveness, save in its +first two miles, which do--especially the southern mile--strike you with +a vague and uneasy awe. And it was here that I experienced my keenest +disappointment in the United States. + +[Illustration: A BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET] + +I went through sundry disappointments. I had expected to be often asked +how much I earned. I never was asked. I had expected to be often +informed by casual acquaintances of their exact income. Nobody, save an +interviewer or so and the president of a great trust, ever passed me +even a hint as to the amount of his income. I had expected to find an +inordinate amount of tippling in clubs and hotels. I found, on the +contrary, a very marked sobriety. I had expected to receive many hard +words and some insolence from paid servants, such as train-men, +tram-men, lift-boys, and policemen. From this class, as from the others, +I received nothing but politeness, except in one instance. That +instance, by the way, was a barber in an important hotel, whom I had +most respectfully requested to refrain from bumping my head about. +"Why?" he demanded. "Because I've got a headache," I said. "Then why +didn't you tell me at first?" he crushed me. "Did you expect me to be a +thought-reader?" But, indeed, I could say a lot about American barbers. +I had expected to have my tempting fob snatched. It was not snatched. I +had expected to be asked, at the moment of landing, for my mature +opinion of the United States, and again at intervals of about a quarter +of an hour, day and night, throughout my stay. But I had been in America +at least ten days before the question was put to me, even in jest. I had +expected to be surrounded by boasting and impatient vanity concerning +the achievements of the United States and the citizens thereof. I +literally never heard a word of national boasting, nor observed the +slightest impatience under criticism.... I say I had expected these +things. I would be more correct to say that I _should_ have expected +them if I had had a rumor--believing mind: which I have not. + +But I really did expect to witness an overwhelming violence of traffic +and movement in lower Broadway and the renowned business streets in its +vicinity. And I really was disappointed by the ordinariness of the +scene, which could be well matched in half a dozen places in Europe, and +beaten in one or two. If but once I had been shoved into the gutter by a +heedless throng going furiously upon its financial ways, I should have +been content.... The legendary "American rush" is to me a fable. Whether +it ever existed I know not; but I certainly saw no trace of it, either +in New York or Chicago. I dare say I ought to have gone to Seattle for +it. My first sight of a stock-market roped off in the street was an +acute disillusionment. In agitation it could not have competed with a +sheep-market. In noise it was a muffled silence compared with the fine +racket that enlivens the air outside the Paris Bourse. I saw also an +ordinary day in the Stock Exchange. Faint excitations were afloat in +certain corners, but I honestly deemed the affair tame. A vast litter of +paper on the floor, a vast assemblage of hats pitched on the tops of +telephone-boxes--these phenomena do not amount to a hustle. Earnest +students of hustle should visit Paris or Milan. The fact probably is +that the perfecting of mechanical contrivances in the United States has +killed hustle as a diversion for the eyes and ears. The mechanical side +of the Exchange was wonderful and delightful. + +The sky-scrapers that cluster about the lower end of Broadway--their +natural home--were as impressive as I could have desired, but not +architecturally. For they could only be felt, not seen. And even in +situations where the sky-scraper is properly visible, it is, as a rule, +to my mind, architecturally a failure. I regret for my own sake that I +could not be more sympathetic toward the existing sky-scraper as an +architectural entity, because I had assuredly no European prejudice +against the sky-scraper as such. The objection of most people to the +sky-scraper is merely that it is unusual--the instinctive objection of +most people to everything that is original enough to violate tradition! +I, on the contrary, as a convinced modernist, would applaud the +unusualness of the sky-scraper. Nevertheless, I cannot possibly share +the feelings of patriotic New-Yorkers who discover architectural +grandeur in, say, the Flat Iron Building or the Metropolitan Life +Insurance Building. To me they confuse the poetical idea of these +buildings with the buildings themselves. I eagerly admit that the bold, +prow-like notion of the Flat Iron cutting northward is a splendid +notion, an inspiring notion; it thrills. But the building itself is +ugly--nay, it is adverbially ugly; and no reading of poetry _into_ it +will make it otherwise. + +[Illustration: A WELL-KNOWN WALL STREET CHARACTER] + +Similarly, the Metropolitan Building is tremendous. It is a grand sight, +but it is an ugly sight. The men who thought of it, who first conceived +the notion of it, were poets. They said, "We will cause to be +constructed the highest building in the world; we will bring into +existence the most amazing advertisement that an insurance company +ever had." That is good; it is superb; it is a proof of heroic +imagination. But the actual designers of the building did not rise to +the height of it; and if any poetry is left in it, it is not their +fault. Think what McKim might have accomplished on that site, and in +those dimensions! + +Certain architects, feeling the lack of imagination in the execution of +these enormous buildings, have set their imagination to work, but in a +perverse way and without candidly recognizing the conditions imposed +upon them by the sky-scraper form: and the result here and there has +been worse than dull; it has been distressing. But here and there, too, +one sees the evidence of real understanding and taste. If every tenant +of a sky-scraper demands--as I am informed he does--the same windows, +and radiators under every window, then the architect had better begin by +accepting that demand openly, with no fanciful or pseudo-imaginative +pretense that things are not what they are. The Ashland Building, on +Fourth Avenue, where the architectural imagination has exercised itself +soberly, honestly, and obediently, appeared to me to be a satisfactory +and agreeable sky-scraper; and it does not stand alone as the promise +that a new style will ultimately be evolved. + +In any case, a great deal of the poetry of New York is due to the +sky-scraper. At dusk the effect of the massed sky-scrapers illuminated +from within, as seen from any high building up-town, is prodigiously +beautiful, and it is unique in the cities of this world. The early night +effect of the whole town, topped by the aforesaid Metropolitan tower, +seen from the New Jersey shore, is stupendous, and resembles some +enchanted city of the next world rather than of this. And the fact that +a very prominent item in the perspective is a fiery representation of a +frothing glass of beer inconceivably large--well, this fact too has its +importance. + +But in the sky-scrapers there is a deeper romanticism than that which +disengages itself from them externally. You must enter them in order to +appreciate them, in order to respond fully to their complex appeal. +Outside, they often have the air of being nothing in particular; at best +the facade is far too modest in its revelation of the interior. You can +quite easily walk by a sky-scraper on Broadway without noticing it. But +you cannot actually go into the least of them and not be impressed. You +are in a palace. You are among marbles and porphyries. You breathe +easily in vast and brilliant foyers that never see daylight. And then +you come to those mysterious palisaded shafts with which the building +and every other building in New York is secretly honeycombed, and the +palisade is opened and an elevator snatches you up. I think of American +cities as enormous agglomerations in whose inmost dark recesses +innumerable elevators are constantly ascending and descending, like the +angels of the ladder.... + +[Illustration: THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT] + +The elevator ejects you. You are taken into dazzling daylight, into what +is modestly called a business office; but it resembles in its grandeur +no European business office, save such as may have been built by an +American. You look forth from a window, and lo! New York and the Hudson +are beneath you, and you are in the skies. And in the warmed stillness +of the room you hear the wind raging and whistling, as you would have +imagined it could only rage and whistle in the rigging of a three-master +at sea. There are, however, a dozen more stories above this story. You +walk from chamber to chamber, and in answer to inquiry learn that the +rent of this one suite-among so many-is over thirty-six thousand dollars +a year! And you reflect that, to the beholder in the street, all that is +represented by one narrow row of windows, lost in a diminishing +chess-board of windows. And you begin to realize what a sky-scraper is, +and the poetry of it. + +More romantic even than the sky-scraper finished and occupied is the +sky-scraper in process of construction. From no mean height, listening +to the sweet drawl of the steam-drill, I have watched artisans like +dwarfs at work still higher, among knitted steel, seen them balance +themselves nonchalantly astride girders swinging in space, seen them +throwing rivets to one another and never missing one; seen also a huge +crane collapse under an undue strain, and, crumpling like tinfoil, +carelessly drop its load onto the populous sidewalk below. That +particular mishap obviously raised the fear of death among a +considerable number of people, but perhaps only for a moment. Anybody in +America will tell you without a tremor (but with pride) that each story +of a sky-scraper means a life sacrificed. Twenty stories--twenty men +snuffed out; thirty stories--thirty men. A building of some sixty +stories is now going up--sixty corpses, sixty funerals, sixty domestic +hearths to be slowly rearranged, and the registrars alone know how many +widows, orphans, and other loose by-products! + +And this mortality, I believe, takes no account of the long battles +that are sometimes fought, but never yet to a finish, in the steel webs +of those upper floors when the labor-unions have a fit of objecting more +violently than usual to non-union labor. In one celebrated building, I +heard, the non-unionists contracted an unfortunate habit of getting +crippled; and three of them were indiscreet enough to put themselves +under a falling girder that killed them, while two witnesses who were +ready to give certain testimony in regard to the mishap vanished +completely out of the world, and have never since been heard of. And so +on. What more natural than that the employers should form a private +association for bringing to a close these interesting hazards? You may +see the leading spirit of the association. You may walk along the street +with him. He knows he is shadowed, and he is quite cheerful about it. +His revolver is always very ready for an emergency. Nobody seems to +regard this state of affairs as odd enough for any prolonged comment. +There it is! It is accepted. It is part of the American dailiness. +Nobody, at any rate in the comfortable clubs, seems even to consider +that the original cause of the warfare is aught but a homicidal +cussedness on the part of the unions.... I say that these accidents and +these guerrillas mysteriously and grimly proceeding in the skyey fabric +of metal-ribbed constructions, do really form part of the poetry of life +in America--or should it be the poetry of death? Assuredly they are a +spectacular illustration of that sublime, romantic contempt for law and +for human life which, to a European, is the most disconcerting factor +in the social evolution of your States. I have sat and listened to tales +from journalists and other learned connoisseurs till--But enough! + + * * * * * + +When I left New York and went to Washington I was congratulated on +having quitted the false America for the real. When I came to Boston I +received the sympathies of everybody in Boston on having been put off +for so long with spurious imitations of America, and a sigh of happy +relief went up that I had at length got into touch with a genuine +American city. When, after a long pilgrimage, I attained Chicago, I was +positively informed that Chicago alone was the gate of the United +States, and that everything east of Chicago was negligible and even +misleading. And when I entered Indianapolis I discovered that Chicago +was a mushroom and a suburb of Warsaw, and that its pretension to +represent the United States was grotesque, the authentic center of the +United States being obviously Indianapolis.... The great towns love thus +to affront one another, and their demeanor in the game resembles the +gamboling of young tigers--it is half playful and half ferocious. For +myself, I have to say that my heart was large enough to hold all I saw. +While I admit that Indianapolis struck me as very characteristically +American, I assert that the unreality of New York escaped me. It +appeared to me that New York was quite a real city, and European +geographies (apt to err, of course, in matters of detail) usually locate +it in America. + +Having regard to the healthy mutual jealousy of the great towns, I feel +that I am carrying audacity to the point of foolhardiness when I state +that the streets of every American city I saw reminded me on the whole +rather strongly of the streets of all the others. What inhabitants of +what city could forgive this? Yet I must state it. Much of what I have +said of the streets of New York applies, in my superficial opinion, for +instance, to the streets of Chicago. It is well known that to the +Chinaman all Westerners look alike. No tourist on his first visit to a +country so astonishing as the United States is very different from a +Chinaman; the tourist should reconcile himself to that deep truth. It is +desolating to think that a second visit will reveal to me the blindness, +the distortions, and the wrong-headedness of my first. But even as a +Chinaman I did notice subtle differences between New York and Chicago. +As one who was brought up in a bleak and uncanny climate, where soft +coal is in universal use, I at once felt more at home in Chicago than I +could ever do in New York. The old instinct to wash the hands and change +the collar every couple of hours instantly returned to me in Chicago, +together with the old comforting conviction that a harsh climate is a +climate healthy for body and spirit. And, because it is laden with soot, +the air of Chicago is a great mystifier and beautifier. Atmospheric +effects may be seen there that are unobtainable without the combustion +of soft coal. Talk, for example, as much as you please about the +electric sky-signs of Broadway--not all of them together will write as +much poetry on the sky as the single word "Illinois" that hangs without +a clue to its suspension in the murky dusk over Michigan Avenue. The +visionary aspects of Chicago are incomparable. + +[Illustration: A WINTER MORNING IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO] + +Another difference, of quite another order, between New York and +Chicago is that Chicago is self-conscious. New York is not; no +metropolis ever is. You are aware of the self-consciousness of Chicago +as soon as you are aware of its bitumen. The quality demands sympathy, +and wins it by its wistfulness. Chicago is openly anxious about its +soul. I liked that. I wish I could see a livelier anxiety concerning the +municipal soul in certain cities of Europe. + +Perhaps the least subtle difference between New York and Chicago springs +from the fact that the handsomest part of New York is the center of New +York, whereas the center of Chicago is disappointing. It does not +impress. I was shown, in the center of Chicago, the first sky-scraper +that the world had ever seen. I visited with admiration what was said to +be the largest department store in the world. I visited with a natural +rapture the largest book-store in the world. I was informed (but +respectfully doubt) that Chicago is the greatest port in the world. I +could easily credit, from the evidence of my own eyes, that it is the +greatest railway center in the world. But still my imagination was not +fired, as it has been fired again and again by far lesser and far less +interesting places. Nobody could call Wabash Avenue spectacular, and +nobody surely would assert that State Street is on a plane with the +collective achievements of the city of which it is the principal +thoroughfare. The truth is that Chicago lacks at present a +rallying-point--some Place de la Concorde or Arc de Triomphe--something +for its biggest streets to try to live up to. A convocation of elevated +railroads is not enough. It seemed to me that Jackson Boulevard or Van +Buren Street, with fine crescents abutting opposite Grant Park and +Garfield Park, and a magnificent square at the intersection of Ashland +Avenue, might ultimately be the chief sight and exemplar of Chicago. Why +not? Should not the leading thoroughfare lead boldly to the lake instead +of shunning it? I anticipate the time when the municipal soul of Chicago +will have found in its streets as adequate expression as it has already +found in its boulevards. + +Perhaps if I had not made the "grand tour" of those boulevards, I might +have been better satisfied with the streets of Chicago. The excursion, +in an automobile, occupied something like half of a frosty day that +ended in torrents of rain--apparently a typical autumn day in Chicago! +Before it had proceeded very far I knew that there was a sufficient +creative imagination on the shore of Lake Michigan to carry through any +municipal enterprise, however vast, to a generous and final conclusion. +The conception of those boulevards discloses a tremendous audacity and +faith. And as you roll along the macadam, threading at intervals a +wide-stretching park, you are overwhelmed--at least I was--by the +completeness of the scheme's execution and the lavishness with which the +system is in every detail maintained and kept up. + +[Illustration: A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN BLACK AND WHITE--CHICAGO] + +You stop to inspect a conservatory, and find yourself in a really +marvelous landscape garden, set with statues, all under glass and +heated, where the gaffers of Chicago are collected together to discuss +interminably the exciting politics of a city anxious about its soul. And +while listening to them with one ear, with the other you may catch +the laconic tale of a park official's perilous and successful vendetta +against the forces of graft. + +And then you resume the circuit and accomplish many more smooth, +curving, tree-lined miles, varied by a jolting section, or by the faint +odor of the Stock-yards, or by a halt to allow the longest freight-train +in the world to cross your path. You have sighted in the distance +universities, institutions, even factories; you have passed through many +inhabited portions of the endless boulevard, but you have not actually +touched hands with the city since you left it at the beginning of the +ride. Then at last, as darkness falls, you feel that you are coming to +the city again, but from another point of the compass. You have rounded +the circle of its millions. You need only think of the unkempt, shabby, +and tangled outskirts of New York, or of any other capital city, to +realize the miracle that Chicago has put among her assets ... + +You descry lanes of water in the twilight, and learn that in order to +prevent her drainage from going into the lake Chicago turned a river +back in its course and compelled it to discharge ultimately into the +Mississippi. That is the story. You feel that it is exactly what +Chicago, alone among cities, would have the imagination and the courage +to do. Some man must have risen from his bed one morning with the idea, +"Why not make the water flow the other way?" And then gone, perhaps +diffidently, to his fellows in charge of the city with the suggestive +query, "Why not make the water flow the other way?" And been laughed at! +Only the thing was done in the end! I seem to have heard that there was +an epilogue to this story, relating how certain other great cities +showed a narrow objection to Chicago draining herself in the direction +of the Mississippi, and how Chicago, after all, succeeded in persuading +those whom it was necessary to persuade that, whereas her drainage was +unsuited to Lake Michigan, it would consort well with the current of the +Mississippi. + +And then, in the night and in the rain, you swerve round some corner +into the straight, by Grant Park, in full sight of one of the most +dazzling spectacles that Chicago or any other city can offer--Michigan +Avenue on a wet evening. Each of the thousands of electric standards in +Michigan Avenue is a cluster of six huge globes (and yet they will tell +you in Paris that the Rue de la Paix is the best-lit street in the +world), and here and there is a red globe of warning. The two lines of +light pour down their flame into the pool which is the roadway, and you +travel continually toward an incandescent floor without ever quite +reaching it, beneath mysterious words of fire hanging in the invisible +sky!... The automobile stops. You get out, stiff, and murmur something +inadequate about the length and splendor of those boulevards. "Oh," you +are told, carelessly, "those are only the interior boulevards.... +Nothing! You should see our exterior boulevards--not quite finished +yet!" + + + + +III + +THE CAPITOL AND OTHER SITES + + +"Here, Jimmy!" said, briskly, a middle-aged administrative person in +easy attire, who apparently had dominion over the whole floor beneath +the dome. A younger man, also in easy attire, answered the call with an +alert smile. The elder pointed sideways with his head at my two friends +and myself, and commanded, "Run them through in thirty minutes!" Then, +having reached the center of a cuspidor with all the precision of a +character in a Californian novel, he added benevolently to Jimmy, "Make +it a dollar for them." And Jimmy, consenting, led us away. + +In this episode Europe was having her revenge on the United States, and +I had planned it. How often, in half a hundred cities of Europe, had I +not observed the American citizen seeing the sights thereof at high +speed? Yes, even in front of the Michael Angelo sculptures in the Medici +Chapel at Florence had I seen him, watch in hand, and heard him murmur +"Bully!" to the sculptures and the time of the train to his wife in one +breath! Now it was impossible for me to see Washington under the normal +conditions of a session. And so I took advantage of the visit to +Washington of two friends on business to see Washington hastily, as an +excursionist pure and simple. I said to the United States, grimly: "The +most important and the most imposing thing in all America is surely the +Capitol at Washington. Well, I will see it as you see the sacred sights +of Europe. By me Europe shall be revenged." + +Thus it came about that we had hired a kind of carriage known as a +"sea-going hack," driven by a negro in dark blue, who was even more +picturesque than the negroes in white who did the menial work in the +classic hotel, and had set forth frankly as excursionists into the +streets of Washington, and presently through the celebrated Pennsylvania +Avenue had achieved entrance into the Capitol. + +[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL] + +It was a breathless pilgrimage--this seeing of the Capitol. And yet an +impressive one. The Capitol is a great place. I was astonished--and I +admit at once I ought not to have been astonished--that the Capitol +appeals to the historic sense just as much as any other vast legislative +palace of the world--and perhaps more intimately than some. The sequence +of its endless corridors and innumerable chambers, each associated with +event or tradition, begets awe. I think it was in the rich Senatorial +reception-room that I first caught myself being surprised that the heavy +gilded and marmoreal sumptuosity of the decorations recalled the average +European palace. Why should I have been expecting the interior of the +Capitol to consist of austere bare walls and unornamented floors? +Perhaps it was due to some thought of Abraham Lincoln. But whatever its +cause, the expectation was naive and derogatory. The young guide, Jimmy, +who by birth and genius evidently belonged to the universal race of +guides, was there to keep my ideas right and my eyes open. He was +infinitely precious, and after his own fashion would have done honor to +any public monument in the East. Such men are only bred in the very +shadow of genuine history. + +"See," he said, touching a wall. "Painted by celebrated Italian artist +to look like bas-relief! But put your hand flat against it, and you'll +see it isn't carved!" One might have been in Italy. + +And a little later he was saying of other painting: + +"Although painted in eighteen hundred sixty-five--forty-six years +ago--you notice the flesh tints are as fresh as if painted yesterday!" + +This, I think, was the finest remark I ever heard a guide make--until +this same guide stepped in front of a portrait of Henry Clay, and, after +a second's hesitation, threw off airily, patronizingly: + +"Henry Clay--quite a good statesman!" + +But I also contributed my excursionist's share to these singular +conversations. In the swathed Senate Chamber I noticed two +holland-covered objects that somehow reminded me of my youth and of +religious dissent. I guessed that the daily proceedings of the Senate +must be opened with devotional exercises, and these two objects seemed +to me to be proper--why, I cannot tell--to the United States Senate; but +there was one point that puzzled me. + +"Why," I asked, "do you have _two_ harmoniums?" + +"Harmoniums, sir!" protested the guide, staggered. "Those are roll-top +desks." + +If only the floor could have opened and swallowed me up, as it opens +and swallows up the grand piano at the Thomas concerts in Chicago! + +Neither the Senate Chamber nor the Congress Chamber was as imposing to +me as the much less spacious former Senate Chamber and the former +Congress Chamber. The old Senate Chamber, being now transferred to the +uses of supreme justice, was closed on the day of our visit, owing to +the funeral of a judge. Europeans would have acquiesced in the firm +negative of its locked doors. But my friends, being American, would not +acquiesce. The mere fact that the room was not on view actually +sharpened their desire that I should see it. They were deaf to +refusals.... I saw that room. And I was glad that I saw it, for in its +august simplicity it was worth seeing. The spirit of the early history +of the United States seemed to reside in that hemicycle; and the crape +on the vacated and peculiar chair added its own effect. + +[Illustration: ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE] + +My first notion on entering the former Congress Chamber was that I was +in presence of the weirdest collection of ugly statues that I had ever +beheld. Which impression, the result of shock, was undoubtedly false. On +reflection I am convinced that those statues of the worthies of the +different States are not more ugly than many statues I could point to in +no matter what fane, museum, or palace of Europe. Their ugliness is only +different from our accustomed European ugliness. The most crudely ugly +mural decorations in the world are to be found all over Italy--the home +of sublime frescos. The most atrociously debased architecture in the +world is to be found in France--the home of sober artistic tradition. +Europe is simply peppered everywhere with sculpture whose appalling +mediocrity defies competition. But when the European meets ugly +sculpture or any ugly form of art in the New World, his instinct is to +exclaim, "Of course!" His instinct is to exclaim, "This beats +everything!" The attitude will not bear examination. And lo! I was +adopting it myself. + +"And here's Frances Willard!" cried, ecstatically, a young woman in one +of the numerous parties of excursionists whose more deliberate paths +through the Capitol we were continually crossing in our swift course. + +And while, upon the spot where John Quincy Adams fell, I pretended to +listen to the guide, who was proving to me from a