AMERICA-THROUGH C/INI vJL/1 oil R TA BY THE SAME AUTHOR "THAT IS TO SAY " In crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. Aberdeen Dally Journal. "To beguile a few hours pleasantly, there could be no more cheery companion than Rita s piquant and lively volume of short stories." Dublin Dally Express. "A new book by Rita is always welcome. That is to Say is a col lection of stories, all good, some excellent, told in Rita s inimitably fresh and kindly fashion." Northern Whig." Throughout the stories we find the same freshness and charm which have at all times been characteristic of this lady s writings. The stories are all excellent, and we leave them to the judgment of the reader, with the assurance that true enjoyment will be found in their perusal." Glasgow Herald. "The dialogue is particularly good; Rita is an adept at opening the window of a soul quickly and without fuss, and occa sionally to highly dramatic purpose." Dundee Courier." A collection of stories which can be recommended to the reader who wants to be interested and amused." LONDOM : STANLEY PAUL & CO. "RITA" (Mrs. Desmond Humphreys) [Frontispiece AMERICA-THROUGH ENGLISH EYES BY "RITA" (Mrs. DESMOND HUMPHREYS) AUTHOR OP "PEG THE RAKE," "THAT IS TO SAY" ETC. ETC. LONDON STANLEY PAUL & GO. 1 CLIFFORD S INN PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND V1NEY. LD LONDON AND AYI.ESBVRY. BeMcatefc TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT WITH THE SINCERE ADMIRATION OF THE AUTHOB 252995 Copyright by " New York Times," U.S.A. PREFACE A BRIEF two months experience of American cities, life, manners, habits, and hospitality, is scarce equipment for criti cism. One forms opinions which after-results modify. One salutes the Goddess Liberty with respect, and finds oneself laughing in one s sleeve a week later at the free translation of the word " Freedom." One is called upon to admire in one city what is scoffed at in another. But above all one speedily learns that the term " American " is too compre hensive for general use. New York is not American ; assuredly Wash ington is not American ; and only a benighted foreigner would ever so misname Boston. Between all these cities there exists a frantic rivalry and a curiously ingenious diversity of 7 PKEFACE claims. Yet if each looked into the heart of the other they could not but recognise brother hood and amity. They would lose sight of foibles, and grow tolerant of mistakes. The factors of national strength are often the pro ducts of national weakness, and the true history of America is at once the most romantic and the most extraordinary yet unwritten. Here are cities so splendid and so rich that one would expect perfection of civilisation. Yet one finds palaces set beside tenements, and avenues that run into filthy slums. Slavery has been abolished by civil war ; but there is not a factory, or a foundry, or a dockyard, or an emporium that does not own thousands of white slaves, earning hardly a living wage, worked for long toilful hours, herded together like cattle, tricked by politicians, hounded down by legislature, and yet content to wave a bit of coloured rag on Independence Day and call themselves patriots ! The wealth of America is amazing. The 8 PEEFACE poverty and vice and degradation of America are heart-rending. If the country were not so rich, if dollars were not a blatant fact for ever poured into your ear, for ever appraising every public or private building you admire, every statue, bridge, park, or street you notice, the bewildered tourist might excuse poverty and misrule ; might even class them as incidents too universal for drastic criticism. But the loudly uttered boasts, the useless and absurd extravagance and costly idiocies of society, these are things that draw down harsher censure on a new country than on one long founded on traditions, and in a measure bound to up hold them. In Europe we have feudalism, state, royalty, and aristocracy. America claims none of these. Its sole aristocracy is that of Wealth, and it is not one to be proud of, judged by its proclaimed methods. If one surveys the great Republic s life through the noble prescience of a Lincoln, or 9 PREFACE Washington, it is but to quote Hamlet and murmur : " What a falling-off is there ! " The Republic of their dreams, political, ecclesiastical, and social, is now transformed into a huge iconoclastic machine ; a thing of tyranny and cruelty and unsparing greed. The word " millionaire " is no longer expressive enough to acclaim riches. Even a unit with eighteen ciphers scarcely advertises multi- millionairism to the satisfaction of the New York or Chicago standard. New York itself seems to abhor economy in any shape or form. It only believes in glitter, show, and ostentation. The wildest extravagance, and a perpetual advertisement of startling absurdities, mark the deeds of its social world. If a stranger comes to New York unheralded by the ubiquitous reporter, inclined for comfort, not display, with a desire to study life from an outsider s and not an American s point of view, that stranger is unwelcome. Only the credentials of rank open the door of democracy ; 10 PREFACE and the cranks and tricks of the wildest mad man would be received with acclamation if they meant novelty for a blase society. There is a sort of social insanity in the United States that sets the rest of the world agape. But also it brings down the ridicule and condemna tion of calm and sensible minds. Yet the individual American is so thin-skinned that the very fact of unfavourable criticism makes him your lifelong enemy. Give him praise, flattery, admiration, wonder, and he will perhaps lend you a greenback. Tell him straight that his nation is vulgar, ostentatious, and blind to its own best interests, and he will advise you to " git." Possibly this is a somewhat sweeping asser tion from the point of view of a mere writer ; but the three great cities I have seen, and about which I have written the following articles, are sufficiently representative as subjects for such an assertion*, I was told I ought to go to Maine, or Illinois, 11 PEEFACE or Chicago, or California before I criticised American life or manners, but I concluded that New York and Washington and Boston were very good specimens of the American States, and quite important enough for my attention ! So of these three cities I have written, calling down much wrath, and much criticism, and many vituperative letters from unknown Ameri can correspondents by so doing. I am sorely tempted to publish some of these letters, but for sake of many kindnesses re ceived, and many pleasant friendships made, I refrain from retaliation. Yet I would like to say that no English writer, however severe or however critical, has ever written harsher truths of the Americans than the Americans have written of themselves. " RITA." 12 CONTENTS PAGE IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK . 17 II AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES OF NEW YORK 37 III THE AMERICAN PRESS AND LITERATURE . 59 IV NEW YORK SOCIETY AND SOCIAL FUNCTIONS 79 WASHINGTON AS A POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CENTRE 97 VI BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY . . .115 13 CONTENTS VII P1QB AMERICAN RELIGIONS 133 VIII AMERICAN MARRIAGES . . . . .151 IX AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS . 171 X THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY . . . .193 XI DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA 211 XII GENERAL REFLECTIONS 231 14 I IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK 15 IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YOEK A SENSE of confusion of disorganisation is quite inseparable from one s first view of New York, one s first experience of it as a city, and an introduction to American manners, customs, and character. When the confusion subsides, and the calmer forces of a critical attitude are set loose, then one learns that New York is not typically American only a fragment of that Great Whole represented by the phrase United States/ To visit these States in the course of two, three, or even six months, is of course possible, if one can afford the time. But even then I doubt if the answer to " What do you think of us ? " would be satisfactory. America as a geographical signification is 17 B ENGLISH EYES largely comprehensive, and the American, whether national, natural, or imported, is equally comprehensive. He is the product of so many races, creeds, prejudices, and pretences that it is difficult to classify him. This may account for such national virtues as patriotism, political integrity, commercial " cuteness," and sublime selfishness. The great personal pronoun " I " is in direct evidence when you meet a citizen of the United States. What / have said, done, made, invented, purchased, thought, or felt, seems the limit of his conversational ability. Even his physical ailments or shortcomings are introduced by this personal prefix ; and because he is American, and America is the greatest country in the world, he feels that such person alities are of immense importance. When I specially desired to confuse an American citizen I would ask him gravely : " Can you tell me where I can meet a real American ? " Why here ; right away/ he would answer. 18 IMPRESSIONS OF NEW, YQB K.: .:;-.: And then I would point out that he was of Dutch, or Russian, or Irish, or French, or Polish, or Scandinavian, or Italian origin. That was not what I wanted. An American with American ancestry, and racial instincts and habits as his prerogative, not the bastard mixture of all sorts of other civilisations. I never met him. To traverse Broadway from end to end, and examine the names on the stores, on the business offices, the professional chambers, and on every variety of emporium, is to wonder whether you have strayed into a foreign country. The typical American name is conspicuous only by its absence. Who and what the Ameri can of " down town " fame is I failed to dis cover. I believe he is non-existent or else he has a preference for a foreign nom de guerre. For aught we know, modesty may be a national virtue after all ! The fire and flame of the world s criti cism have illumined America as they have 19 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES illumined no other country. But that is what the American likes. He would rather you abused him than ignored him. Any sort of notice or animadversion is preferable to no notice at all. Possibly that is the reason the Press is given libellous liberty, and the inter viewer is permitted the royal prerogative of insolence. I met all sorts and conditions of interviewers and reporters and journalists when I visited the States, but I never met one who had been out of his or her country, and usually they were very young. Therefore their ignorance of such old-fashioned virtues as tact or courtesy was excusable. The journalist who is educated on the commercial value of " headlines " and " scarelines " cannot be expected to appreciate half-tones or neutral tints. He has no use for them (to use his own phrase). There is a class of American who goes away from his country and then judges it by what he has seen and learnt of other countries. There 20 IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK is also the bigoted patriot who stays at home and affirms that whatever is (American) is right. Anyway, it s " good enough for him/ That phrase is constantly heard. It has a pleasant patriotic twang about it. It sums up the whole spirit of American independence. It is at once the climax of argument, and the justification of prejudice. It throws a halo of golden imagery around the sky-scrapers, and turns the worship of the dollar into a special sacrament. Besides, when you hear that speech you feel you have nothing more to say. If everything American is " good enough " for the Americans, why trouble to criticise them, or attempt to teach them ultra- civilised methods ? It is absurd on the face of it, and positively impertinent. We would " put quills out " very quickly if