distance that the +place was as good a whispering-gallery as any in Europe, I thought: "And +why should not Frances Willard's statue be there? I am glad it is there. +And I am glad to see these groups of provincials admiring with open +mouths the statues of the makers of their history, though the statues +are chiefly painful." And I thought also: "New York may talk, and +Chicago may talk, and Boston may talk, but it is these groups of +provincials who are the real America." They were extraordinarily like +people from the Five Towns--that is to say, extraordinarily like +comfortable average people everywhere. + +We were outside again, under one of the enormous porticos of the +Capitol. The guide was receiving his well-earned dollar. The faithful +fellow had kept nicely within the allotted limit of half an hour. + +"Now we'll go and see the Congressional Library," said my particular +friend. + +But I would not. I had put myself in a position to retort to any +sight-seeing American in Europe that I had seen his Capitol in thirty +minutes, and I was content. I determined to rest on my laurels. +Moreover, I had discovered that conventional sight-seeing is a very +exhausting form of activity. I would visit neither the Library of +Congress, nor the Navy Department, nor the Pension Bureau, nor the +Dead-Letter Museum, nor the Zoological Park, nor the White House, nor +the National Museum, nor the Lincoln Museum, nor the Smithsonian +Institution, nor the Treasury, nor any other of the great spectacles of +Washington. We just resumed the sea-going hack and drove indolently to +and fro in avenues and parks, tasting the general savor of the city's +large pleasantness. And we had not gone far before we got into the +clutches of the police. + +"I don't know who you are," said a policeman, as he stopped our +sea-going hack. "I don't know who you are," he repeated, cautiously, as +one accustomed to policing the shahs and grand viziers of the earth, +"but it's my duty to tell you your coachman crossed over on the wrong +side of the lamp-post. It's not allowed, and he knows it as well as I +do." + +We admitted by our shamed silence that we had no special "pull" in +Washington; the wise negro said not a word; and we crept away from the +policeman's wrath, and before I knew it we were up against the +Washington Monument--one of those national calamities which ultimately +happen to every country, and of which the supreme example is, of course, +the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. + +[Illustration: ON THE STEPS OF THE PORTICO--THE CAPITOL] + +When I drove into the magnificent railway station late that +night--true American rain was descending in sheets--I was carrying away +with me an impression, as it were, of a gigantic plantation of public +edifices in a loose tangle and undergrowth of thoroughfares: which +seemed proper for a legislative and administrative metropolis. I was +amused to reflect how the city, like most cities, had extended in +precisely the direction in which its founders had never imagined it +would extend; and naturally I was astonished by the rapidity of its +development. (One of my friends, who was not old, had potted wild game +in a marsh that is now a park close to the Capitol.) I thought that the +noble wings of the Capitol were architecturally much superior to the +central portion of it. I remembered a dazzling glimpse of the White +House as a distinguished little building. I feared that ere my next +visit the indefatigable energy of America would have rebuilt +Pennsylvania Avenue, especially the higgledy-piggledy and picturesque +and untidy portion of it that lies nearest to the Capitol, and I hoped +that in doing so the architects would at any rate not carry the cornice +to such excess as it has been carried in other parts of the town. And, +finally, I was slightly scared by the prevalence of negroes. It seemed +to me as if in Washington I had touched the fringe of the negro problem. + + * * * * * + +It was in a different and a humbler spirit that I went to Boston. I had +received more warnings and more advice about Boston than about all the +other cities put together. And, in particular, the greatest care had +been taken to permeate my whole being with the idea that Boston was +"different." In some ways it proved so to be. One difference forced +itself upon me immediately I left the station for the streets--the +quaint, original odor of the taxis. When I got to the entirely admirable +hotel I found a book in a prominent situation on the writing-table in my +room. In many hotels this book would have been the Bible. But here it +was the catalogue of the hotel library; it ran to a hundred and +eighty-two pages. On the other hand, there was no bar in the hotel, and +no smoking-room. I make no comments; I draw no conclusions; I state the +facts. + +The warnings continued after my arrival. I was informed by I don't know +how many persons that Boston was "a circular city," with a topography +calculated to puzzle the simple. This was true. I usually go about in +strange places with a map, but I found the map of Boston even more +complex than the city it sought to explain. If I did not lose myself, it +was because I never trusted myself alone; other people lost me. + +Within an hour or so I had been familiarized by Bostonians with a whole +series of apparently stock jokes concerning and against Boston, such as +that one hinging on the phrase "cold roast Boston," and that other one +about the best thing in Boston being the five o'clock train to New York +(I do not vouch for the hour of departure). Even in Cambridge, a less +jocular place, a joke seemed to be immanent, to the effect that though +you could always tell a Harvard man, you could not tell him much. + +[Illustration: UNDER THE GREAT DOME OF THE CAPITOL] + +Matters more serious awaited me. An old resident of Boston took me +out for privacy onto the Common and whispered in my ear: "This is the +most snobbish city in the whole world. There is no real democracy here. +The first thing people do when they get to know you is to show you their +family tree and prove that they came over in the _Mayflower_." And so he +ran on, cursing Boston up hill and down dale. Nevertheless, he was very +proud of his Boston. Had I agreed with the condemnation, he might have +thrown me into the artificial brook. Another great Bostonian expert, +after leading me on to admit that I had come in order to try to learn +the real Boston, turned upon me with ferocious gaiety, thus: "You will +not learn the real Boston. You cannot. The real Boston is the old Back +Bay folk, who gravitate eternally between Beacon Street and State Street +and the Somerset Club, and never go beyond. They confuse New England +with the created universe, and it is impossible that you should learn +them. Nobody could learn them in less than twenty years' intense study +and research." + +Cautioned, and even intimidated, I thought it would be safest just to +take Boston as Boston came, respectfully but casually. And as the +hospitality of Boston was prodigious, splendid, unintermittent, and most +delightfully unaffected, I had no difficulty whatever in taking Boston +as she came. And my impressions began to emerge, one after another, from +the rich and cloudy confusion of novel sensations. + +What primarily differentiates Boston from all the other cities I saw is +this: It is finished; I mean complete. Of the other cities, while +admitting their actual achievement, one would say, and their own +citizens invariably do say, "They will be ..." Boston is. + +Another leading impression, which remains with me, is that Boston is not +so English as it perhaps imagines itself to be. An interviewer (among +many) came to see me about Boston, and he came with the fixed and sole +notion in his head that Boston was English. He would have it that Boston +was English. Worn down by his persistency, I did, as a fact, admit in +one obscure corner of the interview that Boston had certain English +characteristics. The scare-head editor of the interviewing paper, +looking through his man's copy for suitable prey, came across my +admission. It was just what he wanted; it was what he was thirsting for. +In an instant the scare-head was created: "Boston as English as a +muffin!" An ideal scare-head! That I had never used the word "muffin" or +any such phrase was a detail exquisitely unimportant. The scare-head was +immense. It traveled in fine large type across the continent. I met it +for weeks afterward in my press-cuttings, and I doubt if Boston was +altogether delighted with the comparison. I will not deny that Boston is +less strikingly un-English than sundry other cities. I will not deny +that I met men in Boston of a somewhat pronounced English type. I will +not deny that in certain respects old Kensington reminds me of a street +here and there in Boston--such as Mount Vernon Street or Chestnut +Street. But I do maintain that the Englishness of Boston has been +seriously exaggerated. + +And still another very striking memory of Boston--indeed, perhaps, the +paramount impression!--is that it contains the loveliest modern thing I +saw in America--namely, the Puvis de Chavannes wall-paintings on the +grand staircase of the Public Library. The Library itself is a beautiful +building, but it holds something more beautiful. Never shall I forget my +agitation on beholding these unsurpassed works of art, which alone would +suffice to make Boston a place of pilgrimage. + +When afterward I went back to Paris, the painters' first question was: +"_Et les Puvis a Boston--vous les avez vus? Qu'est-ce que vous en +dites?_" + +It was very un-English on the part of Boston to commission these austere +and classical works. England would never have done it. The nationality +of the greatest decorative painter of modern times would have offended +her sense of fitness. What--a French painter officially employed on an +English public building? Unthinkable! England would have insisted on an +English painter--or, at worst, an American. It is strange that a +community which had the wit to honor itself by employing Puvis de +Chavannes should be equally enthusiastic about the frigid +theatricalities of an E.A. Abbey or the forbidding and opaque intricate +dexterity of a John Sargent in the same building. Or, rather, it is not +strange, for these contradictions are discoverable everywhere in the +patronage of the arts. + +It was from the Public Library that some friends and I set out on a +little tour of Boston. Whether we went north, south, east, or west I +cannot tell, for this was one of the few occasions when the extreme +variousness of a city has deprived me definitely of a sense of +direction; but I know that we drove many miles through magnificent +fenny parks, whose roads were reserved to pleasure, and that at length, +after glimpsing famous houses and much of the less centralized wealth +and ease of Boston, we came out upon the shores of the old harbor, and +went into a yacht-club-house with a glorious prospect. Boston has more +book-shops to the acre than any city within my knowledge except Aberdeen +(not North Carolina, but Scotland). Its book-shops, however, are as +naught to its yacht clubs. And for one yacht club I personally would +sacrifice many book-shops. It was an exciting moment in my life when, +after further wandering on and off coast roads, and through curving, +cobbled, rackety streets, and between thunderous tram-cars and under +deafening elevated lines, I was permitted to enter the celestial and +calm precincts of the Boston Yacht Club itself, which overlooks another +harbor. The acute and splendid nauticality of this club, all fashioned +out of an old warehouse, stamps Boston as a city which has comprehended +the sea. I saw there the very wheel of the _Spray_, the cockboat in +which the regretted Slocum wafted himself round the world! I sat in an +arm-chair which would have suited Falstaff, and whose tabular arms would +have held all Falstaff's tankards, and gazed through a magnified +port-hole at a six-masted schooner as it crossed the field of vision! +And I had never even dreamed that a six-masted schooner existed! It was +with difficulty that I left the Boston Yacht Club. Indeed, I would only +leave it in order to go and see the frigate _Constitution_, the ship +which was never defeated, and which assuredly, after over a hundred and +ten years of buoyant life, remains the most truly English thing in +Boston. The afternoon teas of Boston are far less English than that grim +and majestic craft. + +[Illustration: THE PROMENADE--CITY POINT, BOSTON] + +We passed into the romantic part of Boston, skirting vast +wool-warehouses and other enormous establishments bearing such Oriental +signs as "Coffee and Spices." And so into a bewildering congeries of +crowded streets, where every name on the walls seemed to be Italian, and +where every corner was dangerous with vegetable-barrows, tram-cars, and +perambulators; through this quarter the legend of Paul Revere seemed to +float like a long wisp of vapor. And then I saw the Christopher Wren +spire of Paul Revere's signal-church, closed now--but whether because +the congregation had dwindled to six or for some more recondite reason I +am not clear. And then I beheld the delightful, elegant fabric of the +old State House, with the memories of massacre round about it, and the +singular spectacle of the Lion and the Unicorn on its roof. Too proudly +negligent had Boston been to remove those symbols! + +And finally we rolled into the central and most circular shopping +quarter, as different from the Italian quarter as the Italian quarter +was different from Copley Square; and its heart was occupied by a +graveyard. And here I had to rest. + +The second portion of the itinerary began with the domed State Capitol, +an impressive sight, despite its strange coloring, and despite its +curious habit of illuminating itself at dark, as if in competition with +such establishments as the "Bijou Dream," on the opposite side of the +Common. Here I first set eyes on Beacon Street, familiar--indeed, +classic--to the European student of American literature. Commonwealth +Avenue, I have to confess, I had never heard of till I saw it. These +interminable and gorgeous thoroughfares, where each massive abode is a +costly and ceremonial organization of the most polished and civilized +existence, leave the simple European speechless--especially when he +remembers the swampy origin of the main part of the ground.... The +inscrutable, the unknowable Back Bay! + +Here, indeed, is evidence of a society in equilibrium, and therefore of +a society which will receive genuinely new ideas with an extreme, if +polite, caution, while welcoming with warm suavity old ideas that +disguise themselves as novelties! + +It was a tremendous feat to reclaim from ooze the foundation of Back +Bay. Such feats are not accomplished in Europe; they are not even +imaginatively conceived there. And now that the great business is +achieved, the energy that did it, restless and unoccupied, is seeking +another field. I was informed that Boston is dreaming of the +construction of an artificial island in the midst of the river Charles, +with the hugest cathedral in the world thereon, and the most gorgeous +bridges that ever spanned a fine stream. With proper deference, it is to +be hoped that Boston, forgetting this infelicitous caprice, will +remember in time that she alone among the great cities of America is +complete. A project that would consort well with the genius of Chicago +might disserve Boston in the eyes of those who esteem a sense of fitness +to be among the major qualifications for the true art of life. And, in +the matter of the art of daily living, Boston as she is has a great deal +to teach to the rest of the country, and little to learn. Such is the +diffident view of a stranger. + + * * * * * + +Cambridge is separated from Boston by the river Charles and by piquant +jealousies that tickle no one more humorously than those whom, +theoretically, they stab. From the east bank Cambridge is academic, and +therefore negligible; from the west, Boston dwindles to a mere quay +where one embarks for Europe. + +What struck me first about Cambridge was that it must be the only city +of its size and amenity in the United States without an imposing hotel. +It is difficult to imagine any city in the United States minus at least +two imposing hotels, with a barber's shop in the basement and a world's +fair in the hall. But one soon perceives that Cambridge is a city apart. +In visual characteristics it must have changed very little, and it will +never change with facility. Boston is pre-eminently a town of +traditions, but the traditions have to be looked for. Cambridge is +equally a town of traditions, but the traditions stare you in the face. + +My first halt was in front of the conspicuous home of James Russell +Lowell. Now in the far recesses of the Five Towns I was brought up on +"My Study Windows." My father, who would never accept the authority of +an encyclopedia when his children got him in a corner on some debated +question of fact, held James Russell Lowell as the supreme judge of +letters, from whom not even he could appeal (It is true, he had never +heard of Ste. Beuve, and regarded Matthew Arnold as a modern fad.) And +there were the study windows of James Russell Lowell! And his house in +its garden was only one of hundreds of similar houses standing in like +old gardens. + +It was highly agreeable to learn that some of the pre-Revolution houses +had not yet left the occupation of the families which built them. +Beautiful houses, a few of them, utterly dissimilar from anything on the +other side of the Atlantic! Did not William Morris always maintain that +wood was and forever would be the most suitable material for building a +house? On the side of the railroad track near Toledo I saw frame houses, +whose architecture is debased from this Cambridge architecture, blown +clean over by the gale. But the gale that will deracinate Cambridge has +not yet begun to rage.... I rejoiced to see the house of Longfellow. In +spite of the fact that he wrote "The Wreck of the _Hesperus_," he seems +to keep his position as the chief minor poet of the English language. +And the most American and the most wistful thing in Cambridge was that +the children of Cambridge had been guided to buy and make inalienable +the land in front of his house, so that his descendant might securely +enjoy the free prospect that Longfellow enjoyed. In what other country +would just such a delicate, sentimental homage have been paid in just +such an ingeniously fanciful manner?[1] + +[Footnote 1: This story was related to me by a resident of Cambridge. +Mr. Richard H. Dana, Longfellow's son-in-law, has since informed me that +it is quite untrue. I regret that it is quite untrue. It ought to have +been quite true. The land in question was given by Longfellow's children +to the Longfellow Memorial Association, who gave it to the city of +Cambridge. The general children of Cambridge did give to Longfellow an +arm-chair made from the wood of a certain historic "spreading +chestnut-tree," under which stood a certain historic village smithy; and +with this I suppose I must be content.--A.B.] + +[Illustration: THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB--OVERLOOKING THE RIVER] + +After I had passed the Longfellow house it began to rain, and dusk +began to gather in the recesses between the houses; and my memory is +that, with an athletic and tireless companion, I walked uncounted +leagues through endless avenues of Cambridge homes toward a promised +club that seemed ever to retreat before us with the shyness of a fawn. +However, we did at length capture it. This club was connected with +Harvard, and I do not propose to speak of Harvard in the present +chapter. + + * * * * * + +The typical Cambridge house as I saw it persists in my recollection as +being among the most characteristic and comfortable of "real" American +phenomena. And one reason why I insisted, in a previous chapter, on the +special Americanism of Indianapolis is that Indianapolis is full of a +modified variety of these houses which is even more characteristically +American--to my mind--than the Cambridge style itself. Indianapolis +being by general consent the present chief center of letters in the +United States, it is not surprising that I, an author, knew more people +from Indianapolis than from any other city. Indeed, I went to +Indianapolis simply because I had old friends there, and not at all in +the hope of inspecting a city characteristically American. It was quite +startlingly different from the mental picture I had formed of it. + +I think that in order to savor Indianapolis properly one should approach +it as I approached it--in an accommodation-train on a single track, a +train with a happy-go-lucky but still agreeable service in its +restaurant-car, a train that halts at every barn-door in the vast flat, +featureless fields of yellow stubble, rolling sometimes over a muddy, +brown river, and skirting now and then a welcome wooded cleft in the +monotony of the landscape. The scenes at those barn-doors were full of +the picturesque and of the racy. A farmer with a gun and a brace of +rabbits and a dog leaping up at them, while two young women talked to or +at the farmer from a distance; a fat little German girl in a Scotch +frock, cleaning outside windows with the absorbed seriousness of a +grandmother; a group of boys dividing their attention between her and +the train; an old woman driving a cart, and a negro gesticulating and +running after the cart; and all of them, save the nigger, wearing +gloves--presumably as a protection against the strong wind that swept +through the stubble and shook the houses and the few trees. Those +houses, in all their summariness and primitive crudity, yet reminded one +of the Cambridge homes; they exhibited some remains of the +pre-Revolution style. + +And then you come to the inevitable State Fair grounds, and the environs +of the city which is the capital and heart of all those plains. + +And after you have got away from the railroad station and the imposing +hotels and the public monuments and the high central buildings--an +affair of five minutes in an automobile--you discover yourself in long, +calm streets of essential America. These streets are rectangular; the +streets of Cambridge abhor the straight line. They are full everywhere +of maple-trees. And on either side they are bordered with homes--each +house detached, each house in its own fairly spacious garden, each +house individual and different from all the rest. Few of the houses are +large; on the other hand, none of them is small: this is the region of +the solid middle class, the class which loves comfort and piques itself +on its amenities, but is a little ashamed or too timid to be luxurious. + +Architecturally the houses represent a declension from the purity of +earlier Cambridge. Scarcely one is really beautiful. The style is +debased. But then, it possesses the advantage of being modernized; it +has not the air of having strayed by accident into the wrong century. +And, moreover, it is saved from condemnation by its sobriety and by its +honest workmanship. It is the expression of a race incapable of looking +foolish, of being giddy, of running to extremes. It is the expression of +a race that both clung to the past and reached out to the future; that +knew how to make the best of both worlds; that keenly realized the value +of security because it had been through insecurity. You can see that all +these houses were built by people who loved "a bit of property," and to +whom a safe and dignified roof was the final ambition achieved. Why! I +do believe that there are men and women behind some of those curtains to +this day who haven't quite realized that the Indians aren't coming any +more, and that there is permanently enough wood in the pile, and that +quinine need no longer figure in the store cupboard as a staple article +of diet! I do believe that there are minor millionaires in some of those +drawing-rooms who wonder whether, out-soaring the ambition of a bit of +property, they would be justified in creeping down-town and buying a +cheap automobile!... These are the people who make the link between the +academic traditionalism of Cambridge and such excessively modern +products of evolution as their own mayor, Mr. Shanks, protector of the +poor. They are not above forming deputations to parley with their own +mayor.... I loved them. Their drawing-rooms were full of old silver, and +book-gossip, and Victorian ladies apparently transported direct from the +more aristocratic parts of the Five Towns, who sat behind trays and +poured out tea from the identical tea-pot that my grandmother used to +keep in a green bag. + +In the outer suburbs of the very largest cities I saw revulsions against +the wholesale barracky conveniences of the apartment-house, in the shape +of little colonies of homes, consciously but superficially imitating the +Cambridge-Indianapolis tradition--with streets far more curvily winding +than the streets of Cambridge, and sidewalks of a strip of concrete +between green turf-bands that recalled the original sidewalks of +Indianapolis and even of the rural communities around Indianapolis. Cozy +homes, each in its own garden, with its own clothes-drier, and each +different from all the rest! Homes that the speculative builder, recking +not of the artistic sobriety, had determined should be picturesque at +any cost of capricious ingenuity! And not secure homes, because, though +they were occupied by their owners, their owners had not built them--had +only bought them, and would sell them as casually as they had bought. +The apartment-house will probably prove stronger than these throwbacks. +And yet the time will come when even the apartment-house will be +regarded as a picturesque survival. Into what novel architecture and +organization of living it will survive I should not care to prophesy, +but I am convinced that the future will be quite as interestingly human +as the present is, and as the past was. + + + + +IV + +SOME ORGANIZATIONS + + +"What strikes and frightens the backward European as much as anything in +the United States is the efficiency and fearful universality of the +telephone. Just as I think of the big cities as agglomerations pierced +everywhere by elevator-shafts full of movement, so I think of them as +being threaded, under pavements and over roofs and between floors and +ceilings and between walls, by millions upon millions of live filaments +that unite all the privacies of the organism--and destroy them in order +to make one immense publicity! I do not mean that Europe has failed to +adopt the telephone, nor that in Europe there are no hotels with the +dreadful curse of an active telephone in every room. But I do mean that +the European telephone is a toy, and a somewhat clumsy one, compared +with the inexorable seriousness of the American telephone. Many +otherwise highly civilized Europeans are as timid in addressing a +telephone as they would be in addressing a royal sovereign. The average +European middle-class householder still speaks of his telephone, if he +has one, in the same falsely casual tone as the corresponding American +is liable to speak of his motor-car. It is naught--a negligible +trifle--but somehow it comes into the conversation! + +"How odd!" you exclaim. And you are right. It is we Europeans who are +wrong, through no particular fault of our own. + +The American is ruthlessly logical about the telephone. The only +occasion on which I was in really serious danger of being taken for a +madman in the United States was when, in a Chicago hotel, I permanently +removed the receiver from the telephone in a room designed (doubtless +ironically) for slumber. The whole hotel was appalled. Half Chicago +shuddered. In response to the prayer of a deputation from the management +I restored the receiver. On the horrified face of the deputation I could +read the unspoken query: "Is it conceivable that you have been in this +country a month without understanding that the United States is +primarily nothing but a vast congeries of telephone-cabins?" Yes, I +yielded and admired! And I surmise that on my next visit I shall find a +telephone on every table of every restaurant that respects itself. + +[Illustration: AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER TELEPHONE] + +It is the efficiency of the telephone that makes it irresistible to a +great people whose passion is to "get results"--the instancy with which +the communication is given, and the clear loudness of the telephone's +voice in reply to yours: phenomena utterly unknown in Europe. Were I to +inhabit the United States, I too should become a victim of the telephone +habit, as it is practised in its most advanced form in those suburban +communities to which I have already incidentally referred at the end of +the previous chapter. There a woman takes to the telephone as women in +more decadent lands take to morphia. You can see her at morn at her +bedroom window, pouring confidences into her telephone, thus +combining the joy of an innocent vice with the healthy freshness of +breeze and sunshine. It has happened to me to sit in a drawing-room, +where people gathered round the telephone as Europeans gather round a +fire, and to hear immediately after the ejaculation of a number into the +telephone a sharp ring from outside through the open window, and then to +hear in answer to the question, "What are you going to wear to-night?" +two absolutely simultaneous replies, one loudly from the telephone +across the room, and the other faintlier from a charming human voice +across the garden: "I don't know. What are you?" Such may be the +pleasing secondary scientific effect of telephoning to the lady next +door on a warm afternoon. + +Now it was obvious that behind the apparently simple exterior aspects of +any telephone system there must be an intricate and marvelous secret +organization. In Europe my curiosity would probably never have been +excited by the thought of that organization--at home one accepts +everything as of course!--but, in the United States, partly because the +telephone is so much more wonderful and terrible there, and partly +because in a foreign land one is apt to have strange caprices, I allowed +myself to become the prey of a desire to see the arcanum concealed at +the other end of all the wires; and thus, one day, under the high +protection of a demigod of the electrical world, I paid a visit to a +telephone-exchange in New York, and saw therein what nine hundred and +ninety-nine out of every thousand of the most ardent telephone-users +seldom think about and will never see. + +A murmuring sound, as of an infinity of scholars in a prim school +conning their lessons, and a long row of young women seated in a dim +radiance on a long row of precisely similar stools, before a long +apparatus of holes and pegs and pieces of elastic cord, all extremely +intent: that was the first broad impression. One saw at once that none +of these young women had a single moment to spare; they were all +involved in the tremendous machine, part of it, keeping pace with it and +in it, and not daring to take their eyes off it for an instant, lest +they should sin against it. What they were droning about it was +impossible to guess; for if one stationed oneself close to any +particular rapt young woman, she seemed to utter no sound, but simply +and without ceasing to peg and unpeg holes at random among the thousands +of holes before her, apparently in obedience to the signaling of faint, +tiny lights that in thousands continually expired and were rekindled. +(It was so that these tiny lights should be distinguishable that the +illumination of the secret and finely appointed chamber was kept dim.) +Throughout the whole length of the apparatus the colored elastic cords +to which the pegs were attached kept crossing one another in fantastic +patterns. + +We who had entered were ignored. We might have been ghosts, invisible +and inaudible. Even the supervisors, less-young women set in authority, +did not turn to glance at us as they moved restlessly peering behind the +stools. And yet somehow I could hear the delicate shoulders of all the +young women saying, without speech: "Here come these tyrants and +taskmasters again, who have invented this exercise which nearly but not +quite cracks our little brains for us! They know exactly how much they +can get out of us, and they get it. They are cleverer than us and more +powerful than us; and we have to submit to their discipline. But--" And +afar off I could hear: "What are you going to wear to-night?" "Will you +dine with me to-night?" "I want two seats." "Very well, thanks, and how +is Mrs....?" "When can I see you to-morrow?" "I'll take your offer for +those bonds." ... And I could see the interiors of innumerable offices +and drawing-rooms.... But of course I could hear and see nothing really +except the intent drone and quick gesturing of those completely absorbed +young creatures in the dim radiance, on stools precisely similar. + +I understood why the telephone service was so efficient. I understood +not merely from the demeanor of the long row of young women, but from +everything else I had seen in the exact and diabolically ingenious +ordering of the whole establishment. + +We were silent for a time, as though we had entered a church. We were, +perhaps unconsciously, abashed by the intensity of the absorption of +these neat young women. After a while one of the guides, one of the +inscrutable beings who had helped to invent and construct the astounding +organism, began in a low voice on the forlorn hope of making me +comprehend the mechanism of a telephone-call and its response. And I +began on the forlorn hope of persuading him by intelligent acting that I +did comprehend. We each made a little progress. I could not tell him +that, though I genuinely and humbly admired his particular variety of +genius, what interested me in the affair was not the mechanics, but the +human equation. As a professional reader of faces, I glanced as well as +I could sideways at those bent girls' faces to see if they were happy. +An absurd inquiry! Do _I_ look happy when I'm at work, I wonder! Did +they then look reasonably content? Well, I came to the conclusion that +they looked like most other faces--neither one thing nor the other. +Still, in a great establishment, I would sooner search for sociological +information in the faces of the employed than in the managerial rules. + +"What do they earn?" I asked, when we emerged from the ten-atmosphere +pressure of that intense absorption. (Of course I knew that no young +women could possibly for any length of time be as intensely absorbed as +these appeared to be. But the illusion was there, and it was effective.) + +I learned that even the lowest beginner earned five dollars a week. It +was just the sum I was paying for a pair of clean sheets every night at +a grand hotel. And that the salary rose to six, seven, eight, eleven, +and even fourteen dollars for supervisors, who, however, had to stand on +their feet seven and a half hours a day, as shop-girls do for ten hours +a day; and that in general the girls had thirty minutes for lunch, and a +day off every week, and that the Company supplied them gratuitously with +tea, coffee, sugar, couches, newspapers, arm-chairs, and fresh air, of +which last fifty fresh cubic feet were pumped in for every operator +every minute. + +"Naturally," I was told, "the discipline is strict. There are test +wires.... We can check the 'time elements.' ... We keep a record of +every call. They'll take a dollar a week less in an outside place--for +instance, a hotel.... Their average stay here is thirty months." + +And I was told the number of exchanges there were in New York, exactly +like the one I was seeing. + +A dollar a week less in a hotel! How feminine! And how masculine! And +how wise for one sort of young woman, and how foolish for another!... +Imagine quitting that convent with its guaranteed fresh air, and its +couches and sugar and so on, for the rough hazards and promiscuities of +a hotel! On the other hand, imagine not quitting it! + +Said the demigod of the electrical world, condescendingly: "All this +telephone business is done on a mere few hundred horse-power. Come away, +and I'll show you electricity in bulk." + +And I went away with him, thoughtful. In spite of the inhuman perfection +of its functioning, that exchange was a very human place indeed. It +brilliantly solved some problems; it raised others. Excessively +difficult to find any fault whatever in it! A marvelous service, +achieved under strictly hygienic conditions--and young women must make +their way through the world! And yet--Yes, a very human place indeed! + + * * * * * + +The demigods of the electric world do not condescend to move about in +petrol motor-cars. In the exercise of a natural and charming coquetry +they insist on electrical traction, and it was in the most modern and +soundless electric brougham that we arrived at nightfall under the +overhanging cornice-eaves of two gigantic Florentine palaces--just such +looming palaces, they appeared in the dark, as may be seen in any +central street of Florence, with a cinema-show blazing its signs on the +ground floor, and Heaven knows what remnants of Italian aristocracy in +the mysterious upper stories. Having entered one of the palaces, +simultaneously with a tornado of wind, we passed through long, deserted, +narrow galleries, lined with thousands of small, caged compartments +containing "transformers," and on each compartment was a label bearing +always the same words: "Danger, 6,600 volts." "Danger, 6,600 volts." +"Danger, 6,600 volts." A wondrous relief when we had escaped with our +lives from the menace of those innumerable volts! And then we stood on a +high platform surrounded by handles, switches, signals--apparatus enough +to put all New York into darkness, or to annihilate it in an instant by +the unloosing of terrible cohorts of volts!--and faced an enormous white +hall, sparsely peopled by a few colossal machines that seemed to be +revolving and oscillating about their business with the fatalism of +conquered and resigned leviathans. Immaculately clean, inconceivably +tidy, shimmering with brilliant light under its lofty and beautiful +ceiling, shaking and roaring with the terrific thunder of its own +vitality, this hall in which no common voice could make itself heard +produced nevertheless an effect of magical stillness, silence, and +solitude. We were alone in it, save that now and then in the far-distant +spaces a figure might flit and disappear between the huge glinting +columns of metal. It was a hall enchanted and inexplicable. I understood +nothing of it. But I understood that half the electricity of New York +was being generated by its engines of a hundred and fifty thousand +horse-power, and that if the spell were lifted the elevators of New York +would be immediately paralyzed, and the twenty million lights expire +beneath the eyes of a startled population. I could have gazed at it to +this day, and brooded to this day upon the human imaginations that had +perfected it; but I was led off, hypnotized, to see the furnaces and +boilers under the earth. And even there we were almost alone, to such an +extent had one sort of senseless matter been compelled to take charge of +another sort of senseless matter. The odyssey of the coal that was +lifted high out of ships on the tide beyond, to fall ultimately into the +furnaces within, scarcely touched by the hand-wielded shovel, was by +itself epical. Fresh air pouring in at the rate of twenty-four million +cubic feet per hour cooled the entire palace, and gave to these +stoke-holes the uncanny quality of refrigerators. The lowest horror of +the steamship had been abolished here. + +I was tempted to say: "This alone is fit to be called the heart of New +York!" + +They took me to the twin palace, and on the windy way thither figures +were casually thrown at me. As that a short circuit may cause the +machines to surge wildly into the sudden creation of six million +horse-power of electricity, necessitating the invention of other +machines to control automatically these perilous vagaries! As that in +the down-town district the fire-engine was being abolished because, at a +signal, these power-houses could in thirty seconds concentrate on any +given main a pressure of three hundred pounds to the square inch, +lifting jets of water perhaps above the roofs of sky-scrapers! As that +the city could fine these power-houses at the rate of five hundred +dollars a minute for any interruption of the current longer than three +minutes--but the current had never failed for a single second! As that +in one year over two million dollars' worth of machinery had been +scrapped!... And I was aware that it was New York I was in, and not +Timbuctoo. + +In the other palace it appeared that the great American scrapping +process was even yet far from complete. At first sight this other seemed +to resemble the former one, but I was soon instructed that the former +one was as naught to this one, for here the turbine--the "strong, silent +man" among engines--was replacing the racket of cylinder and crank. +Statistics are tiresome and futile to stir the imagination. I disdain +statistics, even when I assimilate them. And yet when my attention was +directed to one trifling block of metal, and I was told that it was the +most powerful "unit" in the world, and that it alone would make +electricity sufficient for the lighting of a city of a quarter of a +million people, I felt that statistics, after all, could knock you a +staggering blow.... In this other palace, too, was the same solitude of +machinery, attending most conscientiously and effectively to itself. A +singularly disconcerting spectacle! And I reflected that, according to +dreams already coming true, the telephone-exchange also would soon be a +solitude of clicking contact-points, functioning in mystic certitude, +instead of a convent of girls requiring sugar and couches, and thirsting +for love. A singularly disconcerting prospect! + +But was it necessary to come to America in order to see and describe +telephone-exchanges and electrical power-houses? Do not these wonders +exist in all the cities of earth? They do, but not to quite the same +degree of wondrousness. Hat-shops, and fine hat-shops, exist in New +York, but not to quite the same degree of wondrousness as in Paris. +People sing in New York, but not with quite the same natural lyricism as +in Naples. The great civilizations all present the same features; but it +is just the differences in degree between the same feature in this +civilization and in that--it is just these differences which together +constitute and illustrate the idiosyncrasy of each. It seems to me that +the brains and the imagination of America shone superlatively in the +conception and ordering of its vast organizations of human beings, and +of machinery, and of the two combined. By them I was more profoundly +attracted, impressed, and inspired than by any other non-spiritual +phenomena whatever in the United States. For me they were the proudest +material achievements, and essentially the most poetical achievements, +of the United States. And that is why I am dwelling on them. + + * * * * * + +Further, there are business organizations in America of a species which +do not flourish at all in Europe. For example, the "mail-order house," +whose secrets were very generously displayed to me in Chicago--a +peculiar establishment which sells merely everything (except +patent-medicines)--on condition that you order it by post. Go into that +house with money in your palm, and ask for a fan or a flail or a +fur-coat or a fountain-pen or a fiddle, and you will be requested to +return home and write a letter about the proposed purchase, and stamp +the letter and drop it into a mail-box, and then to wait till the +article arrives at your door. That house is one of the most spectacular +and pleasing proofs that the inhabitants of the United States are thinly +scattered over an enormous area, in tiny groups, often quite isolated +from stores. On the day of my visit sixty thousand letters had been +received, and every executable order contained in these was executed +before closing time, by the co-ordinated efforts of over four thousand +female employees and over three thousand males. The conception would +make Europe dizzy. Imagine a merchant in Moscow trying to inaugurate +such a scheme! + +A little machine no bigger than a soup-plate will open hundreds of +envelops at once. They are all the same, those envelops; they have even +less individuality than sheep being sheared, but when the contents of +one--any one at random--are put into your hand, something human and +distinctive is put into your hand. I read the caligraphy on a blue sheet +of paper, and it was written by a woman in Wyoming, a neat, earnest, +harassed, and possibly rather harassing woman, and she wanted all sorts +of things and wanted them intensely--I could see that with clearness. +This complex purchase was an important event in her year. So far as her +imagination went, only one mail-order would reach the Chicago house that +morning, and the entire establishment would be strained to meet it. + +Then the blue sheet was taken from me and thrust into the system, and +therein lost to me. I was taken to a mysteriously rumbling shaft of +broad diameter, that pierced all the floors of the house and had +trap-doors on each floor. And when one of the trap-doors was opened I +saw packages of all descriptions racing after one another down spiral +planes within the shaft. There were several of these great shafts--with +divisions for mail, express, and freight traffic--and packages were +ceaselessly racing down all of them, laden with the objects desired by +the woman of Wyoming and her fifty-nine-thousand-odd fellow-customers of +the day. At first it seemed to me impossible that that earnest, +impatient woman in Wyoming should get precisely what she wanted; it +seemed to me impossible that some mistake should not occur in all that +noisy fever of rushing activity. But after I had followed an order, and +seen it filled and checked, my opinion was that a mistake would be the +most miraculous phenomenon in that establishment. I felt quite reassured +on behalf of Wyoming. + +And then I was suddenly in a room where six hundred billing-machines +were being clicked at once by six hundred young women, a fantastic aural +nightmare, though none of the young women appeared to be conscious that +anything bizarre was going on.... And then I was in a printing-shop, +where several lightning machines spent their whole time every day in +printing the most popular work of reference in the United States, a +bulky book full of pictures, with an annual circulation of five and a +half million copies--the general catalogue of the firm. For the first +time I realized the true meaning of the word "popularity "--and +sighed.... + +And then it was lunch-time for about a couple of thousand employees, +and in the boundless restaurant I witnessed the working of the devices +which enabled these legions to choose their meals, and pay for them +(cost price) in a few moments, and without advanced mathematical +calculations. The young head of the restaurant showed me, with pride, a +menu of over a hundred dishes--Austrian, German, Hungarian, Italian, +Scotch, French, and American; at prices from one cent up as high as ten +cents (prime roast-beef)--and at the foot of the menu was his personal +appeal: "_I_ desire to extend to you a cordial invitation to inspect," +etc. "_My_ constant aim will be," etc. Yet it was not _his_ restaurant. +It was the firm's restaurant. Here I had a curious illustration of an +admirable characteristic of American business methods that was always +striking me--namely, the real delegation of responsibility. An American +board of direction will put a man in charge of a department, as a +viceroy over a province, saying, as it were: "This is yours. Do as you +please with it. We will watch the results." A marked contrast this with +the centralizing of authority which seems to be ever proceeding in +Europe, and which breeds in all classes at all ages--especially in +France--a morbid fear and horror of accepting responsibility. + +[Illustration: LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB] + +Later, I was on the ground level, in the midst of an enormous apparent +confusion--the target for all the packages and baskets, big and little, +that shot every instant in a continuous stream from those spiral planes, +and slid dangerously at me along the floors. Here were the packers. I +saw a packer deal with a collected order, and in this order were a +number of tiny cookery utensils, a four-cent curling-iron, a brush, and +two incredibly ugly pink china mugs, inscribed in cheap gilt +respectively with the words "Father" and "Mother." Throughout my stay in +America no moment came to me more dramatically than this moment, and +none has remained more vividly in my mind. All the daily domestic life +of the small communities in the wilds of the West and the Middle West, +and in the wilds of the back streets of the great towns, seemed to be +revealed to me by the contents of that basket, as the packer wrapped up +and protected one article after another. I had been compelled to abandon +a visitation of the West and of the small communities everywhere, and I +was sorry. But here in a microcosm I thought I saw the simple reality of +the backbone of all America, a symbol of the millions of the little +plain people, who ultimately make possible the glory of the +world-renowned streets and institutions in dazzling cities. + +There was something indescribably touching in that curling-iron and +those two mugs. I could see the table on which the mugs would soon +proudly stand, and "father" and "mother" and children thereat, and I +could see the hand heating the curling-iron and applying it. I could see +the whole little home and the whole life of the little home.... And +afterward, as I wandered through the warehouses--pyramids of the same +chair, cupboards full of the same cheap violin, stacks of the same album +of music, acres of the same carpet and wallpaper, tons of the same +gramophone, hundreds of tons of the same sewing-machine and +lawn-mower--I felt as if I had been made free of the secrets of every +village in every State of the Union, and as if I had lived in every +little house and cottage thereof all my life! Almost no sense of beauty +in those tremendous supplies of merchandise, but a lot of honesty, +self-respect, and ambition fulfilled. I tell you I could hear the +engaged couples discussing ardently over the pages of the catalogue what +manner of bedroom suite they would buy, and what design of sideboard.... + +Finally, I arrived at the firm's private railway station, where a score +or more trucks were being laden with the multifarious boxes, bales, and +parcels, all to leave that evening for romantic destinations such as +Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming. Yes, the package of the woman of Wyoming's +desire would ultimately be placed somewhere in one of those trucks! It +was going to start off toward her that very night! + + * * * * * + +Impressive as this establishment was, finely as it illustrated the +national genius for organization, it yet lacked necessarily, on account +of the nature of its activity, those outward phenomena of splendor which +charm the stranger's eye in the great central houses of New York, and +which seem designed to sum up all that is most characteristic and most +dazzling in the business methods of the United States. These central +houses are not soiled by the touch of actual merchandise. Nothing more +squalid than ink ever enters their gates. They traffic with symbols +only, and the symbols, no matter what they stand for, are never in +themselves sordid. The men who have created these houses seem to have +realized that, from their situation and their importance, a special +effort toward representative magnificence was their pleasing duty, and +to have made the effort with a superb prodigality and an astounding +ingenuity. + +Take, for a good, glorious example, the very large insurance company, +conscious that the eyes of the world are upon it, and that the entire +United States is expecting it to uphold the national pride. All the +splendors of all the sky-scrapers are united in its building. Its foyer +and grand staircase will sustain comparison with those of the Paris +Opera. You might think you were going into a place of entertainment! +And, as a fact, you are! This affair, with nearly four thousand clerks, +is the huge toy and pastime of a group of millionaires who have +discovered a way of honestly amusing themselves while gaining applause +and advertisement. Within the foyer and beyond the staircase, notice the +outer rooms, partitioned off by bronze grilles, looming darkly gorgeous +in an eternal windowless twilight studded with the beautiful glowing +green disks of electric-lamp shades; and under each disk a human head +bent over the black-and-red magic of ledgers! The desired effect is at +once obtained, and it is wonderful. Then lose yourself in and out of the +ascending and descending elevators, and among the unending multitudes of +clerks, and along the corridors of marble (total length exactly measured +and recorded). You will be struck dumb. And immediately you begin to +recover your speech you will be struck dumb again.... + +Other houses, as has been seen, provide good meals for their employees +at cost price. This house, then, will provide excellent meals, free of +charge! It will install the most expensive kitchens and richly spacious +restaurants. It will serve the delicate repasts with dignity. "Does all +this lessen the wages?" No, not in theory. But in practice, and whether +the management wishes or not, it must come out of the wages. "Why do you +do it?" you ask the departmental chief, who apparently gets far more fun +out of the contemplation of these refectories than out of the +contemplation of premiums received and claims paid. "It is better for +the employees," he says. "But we do it because it is better for us. It +pays us. Good food, physical comfort, agreeable environment, scientific +ventilation--all these things pay us. We get results from them." He does +not mention horses, but you feel that the comparison is with horses. A +horse, or a clerk, or an artisan--it pays equally well to treat all of +them well. This is one of the latest discoveries of economic science, a +discovery not yet universally understood. + +[Illustration: A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG] + +I say you do not mention horses, and you certainly must not hint that +the men in authority may have been actuated by motives of humanity. You +must believe what you are told--that the sole motive is to get results. +The eagerness with which all heads of model establishments would disavow +to me any thought of being humane was affecting in its _naivete_; it had +that touch of ingenuous wistfulness which I remarked everywhere in +America--and nowhere more than in the demeanor of many mercantile +highnesses. (I hardly expect Americans to understand just what I mean +here.) It was as if they would blush at being caught in an act of +humanity, like school-boys caught praying. Still, to my mind, the +white purity of their desire to get financial results was often muddied +by the dark stain of a humane motive. I may be wrong (as people say), +but I know I am not (as people think). + +The further you advance into the penetralia of this arch-exemplar of +American organization and profusion, the more you are amazed by the +imaginative perfection of its detail: as well in the system of filing +for instant reference fifty million separate documents, as in the +planning of a concert-hall for the diversion of the human machines. + +As we went into the immense concert-hall a group of girls were giving an +informal concert among themselves. When lunch is served on the premises +with chronographic exactitude, the thirty-five minutes allowed for the +meal give an appreciable margin for music and play. A young woman was +just finishing a florid song. The concert was suspended, and the whole +party began to move humbly away at this august incursion. + +"Sing it again; do, please!" the departmental chief suggested. And the +florid song was nervously sung again; we applauded, the artiste bowed as +on a stage, and the group fled, the thirty-five minutes being doubtless +up. The departmental chief looked at me in silence, content, as much as +to say: "This is how we do business in America." And I thought, "Yet +another way of getting results!" + +But sometimes the creators of the organization, who had provided +everything, had been obliged to confess that they had omitted from their +designs certain factors of evolution. Hat-cupboards were a feature of +the women's offices--delightful specimens of sound cabinetry. And still, +millinery was lying about all over the place, giving it an air of +feminine occupation that was extremely exciting to a student on his +travels. The truth was that none of those hats would go into