the enlightened New Yorker came over to teach us how to eat eggs, or mix cocktails, or import clams and terrapin, or introduce that modern terror the telephone into our bedrooms. A universal 21 AMEEICA THEOUGH ENGLISH EYES standard of culture and conduct is as impossible as a universal religion. The natural beauty of the harbour and surroundings of New York city cannot fail to impress a new arrival. Amidst veiling mists and golden sunlight point after point of love liness reveals itself. Islands, buildings, bridges, all the achievements of architecture, all the massive effrontery of commercial life, steeples, spires, flagstaffs, sky-scrapers all these form one long procession of wealth, importance, and ingenuity. No scrap of ground, no frag ment of street but is utilised in some way or for some purpose. If a few feet of ground or a few yards of wall are by inadvertence free from laundry embellishment or building opera tions, they are speedily seized by the bill poster for advertising purposes. The " ills that flesh is heir to " are left neither secret nor sacred in the States. You are warned, diagnosed, advised, and prescribed for IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK in the most obvious and unblushing manner. Fields, rocks, woods, riverside, and park, as well as streets and buildings, seem one huge pano rama of advertisement. At night New York is illuminated by electric signs so brilliant, so humorous, and so frequent, that the streets need no other lighting, and thus save the city a considerable outlay. To the American mind advertising is Nature s first law, and profit the second. There is a special college for the cult of the poster and the electric sign. Ingenuity and audacity are the main points of its curriculum. Go where you may in America you cannot escape the posting advertiser. He is with you from the cradle to the grave. He will instruct, amuse, and advise you all through life s weary journey, if you only give him your attention. The extraordinary genius of this individual never struck me so forcibly as when I took my first train journey from New York to Washing ton. The fields contained life-sized cows, and AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES dogs, and human beings ! Each was an adver tisement of some patent nostrum or another. Each was an aggressive landmark. Each seemed to discount any effort of Nature to please the eye and sense of the traveller. Of course Americans did not make their scenery, but in gratitude to Nature they might leave it alone. They prefer to use it as a background for atroci ties committed in the sacred name of business. To the man of business all else is immaterial. His instincts are gold-coloured, and gold- weighted, and Nature has no meaning or any beauty for his dulled senses ; she is only a means to an end an asset to exploit or commercialise. Fields mean a Wheat Trust, or a corner in grain, or a bargain pasturage for cattle. Streams and rivers symbolise electric currency, or a fishing monopoly, or the uses of turbine ma chinery. Even Niagara that wonder of the world has not escaped this brutal spirit of embezzlement. It is a huge advertising ground ; something to exploit and vulgarise and utilise, 24 IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK with that spirit of graft and greed which has so largely adulterated the mind of America. A landscape is but the material for scenic adver tisement, unmitigated quackery, and commercial enterprise. The American mind is essentially one of utility. The enormous fortunes of which one hears and whose solidity is signalised by Fifth Avenue mansions and all the vagaries of Newport and Long Island could never have been amassed by a people possessed of " fine " feelings or artistic instincts. The very word " artistic " possesses no signification for an American save as designation for a crank. They will tell you this with all possible frankness. They are hard-working, enterprising, ingenious, and un scrupulous, but they are not artistic. If such a useless gift suddenly manifests itself in a member of a family he is deported to Europe there to drudge at painting, or music, or singing, or " sculpting " to the bitter end of his wasted days ! 25 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES Almost all American art is the imported product of other countries. Their gorgeous mansions and picture galleries are only a tem porary resting-place for treasures purchased by accredited agents, and on show to envious friends for a limited period. There are very, very few painters or sculptors who have taken a prominent place in American history as American artists, and even those few have studied abroad and utilised European methods and models. Possibly too if their ancestors were traced back far enough they would be found to be of foreign birth or extraction. Still this is nothing to their discredit. People go to the New World to improve their fortunes, or exploit their ingenuity, and generally succeed. Enterprise and audacity are the best tools for carving the way to success, and the little graces and superficialities of life are therefore thrown aside as useless lumber. Politeness has no value in the States. It is not a commercial attribute, and is the first 26 IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK superfluity that the emigrant discards. In a land where all are equal it is useless to be more polite or deferential to one person than to another, and if the coloured man, or the hired girl, or the foreign waiter can do nothing else to show their sense of equality they can at least dispense with anything so superfluous as the prefix of " Sir " or " Madam " when receiving or answering orders and inquiries. The row of black pages and messengers, the bell boy, the chambermaid, the clerk at his desk, the telephone girl at her table, all and each of these address the hotel guest as an equal. They use your own name or nothing. Titles are just " foolishness." These things come as a surprise at first, but once the fine edge of feeling is blunted you accept impoliteness as a matter of course. It is part of the penalty paid for freedom, and as good a mode as any of proving its value. Hired service in America (or rather in New York, with which city I am dealing) is one of 27 AMERICA THEOUGH ENGLISH EYES its grievances as well as one of its necessities. Good, capable, respectable servants are rare if indeed they exist at all. And this is only natural when the first lesson America teaches is that of equality. My chambermaid at the hotel was an example of national effrontery. She hailed from Ireland, of course, and fifteen years of the States had lifted her to a glorious independence of speech and manner. When I ventured to ask her to fasten my dress, she coolly walked across the room and seated herself in the armchair. You come right along here," she said ; "I guess I can do it better sittin down." And meekly and silently I " came along there," and wondered what my English maid would have said had she heard me addressed in so unceremonious a fashion. On another occasion I was invited to an afternoon reception. The elevator " shot " me up to the third floor, where my hostess dwelt. The door was opened by the usual " coloured," 28 IMPKESSIONS OF NEW YOEK capless girl. I entered the passage of the apartment (no one calls them " flats " in New York, I was told) and inquired for Mrs. A , " I guess she s in there/ was the answer. " Would you like to ease your head ? J I stared in bewilderment. " Ease my head ? " I repeated vaguely. She pointed to my hat. I grasped the situa tion. But it was only four o clock in the after noon, and I imagined that the guests came in hats and ordinary afternoon gowns. I said I preferred to keep it on. She nodded and pointed to a door, and told me to " go right in." I was not shown the way, or announced, or treated to any of our useless servile formalities. " A land of liberty," I said to myself ; adding, " and liberties." The car-conductors of New York may be congratulated on having achieved the last limit of incivility. I never had a civil answer to a question, a civil response to an inquiry for direction, change, or the obligations of a 29 AMEKICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES transfer. Of what nationality or degree the New York car-conductor is, I am hopelessly ignorant, but that he is the rudest, dirtiest, and most disobliging of all the city s servitors I unhesitatingly declare. I think I disliked going about New York more than I have ever disliked the obligations of sight-seeing in any other city. And for this reason. The tramcar is the universal method of transit. It is a scramble to get in and to get out of it. It is a dirty, dusty, overcrowded, abominable vehicle. However full the car is, the conductor always allows it to get fuller. You hang on to a strap if there is not a vacant seat, and are hustled and pushed, and knocked to and fro, and suffocated with the heat and odours, and pass a time of unequalled misery until you arrive at your particular street. If it happens to rain, things are a degree worse. Of all terrible places commend me to New York on a wet day ! The muddy streets, the damp crowds in cars, and " elevated/ and subway, 30 IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK the dripping umbrellas and filthy boots, and general air of misery and depression all make up the acme of discomfort. True that taxicabs are loafing about, but they are the vehicles of the wealthy. You pay fifty cents for the shortest distance, and then the fare accumulates at the rate of ten cents every quarter of a mile. A jerk or a stoppage seems to accelerate the speed of the " ticker/ and I have seen the ten cents advance with the mystery of a conjuring trick. I was charged seven dollars to go to Central Park from Thirtysecond Street and back again about thirty shillings in English money for a distance of ten miles. The Taxi companies seem to run at their own sweet will, and charge what they please. The system of monopoly in America is the death-blow to fairness in any enterprise. Restaurant life is a great if not the greatest feature of New York life. Most of the residential population live in hotels, or large apartment houses. There seems to be no home life or 31 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES private life as we count it in England. This is of course explained by the limited space of the city, situated as it is on a limited area of land most of which is required for business purposes, hotels, and places of amusement. Now, apart ment life seems to English folk a very uncom fortable state of existence, although its utility is becoming evident in our own large cities. In New York you are an inmate of a huge cara vanserai, containing as many as 300 to 400 suites of rooms, each complete in itself and decorated ostentatiously with fire-escapes. The fire-escape is the most prominent feature of New York architecture, and sets its seal of disfigurement on private house or apartment house alike. I do not wonder that people like to get away from these ugly barracks, and take meals in the gaily decorated, sumptuous, and musically cheered restaurants, whose name is legion ! They are delightful. Pretty faces, lovely gowns, marvellous hats ; life, laughter, gaiety ; wonderful food to eat, and wonderful 32 IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK people to eat it. In twos and threes, in groups and parties the guests assemble, mutually satis fied with escape from their dreary tenements, and bent on having a " good time " of it for one evening at least. Sometimes their high spirits lead them to exaggerations of speech, or raise the pitch of laughter to too high a key to be quite pleasant. But all is genuine, un adulterated pleasure the American idea of pleasure highly priced food and plenty of it ! What fortunes the hotels and restaurants of New York must make ! No wonder there are so many millionaires in Fifth Avenue ! Even such trifles as ice-creams, and " candy have brought in uncountable dollars to their fortunate inventor or exploiter. How much more may not the restaurant-manager hope for, with his 100 and 200 per cent profit on more solid articles of food ! 