the +cupboards. Fashion had worsted the organization completely. Departmental +chiefs had nothing to do but acquiesce in this startling untidiness. +Either they must wait till the circumference of hats lessened again, or +they must tear down the whole structure and rebuild it with due regard +to hats. + +Finally, we approached the sacred lair and fastness of the president, +whose massive portrait I had already seen on several walls. Spaciousness +and magnificence increased. Ceilings rose in height, marble was softened +by the thick pile of carpets. Mahogany and gold shone more luxuriously. +I was introduced into the vast antechamber of the presidential +secretaries, and by the chief of them inducted through polished and +gleaming barriers into the presence-chamber itself: a noble apartment, +an apartment surpassing dreams and expectations, conceived and executed +in a spirit of majestic prodigality. The president had not been afraid. +And his costly audacity was splendidly justified of itself. This man had +a sense of the romantic, of the dramatic, of the fit. And the qualities +in him and his _etat major_ which had commanded the success of the +entire enterprise were well shown in the brilliant symbolism of that +room's grandiosity.... And there was the president's portrait again, +gorgeously framed. + +He came in through another door, an old man of superb physique, and +after a little while he was relating to me the early struggles of his +company. "My wife used to say that for ten years she never saw me," he +remarked. + +I asked him what his distractions were, now that the strain was over and +his ambitions so gloriously achieved. He replied that occasionally he +went for a drive in his automobile. + +"And what do you do with yourself in the evenings?" I inquired. + +He seemed a little disconcerted by this perhaps unaccustomed bluntness. + +"Oh," he said, casually, "I read insurance literature." + +He had the conscious mien and manners of a reigning prince. His courtesy +and affability were impeccable and charming. In the most profound sense +this human being had succeeded, for it was impossible to believe that, +had he to live his life again, he would live it very differently. + +Such a type of man is, of course, to be found in nearly every country; +but the type flourishes with a unique profusion and perfection in the +United States; and in its more prominent specimens the distinguishing +idiosyncrasy of the average American successful man of business is +magnified for our easier inspection. The rough, broad difference between +the American and the European business man is that the latter is anxious +to leave his work, while the former is anxious to get to it. The +attitude of the American business man toward his business is +pre-eminently the attitude of an artist. You may say that he loves +money. So do we all--artists particularly. No stock-broker's private +journal could be more full of dollars than Balzac's intimate +correspondence is full of francs. But whereas the ordinary artist loves +money chiefly because it represents luxury, the American business man +loves it chiefly because it is the sole proof of success in his +endeavor. He loves his business. It is not his toil, but his hobby, +passion, vice, monomania--any vituperative epithet you like to bestow on +it! He does not look forward to living in the evening; he lives most +intensely when he is in the midst of his organization. His instincts are +best appeased by the hourly excitements of a good, scrimmaging +commercial day. He needs these excitements as some natures need alcohol. +He cannot do without them. + +[Illustration: ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY] + +On no other hypothesis can the unrivaled ingenuity and splendor and +ruthlessness of American business undertakings be satisfactorily +explained. They surpass the European, simply because they are never out +of the thoughts of their directors, because they are adored with a fine +frenzy. And for the same reason they are decked forth in magnificence. +Would a man enrich his office with rare woods and stuffs and marbles if +it were not a temple? Would he bestow graces on the environment if while +he was in it the one idea at the back of his head was the anticipation +of leaving it? Watch American business men together, and if you are a +European you will clearly perceive that they are devotees. They are open +with one another, as intimates are. Jealousy and secretiveness are much +rarer among them than in Europe. They show off their respective +organizations with pride and with candor. They admire one another +enormously. Hear one of them say enthusiastically of another: "It was a +great idea he had--connecting his New York and his Philadelphia places +by wireless--a great idea!" They call one another by their Christian +names, fondly. They are capable of wonderful friendships in business. +They are cemented by one religion--and it is not golf. For them the +journey "home" is often not the evening journey, but the morning +journey. Call this a hard saying if you choose: it is true. Could a man +be happy long away from a hobby so entrancing, a toy so intricate and +marvelous, a setting so splendid? Is it strange that, absorbed in that +wondrous satisfying hobby, he should make love with the nonchalance of +an animal? At which point I seem to have come dangerously near to the +topic of the singular position of the American woman, about which +everybody is talking.... + + + + +V + +TRANSIT AND HOTELS + + +The choice of such a trite topic as the means of travel may seem to +denote that my observations in the United States must have been +superficial. They were. I never hoped that they would be otherwise. In +seven weeks (less one day) I could not expect to penetrate very far +below the engaging surface of things. Nor did I unnaturally attempt to +do so; for the evidence of the superficies is valuable, and it can only +be properly gathered by the stranger at first sight. Among the scenes +and phenomena that passed before me I of course remember best those +which interested me most. Railroads and trains have always appealed to +me; I have often tried to express my sense of their romantic savor. And +I was eager to see and appreciate these particular manifestations of +national character in America. + +It happily occurred that my first important journey from New York was on +the Pennsylvania Road. + +"I'll meet you at the station," I said to my particular friend. + +"Oh no!" he answered, positively. "I'll pick you up on my way." + +The fact was that not for ten thousand dollars would he have missed the +spectacle of my sensations as I beheld for the first time the most +majestic terminus in the world! He alone would usher me into the gates +of that marvel! I think he was not disappointed. I frankly surrendered +myself to the domination of this extraordinary building. I did not +compare. I knew there could be no comparison. Whenever afterward I +heard, as I often did, enlightened, Europe-loving citizens of the United +States complain that the United States was all very well, but there was +no art in the United States, the image of this tremendous masterpiece +would rise before me, and I was inclined to say: "Have you ever crossed +Seventh Avenue, or are you merely another of those who have been to +Europe and learned nothing?" The Pennsylvania station is full of the +noble qualities that fine and heroic imagination alone can give. That +there existed a railroad man poetic and audacious enough to want it, +architects with genius powerful enough to create it, and a public with +heart enough to love it--these things are for me a surer proof that the +American is a great race than the existence of any quantity of wealthy +universities, museums of classic art, associations for prison reform, or +deep-delved safe-deposit vaults crammed with bonds. Such a monument does +not spring up by chance; it is part of the slow flowering of a nation's +secret spirit! + +[Illustration: IN THE PARLOR-CAR] + +The terminus emerged brilliantly from an examination of the complicated +detail, both esthetic and practical, that is embedded in the apparent +simplicity of its vast physiognomy. I discovered everything in it proper +to a station, except trains. Not a sign of a train. My impulse was to +ask, "Is this the tomb of Alexander J. Cassatt, or is it a cathedral, or +is it, after all, a railroad station?" Then I was led with due +ceremony across the boundless plains of granite to a secret staircase, +guarded by lions in uniform, and at the foot of this staircase, hidden +like a shame or a crime, I found a resplendent train, the Congressional +Limited. It was not the Limited of my dreams; but it was my first +American Limited, and I boarded it in a condition of excitement. I +criticized, of course, for every experienced traveler has decided views +concerning _trains de luxe_. The cars impressed rather than charmed me. +I preferred, and still prefer, the European variety of Pullman. (Yes, I +admit we owe it entirely to America!) And then there is a harsh, +inhospitable quality about those all-steel cars. They do not yield. You +think you are touching wood, and your knuckles are abraded. The +imitation of wood is a triumph of mimicry, but by no means a triumph of +artistic propriety. Why should steel be made to look like wood?... +Fireproof, you say. But is anything fireproof in the United States, +except perhaps Tammany Hall? Has not the blazing of fireproof +constructions again and again singed off the eyebrows of dauntless +firemen? My impression is that "fireproof," in the American tongue, is +one of those agreeable but quite meaningless phrases which adorn the +languages of all nations. Another such phrase, in the American tongue, +is "right away!" ... + +I sat down in my appointed place in the all-steel car, and, turning over +the pages of a weekly paper, saw photographs of actual collisions, +showing that in an altercation between trains the steel-and-wood car +could knock the all-steel car into a cocked hat!... The decoration of +the all-steel car does not atone for its probable combustibility and its +proved fragility. In particular, the smoking-cars of all the Limiteds I +intrusted myself to were defiantly and wilfully ugly. Still, a fine, +proud train, handsome in some ways! And the trainmen were like admirals, +captains, and first officers pacing bridges; clearly they owned the +train, and had kindly lent it to the Pennsylvania R.R. Their demeanor +expressed a rare sense of ownership and also of responsibility. While +very polite, they condescended. A strong contrast to the miserable +European "guard"--for all his silver buttons! I adventured into the +observation-car, of which institution I had so often heard Americans +speak with pride, and speculated why, here as in all other cars, the +tops of the windows were so low that it was impossible to see the upper +part of the thing observed (roofs, telegraph-wires, tree-foliage, +hill-summits, sky) without bending the head and cricking the neck. I do +not deny that I was setting a high standard of perfection, but then I +had heard so much all my life about American Limiteds! + +The Limited started with exactitude, and from the observation-car I +watched the unrolling of the wondrous Hudson tunnel--one of the major +sights of New York, and a thing of curious beauty.... The journey passed +pleasantly, with no other episode than that of dinner, which cost a +dollar and was worth just about a dollar, despite the mutton. And with +exactitude we arrived at Washington--another splendid station. I +generalized thus: "It is certain that this country understands railroad +stations." I was, however, fresh in the country, and had not then seen +New Haven station, which, as soon as it is quite done with, ought to be +put in a museum. + +We returned from Washington by a night train; we might have taken a day +train, but it was pointed out to me that I ought to get into "form" for +certain projected long journeys into the West. At midnight I was +brusquely introduced to the American sleeping-car. I confess that I had +not imagined anything so appalling as the confined, stifling, malodorous +promiscuity of the American sleeping-car, where men and women are herded +together on shelves under the drastic control of an official aided by +negroes. I care not to dwell on the subject.... I have seen European +prisons, but in none that I have seen would such a system be tolerated, +even by hardened warders and governors; and assuredly, if it were, +public opinion would rise in anger and destroy it. I have not been in +Siberian prisons, but I remember reading George Kennan's description of +their mild horrors, and I am surprised that he should have put himself +to the trouble of such a tedious journey when he might have discovered +far more exciting material on any good road around New York. However, +nobody seemed to mind, such is the force of custom--and I did not mind +very much, because my particular friend, intelligently foreseeing my +absurd European prejudices, had engaged for us a state-room. + +This state-room, or suite--for it comprised two apartments--was a +beautiful and aristocratic domain. The bedchamber had a fan that would +work at three speeds like an automobile, and was an enchanting toy. In +short, I could find no fault with the accommodation. It was perfect, +and would have remained perfect had the train remained in the station. +Unfortunately, the engine-driver had the unhappy idea of removing the +train from the station. He seemed to be an angry engine-driver, and his +gesture was that of a man setting his teeth and hissing: "Now, then, +come out of that, you sluggards!" and giving a ferocious tug. There was +a fearful jerk, and in an instant I understood why sleeping-berths in +America are always arranged lengthwise with the train. If they were not, +the passengers would spend most of the night in getting up off the floor +and climbing into bed again. A few hundred yards out of the station the +engine-driver decided to stop, and there was the same fearful jerk and +concussion. Throughout the night he stopped and he started at frequent +intervals, and always with the fearful jerk. Sometimes he would slow +down gently and woo me into a false tranquillity, but only to finish +with the same jerk rendered more shocking by contrast. + +The bedchamber was delightful, the lavatory amounted to a boudoir, the +reading-lamp left nothing to desire, the ventilation was a continuous +vaudeville entertainment, the watch-pocket was adorable, the mattress +was good. Even the road-bed was quite respectable--not equal to the best +I knew, probably, but it had the great advantage of well-tied rails, so +that as the train passed from one rail-length to the next you felt no +jar, a bliss utterly unknown in Europe. The secret of a satisfactory +"sleeper," however, does not lie in the state-room, nor in the +glittering lavatory, nor in the lamp, nor in the fan, nor in the +watch-pocket, nor in the bed, nor even in the road-bed. It lies in the +mannerisms of that brave fellow out there in front of you on the engine, +in the wind and the rain. But no one in all America seemed to appreciate +this deep truth. For myself, I was inclined to go out to the +engine-driver and say to him: "Brother, are you aware--you cannot +be--that the best European trains start with the imperceptible +stealthiness of a bad habit, so that it is impossible to distinguish +motion from immobility, and come to rest with the softness of doves +settling on the shoulders of a young girl?" ... If the fault is not the +engine-driver's, then are the brakes to blame? Inconceivable!... All +American engine-drivers are alike; and I never slept a full hour in any +American "sleeper," what with stops, starts, hootings, tollings, +whizzings round sharp corners, listening to the passage of +freight-trains, and listening to haughty conductor-admirals who +quarreled at length with newly arrived voyagers at 2 or 3 A.M.! I do not +criticize; I state. I also blame myself. There are those who could +sleep. But not everybody could sleep. Well and heartily do I remember +the moment when another friend of mine, in the midst of an interminable +scolding that was being given by a nasal-voiced conductor to a passenger +just before the dawn, exposed his head and remarked: "Has it occurred to +you that this is a sleeping-car?" In the swift silence the whirring of +my private fan could be heard. + +I arrived in New York from Washington, as I arrived at all my +destinations after a night journey, in a state of enfeebled +submissiveness, and I retired to bed in a hotel. And for several hours +the hotel itself would stop and start with a jerk and whiz round +corners. + + * * * * * + +For many years I had dreamed of traveling by the great, the unique, the +world-renowned New York-Chicago train; indeed, it would not be a gross +exaggeration to say that I came to America in order to take that train; +and at length time brought my dream true. I boarded the thing in New +York, this especial product of the twentieth century, and yet another +thrilling moment in my life came and went! I boarded it with pride; +everybody boarded it with pride; and in every eye was the gleam: "This +is the train of trains, and I have my state-room on it." Perhaps I was +ever so slightly disappointed with the dimensions and appointments of +the state-room--I may have been expecting a whole car to myself--but the +general self-conscious smartness of the train reassured me. I wandered +into the observation-car, and saw my particular friend proudly employ +the train-telephone to inform his office that he had caught the train. I +saw also the free supply of newspapers, the library of books, the +typewriting-machine, and the stenographer by its side--all as promised. +And I knew that at the other end of the train was a dining-car, a +smoking-car, and a barber-shop. I picked up the advertising literature +scattered about by a thoughtful Company, and learned therefrom that this +train was not a mere experiment; it was the finished fruit of many +experiments, and that while offering the conveniences of a hotel or a +club, it did with regularity what it undertook to do in the way of +speed and promptness. The pamphlet made good reading!... + +I noted that it pleased the Company to run two other very important +trains out of the terminus simultaneously with the unique train. +Bravado, possibly; but bravado which invited the respect of all those +who admire enterprise! I anticipated with pleasure the noble spectacle +of these three trains sailing forth together on three parallel tracks; +which pleasure was denied me. We for Chicago started last; we started +indeed, according to my poor European watch, from fifteen to thirty +seconds late!... No matter! I would not stickle for seconds: +particularly as at Chicago, by the terms of a contract which no company +in Europe would have had the grace to sign, I was to receive, for any +unthinkable lateness, compensation at the rate of one cent for every +thirty-six seconds! + +Within a quarter of an hour it became evident that that train had at +least one great quality--it moved. As, in the deepening dusk, we swung +along the banks of the glorious Hudson, veiled now in the vaporous +mysteries following a red sunset, I was obliged to admit with increasing +enthusiasm that that train did move. Even the persecutors of Galileo +would never have had the audacity to deny that that train moved. And one +felt, comfortably, that the whole Company, with all the Company's +resources, was watching over its flying pet, giving it the supreme right +of way and urging it forward by hearty good-will. One felt also that the +moment had come for testing the amenities of the hotel and the club. + +"Tea, please," I said, jauntily, confidently, as we entered the +spotless and appetizing restaurant-car. + +The extremely polite and kind captain of the car was obviously taken +aback. But he instinctively grasped that the reputation of the train +hung in the balance, and he regained his self-possession. + +"Tea?" His questioning inflection delicately hinted: "Try not to be too +eccentric." + +"Tea." + +"Here?" + +"Here." + +"I can serve it here, of course," said the captain, persuasively. "But +if you don't mind I should prefer to serve it in your state-room." + +We reluctantly consented. The tea was well made and well served. + +[Illustration: BREAKFAST EN ROUTE] + +In an instant, as it seemed, we were crossing a dark river, on which +reposed several immense, many-storied river-steamers, brilliantly lit. I +had often seen illustrations of these craft, but never before the +reality. A fine sight-and it made me think of Mark Twain's incomparable +masterpiece, _Life on the Mississippi_, for which I would sacrifice the +entire works of Thackeray and George Eliot. We ran into a big town, full +of electric signs, and stopped. Albany! One minute late! I descended to +watch the romantic business of changing engines. I felt sure that +changing the horses of a fashionable mail-coach would be as nothing to +this. The first engine had already disappeared. The new one rolled +tremendous and overpowering toward me; its wheels rose above my head, +and the driver glanced down at me as from a bedroom window. I was +sensible of all the mystery and force of the somber monster; I felt the +mystery of the unknown railway station, and of the strange illuminated +city beyond. And I had a corner in my mind for the thought: "Somewhere +near me Broadway actually ends." Then, while dark men under the ray of a +lantern fumbled with the gigantic couplings, I said to myself that if I +did not get back to my car I should probably be left behind. I regained +my state-room and waited, watch in hand, for the jerk of restarting. I +waited half an hour. Some mishap with the couplings! We left Albany +thirty-three minutes late. Habitues of the train affected nonchalance. +One of them offered to bet me that "she would make it up." The admirals +and captains avoided our gaze. + +We dined, _a la carte_; the first time I had ever dined _a la carte_ on +any train. An excellent dinner, well and sympathetically served. The +mutton was impeccable. And in another instant, as it seemed, we were +running, with no visible flags, through an important and showy street of +a large town, and surface-cars were crossing one another behind us. I +had never before seen an express train let loose in the middle of an +unprotected town, and I was _naif_ enough to be startled. But a huge +electric sign--"Syracuse bids you welcome"--tranquilized me. We briefly +halted, and drew away from the allurement of those bright streets into +the deep, perilous shade of the open country. + +I went to bed. The night differed little from other nights spent in +American sleeping-cars, and I therefore will not describe it in detail. +To do so might amount to a solecism. Enough to say that the jerkings +were possibly less violent and certainly less frequent than usual, +while, on the other hand, the halts were strangely long; one, indeed, +seemed to last for hours; I had to admit to myself that I had been to +sleep and dreamed this stoppage. + +From a final cat-nap I at last drew up my blind to greet the oncoming +day, and was rewarded by one of the finest and most poetical views I +have ever seen: a misty, brown river flanked by a jungle of dark reddish +and yellowish chimneys and furnaces that covered it with shifting +canopies of white steam and of smoke, varying from the delicatest grays +to intense black; a beautiful dim gray sky lightening, and on the ground +and low, flat roofs a thin crust of snow: Toledo! A wonderful and +inspiring panorama, just as romantic in its own way as any Spanish +Toledo. Yet I regretted its name, and I regretted the grotesque names of +other towns on the route--Canaan, Syracuse, Utica, Geneva, Ceylon, +Waterloo, and odd combinations ending in "burg." The names of most of +the States are superb. What could be more beautiful than Ohio, Idaho, +Kentucky, Iowa, Missouri, Wyoming, Illinois--above all, Illinois? +Certain cities, too, have grand names. In its vocal quality "Chicago" is +a perfect prince among names. But the majority of town names in America +suffer, no doubt inevitably, from a lack of imagination and of +reflection. They have the air of being bought in haste at a big +advertising "ready-for-service" establishment. + +Remembering in my extreme prostration that I was in a hotel and club, +and not in an experiment, I rang the bell, and a smiling negro +presented himself. It was only a quarter to seven in Toledo, but I was +sustained in my demeanor by the fact that it was a quarter to eight in +New York. + +"Will you bring me some tea, please?" + +He was sympathetic, but he said flatly I couldn't have tea, nor +anything, and that nobody could have anything at all for an hour and a +half, as there would be no restaurant-car till Elkhart, and Elkhart was +quite ninety miles off. He added that an engine had broken down at +Cleveland. + +I lay in collapse for over an hour, and then, summoning my manhood, +arose. On the previous evening the hot-water tap of my toilette had +yielded only cold water. Not wishing to appear hypercritical, I had said +nothing, but I had thought. I now casually turned on the cold-water tap +and was scalded by nearly boiling water. The hot-water tap still yielded +cold water. Lest I should be accused of inventing this caprice of +plumbing in a hotel and club, I give the name of the car. It was +appropriately styled "Watertown" (compartment E). + +In the corridor an admiral, audaciously interrogated, admitted that the +train was at that moment two hours and ten minutes late. As for Elkhart, +it seemed to be still about ninety miles away. I went into the +observation-saloon to cheer myself up by observing, and was struck by a +chill, and by the chilly, pinched demeanor of sundry other passengers, +and by the apologetic faces of certain captains. Already in my +state-room my senses had suspected a chill; but I had refused to believe +my senses. I knew and had known all my life that American trains were +too hot, and I had put down the supposed chill to a psychological +delusion. It was, however, no delusion. As we swept through a snowy +landscape the apologetic captains announced sadly that the engine was +not sparing enough steam to heat the whole of the train. We put on +overcoats and stamped our feet. + +The train was now full of ravening passengers. And as Elkhart with +infinite shyness approached, the ravening passengers formed in files in +the corridors, and their dignity was jerked about by the speed of the +icy train, and they waited and waited, like mendicants at the kitchen +entrance of a big restaurant. And at long last, when we had ceased to +credit that any such place as Elkhart existed, Elkhart arrived. Two +restaurant-cars were coupled on, and, as it were, instantly put to the +sack by an infuriated soldiery. The food was excellent, and newspapers +were distributed with much generosity, but some passengers, including +ladies, had to stand for another twenty minutes famished at the door of +the first car, because the breakfasting accommodation of this particular +hotel and club was not designed on the same scale as its bedroom +accommodation. We reached Chicago one hundred and ten minutes late. And +to compensate me for the lateness, and for the refrigeration, and for +the starvation, and for being forced to eat my breakfast hurriedly under +the appealing, reproachful gaze of famishing men and women, an official +at the Lasalle station was good enough to offer me a couple of dollars. +I accepted them.... + +[Illustration: IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING +STREAM] + +An unfortunate accident, you say. It would be more proper to say a +series of accidents. I think "the greatest train in the world" is +entitled to one accident, but not to several. And when, in addition to +being a train, it happens to be a hotel and club, and not an experiment, +I think that a system under which a serious breakdown anywhere between +Syracuse and Elkhart (about three-quarters of the entire journey) is +necessarily followed by starvation--I think that such a system ought to +be altered--by Americans. In Europe it would be allowed to continue +indefinitely. + +Beyond question my experience of American trains led me to the general +conclusion that the best of them were excellent. Nevertheless, I saw +nothing in the organization of either comfort, luxury, or safety to +justify the strange belief of Americans that railroad traveling in the +United States is superior to railroad traveling in Europe. Merely from +habit, I prefer European trains on the whole. It is perhaps also merely +from habit that Americans prefer American trains. + + * * * * * + +As regards methods of transit other than ordinary railroad trains, I +have to admit a certain general disappointment in the United States. The +Elevated systems in the large cities are the terrible result of an +original notion which can only be called unfortunate. They must either +depopulate the streets through which they run or utterly destroy the +sensibility of the inhabitants; and they enormously increase and +complicate the dangers of the traffic beneath them. Indeed, in the view +of the unaccustomed stranger, every Elevated is an affliction so +appallingly hideous that no degree of convenience could atone for its +horror. The New York Subway is a masterpiece of celerity, and in other +ways less evil than an Elevated, but in the minimum decencies of travel +it appeared to me to be inferior to several similar systems in Europe. + +The surface-cars in all the large cities that I saw were less smart and +less effective than those in sundry European capitals. In Boston +particularly I cannot forget the excessive discomfort of a journey to +Cambridge, made in the company of a host who had a most beautiful house, +and who gave dinners of the last refinement, but who seemed +unaccountably to look on the car journey as a sort of pleasant +robustious outing. Nor can I forget--also in Boston--the spectacle of +the citizens of Brookline--reputed to be the wealthiest suburb in the +world--strap-hanging and buffeted and flung about on the way home from +church, in surface-cars which really did carry inadequacy and brutality +to excess. + +The horse-cabs of Chicago had apparently been imported second-hand +immediately after the great fire from minor towns in Italy. + +[Illustration: THE STRAP-HANGERS] + +There remains the supreme mystery of the vices of the American taxicab. +I sought an explanation of this from various persons, and never got one +that was convincing. The most frequent explanation, at any rate in New +York, was that the great hotels were responsible for the vices of the +American taxicab, by reason of their alleged outrageous charges to the +companies for the privilege of waiting for hire at their august +porticos. I listened with respect, but with incredulity. If the +taxicabs were merely very dear, I could understand; if they were +merely very bad, I could understand; if they were merely numerically +insufficient for the number of people willing to pay for taxicabs, I +could understand. But that they should be at once very dear, very bad, +and most inconveniently scarce, baffled and still baffles me. The sum of +real annoyance daily inflicted on a rich and busy but craven-hearted +city like New York by the eccentricity of its taxicab organization must +be colossal. + +As to the condition of the roadways, the vocabulary of blame had been +exhausted long before I arrived. Two things, however, struck me in New +York which I had not heard of by report: the greasiness of the streets, +transforming every automobile into a skidding death-trap at the least +sign of moisture, and the leisureliness of the road-works. The busiest +part of Thirty-fourth Street, for example--no mean artery, either--was +torn up when I came into New York, and it was still torn up when I left. +And, lastly, why are there no island refuges on Fifth Avenue? Even at +the intersection of Fifth and Broadway there is no oasis for the pursued +wayfarer. Every European city has long ago decided that the provision of +island refuges in main thoroughfares is an act of elementary justice to +the wayfarer in his unequal and exhausting struggle with wheeled +traffic. + +All these criticisms, which are severe but honest, would lose much of +their point if the general efficiency of the United States and its +delightful genius for organization were not so obvious and so impressive +to the European. In fact, it is precisely the brilliant practical +qualities of the country which place its idiosyncrasies in the matter +of transit in so startling a light.... I would not care to close this +section without a grateful reference to the very natty electric coupes, +usually driven by ladies, which are so refreshing a feature of the +streets of Chicago, and to the virtues of American private automobiles +in general. + + * * * * * + +It is remarkable that a citizen who cheerfully and negligently submits +to so many various inconveniences outside his home should insist on +having the most comfortable home in the world, as the American citizen +unquestionably has! Once, when in response to an interviewer I had +become rather lyrical in praise of I forget what phenomenon in the +United States, a Philadelphia evening newspaper published an editorial +article in criticism of my views. This article was entitled "Offensive +Flattery." Were I to say freely all that I thought of the American +private house, large or small, I might expose myself again to the same +accusation. + +[Illustration: THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY +ASSORTED.] + +When I began to make the acquaintance of the American private house, I +felt like one who, son of an exiled mother, had been born abroad and had +at length entered his real country. That is to say, I felt at home. I +felt that all this practical comfort and myself had been specially +destined for each other since the beginning of time, and that fate was +at last being fulfilled. Freely I admit that until I reached America I +had not understood what real domestic comfort, generously conceived, +could be. Certainly I had always in this particular quarreled with my +own country, whose average notion of comfort still is to leave the +drawing-room (temperature 70 deg.--near the fire) at midnight, pass by a +windswept hall and staircase (temperature 55 deg.) to a bedroom full of fine +fresh air (temperature 50 deg. to 40 deg.), and in that chamber, having removed +piece by piece every bit of warm clothing, to slip, imperfectly +protected, between icy sheets and wait for sleep. Certainly I had always +contested the joyfulness of that particular process; but my imagination +had fallen short of the delicious innumerable realities of comfort in an +American home. + +Now, having regained the "barbaric seats" whence I came, I read with a +peculiar expression the advertisements of fashionable country and town +residences to rent or for sale in England. Such as: "Choice residence. +Five reception-rooms. Sixteen bedrooms. Bathroom--" Or: "Thoroughly +up-to-date mansion. Six reception-rooms. Splendid hall. Billiard-room. +Twenty-four bedrooms. Two bath-rooms--" I read this literature (to be +discovered textually every week in the best illustrated weeklies), and I +smile. Also I wonder, faintly blushing, what Americans truly _do_ think +of the residential aspects of European house-property when they first +see it. And I wonder, without blushing, to what miraculous degree of +perfected comfort Americans would raise all their urban traffic if only +they cared enough to keep the professional politician out of their +streets as strictly as they keep him out of their houses. + + * * * * * + +The great American hotel, too, is a wondrous haven for the European who +in Europe has only tasted comfort in his dreams. The calm orderliness of +the bedroom floors, the adequacy of wardrobes and lamps, the reckless +profusion of clean linen, that charming notice which one finds under +one's door in the morning, "You were called at seven-thirty, and +answered," the fundamental principle that a bedroom without a bath-room +is not a bedroom, the magic laundry which returns your effects duly +starched in eight hours, the bells which are answered immediately, the +thickness of the walls, the radiator in the elevator-shaft, the +celestial invention of the floor-clerk--I could catalogue the civilizing +features of the American hotel for pages. But the great American hotel +is a classic, and to praise it may seem inept. My one excuse for doing +so is that I have ever been a devotee of hotels, and once indeed wrote a +whole book about one. When I told the best interviewer in the United +States that my secret ambition had always been to be the manager of a +grand hotel, I was quite sincere. And whenever I saw the manager of a +great American hotel traversing with preoccupied and yet aquiline glance +his corridors and public rooms, I envied him acutely. + +[Illustration: THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS +SPLENDOR] + +The hospitality of those corridors and public rooms is so wide and +comprehensive that the ground floor and mezzanine of a really big hotel +in the United States offer a spectacle of humanity such as cannot be +seen in Europe; they offer also a remarkable contrast to the +tranquillity of their own upper stories, where any eccentricity is +vigorously discouraged. I think that it must be the vast tumult and +promiscuity of the ground floor which is responsible for the relative +inferiority of the restaurant in a great American hotel. A restaurant +should be a paramount unit, but as a fact in these hotels it is no +more than an item in a series of resorts, several of which equal if they +do not surpass it in popular interest. The Americans, I found, would +show more interest in the barber-shop than in the restaurant. (And to +see the American man of business, theoretically in a hurry, having his +head bumped about by a hair-cutter, his right hand tended by one +manicurist, his left hand tended by another manicurist, his boots +polished by a lightning shiner, and his wits polished by the two +manicurists together--the whole simultaneously--this spectacle in itself +was possibly a reflection on the American's sense of proportion.) +Further, a restaurant should be a sacred retreat, screened away from the +world; which ideal is foreign to the very spirit of the great American +hotel. + +I do not complain that the representative celebrated restaurants fail to +achieve an absolutely first-class cuisine. No large restaurant, either +in the United States or out of it, can hope to achieve an absolutely +first-class cuisine. The peerless restaurant is and must be a little +one. Nor would I specially complain of the noise and thronging of the +great restaurants, the deafening stridency of their music, the artistic +violence of their decorations; these features of fashionable restaurants +are now universal throughout the world, and the philosopher adapts +himself to them. (Indeed, in favor of New York I must say that in one of +the largest of its restaurants I heard a Chopin ballade well played on a +good piano--and it was listened to in appreciative silence; event quite +unique in my experience. Also, the large restaurant whose cuisine +nearest approaches the absolutely first-class is in New York, and not in +Europe.) Nor would I complain that the waiter in the great restaurant +neither understands English nor speaks a tongue which resembles English, +for this characteristic, too, is very marked across the Atlantic. (One +night, in a Boston hotel, after lingual difficulties with a head-waiter, +I asked him in French if he was not French. He cuttingly replied in +waiter's American: "I _was_ French, but now I am an American." In +another few years that man will be referring to Great Britain as "the +old country.") ... + +No; what disconcerts the European in the great American restaurant is +the excessive, the occasionally maddening slowness of the service, and +the lack of interest in the service. Touching the latter defect, the +waiter is not impolite; he is not neglectful. But he is, too often, +passively hostile, or, at best, neutral. He, or his chief, has +apparently not grasped the fact that buying a meal is not like buying a +ton of coal. If the purchaser is to get value for his money, he must +enjoy his meal; and if he is to enjoy the meal, it must not merely be +efficiently served, but it must be efficiently served in a sympathetic +atmosphere. The supreme business of a good waiter is to create this +atmosphere.... True, that even in the country which has carried cookery +and restaurants to loftier heights than any other--I mean, of course, +Belgium, the little country of little restaurants--the subtle ether +which the truly civilized diner demands is rare enough. But in the great +restaurants of the great cities of America it is, I fancy, rarer than +anywhere else. + + + + +VI + +SPORT AND THE THEATER + + +I remember thinking, long before I came to the United States, at the +time when the anti-gambling bill was a leading topic of American +correspondence in European newspapers, that a State whose public opinion +would allow even the discussion of a regulation so drastic could not +possibly regard "sport" as sport is regarded in Europe. It might be very +fond of gambling, but it could not be afflicted with the particular +mania which in Europe amounts to a passion, if not to a religion. And +when the project became law, and horse-racing was most beneficially and +admirably abolished in the northeastern portion of the Republic, I was +astonished. No such law could be passed in any European country that I +knew. The populace would not suffer it; the small, intelligent minority +would not care enough to support it; and the wealthy oligarchical +priest-patrons of sport would be seriously convinced that it involved +the ruin of true progress and the end of all things. Such is the +sacredness of sport in Europe, where governments audacious enough to +attack and overthrow the state-church have never dared to suggest the +suppression of the vice by which alone the main form of sport lives ... + +So that I did not expect to find the United States a very "sporting" +country. And I did not so find it. I do not wish to suggest that, in my +opinion, there is no "sport" in the United States, but only that there +is somewhat less than in Western Europe; as I have already indicated, +the differences between one civilization and another are always slight, +though they are invariably exaggerated by rumor. + +I know that the "sporting instinct"--a curious combination of the +various instincts for fresh air, destruction, physical prowess, +emulation, devotion, and betting--is tolerably strong in America. I +could name a list of American sports as long as the list of dutiable +articles in the customs tariff. I am aware that over a million golf +balls are bought (and chiefly lost) in the United States every year. I +know that no residence there is complete without its lawn-tennis court. +I accept the statement that its hunting is unequaled. I have admired the +luxury and completeness of its country clubs. Its yachting is renowned. +Its horse-shows, to which enthusiasts repair in automobiles, are +wondrous displays of fashion. But none of these things is democratic; +none enters into the life of the mass of the people. Nor can that fierce +sport be called quite democratic which depends exclusively upon, and is +limited to, the universities. A six-day cycling contest and a +Presidential election are, of course, among the very greatest sporting +events in the world, but they do not occur often enough to merit +consideration as constant factors of national existence. + +[Illustration: THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS DISPLAYS OF FASHION] + +Baseball remains a formidable item, yet scarcely capable of balancing +the scale against the sports--football, cricket, racing, pelota, +bull-fighting--which, in Europe, impassion the common people, and draw +most of their champions from the common people. In Europe the +advertisement hoardings--especially in the provinces--proclaim sport +throughout every month of the year; not so in America. In Europe the +most important daily news is still the sporting news, as any editor will +tell you; not so in America, despite the gigantic headings of the +evening papers at certain seasons. + +But how mighty, nevertheless, is baseball! Its fame floats through +Europe as something prodigious, incomprehensible, romantic, and +terrible. After being entertained at early lunch in the correct hotel +for this kind of thing, I was taken, in a state of great excitement, by +a group of excited business men, and flashed through Central Park in an +express automobile to one of the great championship games. I noted the +excellent arrangements for dealing with feverish multitudes. I noted the +splendid and ornate spaciousness of the grand-stand crowned with +innumerable eagles, and the calm, matter-of-fact tone in which a friend +informed me that the grand-stand had been burned down six months ago. I +noted the dreadful prominence of advertisements, and particularly of +that one which announced "the 3-dollar hat with the 5-dollar look," all +very European! It was pleasant to be convinced in such large letters +that even shrewd America is not exempt from that universal human naivete +which is ready to believe that in some magic emporium a philanthropist +is always waiting to give five dollars' worth of goods in exchange for +three dollars of money. + +Then I braced my intelligence to an understanding of the game, which, +thanks to its classical simplicity, and to some training in the finesse +of cricket and football, I did soon grasp in its main outlines. A +beautiful game, superbly played. We reckon to know something of ball +games in Europe; we reckon to be connoisseurs; and the old footballer +and cricketer in me came away from that immense inclosure convinced that +baseball was a game of the very first class, and that those players were +the most finished exponents of it. I was informed that during the winter +the players condescended to follow the law and other liberal +professions. But, judging from their apparent importance in the public +eye, I should not have been surprised to learn that during the winter +they condescended to be Speakers of the House of Representatives or +governors of States. It was a relief to know that in the matter of +expenses they were treated more liberally than the ambassadors of the +Republic. + +They seemed to have carried the art of pitching a ball to a more +wondrous degree of perfection than it has ever been carried in cricket. +The absolute certitude of the fielding and accuracy of the throwing was +profoundly impressive to a connoisseur. Only in a certain lack of +elegance in gesture, and in the unshaven dowdiness of the ground on +which it was played, could this game be said to be inferior to the noble +spectacle of cricket. In broad dramatic quality I should place it above +cricket, and on a level with Association football. + +In short, I at once became an enthusiast for baseball. For nine innings +I watched it with interest unabated, until a vast purple shadow, +creeping gradually eastward, had obscurely veiled the sublime legend of +the 3-dollar hat with the 5-dollar look. I began to acquire the proper +cries and shouts and menaces, and to pass comments on the play which I +was assured were not utterly foolish. In my honest yearning to feel +myself a habitue, I did what everybody else did and even attacked a +morsel of chewing-gum; but all that a European can say of this singular +substance is that it is, finally, eternal and unconquerable. One slip I +did quite innocently make. I rose to stretch myself after the sixth +inning instead of half-way through the seventh. Happily a friend with +marked presence of mind pulled me down to my seat again, before I had +had time fully to commit this horrible sacrilege. When the game was +finished I surged on to the enormous ground, and was informed by +innerring experts of a few of the thousand subtle tactical points which +I had missed. And lastly, I was flung up onto the Elevated platform, +littered with pieces of newspaper, and through a landscape of slovenly +apartment-houses, punctuated by glimpses of tremendous quantities of +drying linen, I was shot out of New York toward a calm week-end. + +Yes, a grand game, a game entirely worthy of its reputation! If the +professional matador and gladiator business is to be carried on at all, +a better exemplification of it than baseball offers could hardly be +found or invented. But the beholding crowd, and the behavior of the +crowd, somewhat disappointed me. My friends said with intense pride that +forty thousand persons were present. The estimate proved to be an +exaggeration; but even had it not been, what is forty thousand to the +similar crowds in Europe? In Europe forty thousand people will often +assemble to watch an ordinary football match. And for a "Final," the +record stands at something over a hundred thousand. It should be +remembered, too, in forming the comparison, that many people in the +Eastern States frequent the baseball grounds because they have been +deprived of their horse-racing. Further, the New York crowd, though +fairly excited, was not excited as sporting excitement is understood in, +for instance, the Five Towns. The cheering was good, but it was not the +cheering of frenzied passion. The anathemas, though hearty, lacked that +religious sincerity which a truly sport-loving populace will always put +into them. The prejudice in favor of the home team, the cruel, frank +unfairness toward the visiting team, were both insufficiently +accentuated. The menaces were merely infantile. I inquired whether the +referee or umpire, or whatever the arbiter is called in America, ever +went in danger of life or limb, or had to be protected from a homicidal +public by the law in uniform. And I was shocked by a negative answer. +Referees in Europe have been smuggled off the ground in the center of a +cocoon of policemen, have even been known to spend a fortnight in bed, +after giving a decision adverse to the home team!... More evidence that +the United States is not in the full sense a sporting country! + + * * * * * + +Of the psychology of the great common multitude of baseball "bleachers," +I learned almost nothing. But as regards the world of success and luxury +(which, of course, held me a willing captive firmly in its soft and +powerful influence throughout my stay), I should say that there was an +appreciable amount of self-hypnotism in its attitude toward baseball. As +if the thriving and preoccupied business man murmured to his soul, when +the proper time came: "By the way, these baseball championships are +approaching. It is right and good for me that I should be boyishly +excited, and I will be excited. I must not let my interest in baseball +die. Let's look at the sporting-page and see how things stand. And I'll +have to get tickets, too!" Hence possibly what seemed to me a +superficiality and factitiousness in the excitement of the more +expensive seats, and a too-rapid effervescence and finish of the +excitement when the game was over. + +The high fever of inter-university football struck me as a more +authentic phenomenon. Indeed, a university town in the throes of an +important match offers a psychological panorama whose genuineness can +scarcely be doubted. Here the young men communicate the sacred contagion +to their elders, and they also communicate it to the young women, who, +in turn, communicate it to the said elders--and possibly the indirect +method is the surer! I visited a university town in order to witness a +match of the highest importance. Unfortunately, and yet fortunately, my +whole view of it was affected by a mere nothing--a trifle which the +newspapers dealt with in two lines. + +When I reached the gates of the arena in the morning, to get a glimpse +of a freshmen's match, an automobile was standing thereat. In the +automobile was a pile of rugs, and sticking out of the pile of rugs in +an odd, unnatural, horizontal way was a pair of muddy football boots. +These boots were still on the feet of a boy, but all the rest of his +unconscious and smashed body was hidden beneath the rugs. The automobile +vanished, and so did my peace of mind. It seemed to me tragic that that +burly infant under the rugs should have been martyrized at a poor little +morning match in front of a few sparse hundreds of spectators and tens +of thousands of unresponsive empty benches. He had not had even the +glory and meed of a great multitude's applause. When I last inquired +about him, at the end of the day, he was still unconscious, and that was +all that could be definitely said of him; one heard that it was his +features that had chiefly suffered in the havoc, that he had been +defaced. If I had not happened to see those muddy football boots +sticking out, I should have heard vaguely of the accident, and remarked +philosophically that it was a pity, but that accidents would occur, and +there would have been the end of my impression. Only I just did happen +to see those muddy boots sticking out. + +[Illustration: THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE +AIR] + +When we came away from the freshmen's match, the charming roads of the +town, bordered by trees and by the agreeable architecture of mysterious +clubs, were beginning to be alive and dangerous with automobiles and +carriages, and pretty girls and proud men, and flags and flowers, and +colored favors and shoutings. Salutes were being exchanged at every +yard. The sense of a mighty and culminating event sharpened the air. The +great inn was full of jollity and excitement, and the reception-clerks +thereof had the negligent mien of those who know that every bedroom +is taken and every table booked. The club (not one of the mysterious +ones, but an ingenuous plain club of patriarchs who had once been young +in the university and were now defying time) was crammed with amiable +confusion, and its rich carpets protected for the day against the feet +of bald lads, who kept aimlessly walking up-stairs and down-stairs and +from room to room, out of mere friendly exuberance. + +And after the inn and the club I was conducted into a true American +home, where the largest and most free hospitality was being practised +upon a footing of universal intimacy. You ate standing; you ate sitting; +you ate walking the length of the long table; you ate at one small +table, and then you ate at another. You talked at random to strangers +behind and strangers before. And when you couldn't think of anything to +say, you just smiled inclusively. You knew scarcely anybody's name, but +the heart of everybody. Impossible to be ceremonious! When a young woman +bluntly inquired the significance of that far-away look in your eye, +impossible not to reply frankly that you were dreaming of a second +helping of a marvelous pie up there at the end of the long table; and +impossible not to eat all the three separate second helpings that were +instantly thrust upon you! The chatter and the good-nature were +enormous. This home was an expression of the democracy of the university +at its best. Fraternity was abroad; kindliness was abroad; and therefore +joy. Whatever else was taught at the university, these were taught, and +they were learnt. If a publicist asked me what American civilization had +achieved, I would answer that among other things it had achieved this +hour in this modest home. + +Occasionally a face would darken and a voice grow serious, exposing the +terrible secret apprehensions, based on expert opinion, that the home +side could not win. But the cloud would pass. And occasionally there +would be a reference to the victim whose muddy boots I had seen. +"Dreadful, isn't it?" and a twinge of compassion for the victim or for +his mother! But the cloud would immediately pass. + +And then we all had to leave, for none must be late on this solemn and +gay occasion. And now the roads were so many converging torrents of +automobiles and carriages, and excitement had developed into fever. Life +was at its highest, and the world held but one problem ... Sign that +reaction was approaching! + +A proud spectacle for the agitated vision, when the vast business of +filling the stands had been accomplished, and the eye ranged over acres +of black hats and variegated hats, hats flowered and feathered, and +plain male caps--a carpet intricately patterned with the rival colors! +At a signal the mimic battle began. And in a moment occurred the first +casualty--most grave of a series of casualties. A pale hero, with a +useless limb, was led off the field amid loud cheers. Then it was that I +became aware of some dozens of supplementary heroes shivering beneath +brilliant blankets under the lee of the stands. In this species of +football every casualty was foreseen, and the rules allowed it to be +repaired. Not two teams, but two regiments, were, in fact, fighting. And +my European ideal of sport was offended. + +Was it possible that a team could be permitted to replace a wounded man +by another, and so on ad infinitum? Was it possible