33 II AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES OF NEW YORK II AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STOEES OF NEW YORK " A TRAVELLER without observation is like a bird without wings/ says the Eastern proverb, but the traveller who could face the wonders, or walk the streets of New York city without observing anything remark able would have to be blind and deaf and brainless. Not only is it unique in point of construction, locomotion, and attraction, but it is emphatically desirous of bringing such points to your immediate notice, and in the shortest possible space of time. Do you desire amusement ? The very walls of the city, the shores of the river, the street car, and the street itself are alive with announce- 37 AMERICATHROUGH ENGLISH EYES ment and invitation. The very genius of inventiveness is set free and untrammelled to work its will in the Great Republic, and if theatrical syndicates don t reap its advantages, it is assuredly not the fault of the posters ! They are marvels of the startling, the shocking, and the sensational. If they don t grip your attention and arouse your curiosity then you lack something you would be the better for possessing. The theatrical advertisements in the daily or evening journals are comparatively insignificant, but the theatrical advertisements in the streets of New York city supply all needs. They arrest your notice, stun you with their realistic reality, amaze, delight, or disgust you, according to your trend of mind. But it is difficult to avoid their invitation, and you have to go to theatre after theatre to find that the poster is not the piece after all. One thing impressed me about American theatrical productions. It was their excellent ensemble. You rarely saw a star shining alone. 38 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES You saw a supported star, a well-surrounded and illuminated star, a star where other stars- even the smallest scintillated and sparkled their very best, giving the effect of well-planned brilliance not mere subordinate limelight. In Jimmy Valentine, in The Chorus Lady, and The Fortune Hunter, this ensemble was specially noticeable. In Madame X, and in Little Eyolf, one was confronted by " star " parts, osten sibly important. Yet Miss Donelly or Madame Nazimova would have fared badly had they been less a part of a whole than the whole itself. The entire company played up to them, and with them, in a manner deserving of all praise. The Amsterdam Theatre in New York is a very beautiful and artistic building, and the rich, sombre tone of the interior is very impres sive. It looks a home of tragedy and fine drama. One cannot fancy the frivolities of a Dollar Princess, or A Girl with the Whooping- cough on that stage. But just as there are fine pieces and fine presentations in the New 39 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES York theatres, so there are bad ones and poor ones, and indecencies and imbecilities that degrade both the profession and the producers. The typical American piece is lavishly adorned with American humour in other words, slang. This slang is perpetually changing and reorna- menting its picturesque forcibility ; so much so that even an American theatrical audience is sometimes puzzled as to what an actor means. Of course in the music hall or in the conventional musical comedy, " gag " is largely introduced. Often the inventiveness of the slang phraseo- logist is his sole tribute to fame. New York possesses a wonderful Hippo drome, with a gigantic stage, on which three separate performances can be given at the same time. It is almost impossible to hear a single word said on the stage, possibly owing to the size of the building, or its acoustic deficiencies. It grieved me to see our well-known little French clown, Marcel, trying to be funny as of yore, and failing to attract any special atten- 40 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES tion. I was told that he had been lured from London by a large salary, and had left our Hippodrome for that of New York. But most assuredly he is not appreciated there, nor did he receive the ovations and applause I had known him to receive in London. While on amusement bent, I was invited to pay a visit to Coney Island. It is one of the " sights " of New York, just as the Bowery and Chinatown are sights. My friends motored me down on a Sunday evening, that being the evening par excellence for hilarity and mixed crowds. We arrived somewhere about six o clock, and first drove from end to end of the long street, with its garish buildings, its beer gardens and restaurants, its shows and shops, rinks, shoot ing-galleries, and dancing-saloons. The crowds were tremendous; the noise deafening. We left the automobile and sauntered from place to place a pandemonium of braying bands, brass trumpets, shouting voices, and hilarious con- 41 AMEKICA-THROUGH ENGLISH EYES fusion. Nothing that I had ever seen in the way of seaside exuberance even in Cockney Margate came within approachable distance of Coney Island ; and when the various build ings, and merry-go-rounds and shops and eating places were illuminated the scene was abso lutely unique ! Surely " Luna Park " must have been the original of our White City." It was the White City again, only on a louder, more blatant, and more vulgar scale, as befits the taste of the New York citizen when on pleasure bent. There were the familiar domes and pinnacles and fairy edifices, the mimic bridges, and painted scenery, all illuminated by countless electric lights ; conspicuous in colourless purity, dedicated to amusement, and " catch-penny entertainments. Seaside places in America are called " beaches," and I strolled to the piers and bathing-houses in order to form some idea of what these beaches were like. One would imagine that 42 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES the vaunted American modesty would shun the bathing publicity of such a resort as Coney Island, but apparently such is not the case. A curious feature of America is that when you visit any special place in order to form an opinion of it, people immediately beg you not to form an opinion, and especially not to consider that place representative; so I shall only say that Coney, and West Brighton and Manhattan Beaches, and even Revere Beach at Boston, are merely democratic playgrounds for the people, and must not be judged as we would judge say Scarborough, or Brighton. Coney was in wild spirits that Sunday night. It danced and yelled, and rode the steam horses, and " shooted the Chute/ and screamed through the Scenic Railway trips, and devoured sausages and " clam-chowders " by the thousand, and generally proved itself to be the irresponsible, noisy, hilarious thing that neither cares nor asks for criticism. The restaurants were all crowded, for to the American sight-seer food is 43 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES the chief joy of sight-seeing. Considering the prices asked and given for a moderate repast, I found myself wondering how these people could afford it. But they tossed dollar notes about as if they were semi-millionaires, and all that the " best girl " demanded, the " best boy " paid for cheerfully. I hoped his employer s safe or cheque-book would not suffer in the near future ! One heard sad stories of defaulters and dishonest clerks and enterprising forgeries at the Tombs prison. As the night went on the gaiety and the noise increased. After two hours of wandering and inspecting I was thankful to go home, carrying away a splitting headache and dis ordered nerves as my tribute to the joys of Coney Island. Looking back at the illumina tions as we sped along, we saw a wonderful sight- curves and colours all dazzling and shimmering under the dark night sky ; in the distance the steely blue of the ocean, and the sound of the breaking surf. New York is fortunate in 44 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES possessing these resorts within easy distance of the city. What would hard-working and office- bound classes do in the hot weather if it were not for such places, and their accessibility ? I visited the Bowery and Chinatown before I left New York. Bleecker was pointed out to me as a strong and brutal contrast to that portion of the city with which I was already acquainted. Crude and terrible is the contrast between this district and the Madison and Fifth Avenue quarters. One portion has been so closed over by the Elevated station that no sunlight can penetrate. Gloom, dirt, poverty, misery all sound their melancholy note in the funeral march of life, as life must be lived there ! A place to haunt one, to torment one s memory, to make one ask, " Can nothing be done ? Apparently nothing can or is. Worse even than our London slums was this foetid, crowded district of sin and squalor. And New York the richest city in the world ! 45 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES Chinatown was like anything but the China town I had expected ! I was persuaded into a restaurant, very clean and very beautifully ap pointed as far as its furniture and decorations. (I cannot say much for its table service !) Here we were expected to order " chop-suey " a compound that may be Americanised-Chinese for aught I know. It consists of meat or chicken chopped fine and mixed with all sorts of vege tables. It is served hot in a small tureen, and is by no means an unappetising dish. I visited the kitchens and found everything beautifully clean and well ordered. From the restaurant we went to the joss-house, or temple, and were welcomed by an ancient priest, who shook his own hands instead of ours, and bowed and " genuflexed " till I feared he would never rise to the perpendicular again. The guide showed us the Shrine, a massive and gorgeous affair, with a painting of a Chinese god at the back. The priest laid a rug down before this shrine, and said a Chinese prayer on 46 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES my behalf. I think it cost a dollar ; but I was prepared to accept its benefits provisionally. All sorts of quaint and beautiful things are sold in the Chinese shops, the prices varying according to the apparent rank or appearance of the purchaser. It is advisable never to give what is first asked, if you have a spare half-hour for bargaining. Next I demanded to be shown an opium den. I had read " Edwin Drood " and other works dealing with the opium victim, but I had never had an opportunity of seeing a place where the habit or vice could be carried on with im punity. In Chinatown I was taken to three houses, or rather rooms, where opium smoking was indulged in. In the first a woman and a young girl were lying on a bed. The woman was blowing at a long pipe, and twirling a tiny pill of the opium into requisite softness for smoking, or inhaling, or whatever it is they do ; concen trating its red spark so that the light fell on her withered, brown face and lean, trembling fingers. 47 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES The girl was in a sodden stupor, gazing at nothing with blank, unseeing eyes. Possibly she was in the drowsy, half -senseless condition the drug induces. In the second room we visited, the pipe was blowing at full blast, and the smokers lay in languid attitudes on a not very clean bed : a man and a woman, the man a Chinese, the woman a white woman ; degraded into slavery or servitude as are half the feminine population of Chinatown. Possibly the law winks at all this because it is helpless to alter it. Only an earthquake or a fire could do that. The fumes of opium in this last room were sickening. I took one hasty look, and then retreated to the door. At a third place only one Chinaman was indulging in the drug, and a woman showed us the pipe and the way of mixing the opium pill. There seems to be a special art about it. Not one of these people addressed a word to us, or seemed to mind our inspection. They looked simply dazed and indifferent. 48 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES We descended the rickety stairs and came out into the narrow street. It was crowded with Chinese, and slatternly white women. Badly lit, dirty, and yet possessing a certain picturesqueness as distinctly foreign to New York city as anything could be. " There are seven thousand Chinese in New York and Brooklyn/ said our guide. I don t know how many Brooklyn accommo dates, but I estimated that about seven hundred would fairly crowd Chinatown ! The theatre was closed, so we passed on to the Bowery. There is no other street in the whole United States like it. Possibly no other country in the world could show its equal. A sample of every civilised nation is represented there. Every sort of language seems to be spoken, and one hustles, or is hustled by, Greeks, Turks, Italians, Russians, Dutch, German, Swedes, Poles, Hungarians, and a large element of foreign Jews. The families seemed to be taking the air on their various doorsteps, and 49 D AMERICA-THROUGH ENGLISH EYES the streets were crowded with children and dogs, and slatternly women. Most of the shops were open, as of course were all the eating-houses and " liquor saloons." Still farther afield and eastward as befits the Jewish alienwe came to the Judea of New York. Streets of tenements, five, six, or seven stories high, each crowded from basement to eaves with tribal descendants. Here the German and Polish and Russian and Hebrew Jew has his abiding-place. But all are Jews first, and American citizens afterwards. Here utility and industry, meanness and hereditary instincts set themselves to lay foundation-stones of future fortunes. Each hard-wrung dollar is as an asset for Wall Street, and millionairism. The amusements and the interests of New York are largely concerned with its wonderful Stores. In England we classify all selling emporiums 50 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES as " shops," but the word " shop " is not half comprehensive enough for the American mind. I am not surprised at it. Such stores as John Wanamaker s, Lord & Taylor s, Sach s, and Macey s, are simply marvels. Everything the shopper can desire is collected, classified, and displayed under one roof. Every depart ment is significant, and arranged with that eye to effect and labour-saving ingenuity so typically American. They are the most fas cinating, tempting, and fatiguing places one could desire. Possibly the fatigue is occasioned by their vastness, their bewildering and lux urious variety of goods, and their indifferent and impolite service. It seems a matter of absolute indifference to an American shop-girl whether you purchase anything or not. It is not her affair. She likes to look like the last freak in prize coiffuring, the last phase of throat development, or shirt waist eccentricity, but she does not like to serve you, or be dragged from her gossip and 51 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES confidences with other young ladies of the counter. Of course she will serve you if you insist upon it, but she is haughty and ungracious and brusque, and such an expression as " thank you " is part of a foreign language she has never acquired. No shop-girl (or should I say " Store Duchess " ?) ever addresses you as " Madam " or " Ma am/ That is a meaningless civility for which, again, the American has no use. Democracy, liberty, and equality, have banished politeness. All the little courtesies to which Europeans are accustomed have no place and no meaning in the States. But it is surprising how soon one gets used to the omission, and even begins to imitate it. I found myself dispensing with " please " or " thank you/ or " may I trouble you ? " before I had spent two weeks in America. Why give more than you get ? I was in the Land of Freedom, and everything that savoured of servility seemed out of place. But to return to these magnificent Stores. 52 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES No fault could be found with them except their prices. I used to amuse myself by straying from counter to counter, and department to department, questioning the price of various articles of dress, or millinery, or trimming. I must candidly say that in every instance I found the price would be almost double what I should have paid for the same thing in England. Dress goods, fancy goods, gloves, laces, belts, even hosiery were expensive luxuries, so it seemed. No wonder the American man has to work so hard in order to supply his femi nine belongings with the wherewithal to make themselves charming ! Not but what they are well worth it. American women are magni ficent advertisements of dress and millinery. Their hats were a never-ceasing joy to me, and their dainty, exquisite gowns might make a Parisian sigh with envy ! No husband or father could be hard-hearted enough to refuse to decorate these birds of Paradise with suit able plumage, and no " store " worthy the name 53 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES but catered for their adornment to the very highest limit of expenditure ! I used to wonder what the average American (I mean New York American) woman spent on dress. Not the millionairess, but the pro fessional man s wife, or the wife of a business man in the " down-town " district of Broadway, or the commercial centre of Wall Street. Perhaps such things are best left to the imagi nation. Fifth Avenue has adopted a more exclusive system than that of the Broadway store. It has given almost a Parisian touch to its shops, with their large windows, and their one or two model gowns, or exquisite hats, exhibited as solitary effects. In fact Fifth Avenue is a de cided hint of the Champs Elysees, and is better suited to European tastes though possibly not to their purses. Still, all said and done, the New York stores are wonders of utility and splendour, and one of their great advantages is the freedom allowed to customers. You may 54 AMUSEMENTS, SIGHTS, AND STORES wander from end to end unpursued by the fussy shopwalker of London fame with that eternal " What is your pleasure, madam ? You may loiter at counters, and examine goods, and handle, touch, disarrange as you please, and no one seems to mind. Isn t this a joy to the feminine shopper ? What matters anything else even the prices, or the indifference of the curled and coiffured young lady behind the counter ? Let me parody the American s favourite phrase and say : " Give me a New York store for shopping all the time ! " 66 Ill THE AMERICAN PRESS AND LITERATURE 57 Ill THE AMERICAN PRESS- AND LITERATURE /^\F all the extraordinary and novel experi ences with which the United States con fronts one, the American newspaper is perhaps the most extraordinary. In comparison with our English journals and their dignified, unpre tentious methods, the daily press of New York, Chicago, Boston, and other cities is as a clap of thunder to a summer shower. Sensation and scandal are the keynotes of American journalism. It is not so much what they say its truth, or its falsehood it is the way in which they say it, that is so startling. There are about three reliable and well- conducted newspapers in New York. It is riot 59 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES necessary to mention them. They stand out as examples ; but the " yellow journals," the scandal purveyors, and city scavengers are an object-lesson in " what to avoid." Who runs them who is responsible for them ? " I used to ask, with that desire for information inseparable from the traveller s instinct. I was informed that they were the pastime of millionaires, the solace of retired stock brokers, or the speculation of enterprising Jews. They are run on the most scandalous principles, and with a perpetual invitation for libel actions that every victim seems afraid to bring. If he did " a worse thing might befall him." Of course scandal is merely called an " exposure " the plain truth of some legal transgression, or attempted crime, or moral degradation. The first hint of anything wrong in a country, a government, a household, or a busi ness is the signal for rushing into print with 60 THE AMERICAN PRESS a " story." The news leaps at you full-fanged and vicious. It bites and foams, and rages and tears at facts or inventions, until the " exposure" is ground into the dust of public contempt. If untrue there is no redress, for the greater the scandal of the journal the more exclusive is the editorial torture-chamber, and the editor will merely refer an aggrieved complainant to the " department " established for discovering hidden criminality, and unearthing the secrets of the Great. To bring an action for libel against any member of this department, or against the journal itself, is just what the pro prietor would desire, for an action in the courts means wholesale advertisement, larger sales, and increased reputation for sensations. Hence the submissive attitude of the libelled American. It is better to sit still and grind one s teeth under misapprehension than stand out and challenge the offender, for when mud is set flying some of it splashes the whitest reputation, and some of it sticks to the un- 61 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES worthiest. Let alone, it may sink or stagnate or be forgotten. So a libel action against a :< yellow journal " is almost unknown. Of course the whole contents are not libellous ; a great deal is very amusing, as well as absolutely untruthful. But these are mere incidents of American journalism not worth considering. The general public don t believe a word they read in certain newspapers the value of " scare- lines " is too well known ; but the stranger and the traveller, or the wondering tourist, reads them impelled by curiosity and does believe them, because his mind is simple and his journalistic education has been conducted on sane and reputable lines. The contrast between the English and foreign press, and the American, is positively startling. We of European tastes have been accustomed to read our news, not to have it hurled, forced down, and flung at us by sheer force of Titanic type-lines and crude 62 THE AMERICAN PRESS announcement. Do Americans need this kind of journalism ? Do they like it ? I used to ask these questions very often. But I only found an answer in the shrug of a shoulder, or the aphorism that a need usually means a supply. Heaven knows there is supply enough of blood-curdling fiction and insolent personalities in the journals of the United States to satisfy double its population ! Criticism of the American press naturally leads to a remark on the American interviewer. He and his notebook are on the spot as the " liner " comes into dock, and he and his note book make a visit to the country purgatorial to any one who dislikes, and yet is considered deserving of, public notice. The reporter cannot understand such a dislike. It seems foolish and unpractical. To refuse the gratuitous advertise ment of an interview, with all its interesting (?) personalities, and criticism, and explanations would mean the suicide of celebrity. The re porters who surround you at the Custom House, 63 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES and turn your room-telephone at the hotel into a never-ending nuisance, are too kind- hearted to permit such wanton waste of opportunity. They dodge you and follow you, and haunt you, and write to you, until at last you agree to let them have the " few words/ or the " valued opinion/ for which they are so anxious. And then Well, then you wish you hadn t ! For the things said of you are proverbially unflattering, and the things said for you are proverbially untrue ! After a course of interviewing in various notable cities of the States, I said to an in terviewer, Why do you trouble to ask my opinion on a particular subject, when all you desire is that I should voice your own ? For really that is what most interviews mean. That you should express more or less fully, and ungrammatically, the particular point of view from which the reporter judges a particular