that a team need not +abide by its misfortunes? Well, it was! I did not like this. It seemed +to me that the organizers, forgetting that this was a mimic battle, had +made it into a real battle, and that there was an imperfect appreciation +of what strictly amateur sport is. The desire to win, laudable and +essential in itself, may by excessive indulgence become a morbid +obsession. Surely, I thought, and still think, the means ought to suit +the end! An enthusiast for American organization, I was nevertheless +forced to conclude that here organization is being carried too far, +outraging the sense of proportion and of general fitness. For me, such +organization disclosed even a misapprehension as to the principal aim +and purpose of a university. If ever the fate of the Republic should +depend on the result of football matches, then such organization would +be justifiable, and courses of intellectual study might properly be +suppressed. Until that dread hour I would be inclined to dwell heavily +on the admitted fact that a football match is not Waterloo, but simply a +transient game in which two sets of youngsters bump up against one +another in opposing endeavors to put a bouncing toy on two different +spots of the earth's surface. The ultimate location of the inflated +bauble will not affect the national destiny, and such moral value as the +game has will not be increased but diminished by any enlargement of +organization. After all, if the brains of the world gave themselves +exclusively to football matches, the efficiency of football matches +would be immensely improved--but what then?... I seemed to behold on +this field the American passion for "getting results"--which I admire +very much; but it occurred to me that that passion, with its eyes fixed +hungrily on the result it wants, may sometimes fail to see that it is +getting a number of other results which it emphatically doesn't want. + +[Illustration: THE VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD] + +Another example of excessive organization presented itself to me in the +almost military arrangements for shrieking the official yells. I was +sorry for the young men whose duty it was, by the aid of megaphones and +of grotesque and undignified contortions, to encourage and even force +the spectators to emit in unison the complex noises which constitute the +yell. I have no doubt that my pity was misdirected, for these young men +were obviously content with themselves; still, I felt sorry for them. +Assuming for an instant that the official yell is not monstrously absurd +and surpassingly ugly, admitting that it is a beautiful series of +sounds, enheartening, noble, an utterance worthy of a great and ancient +university at a crisis, even then one is bound to remember that its +essential quality should be its spontaneity. Enthusiasm cannot be +created at the word of command, nor can heroes be inspired by cheers +artificially produced under megaphonic intimidation. Indeed, no moral +phenomenon could be less hopeful to heroes than a perfunctory response +to a military order for enthusiasm. Perfunctory responses were frequent. +Partly, no doubt, because the imperious young men with megaphones would +not leave us alone. Just when we were nicely absorbed in the caprices of +the ball they would call us off and compel us to execute their +preposterous chorus; and we--the spectators--did not always like it. + +And the difficulty of following the game was already acute enough! +Whenever the play quickened in interest we stood up. In fact, we were +standing up and sitting down throughout the afternoon. And as we all +stood up and we all sat down together, nobody gained any advantage from +these muscular exercises. We saw no better, and we saw no worse. Toward +the end we stood on the seats, with the same result. We behaved in +exactly the child-like manner of an Italian audience at a fashionable +concert. And to crown all, an aviator had the ineffably bad taste and +the culpable foolhardiness to circle round and round within a few dozen +yards of our heads. + +In spite of all this, the sum of one's sensations amounted to lively +pleasure. The pleasure would have been livelier if university football +were a better game than in candid truth it is. At this juncture I seem +to hear a million voices of students and ex-students roaring out at me +with menaces that the game is perfect and the greatest of all games. A +national game always was and is perfect. This particular game was +perfect years ago. Nevertheless, I learned that it had recently been +improved, in deference to criticisms. Therefore, it is now pluperfect. I +was told on the field--and sharply--that experience of it was needed for +the proper appreciation of its finesse. Admitted! But just as devotees +of a favorite author will put sublime significances into his least +phrase, so will devotees of a game put marvels of finesse into its +clumsiest features. The process is psychological. I was new to this +particular game, but I had been following various footballs with my feet +or with my eyes for some thirty years, and I was not to be bullied out +of my opinion that the American university game, though goodish, lacked +certain virtues. Its characteristics tend ever to a too close formation, +and inevitably favor tedium and monotony. In some aspects an unemotional +critic might occasionally be tempted to call it naive and barbaric. But +I was not unemotional. I recognize, and in my own person I proved, that +as a vehicle for emotion the American university game will serve. What +else is such a game for? In the match I witnessed there were some really +great moments, and one or two masterly exhibitions of skill and force. +And as "my" side won, against all odds, I departed in a state of +felicity. + + * * * * * + +If the great cities of the East and Middle West are not strikingly +sportive, perhaps the reason is that they are impassioned theater-goers; +they could not well be both, at any rate without neglecting the +financial pursuits which are their chief real amusement and hobby. I +mention the theaters in connection with sports, rather than in +connection with the arts, because the American drama is more closely +related to sporting diversions than to dramatic art. If this seems a +hard saying, I will add that I am ready to apply it with similar force +to the English and French drama, and, indeed, to almost all modern drama +outside Germany. It was astonishing to me that America, unhampered by +English traditions, should take seriously, for instance, the fashionable +and utterly meretricious French dramatists, who receive nothing but a +chilly ridicule from people of genuine discrimination in Paris. Whatever +American dramatists have to learn, they will not learn it in Paris; and +I was charmed once to hear a popular New York playwright, one who +sincerely and frankly wrote for money alone, assert boldly that the +notoriously successful French plays were bad, and clumsily bad. It was a +proof of taste. As a rule, one finds the popular playwright taking off +his hat to contemporaries who at best are no better than his equals. + +A few minor cases apart, the drama is artistically negligible throughout +the world; but if there is a large hope for it in any special country, +that country is the United States. The extraordinary prevalence of big +theaters, the quickly increasing number of native dramatists, the +enormous profits of the successful ones--it is simply inconceivable in +the face of the phenomena, and of the educational process so rapidly +going on, that serious and first-class creative artists shall not arise +in America. Nothing is more likely to foster the production of +first-class artists than the existence of a vast machinery for winning +money and glory. When I reflect that there are nearly twice as many +first-class theaters in New York as in London, and that a very +successful play in New York plays to eighteen thousand dollars a week, +while in London ten thousand dollars a week is enormous, and that the +American public has a preference for its own dramatists, I have little +fear for the artistic importance of the drama of the future in America. +And from the discrepancy between my own observations and the +observations of a reliable European critic in New York only five years +ago, I should imagine that appreciable progress had already been made, +though I will not pretend that I was much impressed by the achievements +up to date, either of playwrights, actors, or audiences. A huge popular +institution, however, such as the American theatrical system, is always +interesting to the amateur of human nature. + +The first thing noted by the curious stranger in American theaters is +that American theatrical architects have made a great discovery--namely, +that every member of the audience goes to the play with a desire to be +able to see and hear what passes on the stage. This happy American +discovery has not yet announced itself in Europe, where in almost every +theater seats are impudently sold, and idiotically bought, from which it +is impossible to see and hear what passes on the stage. (A remarkable +continent, Europe!) Apart from this most important point, American +theaters are not, either without or within, very attractive. The +auditoriums, to a European, have a somewhat dingy air. Which air is no +doubt partly due to the non-existence of a rule in favor of evening +dress (never again shall I gird against the rule in Europe!), but it is +due also to the oddly inefficient illumination during the entr'actes, +and to the unsatisfactory schemes of decoration. + +The interior of a theater ought to be magnificent, suggesting pleasure, +luxury, and richness; it ought to create an illusion of rather riotous +grandeur. The rare architects who have understood this seem to have lost +their heads about it, with such wild and capricious results as the new +opera-house in Philadelphia. I could not restrain my surprise that the +inhabitants of the Quaker City had not arisen with pickaxes and razed +this architectural extravaganza to the ground. But Philadelphia is a +city startlingly unlike its European reputation. Throughout my too-brief +sojourn in it I did not cease to marvel at its liveliness. I heard more +picturesque and pyrotechnic wit at one luncheon in Philadelphia than at +any two repasts outside it. The spacious gaiety and lavishness of its +marts enchanted me. It must have a pretty weakness for the most costly +old books and manuscripts. I never was nearer breaking the Sixth +Commandment than in one of its homes, where the Countess of Pembroke's +own copy of Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_--a unique and utterly +un-Quakerish treasure--was laid trustfully in my hands by the regretted +and charming Harry Widener. + +To return. The Metropolitan Opera-House in New York is a much more +satisfactory example of a theatrical interior. Indeed, it is very fine, +especially when strung from end to end of its first tier with pearls, as +I saw it. Impossible to find fault with its mundane splendor. And let me +urge that impeccable mundane splendor, despite facile arguments to the +contrary, is a very real and worthy achievement. It is regrettable, by +the way, that the entrances and foyers to these grandiose interiors +should be so paltry, slatternly, and inadequate. If the entrances to the +great financial establishments reminded me of opera-houses, the +entrances to opera-houses did not! + +Artistically, of course, the spectacle of a grand-opera season in an +American city is just as humiliating as it is in the other Anglo-Saxon +country. It was disconcerting to see Latin or German opera given +exactly--with no difference at all; same Latin or German artists and +conductors, same conventions, same tricks--in New York or Philadelphia +as in Europe. And though the wealthy audiences behaved better than +wealthy audiences at Covent Garden (perhaps because the boxes are less +like inclosed pews than in London), it was mortifying to detect the +secret disdain for art which was expressed in the listless late +arrivings and the relieved early departures. The which disdain for art +was, however, I am content to think, as naught in comparison with the +withering artistic disdain felt, and sometimes revealed, by those Latin +and German artists for Anglo-Saxon Philistinism. I seem to be able to +read the sarcastic souls of these accomplished and sensitive aliens, +when they assure newspaper reporters that New York, Chicago, Boston, +Philadelphia, and London are really musical. The sole test of a musical +public is that it should be capable of self-support--I mean that it +should produce a school of creative and executive artists of its own, +whom it likes well enough to idolize and to enrich, and whom the rest of +the world will respect. This is a test which can be safely applied to +Germany, Russia, Italy, and France. And in certain other arts it is a +test which can be applied to Anglo-Saxondom--but not in music. In +America and England music is still mainly a sportive habit. + +When I think of the exoticism of grand opera in New York, my mind at +once turns, in contrast, to the natural raciness of such modest +creations as those offered by Mr. George Cohan at his theater on +Broadway. Here, in an extreme degree, you get a genuine instance of a +public demand producing the desired artist on the spot. Here is +something really and honestly and respectably American. And why it +should be derided by even the most lofty pillars of American taste, I +cannot imagine. (Or rather, I can imagine quite well.) For myself, I +spent a very agreeable evening in witnessing "The Little Millionaire." I +was perfectly conscious of the blatancy of the methods that achieved it. +I saw in it no mark of genius. But I did see in it a very various talent +and an all-round efficiency; and, beneath the blatancy, an admirable +direct simplicity and winning unpretentiousness. I liked the ingenuity +of the device by which, in the words of the programme, the action of Act +II was "not interrupted by musical numbers." The dramatic construction +of this act was so consistently clever and right and effective that more +ambitious dramatists might study it with advantage. Another +point--though the piece was artistically vulgar, it was not vulgar +otherwise. It contained no slightest trace of the outrageous salacity +and sottishness which disfigure the great majority of successful musical +comedies. It was an honest entertainment. But to me its chief value and +interest lay in the fact that while watching it I felt that I was really +in New York, and not in Vienna, Paris, or London. + +Of the regular theater I did not see nearly enough to be able to +generalize even for my own private satisfaction. I observed, and +expected to observe, that the most reactionary quarters were the most +respected. It is the same everywhere. When a manager, having discovered +that two real clocks in one real room never strike simultaneously, put +two real clocks on the stage, and made one strike after the other; or +when a manager mimicked, with extraordinary effects of restlessness, a +life-sized telephone-exchange on the stage--then was I bound to hear of +"artistic realism" and "a fine production"! But such feats of +truthfulness do not consort well with chocolate sentimentalities and +wilful falsities of action and dialogue. They caused me to doubt whether +I was not in London. + +The problem-plays which I saw were just as futile and exasperating as +the commercial English and French varieties of the problem-play, though +they had a trifling advantage over the English in that their most +sentimental passages were lightened by humor, and the odiously insincere +felicity of their conclusions was left to the imagination instead of +being acted ruthlessly out on the boards. The themes of these plays +showed the usual obsession, and were manipulated in the usual attempt to +demonstrate that the way of transgressors is not so very hard after all. +They threw, all unconsciously, strange side-lights on the American man's +private estimate of the American woman, and the incidence of the +applause was extremely instructive. + +The most satisfactory play that I saw, "Bought and Paid For," by George +Broadhurst, was not a problem-play, though Mr. Broadhurst is also a +purveyor of problem-plays. It was just an unpretentious fairy-tale about +the customary millionaire and the customary poor girl. The first act +was maladroit, but the others made me think that "Bought and Paid For" +was one of the best popular commercial Anglo-Saxon plays I had ever seen +anywhere. There were touches of authentic realism at the very crisis at +which experience had taught one to expect a crass sentimentality. The +fairy-tale was well told, with some excellent characterization, and very +well played. Indeed, Mr. Frank Craven's rendering of the incompetent +clerk was a masterly and unforgettable piece of comedy. I enjoyed +"Bought and Paid For," and it is on the faith of such plays, imperfect +and timid as they are, that I establish my prophecy of a more glorious +hereafter for the American drama. + + + + +VII + +EDUCATION AND ART + + +I had my first glimpses of education in America from the purser of an +illustrious liner, who affirmed the existence of a dog--in fact, his own +dog--so highly educated that he habitually followed and understood human +conversations, and that in order to keep secrets from the animal it was +necessary to spell out the keyword of a sentence instead of pronouncing +it. After this I seemed somehow to be prepared for the American infant +who, when her parents discomfited her just curiosity by the same mean +adult dodge of spelling words, walked angrily out of the room with the +protest: "There's too blank much education in this house for me!" +Nevertheless, she proudly and bravely set herself to learn to spell; +whereupon her parents descended to even worse depths of baseness, and in +her presence would actually whisper in each other's ear. She merely +inquired, with grimness: "What's the good of being educated, anyway? +First you spell words, and when I can spell then you go and whisper!" +And received no adequate answer, naturally. + +This captivating creature, whose society I enjoyed at frequent intervals +throughout my stay in America, was a mirror in which I saw the whole +American race of children--their independence, their self-confidence, +their adorable charm, and their neat sauciness. "What _is_ father?" she +asked one day. Now her father happened to be one of the foremost +humorists in the United States; she was baldly informed that he was a +humorist. "What _is_ a humorist?" she went on, ruthlessly, and learned +that a humorist was a person who wrote funny things to make people +laugh. "Well," she said, "I don't honestly think he's very funny at +home." It was naught to her that humorists are not paid to be funny at +home, and that in truth they never under any circumstances are very +funny at home. She just hurled her father from his niche--and then went +forth and boasted of him as a unique peculiarity in fathers, as an +unrivaled ornament of her career on earth; for no other child in the +vicinity had a professional humorist for parent. Her gestures and accent +typified for me the general attitude of youngest America, in process of +education, toward the older generation: an astonishing, amusing, +exquisite, incomprehensible mixture of affection, admiration, trust, and +rather casual tolerating scorn. The children of most countries display a +similar phenomenon, but in America the phenomenon is more acute and +disconcerting than elsewhere. + +One noon, in perfect autumn weather, I was walking down the main road of +a residential suburb, and observing the fragile-wheeled station-wagons, +and the ice-wagons enormously labeled "DANGER" (perhaps by the gastric +experts of the medical faculty), and the Colonial-style dwellings, and +the "tinder" boarding-houses, and the towering boot-shine stands, and +the roast-chestnut emporia, and the gasometers flanking a noble and +beautiful river--I was observing all this when a number of young men and +maids came out of a high-school and unconsciously assumed possession of +the street. It was a great and impressive sight; it was a delightful +sight. They were so sure of themselves, the maids particularly; so +interested in themselves, so happy, so eager, so convinced (without any +conceit) that their importance transcended all other importances, so +gently pitiful toward men and women of forty-five, and so positive that +the main function of elders was to pay school-fees, that I was thrilled +thereby. Seldom has a human spectacle given me such exciting pleasure as +this gave. (And they never suspected it, those preoccupied demigods!) It +was the sheer pride of life that I saw passing down the street and +across the badly laid tram-lines! I had never seen anything like it. I +immediately desired to visit schools. Profoundly ignorant of educational +methods, and with a strong distaste for teaching, I yet wanted to know +and understand all about education in America in one moment--the +education that produced that superb stride and carriage in the street! I +failed, of course, in my desire--not from lack of facilities offered, +but partly from lack of knowledge to estimate critically what I saw, and +from lack of time. My experiences, however, though they left my mind +full of enigmas, were wondrous. I asked to inspect one of the best +schools in New York. Had I been a dispassionate sociological student, I +should probably have asked to inspect one of the worst schools in New +York--perhaps one of the gaunt institutions to be found, together with a +cinema-palace and a bank, in almost every block on the East Side. But I +asked for one of the best, and I was shown the Horace Mann School. + + * * * * * + +The Horace Mann School proved to be a palace where a thousand children +and their teachers lived with extreme vivacity in an atmosphere of ozone +from which all draughts and chilliness had been eliminated. As a +malcontent native of the Isle of Chilly Draughts, this attribute of the +atmosphere of the Horace Mann School impressed me. Dimensionally I found +that the palace had a beginning but no end. I walked through leagues of +corridors and peeped into unnumbered class-rooms, in each of which +children were apparently fiercely dragging knowledge out of nevertheless +highly communicative teachers; and the children got bigger and bigger, +and then diminished for a while, and then grew again, and kept on +growing, until I at last entered a palatial kitchen where some two dozen +angels, robed in white but for the moment uncrowned, were eagerly +crowding round a paradisiacal saucepan whose magic contents formed the +subject of a lecture by one of them. Now these angels were not cherubs; +they were full grown; they never would be any taller than they were; and +I asked up to what age angels were kept at school in America. Whereupon +I learned that I had insensibly passed from the school proper into a +training-school for teachers; but at what point the school proper ended +I never did learn. It seems to me that if I had penetrated through seven +more doors I should have reached Columbia University itself, without +having crossed a definite dividing-line; and, anyhow, the circumstance +was symbolic. + +Reluctantly I left the incredible acres of technical apparatus +munificently provided in America for the training of teachers, and, +having risen to the roof and seen infants thereon grabbing at +instruction in the New York breeze, I came again to the more normal +regions of the school. Here, as everywhere else in the United States +(save perhaps the cloak-room department of the Metropolitan +Opera-House), what chiefly struck me was the brilliant organization of +the organism. There was nothing that had not been thought of. A +handsomely dressed mother came into the organism and got as far as the +antechamber of the principal's room. The organization had foreseen her, +had divined that that mother's child was the most important among a +thousand children--indeed, the sole child of any real importance--had +arranged that her progress should be arrested at just that stage, and +had stationed a calm and diplomatic woman to convince her that her child +was indeed the main preoccupation of the Horace Mann School. A pretty +sight--the interview! It charmed me as the sight of an ingenious engine +in motion will charm an engineer. + +The individual class-rooms, in some of which I lingered at leisure, were +tonic, bracing, inspiring, and made me ashamed because I was not young. +I saw geography being taught with the aid of a stereoscopic +magic-lantern. After a view of the high street of a village in North +Russia had been exposed and explained by a pupil, the teacher said: "If +anybody has any questions to ask, let him stand up." And the whole class +leaped furiously to its feet, blotting out the entire picture with black +shadows of craniums and starched pinafores. The whole class might have +been famishing. In another room I saw the teaching of English +composition. Although when I went to school English composition was +never taught, I have gradually acquired a certain interest in the +subject, and I feel justified in asserting that the lesson was admirably +given. It was, in fact, the best example of actual pedagogy that I met +with in the United States. "Now can any one tell me--" began the +mistress. A dozen arms of boys and girls shot up with excessive +violence, and, having shot up, they wiggled and waggled with ferocious +impatience in the air; it was a miracle that they remained attached to +their respective trunks; it was assuredly an act of daring on the part +of the intrepid mistress to choose between them. + +"How children have changed since my time!" I said to the principal +afterward. "We never used to fling up our hands like that. We just put +them up.... But perhaps it's because they're Americans--" + +"It's probably because of the ventilation," said the principal, calmly +corrective. "We never have the windows open winter or summer, but the +ventilation is perfect." + +I perceived that it indeed must be because of the ventilation. + +More and more startled, as I went along, by the princely lavishness of +every arrangement, I ventured to surmise that it must all cost a great +deal. + +"The fees are two hundred and eighty-five dollars in the Upper School." + +"Yes, I expected they would be high," I said. + +"Not at all. They are the lowest in New York. Smart private schools +will charge five or six hundred dollars a year." + +Exhausted, humbled, I at last quitted the warmed Horace Mann ozone for +the harsh and searching atmosphere of the street. And I gazed up at the +pile, and saw all its interiors again in my mind. I had not grasped the +half nor the quarter of what had been so willingly and modestly shown to +me. I had formed no theory as to the value of some of the best juvenile +education in the Eastern States. But I had learned one thing. I knew the +secret of the fine, proud bearing of young America. A child is not a +fool; a child is almost always uncannily shrewd. And when it sees a +splendid palace provided for it, when it sees money being showered upon +hygienic devices for its comfort, even upon trifles for its distraction, +when it sees brains all bent on discovering the best, nicest ways of +dealing with its instincts, when it sees itself the center of a +magnificent pageant, ritual, devotion, almost worship, it naturally +lifts its chin, puts its shoulders back, steps out with a spring, and +glances down confidently upon the whole world. Who wouldn't? + + * * * * * + +It was an exciting day for me when I paid a call next door to Horace +Mann and visited Columbia University. For this was my first visit of +inspection to any university of any kind, either in the New World or in +the Old. As for an English university education, destiny had deprived me +of its advantages and of its perils. I could not haughtily compare +Columbia with Oxford or Cambridge, because I had never set foot even in +their towns. I had no standards whatever of comparison. + +I arose and went out to lunch on that morning, and left the lunch before +anybody else and rushed in an automobile to Columbia; but football had +already begun for the day in the campus costing two million dollars, and +classes were over. I saw five or more universities while I was in +America, but I was not clever enough to catch one of them in the act of +instruction. What I did see was the formidable and magnificent machine, +the apparatus of learning, supine in repose. + +And if the spectacle was no more than a promise, it