subject. It may be the corpulence of American 64 THE AMERICAN PRESS women, the sartorial deficiencies of the American man, the crudities of divorce, the negligence of maternal duties, the craze for " candy," or the importance of pet dogs. All or any of these serve for an interview. The interviewer pro vides the topic, and if you do not say what he wants, why, he simplifies the matter by saying it for you ! To complain of unveracity on the part of a male or female interviewer is a mere waste of time. No editor troubles about that, or cares whether you are annoyed or indignant. He runs his paper in order that sensational fictions should procure readers, and his reporters are better judges of what suits its columns and supplies its headlines than are the victims of the interviewer s art. The woman-interviewer is a few degrees more untruthful and more exaggerative than the man ! She had a way of pouncing upon me at luncheon or dinner-time in the restaurant, or 65 E AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES waylaying me in corridors and passages, or playing on my feelings by imploring and tearful letters. Any means, any subterfuge was excus able, if only she could go back to her journal s offices armed with the results of a personal interview/ I might rage as I pleased at the printed result. I was helpless. The mischief was done, and might be syndicated broadcast without any one being warned that it was abso lutely untrue, or exaggerated beyond any likeness to my original intention. What a curious trait it is in the character of American journalists and journal readers, that desire for personalities! In England we state facts and their source, and possibly any names of importance connected with them ; but the American must have not only the facts and the names, but the social conditions and private opinions of the individual for which such names stand. No news seems worth chronicling unless it is personal news, personally illustrated, and giving to the reader the physiognomy of the 66 THE AMERICAN PRESS person criticised, or reported, or reviled. I wonder if this curiosity is to be accounted for by the large admixture of Irish blood throughout the Land of Liberty, for the curiosity of the Irish is one of their most marked characteristics. They would rather know who you were than what you did, however high your name stood on the records of art or literature. The American seems to have grafted this trait on to his own national virtues. He wants to know all your personal affairs as well as your public actions. Whether you are of any special social standing, or are married, or divorced, or have ever been concerned in legal or criminal matters is a thousand times more important than your intellectual achievements. It is the same Irish trait repeated personal curiosity garbed as interest, and let loose wholesale in the predatory columns of second-class journals. I do not want to seem too hard a critic on the journalism of the United States, so my remarks must be taken as the result of my limited edu- 67 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES cation in such matters. I speak from the standpoint of insular prejudice, and a long- established rule that the private life and affairs of a man or woman are his or her affairs not for the world at large, not for the sensational columns of the press, not for the interviewer s ribald handling or impertinent curiosity. Such old-fashioned prejudices must necessarily clash with transatlantic freedom ; but there they are prejudices implanted and cultured as are all " fine " feelings and delicate instincts, the result of past centuries of training, and therefore unable to accept without comment the rough-and-ready methods of a more ad vanced civilisation. The American magazine is a decided improve ment on the American journal. It is usually well edited, and beautifully illustrated, and its contents are full of interest or excitement. The American author seems to have a flair for the short story. The sharp drawing together of incidents, the dramatic descriptions, and 68 THE AMERICAN PRESS crisp dialogue combine to hold and interest the reader. The number of magazines and peri odicals published weekly and monthly in the States is enormous. I fail to see how so busy and occupied a nation ever finds time to read half of them. And when to this enormous outcome of popular fiction is added the daily paper, and the Sunday paper (about twelve times the size of any English newspaper), one wonders where reading-space for the novel comes in. Yet I was told by a publisher that four thousand * novels are published every year ! More than ten a day. And English novelists are aggrieved because they are not wanted ! The American author, like the American journal, is good enough for the Americans. Hence they have framed a strong copyright law for the said author s protection, to the exclusion * I have since been informed that two thousand ig nearer the mark. But I had a noted publisher s word for my first statement. (Author). 69 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES of such English and foreign interlopers as object to literary piracy. The American novel is, I imagine, typical of American life and character. Most of them are too full of slang phraseology or provincial dialect to suit English tastes. I was presented with a variety of American authors to read on the steamer coming home. I cannot say I found any of them very interesting save " Senator North " and the " Tower of Ivory," both by Gertrude Atherton, and she is not a typical American author. I appreciate American humour of the Mark Twain order, the polished cynicisms of Edgar Saltus, and the quips of Alan Dale ; but I confess that Robert W. Chambers, and Edith Wharton, and John Fox, Jnr. and their kind bore me beyond description. The quaint phraseology is instructive should I ever desire to paint an American character. I learnt from one book that an American financier considers it " smart " to cheat any one. The 70 THE AMERICAN PRESS expression was that he d " go into a scheme on a shoe-string" in reality with nothing save his consummate bluff, and his limited ward robe ! As far as morals are concerned the pattern American husband seems as great a literary fraud as the typical American maiden. Sidelights of revelation were thrown on both, and disclosures of lax morality made one wonder whether the writers were fictional or truthful. Upton Sinclair seemed to be boycotted in literary circles. Whenever I spoke of "The Jungle" or "The Metropolis" they were cold-shouldered out of literary pre tensions. However much an American appreciates drastic criticism of any national vice or error, he does not like to show that appreciation to a foreigner. And really so great are the differences between our trans atlantic cousins and ourselves that we might almost stand as " foreigners " to them. Their methods of business, their mode of life and 71 AMEKICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES speech, their manners and customs, houses, servants, and entertainments, all possess no likeness to European conceptions of similar things. I soon found that the best way of making friends and becoming " popular " was to accept them as I would a foreign nation to judge them entirely from their standard, never from our own. This method succeeded quite well, except in instances where people demanded to be criticised on English grounds as counterparts (or improvements) of their effete ancestry. Then there were arguments. I visited and was entertained at many private houses (or should I say mansions ?) while in America, but I cannot remember seeing a library in any of them, or finding books left about on tables or shelves as if meant to be read. In fact it seemed to me no one could have time for reading, so numerous were the social occupations of the American woman, so engrossing the business engagements of the commercial or professional man. Still, I suppose n THE AMERICAN PRESS some one bought or read a certain number of the $1.50 and 25-cent volumes I used to see piled on counters of the stores, or filling the windows of Brentano s. Possibly the American reads in the privacy of his or her own bedroom, and does not care to " litter " parlour or boudoir with garish-covered or garish-pictured volumes. It was part of my duty in visiting the States to interview or be interviewed by publishers. I found them the most level-headed and hard hearted of the professional type. It was from no literary standpoint that they judged one s work only from the commercial. No matter how puerile or indecent or immoral a book was, they only questioned its possible sales. By the numbers of what you sold (even if it was garbage fit for the gutter) the publisher judged your worth. Some of the books chronicling " largest sales in United States " made me open my eyes with wonder. I remarked to more than one publisher that I had always heard the Americans were 73 AMERICA THKOUGH ENGLISH EYES most " straight-laced," and, in fact, prudish in their literary tastes. How, then, was it that authors one could certainly not call reputable, sold their works in the unblushing security of bargain counters and book stores ? " Oh ! that s all nonsense," was the answer. " The American reader wants to be amused all the time. He don t want to think" Then he looked at the volume I had brought to his notice as my apology for taking up his valuable time. This is a fine work," he went on, but it won t suit us over here. It would make us think." * I soon found that the publisher s opinion was not the general opinion. People were enor mously agitated by the idea that they were only allowed books suited to childish, sexual, or immature intelligence ! I made a point of repeating the astute publisher s opinion where- ever I went. It used to raise a perfect hornet s * Calvary : A Tragedy of Sects. By " Rita." 74 THE AMERICAN PRESS nest of discussion. Possibly it is still going on. Americans are very touchy on the subject of intellectual inferiority, despite the proofs afforded by their literature and their drama. But possibly, as they have " corners " in grain and in minerals and food-stuffs, so also they have a " corner " for brains, and keep them there and deal with them as a speciality. In Boston and Washington intellectual capacity is a social distinction. In New York and Chicago it stands a few degrees lower than commercial cuteness," or the breeding of hogs ! 75 IV NEW YORK SOCIETY AND SOCIAL FUNCTIONS 77 IV NEW YOEK SOCIETY AND SOCIAL FUNCTIONS TIT INTER is the New York season. By May, the Fifth Avenue mansions and the various suites and apartments rented by the social dignitaries ot the city are shut up and deserted. I arrived in April just catching the " tail-end " of a few last functions, such as receptions, luncheons, and weddings. Among the latter was the Drexel-Gould marriage. It is worth mention. /^ I had read and heard much on this side the herring-pond of the way a fashionable American wedding is conducted, and the excitement it creates. Fresh in my memory lay the reports of the Roxburgh marriage and its scenes. I 79 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES wondered if the Drexel-Gould affair would be a repetition. It was. It possibly exceeded in extravagant display and public interest its famous predecessor. The reporters, male and female, had a " lovely time." They rioted in descriptions of the church, the trousseau, the presents, and the ceremony both before and after the marriage had taken place. The scene in Fifth Avenue on the eventful after noon was something never to be forgotten. Thousands of crazy, hysterical women, and helpless men, squads of mounted and disre garded police, all seething, struggling, fighting, shrieking, under the pouring rain, and crowding the muddy street in order to see what ? A commonplace young man and young woman get in and out of a motor-car for that was all they could see. To me, as a stranger to New York ways and customs, it was quite immaterial that Miss Margery Gould possessed a huge fortune, or that Mr. Anthony Drexel was not an impecunious 80 NEW YORK SOCIETY English peer, but I was surprised to see a church turned into a floral theatre, and to find that the seats reserved for millionaires and their wives represented the social grade of their respective incomes ! The behaviour of the senseless crowd, and the extraordinary antagonism it displayed to anything like order, decency, or police inter vention, was an amazing spectacle. Women fought with their umbrellas like wild cats. Some of them had made their way into the church through an adjoining chapel on pretence of attending a funeral service that, strange to say, preceded the wedding " function/ Once in the building, they proceeded to strip off flowers and ribbons as souvenirs in a manner befitting the genus Hooligan. They had to be turned out by police, and even then were not content till they had " stormed " the bride s motor. How I pitied that unfortunate bride and bridegroom! Why did they not get married 81 F AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES privately, and then send a dressmaker s show figure and a tailor s dummy to go through the public ceremony ? This is a suggestion offered for future American marriages. My American friends were annoyed at my criticism of this wedding and its methods. As usual they said " You must not judge of us by this." But I was getting used to that formula. If I did not judge of an American crowd by a crowd, or an American millionairess s wedding by a representative millionairess and her family how in the name of wonder was I to judge of such things ? After all, what I said or say as an onlooker is mild enough compared to the criticisms and comments of the reporters, and the " Yellow Press." There are only two ways of conducting a marriage ceremony. It is something sacred and exclusive, or, it is a theatrical show designed for public edification. Society seems to prefer the latter, and therefore delicacy and restraint are banished from the programme. The affair NEW YORK SOCIETY becomes a ceremony, a function, and the people I pity with my whole heart are the unfortunate principals in the business ; no matter whether they are of blood royal, or merely millionaires ! Another wedding I attended in New York was less pretentious than the Drexel-Gould affair. Still it gave me the impression of a " show-piece " on the stage. The solemn-faced ushers giving an arm to the lady guests, and conducting them from the church door to their seats ; the lavish floral decorations ; the well- drilled, formal wedding " procession/ all care fully rehearsed beforehand, made up a curious spectacular effect in no way concerned with the binding obligations there represented, s Then followed the ordeal of the reception, where the tired, flushed bride and bored and wearied groom had to stand for hours under a canopy of palms, or a huge bell of flowers, and shake hundreds of hands and give and receive kisses and congratulations, and then be sub jected to the tricks and devices of the ingenious 83 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES " ushers " in order to delay departure, or prevent confidences ! * Truly, a strange people," I said to myself. Luncheons and " teas " in New York, at the Plaza, the Waldorf, Delmonico s, or in private houses or clubs, did not interest me very much except as a surprise at the absence of men. No American I ask pardon New York man attends any " function " until the evening. He is too busy making money, commercially or professionally ; but the women take so much pains to entertain each other and their guests that one scarcely notices the omission. Also, they have the good sense to dress as carefully and expensively for their own sex as the women of Europe deem necessary for the other. Still, I must confess to some natural surprise at the absence of men. Not that I consider the American man an ornamental addition to room or restaurant. When young he is so badly dressed as to be an affront to 84 NEW YORK SOCIETY critical eyes ; when middle-aged he is corpulent and unhealthy-looking as well. The ill-fitting clothes of American men were a never-ending source of wonder to me. It seems impossible for their coats to fit without shoulder cushions, or their trousers to set straight to the boot without bulging and bagging, and collecting mud and dust all the time. And few Americans understand the proper use of the dinner coat, or know when to wear a white tie. I have seen a grey tie and a grey vest worn with a dress coat ! But again, few Englishwomen dress as well as their American sisters, so it keeps the balance even. For English men do dress a hundred times better than their American- cousins. Society in New York is a curious admixture of " sets." There is first the wealthy Fifth Avenue set, then the wealthy Jewish set, then the professional middle-class set, then the in tellectual set ; then come the various cults, or, 85 AMERICATHROUGH ENGLISH EYES as some call them, " freaks." These are re markable for some special fad, and that fad is trotted out and talked to death and made as much of a nuisance as people will stand. But American patience seems unlimited. There is also a distinct " smart set " in New York largely concerned with expensive freaks and novel notions ; the " Potter Palmers " of social life, whose one aim and object it is to get talked of, paragraphed, and advertised into " headline " notoriety. It was not my happy fate to come into personal touch with these celebrities. They had gone to their summer homes or to Europe, and left New York an unillumined desert. The dinner-parties I went to were quite unembellished by eccentricity, and notable for the excellence of cooking and the exquisite table glass, which I was always told had " come from Europe." I was surprised to find so few flowers used either for table decoration or about the living-rooms. Flowers have different uses 86 NEW YORK SOCIETY in America. They become corsage bouquets, parting gifts when you depart on a train or steamship, ball-room and wedding decorations ; but the familiar bowl and vase of blooms, to which English eyes are accustomed in the simplest homes, were rarely to be seen. Possibly the apartment house is to blame for this. Also gardens are non-existent, and flowers an ex pensive luxury in cities. Florists shops are rarely seen in New York. Some that I saw in Fifth Avenue were most beautifully ap pointed and arranged, but the less said about their prices the better. I was entertained by several Women s Clubs in New York and other cities. I met an aston ishing number of brilliant, intellectual, and professional women : doctors, dentists, artists, writers, journalists, heads of colleges and depart ments, heads of all sorts of institutions and organisations, leaders of political and social movements in fact women who did everything 87 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES except bear the maternal honours of woman hood. For that, I suppose, they had no time ; or was it inclination ? They found a public career so absorbing and so interesting that it left no desire for the homely, simple joys of mere feminine life. Or, again, was it the apartment house that was to blame ? For the model landlords of model dwellings have a rooted objection to families young families. No tenant with even one or two babies is as desirable as the tenant with none. It seems rather a cold-blooded way of disposing of responsibilities, but there it is ; one of the crying evils of ultra-civilised America, even as it is of decadent France. It is only on looking back at my American experiences that I am reminded I never saw a young American child in any home or household that I visited. I saw weird, fragile creatures, with pallid faces and huge ribbon-bows, who, I believe, were " little girls/ but they were 88 NEW YOKE SOCIETY not young. Their speech and manners were those of adult years and tragedies. They had to grow up to be young. The American child is one of the saddest of beings, and as atrociously dressed as are the French. The little girl seems to have no hair. Her head merely represents huge ribbon bows that dwarf her face and figure into insignificance. The American boy has the weirdest and strangest of garments, and his hats are modelled on his father s. The effect is positively ludicrous to English eyes. Yet I wonder whether our simply dressed youngsters, in their sailor suits and knickerbockers, our rosy, bouncing girls, with their loose, flowing hair, and neat, short frocks, look absurd to American eyes ? Maybe they do ; but I never heard such an opinion ex pressed by any American woman who had visited Europe. Yet it surprised me to see how the sallow- faced child blossomed into the porcelain-skinned beauty representative of American girlhood. 89 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES From seventeen to twenty-five the American girl is nearly always a pretty girl sometimes a beautiful one ; never an uninteresting one. She is a national product and a commercial asset. Her value is unique, her charm all her own. She has made for herself a world-wide reputation, and she deserves it. It seems strange at first to English ideas to note the absolute freedom of the American girl. She goes about by herself, she forms her own circle of friends, her own interests and amusements ; she gives her own parties, orders and selects her own toilettes, and treats her parents home very much as if it were an hotel. She is at once the most enlightened and inde pendent example of feminine caprice ever evolved by civilisation. Possibly this is, again, a result of liberty. The American parent dare not be false to the first principles of the American constitution, therefore respect and obedience to parents form no part of childhood s obligation. 90 NEW YOBK SOCIETY The independence of the American character is, I imagine, largely the result of its undis ciplined freedom in early life. I was asked once for my opinions on the co-education of boys and girls in American schools. I could not perceive that it had any advantages. I think girls and boys require separate training and separate education except in the very early stages of school life. To bring them up together, as is so largely the custom in the country districts and smaller towns of the States, means little good and possibly much harm. It may also account for the free-and- easy manner in which young men and young women treat each other. They cannot forget school squabbles, and intellectual inequalities. The one sex has no chivalry ; the other no ideals. Of course such things are not absolutely necessary to after-life as a career or an experi ence. Still, they have occasional advantages, and there are natures the poorer for their loss 91 AMEEICA THKOUGH ENGLISH EYES even in the great and glorious Republic of America. American hospitality and kind-heartedness are world-famed. The stranger is not long " a stranger in their gates " if he or she pos sesses any claims to notability. Their houses (apartment) are thrown open to you, their automobiles fetch and carry you, their friends are bidden to assemble and welcome you. Their time and their services and their advice are given you freely, and all this done with a kindly, unostentatious sincerity that is the truest translation of their word " cordial/ What a charming word it is ! " Cordially " yours, " cordially " welcome are employed in contradistinction to our cool, stand-off sig natures. Are they as unmeaning ? At all American receptions and " functions " the hostess introduces each guest personally to the celebrity of the occasion, and then to the other guests. This is a very fatiguing ceremony. We have long dispensed with it on " our side/ 92 NEW YOBKL SOCIETY When you come to analyse the proceeding it is really not necessary, for it is impossible to speak to every one, or remember every name. I fear my unfortunate memory speedily consigned them to oblivion even before my vocal organs wearied of the attempt to talk " over " the loud, high-pitched voices sounding throughout the room. I cannot understand why the Ameri cans pitch their voices almost to screaming point, unless it is that the noise of the streets, and the constant crowds, and the distracting, loud orchestras in the restaurants have forced them to scream in order to make themselves heard. We are noisy in our English crowds, but the effect is more of a prolonged hum than a series of falsetto shrieks. Very charming are the small intime parties given by American hostesses to a few cultured or intellectual people whose ancestors have not come over in the Mayflower. At these parties conversation is a distinct feature, and brilliance vies with interest. No one can talk more 93 AMERICA- THROUGH ENGLISH EYES brilliantly or entertainingly than the American woman. I used to wish I had a private " phono graph " in which to carry away the witty and delightful things I heard. Some of the quaint expressions amused me very much : "I m real glad to see you " ; "I had a perfectly elegant time " ; " she sort of freezed me " ; " that helps some " ; " the cutest thing " ; "I was just tickled to death/ and so on. I used to feel that the dull old English language owed a vast debt of obligation to American ingenuity. The innovations and alterations and phonetic liberties taken with it make an exhilarating change from accepted standards. I made notes of the most original expressions and the most curious slang in case I should ever be tempted to write an American novel ! 