was a very dazzling +promise. No European with any imagination could regard Columbia as other +than a miracle. Nearly the whole of the gigantic affair appeared to have +been brought into being, physically, in less than twenty years. Building +after building, device after device, was dated subsequent to 1893. And +to my mind that was just the point of the gigantic affair. Universities +in Europe are so old. And there are universities in America which are +venerable. A graduate of the most venerable of them told me that +Columbia was not "really" a university. Well, it did seem unreal, though +not in his sense; it seemed magic. The graduate in question told me that +a university could not be created by a stroke of the wand. And yet there +staring me in the face was the evidence that a university not merely +could be created by a stroke of the wand, but had been. (I am aware of +Columbia's theoretic age and of her insistence on it.) The wand is a +modern invention; to deny its effective creative faculty is absurd. + +Of course I know what the graduate meant. I myself, though I had not +seen Oxford nor Cambridge, was in truth comparing Columbia with my dream +of Oxford and Cambridge, to her disadvantage. I was capable of saying to +myself: "All this is terribly new. All this lacks tradition." Criticism +fatuous and mischievous, if human! It would be as sapient to imprison +the entire youth of a country until it had ceased to commit the offense +of being young. Tradition was assuredly not apparent in the atmosphere +of Columbia. Moreover, some of her architecture was ugly. On the other +hand, some of it was beautiful to the point of nobility. The library, +for instance: a building in which no university and no age could feel +anything but pride. And far more important than stone or marble was the +passionate affection for Columbia which I observed in certain of her +sons who had nevertheless known other universities. A passionate +affection also perhaps brought into being since 1893, but not to be +surpassed in honest fervency and loyalty by influences more venerable! + +Columbia was full of piquancies for me. It delighted me that the Dean of +Science was also consulting engineer to the university. That was +characteristic and fine. And how splendidly unlike Oxford! I liked the +complete life-sized railroad locomotive in the engineering-shops, and +the Greek custom in the baths; and the students' notion of coziness in +the private dens full of shelves, photographs, and disguised beds; and +the visibility of the president; and his pronounced views as to the +respective merits of New York newspapers; and the eagerness of a young +professor of literature in the Faculty Club to defend against my +attacks English Professor A.C. Bradley. I do believe that I even liked +the singular sight of a Chinaman tabulating from the world's press, in +the modern-history laboratory, a history of the world day by day. I can +hardly conceive a wilder, more fearfully difficult way of trying to +acquire the historical sense than this voyaging through hot, fresh +newspapers, nor one more probably destined to failure (I should have +liked to see some of the two-monthly resumes which students in this +course are obliged to write); but I liked the enterprise and the +originality and the daring of the idea; I liked its disdain of +tradition. And, after all, is it weirder than the common traditional +method? + +[Illustration: UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA] + +To the casual visitor, such as myself, unused either to universities or +to the vastness of the American scale, Columbia could be little save an +enormous and overwhelming incoherence. It so chiefly remains in my mind. +But the ingenious humanity running through the whole conception of it +was touching and memorable. And although I came away from my visit still +perfectly innocent of any broad theory as to ultimate educational values +in America, I came away also with a deeper and more reassuring +conviction that America was intensely interested in education, and that +all that America had to do in order to arrive at real national, racial +results was to keep on being intensely interested. When America shall +have so far outclassed Europe as to be able to abolish, in university +examinations, what New York picturesquely calls "the gumshoe squad" (of +course now much more brilliantly organized in America than in +Europe), then we shall begin to think that, under the stroke of the +wand, at least one real national, racial result has been attained! + + * * * * * + +When I set eyes on the sixty buildings which constitute the visible part +of Harvard University, I perceived that, just as Kensington had without +knowing it been imitating certain streets of Boston, so certain lost +little old English towns that even American tourists have not yet +reached had without knowing it been imitating the courts and chimneys +and windows and doorways and luscious brickwork of Harvard. Harvard had +a very mellow look indeed. No trace of the wand! The European in search +of tradition would find it here in bulk. I should doubt whether at +Harvard modern history is studied through the daily paper--unless +perchance it be in Harvard's own daily paper. The considerableness of +Harvard was attested for me by the multiplicity of its press organs. I +dare say that Harvard is the only university in the world the offices of +whose comic paper are housed in a separate and important building. If +there had been a special press-building for Harvard's press, I should +have been startled. But when I beheld the mere comic organ in a spacious +and costly detached home that some London dailies would envy, I was +struck dumb. That sole fact indicated the scale of magnificence at +Harvard, and proved that the phenomenon of gold-depreciation has +proceeded further at Harvard than at any other public institution in the +world. + +The etiquette of Harvard is nicely calculated to heighten the material +splendor of the place. Thus it is etiquette for the president, during +his term of office, to make a present of a building or so to the +university. Now buildings at Harvard have adopted the excellent habit of +never costing less than about half a million dollars. It is also +etiquette that the gifts to the university from old students shall touch +a certain annual sum; they touch it. Withal, there is no architectural +ostentation at Harvard. All the buildings are artistically modest; many +are beautiful; scarcely one that clashes with the sober and subtle +attractiveness of the whole aggregation. Nowhere is the eye offended. +One looks upon the crimson facades with the same lenient love as marks +one's attitude toward those quaint and lovely English houses (so +familiar to American visitors to our isle) that are all picturesqueness +and no bath-room. That is the external effect. Assuredly entering some +of those storied doorways, one would anticipate inconveniences and what +is called "Old World charm" within. + +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. + +And as I came out of the final portal I happened to meet a student +actually carrying his own portmanteau--and rather tugging at it. I +regretted this chance. The spectacle clashed, and ought to have been +contrary to etiquette. That student should in propriety have been +followed by a Nigerian, Liberian, or Senegambian, carrying his +portmanteau. + +My visits to other universities were about as brief, stirring, +suggestive, and incomplete as those to Columbia and Harvard. I repeat +that I never actually saw the educational machine in motion. What it +seemed to me that I saw in each case was a tremendous mechanical +apparatus at rest, a rich, empty frame, an organism waiting for the word +that would break its trance. The fault was, of course, wholly mine. I +find upon reflection that the universities which I recall with the most +sympathy are those in which I had the largest opportunity of listening +to the informal talk of the faculty and its wife. I heard some mighty +talking upon occasion--and in particular I sat willing at the feet of a +president who could mingle limericks and other drollery, the humanities, +science, modern linguistics, and economics in a manner which must surely +make him historic. + + * * * * * + +Education, like most things except high-class cookery, must be judged by +ultimate results; and though it may not be possible to pass any verdict +on current educational methods (especially when you do not happen to +have even seen them in action), one can to a certain extent assess the +values of past education by reference to the demeanor of adults who have +been through it. One of the chief aims of education should be to +stimulate the great virtue of curiosity. The worst detractors of the +American race--and there are some severe ones in New York, London, and +Paris!--will not be able to deny that an unusually active curiosity is a +marked characteristic of the race. Only they twist that very +characteristic into an excuse for still further detraction. They will, +for example, point to the "hordes" (a word which they regard as +indispensable in this connection) of American tourists who insist on +seeing everything of historic or artistic interest that is visible in +Europe. The plausible argument is that the mass of such tourists are +inferior in intellect and taste to the general level of Europeans who +display curiosity about history or art. Which is probably true. But it +ought to be remembered by us Europeans (and in sackcloth!) that the mass +of us with money to spend on pleasure are utterly indifferent to history +and art. The European dilettante goes to the Uffizi and sees a +shopkeeper from Milwaukee gazing ignorantly at a masterpiece, and says: +"How inferior this shopkeeper from Milwaukee is to me! The American is +an inartistic race!" But what about the shopkeeper from Huddersfield or +Amiens? The shopkeeper from Huddersfield or Amiens will be flirting +about on some entirely banal beach--Scarborough or Trouville--and for +all he knows or cares Leonardo da Vinci might have been a cabman; and +yet the loveliest things in the world are, relatively speaking, at his +door! When the European shopkeeper gets as far as Lucerne in August, he +thinks that a journey of twenty-four hours entitles him to rank a little +lower than Columbus. It was an enormous feat for him to reach Lucerne, +and he must have credit for it, though his interest in art is in no wise +thereby demonstrated. One has to admit that he now goes to Lucerne in +hordes. Praise be to him! But I imagine that the American horde +"hustling for culture" in no matter what historic center will compare +pretty favorably with the European horde in such spots as Lucerne. + +All general curiosity is, to my mind, righteousness, and I so count it +to the American. Not that I think that American curiosity is always the +highest form of curiosity, or that it is not limited. With its apparent +omnivorousness it is often superficial and too easily satisfied--particularly +by mere words. Very seldom is it profound. It is apt to browse agreeably +on externals. The American, like Anglo-Saxons generally, rarely shows a +passionate and yet honest curiosity about himself or his country, which +is curiosity at its finest. He will divide things into pleasant and +unpleasant, and his curiosity is trained to stop at the frontier of the +latter--an Anglo-Saxon device for being comfortable in your mind! He +likes to know what others think of him and his country, but he is not +very keen on knowing what he really thinks on these subjects himself. +The highest form of curiosity is apt to be painful sometimes. (And yet +who that has practised it would give it up?) It also demands +intellectual honesty--a quality which has been denied by Heaven to all +Anglo-Saxon races, but which nevertheless a proper education ought in +the end to achieve. Were I asked whether I saw in America any +improvement upon Britain in the supreme matter of intellectual honesty, +I should reply, No. I seemed to see in America precisely the same +tendency as in Britain to pretend, for the sake of instant comfort, that +things are not what they are, the same timid but determined dislike of +the whole truth, the same capacity to be shocked by notorious and +universal phenomena, the same delusion that a refusal to look at these +phenomena is equivalent to the destruction of these phenomena, the same +flaccid sentimentality which vitiates practically all Anglo-Saxon art. +And I have stood in the streets of New York, as I have stood in the +streets of London, and longed with an intense nostalgia for one hour of +Paris, where, amid a deplorable decadence, intellectual honesty is +widely discoverable, and where absolutely straight thinking and talking +is not mistaken for cynicism. + + * * * * * + +Another test of education is the feeling for art, and the creation of an +environment which encourages the increase of artistic talent. (And be it +noted in passing that the intellectually honest races, the Latin, have +been the most artistic, for the mere reason that intellectual dishonesty +is just sentimentality, and sentimentality is the destroying poison of +art.) Now the most exacerbating experience that fell to me in +America--and it fell more than once--was to hear in discreetly lighted +and luxurious drawing-rooms, amid various mural proofs of trained taste, +and usually from the lips of an elegantly Europeanized American woman +with a sad, agreeable smile: "There is no art in the United States.... I +feel like an exile." A number of these exiles, each believing himself or +herself to be a solitary lamp in the awful darkness, are dotted up and +down the great cities, and it is a curious fact that they bitterly +despise one another. In so doing they are not very wrong. For, in the +first place, these people, like nearly all dilettanti of art, are +extremely unreliable judges of racial characteristics. Their mentality +is allied to that of the praisers of time past, who, having read _Tom +Jones_ and _Clarissa_, are incapable of comprehending that the immense +majority of novels produced in the eighteenth century were nevertheless +terrible rubbish. They go to a foreign land, deliberately confine their +attention to the artistic manifestations of that country, and then +exclaim in ecstasy: "What an artistic country this is! How different +from my own!" To the same class belong certain artistic visitors to the +United States who, having in their own country deliberately cut +themselves off from intercourse with ordinary inartistic persons, visit +America, and, meeting there the average man and woman in bulk, frown +superiorly and exclaim: "This Philistine race thinks of nothing but +dollars!" They cannot see the yet quite evident truth that the rank and +file of every land is about equally inartistic. Modern Italy may in the +mass be more lyrical than America, but in either architecture or +painting Italy is simply not to be named with America. + +[Illustration: MITCHELL TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS--UNIVERSITY OF +CHICAGO] + +Further, and in the second place, these people never did and never will +look in the right quarters for vital art. A really original artist +struggling under their very noses has small chance of being recognized +by them, the reason being that they are imitative, with no real opinion +of their own. They associate art with Florentine frames, matinee hats, +distant museums, and clever talk full of allusions to the dead. It would +not occur to them to search for American art in the architecture of +railway stations and the draftsmanship and sketch-writing of +newspapers and magazines, because they have not the wit to learn that +genuine art flourishes best in the atmosphere of genuine popular demand. + +Even so, with all their blindness, it is unnatural that they should not +see and take pride in the spectacular historical facts which prove their +country to be less negligible in art than they would assert. I do not +mean the existence in America of huge and glorious collections of +European masters. I have visited some of these collections, and have +taken keen pleasure therein. But I perceive in them no national +significance--no more national significance than I perceive in the +endowment of splendid orchestras to play foreign music under foreign +conductors, or in the fashionable crowding of classical concerts. +Indeed, it was a somewhat melancholy experience to spend hours in a +private palace crammed with artistic loveliness that was apparently +beloved and understood, and to hear not one single word disclosing the +slightest interest in modern American art. No, as a working artist +myself, I was more impressed and reassured by such a sight as the Innes +room at the colossal Art Institute of Chicago than by all the +collections of old masters in America, though I do not regard Innes as a +very distinguished artist. The aforesaid dilettanti would naturally +condescend to the Innes room at Chicago's institute, as to the +long-sustained, difficult effort which is being made by a school of +Chicago sculptors for the monumental ornamentation of Chicago. But the +dilettanti have accomplished a wonderful feat of unnaturalness in +forgetting that their poor, inartistic Philistine country did provide, +_inter alia_, the great writer who has influenced French imaginative +writers more deeply than any other foreign writer since Byron--Edgar +Allan Poe; did produce one of the world's supreme poets--Whitman; did +produce the greatest pure humorist of modern times; did produce the +miraculous Henry James; did produce Stanford White and the incomparable +McKim; and did produce the only two Anglo-Saxon personalities who in +graphic art have been able to impose themselves on modern +Europe--Whistler and John Sargent. + + * * * * * + +In the matter of graphic art, I have known so many American painters in +Paris that I was particularly anxious to see what American painting was +like at home. My first adventures were not satisfactory. I trudged +through enormous exhibitions, and they filled me with just the same +feeling of desolation and misery that I experienced at the Royal +Academy, London, or the Societe des Artistes Francais, Paris. In miles +of slippery exercise I saw almost nothing that could interest an +intelligent amateur who had passed a notable portion of his life in +studios. The first modern American painting that arrested me was one by +Grover, of Chicago. I remember it with gratitude. Often, especially in +New York, I was called upon by stay-at-home dilettanti to admire the +work of some shy favorite, and with the best will in the world I could +not, on account of his too obvious sentimentality. In Boston I was +authoritatively informed that the finest painting in the whole world was +at that moment being done by a group of Boston artists in Boston. But as +I had no opportunity to see their work, I cannot offer an opinion on +the proud claim. My gloom was becoming permanent, when one wet day I +invaded, not easily, the Macdowell Club, and, while listening to a +chorus rehearsal of Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" made the acquaintance of +really interesting pictures by artists such as Irving R. Wiles, Jonas +Lie, Henri, Mrs. Johansen, and Brimley, of whom previously I had known +nothing. From that moment I progressed. I met the work of James Preston, +and of other men who can truly paint. + +All these, however, with all their piquant merits, were Parisianized. +They could have put up a good show in Paris and emerged from French +criticism with dignity. Whereas there is one American painter who has +achieved a reputation on the tongues of men in Europe without (it is +said) having been influenced by Europe, or even having exhibited there. +I mean Winslow Homer. I had often heard of Winslow Homer from +connoisseurs who had earned my respect, and assuredly one of my reasons +for coming to America was to see Winslow Homer's pictures. My first +introduction to his oil-paintings was a shock. I did not like them, and +I kept on not liking them. I found them theatrical and violent in +conception, rather conventional in design, and repellent in color. I +thought the painter's attitude toward sea and rock and sky decidedly +sentimental beneath its wilful harshness. And I should have left America +with broken hopes of Winslow Homer if an enthusiast for State-patronized +art had not insisted on taking me to the State Museum at Indianapolis. +In this agreeable and interesting museum there happened to be a +temporary loan exhibit of water-colors by Winslow Homer. Which +water-colors were clearly the productions of a master. They forced me to +reconsider my views of Homer's work in general. They were beautiful; +they thrilled; they were genuine American; there is nothing else like +them. I shall never forget the pleasure I felt in unexpectedly +encountering these summary and highly distinguished sketches in the +quietude of Indianapolis. I would have liked to collect a trainful of +New York, Chicago, and Boston dilettanti, and lead them by the ears to +the unpretentious museum at Indianapolis, and force them to regard +fixedly these striking creations. Not that I should expect appreciation +from them! (Indianapolis, I discovered, was able to keep perfectly calm +in front of the Winslow Homer water-colors.) But their observations +would have been diverting. + + + + +VIII + +CITIZENS + + +Nothing in New York fascinated me as much as the indications of the vast +and multitudinous straitened middle-class life that is lived there; the +average, respectable, difficult, struggling existence. I would always +regard this medium plane of the social organism with more interest than +the upper and lower planes. And in New York the enormity of it becomes +spectacular. As I passed in Elevated trains across the end of street +after street, and street after street, and saw so many of them just +alike, and saw so many similar faces mysteriously peering in the same +posture between the same curtains through the same windows of the same +great houses; and saw canaries in cages, and enfeebled plants in pots, +and bows of ribbon, and glints of picture-frames; and saw crowd after +dense crowd fighting down on the cobbled roads for the fearful privilege +of entering a surface-car--I had, or seemed to have, a composite vision +of the general life of the city. + +And what sharpened and stimulated the vision more than anything else was +the innumerable flashing glimpses of immense torn clouds of clean linen, +or linen almost clean, fluttering and shaking in withdrawn courtyards +between rows and rows of humanized windows. This domestic detail, +repugnant possibly to some, was particularly impressive to me; it was +the visible index of what life really is on a costly rock ruled in all +material essentials by trusts, corporations, and the grand principle of +tipping. + +I would have liked to live this life, for a space, in any one of half a +million restricted flats, with not quite enough space, not quite enough +air, not quite enough dollars, and a vast deal too much continual strain +on the nerves. I would have liked to come to close quarters with it, and +get its subtle and sinister toxin incurably into my system. Could I have +done so, could I have participated in the least of the uncountable daily +dramas of which the externals are exposed to the gaze of any starer in +an Elevated, I should have known what New York truly meant to +New-Yorkers, and what was the real immediate effect of average education +reacting on average character in average circumstances; and the +knowledge would have been precious and exciting beyond all knowledge of +the staggering "wonders" of the capital. But, of course, I could not +approach so close to reality; the visiting stranger seldom can; he must +be content with his imaginative visions. + +[Illustration: PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE INDOMITABLE NEW YORK +WOMAN] + +Now and then I had the good-fortune to come across illuminating stories +of New York dailiness, tales of no important event, but which lit up for +me the whole expanse of existence in the hinterlands of the Elevated. +As, for instance, the following. The tiny young wife of the ambitious +and feverish young man is coming home in the winter afternoon. She is +forced to take the street-car, and in order to take it she is forced to +fight. To fight, physically, is part of the daily round of the +average fragile, pale, indomitable New York woman. In the swaying crowd +she turns her head several times, and in tones of ever-increasing +politeness requests a huge male animal behind her to refrain from +pushing. He does not refrain. Being skilled, as a mariner is skilled in +beaching himself and a boat on a surfy shore, she does ultimately +achieve the inside of the car, and she sinks down therein apparently +exhausted. The huge male animal follows, and as he passes her, +infuriated by her indestructible politeness, he sticks his head against +her little one and says, threateningly, "What's the matter with you, +anyway?" He could crush her like a butterfly, and, moreover, she is +about ready to faint. But suddenly, in uncontrollable anger, she lifts +that tiny gloved hand and catches the huge male animal a smart smack in +the face. "Can't you be polite?" she hisses. Then she drops back, +blushing, horrified by what she has done. She sees another man throw the +aghast male animal violently out of the car, and then salute her with: +"Madam, I take off my hat to you." And the tired car settles down to +apathy, for, after all, the incident is in its essence part of the +dailiness of New York. + +The young wife gets home, obsessed by the fact that she has struck a man +in the face in a public vehicle. She is still blushing when she relates +the affair in a rush of talk to another young wife in the flat next to +hers. "For Heaven's sake don't tell my husband," she implores. "If he +knew he'd leave me forever!" And the young husband comes home, after his +own personal dose of street-car, preoccupied, fatigued, nervous, hungry, +demanding to be loved. And the young wife has to behave as though she +had been lounging all the afternoon in a tea-gown on a soft sofa. +Curious that, although she is afraid of her husband's wrath, the +temptation to tell him grows stronger! Indeed, is it not a rather fine +thing that she has done, and was not the salute of the admiring male +flattering and sweet? Not many tiny wives would have had the pluck to +slap a brute's face. She tells the young husband. It is an error of tact +on her part. For he, secretly exacerbated, was waiting for just such an +excuse to let himself go. He is angry, he is outraged--as she had said +he would be. What--his wife, _his_-etc., etc.! + +A night full of everything except sleep; full of Elevated and rumbling +cars, and trumps of autos, and the eternal liveliness of the cobbled +street, and all incomprehensible noises, and stuffiness, and the sense +of other human beings too close above, too close below, and to the left +and to the right, and before and behind, the sense that there are too +many people on earth! What New-Yorker does not know the wakings after +the febrile doze that ends such a night? The nerves like taut strings; +love turned into homicidal hatred; and the radiator damnably tapping, +tapping!... The young husband afoot and shaved and inexpensively +elegant, and he is demanding his fried eggs. The young wife is afoot, +too, manoeuvering against the conspiracies of the janitor, who lives far +below out of sight, but who permeates her small flat like a malignant +influence.... Hear the whistling of the dumb-waiter!... Eggs are +demanded, authoritatively, bitterly. If glances could kill, not only +that flat but the whole house would be strewn with corpses.... Eggs!... + +Something happens, something arrives, something snaps; a spell is broken +and horror is let loose. "Take your eggs!" cries the tiny wife, in a +passion. The eggs fly across the table, and the front of a man's suit is +ruined. She sits down and fairly weeps, appalled at herself. Last +evening she was punishing males; this morning she turns eggs into +missiles, she a loving, an ambitious, an intensely respectable young +wife! As for him, he sits motionless, silent, decorated with the colors +of eggs, a graduate of a famous university. Calamity has brought him +also to his senses. Still weeping, she puts on her hat and jacket. +"Where are you going?" he asks, solemnly, no longer homicidal, no longer +hungry. "I must hurry to the cleaners for your other suit!" says she, +tragic. And she hurries.... + +A shocking story, a sordid story, you say. Not a bit! They are young; +they have the incomparable virtue of youthfulness. It is naught, all +that! The point of the story is that it illustrates New York--a New York +more authentic than the spaciousness of upper Fifth Avenue or the +unnatural dailiness of grand hotels. I like it. + + * * * * * + +You may see that couple later in a suburban house--a real home for the +time being, with a colorable imitation of a garden all about it, and the +"finest suburban railway service in the world": the whole being a frame +and environment for the rearing of children. I have sat at dinner in +such houses, and the talk was of nothing but children; and anybody who +possessed any children, or any reliable knowledge of the ways of +children, was sure of a respectable hearing and warm interest. If one +said, "By the way, I think I may have a photograph of the kid in my +pocket," every eye would reply immediately: "Out with it, man--or +woman!--and don't pretend you don't always carry the photograph with you +on purpose to show it off!" In such a house it is proved that children +are unmatched as an exhaustless subject of conversation. And the +conversation is rendered more thrilling by the sense of partially tamed +children-children fully aware of their supremacy--prowling to and fro +unseen in muddy boots and torn pinafores, and speculating in their +realistic way upon the mysteriousness of adults. + +"We are keen on children here," says the youngish father, frankly. He is +altered now from the man he was when he inhabited a diminutive flat in +the full swirl of New York. His face is calmer, milder, more benevolent, +and more resignedly worried. And assuredly no one would recognize in him +the youth who howled murderously at university football matches and +cried with monstrous ferocity at sight of danger from the opposing +colors: "Kill him! Kill him for me! I can't stand his red stockings +coming up the field!" Yet it is the same man. And this father, too, is +the fruit of university education; and further, one feels that his +passion for his progeny is one of the chief causes of American interest +in education. He and his like are at the root of the modern +university--not the millionaires. In Chicago I was charmed to hear it +stoutly and even challengingly maintained that the root of Chicago +University was not Mr. Rockefeller, but the parents of Chicago. + +Assuming that the couple have no children, there is a good chance of +catching them later, splendidly miserable, in a high-class +apartment-house, where the entire daily adventure of living is taken out +of your hands and done for you, and you pay a heavy price in order to be +deprived of one of the main interests of existence. The apartment-house +ranks in my opinion among the more pernicious influences in American +life. As an institution it is unhappily establishing itself in England, +and in England it is terrible. I doubt if it is less terrible in its +native land. It is anti-social because it works always against the +preservation of the family unit, and because it is unfair to children, +and because it prevents the full flowering of an individuality. (Nobody +can be himself in an apartment-house; if he tried that game he would +instantly be thrown out.) It is immoral because it fosters bribery and +because it is pretentious itself and encourages pretense in its victims. +It is unfavorable to the growth of taste because its decorations and +furniture are and must be ugly; they descend to the artistic standard of +the vulgarest people in it, and have not even the merit of being the +expression of any individuality at all. It is enervating because it +favors the creation of a race that can do absolutely nothing for itself. +It is unhealthy because it is sometimes less clean than it seems, and +because often it forces its victims to eat in a dining-room whose walls +are a distressing panorama of Swiss scenery, and because its cuisine is +and must be at best mediocre, since meals at once sound and showy +cannot be prepared wholesale. + +Some apartment-houses are better than others; many are possibly marvels +of organization and value for money. But none can wholly escape the +indictment. The institution itself, though it may well be a natural and +inevitable by-product of racial evolution, is bad. An experienced +dweller in apartment-houses said to me, of a seeming-magnificent house +which I had visited and sampled: "We pay six hundred dollars for two +poor little rooms and a bath-room, and twenty-five dollars a week for +board, whether we eat or not. The food is very bad. It is all kept hot +for about an hour, on steam, so that every dish tastes of laundry. +Everything is an extra. Telephone--lights--tips--especially tips. I tip +everybody. I even tip the _chef_. I tip the _chef_ so that, when I am +utterly sick of his fanciness and prefer a mere chop or a steak, he will +choose me an eatable chop or steak. And that's how things go on!" + +My true and candid friend, the experienced dweller in apartment-houses, +was, I have good reason to believe, an honorable man. And it is +therefore a considerable tribute to the malefic influence of +apartment-house life that he had no suspicion of the gross anti-social +immorality of his act in tipping the _chef_. Clearly it was an act +calculated to undermine the _chef's_ virtue. If all the other +experienced dwellers did the same, it was also a silly act, producing no +good effect at all. But if only a few of them did it, then it was an act +which resulted in the remainder of the victims being deprived of their +full, fair chance of getting eatable chops or steaks. My friend's +proper course was obviously to have kicked up a row, and to have kicked +up a row in a fashion so clever that the management would not put him +into the street. He ought to have organized a committee of protest, he +ought to have convened meetings for the outlet of public opinion, he +ought to have persevered day after day and evening after evening, until +the management had been forced to exclude uneatable chops and steaks +utterly from their palatial premises and to exact the honest performance +of duty from each and all of the staff. In the end it would have dawned +upon the management that inedible food was just as much out of place in +the restaurant as counterfeit bills and coins at the cash-desk. The +proper course would have been difficult and tiresome. The proper course +often is. My friend took the easy, wicked course. That is to say, he +exhibited a complete lack of public spirit. + + * * * * * + +An apartment-house is only an apartment-house; whereas the republic is +the republic. And yet I permit myself to think that the one may +conceivably be the mirror of the other. And I do positively think that +American education does not altogether succeed in the very important +business of inculcating public spirit into young citizens. I judge +merely by results. Most peoples fail in the high quality of public +spirit; and the American perhaps not more so than the rest. Perhaps all +I ought to say is that according to my own limited observation public +spirit is not among the shining attributes of the United States citizen. +And even to that statement there will be animated demur. For have not +the citizens of the United States been conspicuous for their public +spirit?... + +It depends on what is meant by public spirit--that is, public spirit in +its finer forms. I know what I do _not_ mean by public spirit. I was +talking once to a member of an important and highly cultivated social +community, and he startled me by remarking: + +"The major vices do not exist in this community at all." + +I was prepared to credit that such Commandments as the Second and Sixth +were not broken in that community. But I really had doubts about some +others, such as the Seventh and Tenth. However, he assured me that such +transgressions were unknown. + +"What do you _do_ here?" I asked. + +He replied: "We live for social service--for each other." + +The spirit characterizing that community would never be described by me +as public spirit. I should fit it with a word which will occur at once +to every reader. + +On the other hand, I cannot admit as proof of public spirit the +prevalent American habit of giving to the public that which is useless +to oneself--no matter how immense the quantity given, and no matter how +admirable the end in view. When you have got the money it is rather easy +to sit down and write a check for five million dollars, and so bring a +vast public institution into being. It is still easier to leave the same +sum by testament. These feats are an affair of five minutes or so; they +cost simply nothing in time or comfort or peace of mind. If they are +illustrations of public spirit, it is a low and facile form of public +spirit. + +True public spirit is equally difficult for the millionaire and for the +clerk. It is, in fact, very tedious work. It implies the quiet daily +determination to get eatable chops and steaks by honest means, chiefly +for oneself, but incidentally for everybody else. It necessitates +trouble and inconvenience. I was in a suburban house one night, and it +was the last night for registering names on an official list of voters +before an election; it was also a rainy night. The master of the house +awaited a carriage, which was to be sent up by a candidate, at the +candidate's expense, to take him to the place of registration. Time grew +short. + +"Shall you walk there if the carriage doesn't come?" I asked, and gazed +firmly at the prospective voter. + +At that moment the carriage came. We drove forth together, and in a +cabin warmed by a stove and full of the steam of mackintoshes I saw an +interesting part of the American Constitution at work--four hatted +gentlemen writing simultaneously the same particulars in four similar +ledgers, while exhorting a fifth to keep the stove alight. An +acquaintance came in who had trudged one mile through the rain. That +acquaintance showed public spirit. In the ideal community a candidate +for election will not send round carriages in order, at the last moment, +to induce citizens to register; in the ideal community citizens will +regard such an attention as in the nature of an insult. + +I was told that millionaires and presidents of trusts were chiefly +responsible for any backwardness of public spirit in the United States. +I had heard and read the same thing about the United States in England. +I was therefore curious to meet these alleged sinister creatures. And +once, at a repast, I encountered quite a bunch of millionaire-presidents. +I had them on my right hand and on my left. No two were in the least +alike. In my simplicity I had expected a type--formidable, intimidating. +One bubbled with jollity; obviously he "had not a care in the world." +Another was grave. I talked with the latter, but not easily. He was +taciturn. Or he may have been feeling his way. Or he may have been not +quite himself. Even millionaire-presidents must be self-conscious. Just +as a notorious author is too often rendered uneasy by the consciousness +of his notoriety, so even a millionaire-president may sometimes have a +difficulty in being quite natural. However, he did ultimately talk. It +became clear to me that he was an extremely wise and sagacious man. The +lines of his mouth were ruthlessly firm, yet he showed a general +sympathy with all classes of society, and he met my radicalism quite +half-way. On woman's suffrage he was very fair-minded. As to his own +work, he said to me that when a New York paper asked him to go and be +cross-examined by its editorial board he willingly went, because he had +nothing to conceal. He convinced me of his uprightness and of his +benevolence. He showed a nice regard for the claims of the Republic, and +a proper appreciation of what true public spirit is. + +Some time afterward I was talking to a very prominent New York editor, +and the conversation turned to millionaires, whereupon for about half an +hour the editor agreeably recounted circumstantial stories of the +turpitude of celebrated millionaires--stories which he alleged to be +authentic and undeniable in every detail. I had to gasp. "But surely--" +I exclaimed, and mentioned the man who had so favorably impressed me. + +"Well," said the editor, reluctantly, after a pause, "I admit he has +_the new sense of right and wrong_ to a greater extent than any of his +rivals." + +I italicize the heart of the phrase, because it is italicized in my +memory. No words that I heard in the United States more profoundly +struck me. Yet the editor had used them quite ingenuously, unaware that +he was saying anything singular!... Since when is the sense of right and +wrong "new" in America? + +Perhaps all that the editor meant was that public spirit in its higher +forms was growing in the United States, and beginning to show itself +spectacularly here and there in the immense drama of commercial and +industrial policies. That public spirit is growing, I believe. It +chanced that I found the basis of my belief more in Chicago than +anywhere else. + + * * * * * + +I have hitherto said nothing of the "folk"--the great mass of the +nation, who live chiefly by the exercise, in one way or another, of +muscular power or adroitness, and who, if they possess drawing-rooms, do +not sit in them. Like most writers, when I have used such phrases as +"the American people" I have meant that small dominant minority which +has the same social code as myself. Goethe asserted that the folk were +the only real people. I do not agree with him, for I have never found +one city more real than another city, nor one class of people more real +than another class. Still, he was Goethe, and the folk, though +mysterious, are very real; and, since they constitute perhaps +five-sixths of the nation, it would be singular to ignore them. I had +two brief glimpses of them, and the almost theatrical contrast of these +two glimpses may throw further light upon the question just discussed. + +I evaded Niagara and the Chicago Stock-yards, but I did not evade the +"East Side" of New York. The East Side insisted on being seen, and I was +not unwilling. In charge of a highly erudite newspaper man, and of an +amiable Jewish detective, who, originally discovered by Colonel +Roosevelt, had come out first among eighteen hundred competitors in a +physical examination, my particular friend and I went forth one +intemperate night to "do" the East Side in an automobile. We saw the +garlanded and mirrored core of "Sharkey's" saloon, of which the most +interesting phenomenon was a male pianist who would play the piano +without stopping till 2.30 A.M. With about two thousand other persons, +we had the privilege of shaking hands with Sharkey. We saw another +saloon, frequented by murderers who resembled shop assistants. We saw a +Hebraic theater, whose hospitable proprietor informed us how he had +discovered a great play-writing genius, and how on the previous Saturday +night he had turned away seven thousand patrons for lack of room! +Certainly on our night the house was crammed; and the play seemed of +realistic quality, and the actresses effulgently lovely. We saw a Polack +dancing-hall, where the cook-girls were slatterns, but romantic +slatterns. We saw Seward Park, which is the dormitory of the East Side +in summer. We saw a van clattering off with prisoners to the night +court. We saw illustrious burglars, "gunmen," and "dukes" of famous +streets--for we had but to raise a beckoning finger, and they approached +us, grinning, out of gloomy shadows. (And very ordinary they seemed in +spite of slashed faces!) + +We even saw Chinatown, and the wagonettes of tourists stationary in its +streets. I had suspected that Chinatown was largely a show for tourists. +When I asked how it existed, I was told that the two thousand Chinese of +Chinatown lived on the ten thousand Chinese who came into it from all +quarters on Sundays, and I understood. As a show it lacked +convincingness--except the delicatessen-shop, whose sights and odors +silenced criticism. It had the further disadvantage, by reason of its +tawdry appeals of color and light, of making one feel like a tourist. +Above a certain level of culture, no man who is a tourist has the +intellectual honesty to admit to himself that he is a tourist. Such +honesty is found only on the lower levels. The detective saved our pride +from time to time by introducing us to sights which the despicable +ordinary tourists cannot see. It was a proud moment for us when we +assisted at a conspiratorial interview between our detective and the +"captain of the precincts." And it was a proud moment when in an +inconceivable retreat we were permitted to talk with an aged Chinese +actor and view his collection of flowery hats. It was a still prouder +(and also a subtly humiliating) moment when we were led through +courtyards and beheld in their cloistral aloofness the American +legitimate wives of wealthy China-men, sitting gorgeous, with the +quiescence of odalisques, in gorgeous uncurtained interiors. I was glad +when one of the ladies defied the detective by abruptly swishing down +her blind. + +But these affairs did not deeply stir my imagination. More engaging was +the detective's own habit of stopping the automobile every hundred yards +or so in order to point out the exact spot on which a murder, or several +murders, had been committed. Murder was his chief interest. I noticed +the same trait in many newspaper men, who would sit and tell excellent +murder stories by the hour. But murder was so common on the East Side +that it became for me curiously puerile--a sort of naughtiness whose +punishment, to be effective, ought to wound, rather than flatter, the +vanity of the child-minded murderers. More engaging still was the +extraordinary frequency of banks--some with opulent illuminated +signs--and of cinematograph shows. In the East End of London or of Paris +banks are assuredly not a feature of the landscape--and for good reason. +The cinematograph is possibly, on the whole, a civilizing agent; it +might easily be the most powerful force on the East Side. I met the +gentleman who "controlled" all the cinematographs, and was reputed to +make a million dollars a year net therefrom. He did not appear to be a +bit weighed down, either by the hugeness of his opportunity or by the +awfulness of his responsibility. + +[Illustration: THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE] + +The supreme sensation of the East Side is the sensation of its +astounding populousness. The most populous street in the +world--Rivington Street--is a sight not to be forgotten. Compared to +this, an up-town thoroughfare of crowded middle-class flats is the +open country--is an uninhabited desert! The architecture seemed to sweat +humanity at every window and door. The roadways were often impassable. +The thought of the hidden interiors was terrifying. Indeed, the hidden +interiors would not bear thinking about. The fancy shunned them--a +problem not to be settled by sudden municipal edicts, but only by the +efflux of generations. Confronted by this spectacle of sickly-faced +immortal creatures, who lie closer than any other wild animals would +lie; who live picturesque, feverish, and appalling existences; who amuse +themselves, who enrich themselves, who very often lift themselves out of +the swarming warren and leave it forever, but whose daily experience in +the warren is merely and simply horrible--confronted by this +incomparable and overwhelming phantasmagoria (for such it seems), one is +foolishly apt to protest, to inveigh, to accuse. The answer to futile +animadversions was in my particular friend's query: "Well, what are you +going to do about it?" + + * * * * * + +My second glimpse of the folk was at quite another end of the city of +New York--namely, the Bronx. I was urgently invited to go and see how +the folk lived in the Bronx; and, feeling convinced that a place with a +name so remarkable must itself be remarkable, I went. The center of the +Bronx is a racket of Elevated, bordered by banks, theaters, and other +places of amusement. As a spectacle it is decent, inspiring confidence +but not awe, and being rather repellent to the sense of beauty. Nobody +could call it impressive. Yet I departed from the Bronx very +considerably impressed. It is the interiors of the Bronx homes that are +impressive. I was led to a part of the Bronx where five years previously +there had been six families, and where there are now over two thousand +families. This was newest New York. No obstacle impeded my invasion of +the domestic privacies of the Bronx. The mistresses of flats showed me +round everything with politeness and with obvious satisfaction. A stout +lady, whose husband was either an artisan or a clerk, I forget which, +inducted me into a flat of four rooms, of which the rent was twenty-six +dollars a month. She enjoyed the advantages of central heating, gas, and +electricity; and among the landlord's fixtures were a refrigerator, a +kitchen range, a bookcase, and a sideboard. Such amenities for the +people--for the _petits gens_--simply do not exist in Europe; they do +not even exist for the wealthy in Europe. But there was also the +telephone, the house exchange being in charge of the janitor's +daughter--a pleasing occupant of the entrance-hall. I was told that the +telephone, with a "nickel" call, increased the occupancy of the Bronx +flats by ten per cent. + +Thence I visited the flat of a doctor--a practitioner who would be the +equivalent of a "shilling" doctor in a similar quarter of London. Here +were seven rooms, at a rent of forty-five dollars a month, and no end of +conveniences--certainly many more than in any flat that I had ever +occupied myself! I visited another house and saw similar interiors. And +now I began to be struck by the splendor and the cleanliness of the +halls, landings, and staircases: marble halls, tesselated landings, and +stairs out of Holland; the whole producing a gorgeous effect--to match +the glory of the embroidered pillow-cases in the bedrooms. On the roofs +were drying-grounds, upon which each tenant had her rightful "day," so +that altercations might not arise. I saw an empty flat. The professional +vermin exterminator had just gone--for the landlord-company took no +chances in this detail of management. + +Then I was lifted a little higher in the social-financial scale, to a +building of which the entrance-hall reminded me of the foyers of grand +hotels. A superb negro held dominion therein, but not over the telephone +girl, who ran the exchange ten hours a day for twenty-five dollars a +month, which, considering that the janitor received sixty-five dollars +and his rooms, seemed to me to be somewhat insufficient. In this house +the corridors were broader, and to the conveniences was added a +mail-shoot, a device which is still regarded in Europe as the final word +of plutocratic luxury rampant. The rents ran to forty-eight dollars a +month for six rooms. In this house I was asked by hospitable tenants +whether I was not myself, and, when I had admitted that I was myself, +books of which I had been guilty were produced, and I was called upon to +sign them. + +The fittings and decorations of all these flats were artistically +vulgar, just as they are in flats costing a thousand dollars a month, +but they were well executed, and resulted in a general harmonious effect +of innocent prosperity. The people whom I met showed no trace of the +influence of those older artistic civilizations whose charm seems subtly +to pervade the internationalism of the East Side. In certain strata and +streaks of society on the East Side things artistic and intellectual are +comprehended with an intensity of emotion and understanding impossible +to Anglo-Saxons. This I know. + +The Bronx is different. The Bronx is beginning again, at a stage earlier +than art, and beginning better. It is a place for those who have learnt +that physical righteousness has got to be the basis of all future +progress. It is a place to which the fit will be attracted, and where +the fit will survive. It has rather a harsh quality. It reminded me of a +phrase used by an American at the head of an enormous business. He had +been explaining to me how he tried a man in one department, and, if he +did not shine in that, then in another, and in another, and so on. "And +if you find in the end that he's honest but not efficient?" I asked. +"Then," was the answer, "we think he's entitled to die, and we fire +him." + +The Bronx presented itself to me as a place where the right of the +inefficient to expire would be cheerfully recognized. The district that +I inspected was certainly, as I say, for the fit. Efficiency in physical +essentials was inculcated--and practised--by the landlord-company, whose +constant aim seemed to be to screw up higher and higher the self-respect +of its tenants. That the landlord-company was not a band of +philanthropists, but a capitalistic group in search of dividends, I +would readily admit. But that it should find its profit in the business +of improving the standard of existence and appealing to the pride of the +folk was to me a wondrous sign of the essential vigor of American +civilization, and a proof that public spirit, unostentatious as a coral +insect, must after all have long been at work somewhere. + +Compare the East Side with the Bronx fully, and one may see, perhaps +roughly, a symbol of what is going forward in America. Nothing, I should +imagine, could be more interesting to a sociological observer than that +actual creation of a city of homes as I saw it in the Bronx. I saw the +home complete, and I saw the home incomplete, with wall-papers not on, +with the roof not on. Why, I even saw, further out, the ground being +leveled and the solid rock drilled where now, most probably, actual +homes are inhabited and babies have been born! And I saw further than +that. Nailed against a fine and ancient tree, in the midst of a desolate +waste, I saw a board with these words: "A new Subway station will be +erected on this corner." There are legendary people who have eyes to see +the grass growing. I have seen New York growing. It was a hopeful sight, +too. + + * * * * * + +At this point my impressions of America come to an end, for the present. +Were I to assert, in the phrase conventionally proper to such an +occasion, that no one can be more sensible than myself of the manifold +defects, omissions, inexactitudes, gross errors, and general lack of +perspective which my narrative exhibits, I should assert the thing which +is not. I have not the slightest doubt that a considerable number of +persons are more sensible than myself of my shortcomings; for on the +subject of America I do not even know enough to be fully aware of my own +ignorance. Still, I am fairly sensible of the enormous imperfection and +rashness of this book. When I regard the map and see the trifling +extent of the ground that I covered--a scrap tucked away in the +northeast corner of the vast multi-colored territory--I marvel at the +assurance I displayed in choosing my title. Indeed, I have yet to see +your United States. Any Englishman visiting the country for the second +time, having begun with New York, ought to go round the world and enter +by San Francisco, seeing Seattle before Baltimore and Denver before +Chicago. His perspective might thus be corrected in a natural manner, +and the process would in various ways be salutary. It is a nice question +how many of the opinions formed on the first visit--and especially the +most convinced and positive opinions--would survive the ordeal of the +second. + +As for these brief chapters, I hereby announce that I am not prepared +ultimately to stand by any single view which they put forward. There is +naught in them which is not liable to be recanted. The one possible +justification of them is that they offer to the reader the one thing +that, in the very nature of the case, a mature and accustomed observer +could not offer--namely, an immediate account (as accurate as I could +make it) of the first tremendous impact of the United States on a mind +receptive and unprejudiced. The greatest social historian, the most +conscientious writer, could not recapture the sensations of that first +impact after further intercourse had scattered them. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Your United States, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR UNITED STATES *** + +***** This file should be named 15063.txt or 15063.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/0/6/15063/ + +Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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