94 WASHINGTON AS A POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CENTRE 95 WASHINGTON AS A POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CENTRE journey from New York to Washington is not specially interesting. At first the train runs through a sordid- looking, swampy district, that forms the strangest contrast to wealthy New York. When that is passed one comes to straggling groups of wooden houses (the strangest and ugliest specimens of dwellings I had ever seen). The wooden house is representative of early settlers and early architectural achievements in America. Used as I was to the beautiful green, culti vated English country, the trim farmhouses and cottages, the wide fields of grain and pasturage, the grazing herds of sheep and cattle, these 97 Q AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES queer villages and small towns, set between acres upon acres of woodland, were naturally strange. Moreover, the woodland was not forest, but small, stunted trees covering mile after mile of unused land, trees with curiously black stems and trunks, and curiously green leafage. This was explained afterwards by the fact that the ancient woods had all been cut down for building purposes. I was again in formed that I must not judge of American scenery by this specimen, though it represents many hundreds of miles. If I wanted American scenery I must " go West " ; if I wanted to see harvest fields, and cattle pastures, and real (not tin) cows and sheep I must go to some other district. If, in fact, I imagined that the country began outside the towns, as in small, insignificant England, I was utterly mistaken. Well, I had not time to " go West," so I could only judge of dwarfed woodland and wooden houses by the fact of seeing nothing else until 98 WASHINGTON night closed in. But next morning I gazed with delighted eyes out of my hotel window. Trees ! trees everywhere magnificent, full- foliaged, vividly green ; avenue and park full of them ; a city full of them. I recognised how weary I had become of mere sky-scrapers. I gazed and gazed, and still returned to gaze. Before me a sky blue as that of Italy, sunshine brilliant and glorious ; white, clean width of streets all avenued by glorious chestnuts and maples and elms ; everywhere space and fra grance ; cool shade, beautiful buildings ! America has a capital worthy of the name, and deserving all a nation s pride. I have visited many foreign lands and most European capitals. In none have I found a more beautiful city than Washington. Possibly coming to it from the narrow, crowded streets, the dust and heat and noise of New York, made me enthusi astic on first acquaintance, but the more I saw of the beautiful city the more enthusiastic I became. Who designed Washington ? Whose 99 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES idea was it that every street should be a noble avenue, every open space a miniature park, every public building a structure imposing yet never ostentatious ? All praise to the genius who so planned it ! Its Presidential mansion is just the simple, noble-looking, beautiful thing it ought to be ; white and stately, embowered in green, open to the public, yet symbolic of a certain dignity and importance. I wandered through the grounds, over velvet lawns, under the shade of noble trees, no one interfering with my progress. It seemed won derful. The White House represented to me the dignity of official importance. Its President was not " Bill Taft," as I was used to hearing him called, but The President of the United States ; a man of importance, chosen by his country for its safeguard and its honour, a representative king whose reign, though brief, could never be undistinguished by some sort of personality. Yet how simple is his life ! How shorn of 100 WASHINGTON all that royalty demands ; how purely a thing of and for the people whose representative he is. I roamed through the East Room (used for state receptions), the corridors, and other cham bers to which the public have free admission. I noted objects of historical interest, of private gift or collection, and again the note of restraint and simplicity was struck by every detail of arrangement or classification. Pictures, cabinets, portraits, china, bronzes, statues all seemed just the right thing in the right place. True, the portraits were occasionally marred by fidelity to fashion instead of obligations to art, but doubtless the American patriot comes to see his President or his President s wife as he or she really looked in past years, and therefore the photographic correctness of the artist is excusable. When I saw President Taft I imagined myself confronted by the standard of national quali fications that the Congressional body of the Capitol demand. I found him just a jovial, 101 AMERICA -THROUGH ENGLISH EYES kindly, undignified man, with whom I talked as frankly as if we were old acquaintances. And yet, with that foolish British obtuseness of mine, I should have preferred something of state and ceremony ; some asset of dignity. I questioned him on Copyright Law on its injustice to English authors. He replied, " My dear lady, / do not make the laws. Congress does that/ Confronted with so unexpected a confession of helplessness, I had no more to say. I knew so little of the mysteries of American politics, American government, and American laws that I had deemed the President the most important and autocratic personage in the country ! But he appeared as much a child in leading-strings as our own royalties ; the figure-head of the State, not the State itself. We then conversed on minor matters (leaving out Mr. Roosevelt s triumphant tour), and I expressed my admiration of the capital. He seemed gratified. I gathered that he had never visited England. Possibly, 102 WASHINGTON when the cares of office are over, he may repair that omission. I told him that I considered every Englishman should visit America at least once, and every American should visit England at least twice. Possibly he is wondering what I meant by that time-limit. Washington speedily manifested interest in my arrival. Again the ubiquitous interviewer sought me ; again the daily and evening journals chronicled my opinions, and described my un important personality. Again receptions were got up, and clubs thrown open, and teas and luncheons arranged for my benefit. I was going to have a " splendid time " once more. I thoroughly enjoyed Washington. I went down the lovely Potomac river to Mount Vernon. I gazed with reverent eyes at the simple, historic home of America s great General fitting shrine of patriotism, and a record of what women can do when they are American patriots. For it seemed the strangest thing that this historic 103 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES house, mansion, furniture, relics, mementoes, and grounds should owe their reservation and preservation, not to a nation s gratitude, but to a woman s courage and devotion. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union was organised by one patriotic daughter of the State. She it was who worked zealously, un tiringly for that one object. She had to raise a sum of $200,000, no easy matter in those days, and representing a strenuous task and unsparing energy. But she succeeded, and the Association stands strong and splendid to-day, a lasting tribute to a great hero ; a lasting record of women s achievement. The situation of the house is most beautiful. One can picture a man who was both warrior and statesman, leaving it with regret, returning to its peaceful security with joy, ending there his last days in just the simple dignity and retirement of the citizen who has won his country s lasting gratitude. In the beautiful grounds his feet must have 104 WASHINGTON trodden so often stands his tomb, and beside it that of the wife, so loving and so faith fully loved ; all deeply interesting to stranger and to countryman alike a place of peace and loveliness, and a place to which citizens of all nations of the world have come to pay their homage. I strayed away to the old tomb under its canopy of splendid trees ; shame that its record should be one of outrage and spoliation ! What sort of robber was he who desired the skull of Washington, and how was it asked my curious mind that the stolen skull was proved to be that of some other person ? Who, then, shared the honours of this the first place of the hero s interment ? No one could say. Somehow that story of the rifled grave and the stolen skull spoilt the pathetic interest of the old tomb the place to which Martha Washington s eyes had turned so faithfully by day and night in her widowed loneliness ; the place on which her little casement looked, and 105 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES for whose sake she had changed her own room for that small, insignificant attic. I bade farewell to Mount Vernon with much regret. A first visit is often an only one sometimes a last one. The beautiful Virginian shore faded into the mists of dis tance, the beautiful river grew purple under lowering clouds, the sky was dark over historic Arlington and the beautiful home of Robert Lee. Under the evening shadows the Field of the Dead lay in solemn quietude. They who " gave their lives that their country might live ! " sixteen thousand soldiers sleep in that last battlefield. It is consecrated by something nobler than memorials, greater than its Temple of Fame. I recalled Lincoln s memorable speech, and contrasted America s lofty ideal of liberty with America s present-day institutions of aggrandise ment. Do those patriots, statesmen, senators, presidents who come here from time to time ever recall that speech ? It is for us, the 106 WASHINGTON living, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have so nobly advanced. . . . We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth ! Alas, alas ! And Lincoln was brutally assassinated, and Federal City and National Cemetery look out upon the encircling hills, and the dead sleep on in unbroken silence, and the Capitol fights, for what ? Materialism, wealth, place, power, restriction ; a tyranni cal hampering of idea with action, of tradition with contradiction ; the fostering of gigantic Trusts that of their very essence and nature deny the meaning of freedom ; the grasping cruelty of rapacious plutocrats for whom life has but one meaning its commercial value. Have the dead died in vain, after all ? Beautiful and imposing stands the Capitol 107 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES of the great Republic. Beautiful and imposing is the great Library of Congress. A hundred years hence (if America exists so long) the frescoes and ornamentations will be better worth looking at. They are somewhat too garish and brilliant at present. I saw the Senate House or Hall of Repre sentatives. I examined with much interest the great Legislative Chamber, the Speaker s desk, and the huge semicircle of seats, with their radiating aisles a contrast indeed to our small House of Commons, with its scant accommodation for either members or strangers. Liberty seemed the password of the American Capitol. I wandered to and fro, undeterred and unmolested. On a second visit I was ac companied by the wife of one of the senators, and introduced to many notable persons ; among them the Speaker. It happened to be his seventieth birthday, and his private rooms were a perfect bower of flowers, con spicuous among them a complete bush of 108 WASHINGTON American Beauty roses, sent from his own State as greeting. A portrait of himself was another gift, and stood in a place of honour surrounded by floral tributes. The Senate seemed to be very sumptuously accommodated. I heard of dressing-rooms and bath-rooms and other luxuries ! It seemed to me that a senator in office might as well live altogether in the private offices of his Department. They presented all the comforts and conveniences of a home ! The Committee Rooms, the Ways and Means Rooms, and the Appropriation Rooms are hand somely frescoed. Quite a collection of famous paintings are included in the scheme of decora tion. The Court Room, designed on a Greek model, and with a screen of Ionic columns of Potomac marble, is a very fine and impressive chamber. But go where you will in the Capitol, you are confronted with beauty, majesty, and simplicity ; a harmony of colour and detail, and a restrained sense of what is decorative yet 109 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES fitting. Each visit I paid to this noble building impressed me afresh with its nobility. Great ideals should live beneath that dome, and con secrate those spacious galleries to all that is highest and best in a nation s interest. But the armed Liberty above has a twofold significance. The eagle can soar, but it can slay. Its wings can protect, but its beak and its talons are cruel. The eye that can pierce the sun can also detect a shrinking prey ; nor does it spare weakness, or pity it. Society in Washington is largely composed of the senatorial element. It is almost impos sible to avoid it unless one is frankly frivolous, and throws in one s lot with the mere " enter taining set/ who live for amusement first and politics afterwards if time admits. There is also an intellectual centre in Washington, largely concerned with " brainy " women and novel cults. But whatever society represents it is eminently wealthy, and does 110 WASHINGTON its entertaining in a very lavish, if exclusive, manner. So many Colleges and Universities of various States are represented by Congress that the women endeavour to keep pace with the intellectual achievements of the men. Their homes have a studious, subtle air about them ; a refinement at once striking and delightful. Wealth is the prerogative of a position, or the mere accident of an alliance ; but it is not the blatant, overpowering advertisement of the New York plutocrat. The beautiful city is fitly adorned by beautiful mansions and charming hostesses. The attaches of British and foreign legations have little to complain of from the point of hospitality, and if the White House receptions dare not be exclusive, they can at least be amusing. 1 We have a minority of gentlefolk here," said a Washington lady to me, " and therefore can afford to be exclusive/ I pondered over this cryptic saying. I thought of George Washington s simple 111 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES home, and President Lincoln s noble words, and then of Mr. Roosevelt hobnobbing with emperors and kings, and rulers and politicians. I thought of the tragedies of slavery and civil war, and the Declaration of Independence, of all for which those stars and stripes flamed out in proud announcement. And I could only say to myself, " America is the most wonderful country in the world and the most incomprehensible ! " 112 VI BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY 113 VI BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY T LEFT Washington with much regret. My passion for beautiful scenery, space, cleanliness, harmony, had been amply satisfied. The city is indeed fortunate in its situation. Any one visiting it must feel grateful for the decision that located the nation s historic capital in one of the most picturesque and beautiful districts of the great American con tinent. Here again comes in another claim on the personality from whom that capital takes its name. President Washington set aside the demands of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and selected this site on his beloved Potomac River. No one has been bold enough, 115 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES or inartistic enough to dispute that choice. That the plan and details of the American Capitol itself were drawn up by a Frenchman is just one of those incongruities which perpetually meet one in America. The native American seems to have done nothing for his country except assert its claims. He has left its planning, its architecture, its laws, its science, and its integrity to the hands of aliens, and adopted brotherhoods. The strangest strains, the queerest admixture of blood and race, taint the New World and leaven it heavily with the Old. And yet it is America to American eyes. A place of sharp contrasts ; a country of contradictions ; a country where commercial instinct hustles beauty aside, and turns leisure and tranquillity of life into a screaming turmoil. One can do everything in America but rest. That seems an impossibility. So much to do, to see, to criticise, to wonder at ; such rapid days ; such full hours ; such a strenuous 116 BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY Society ; and always the question : " How much to be got out of such hours, such days, such strenuosity ? Every entertainment has a purpose, every social enterprise a meaning. The American people seem to be for ever strain ing on tiptoe to do something no one has ever done before, and which possibly no one would care to do again ! But for the time being the big drum is beaten to attract public atten tion, and the transaction, or the entertain ment, or the discovery (a la Cook), is shouted and proclaimed and published as if the world was expected to admire and wonder and applaud ! That it wonders goes without saying. Sanity cannot but stand amazed at the vagaries of insanity. But that it does not admire, those who have eyes to see and ears to hear assert as an unflattering truth. Possibly the social importance of Washington and the intellectual importance of Boston endow both cities with claims superior to mere 117 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES hereditary nobility. I give such claims their just due. But the polish has an artificial texture, and one always has an inward fear lest the transatlantic hostess should take it into her head to suddenly fling off her " glad rags " and dance the can-can of republicanism in defiance of the restraints of civilisation. Something for ever lurks in the background of the American mind : a little hint of common ness, a little lack of restraint ; a little plebeian touch that mars the patrician picture ; always, always something. Yet to the claims of decent man and woman, faithful citizen and true patriot, they are invariably true. There is a solid strain of goodness, an insatiable desire to excel in the mind of both sexes. They want the best the very best. That they have failed as yet in obtaining it, is no fault of theirs ; the defects of their qualities at least leave them the full equipment of qualification. Journeying from Washington to Boston gave me ample leisure for such reflections as these. 118 BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY There was no beauty of scenery to attract my eyes just those miles and miles of stunted woods, of advertisement-covered landscape, of wooden houses, and queer, dirty little villages. Occasionally a big town leaped into imposing sig nificance. Baltimore and Philadelphia reminded one again of the many " States " whose import ance rests on such towns and their history. Possibly the most interesting feature of that long day s journey was the transference of the train to the ferry, and the unexpected methods by which the journey was continued. It was a novel experience, and a very surprising one. To sail down the beautiful Haarlem river, to note from my comfortable armchair in the Pullman, all the familiar islands, bridges, and sky-scrapers of New York, to be saved all worry of changing trains and catching steam boats, simply to sit still and let all this be done for you, was just one of those astonishing things for which America is remarkable, and for which all travellers must be grateful. 119 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES I think the river transit lasts two hours. Then the train is joined again, and the journey proceeds. The scenery improved, and was less monotonous, or perhaps I had grown used to the wooden houses ! There were delightful glimpses of sea and river, heights and woods, quaint seaports and towns, white buildings nestling among grassy slopes. The old Puritan names of the old towns came as a familiar sound : New England, New London, New Hampshire, Providence, etc. The journey was drawing to a close, and as the dusk fell I and a fellow-traveller talked softly of the Pilgrim Fathers, and the early settlers ; of the old, far-off days, and the largely-increased area of Boston in comparison with the little jagged peninsula of three centuries ago. Then the great train laboured into the station at Back Bay, and I was met and welcomed, and con ducted to my charming hotel and the charming rooms reserved for me, and knew I had touched another landmark of my pilgrimage. 120 BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY I wonder if I had seen Boston before Washington, and New York last of all the cities I visited, whether my opinion would have altered. Certainly Boston did riot impress me at first as the beautiful capital had done. The streets were narrow too narrow for the car traffic the subway was confusing to a stranger. The shops lacked the style of New York, and the elegancies of Washington. But as I grew familiar with the city I began to recognise how much of charm and interest it possessed a charm unknown to its more brilliant sisters, an interest sacred to English hearts, and en deared by English associations. The dear old names held out hands of greeting. Plymouth, Dorchester, Brighton, Winchester, Cambridge, Essex, Hyde Park how strange it seemed to find their nomenclature here ! Wapping " and Water Street, Forest Hill and South End, and many other streets and places bore the same birthmark, and carried on one s interest. 121 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES The whole metropolitan area of Boston is honey combed, so to say, with British traditions. Wherever I went, and whoever I met, seemed as old friends in new places. The likeness between place and people was quite surprising. Their voices had not the nasal twang of New York, or the Southern drawl of Washington. My ear, grown acute to differences, easily distinguished the improved pronunciation of familiar words. But the charming American friendliness, the delightful American cordiality were here still. Again did intellectual circles open welcoming arms ; again did the very kindest and most hospitable of strangers call to put me at my ease, and place the services of cicerone and companion at my disposal. And then began once more the " good time " of social and interesting life inseparable from such associations. All that Boston held of interest, history, and beauty were shown me with as little trouble to myself as automobiles and steamboats could 122 BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY avoid. Even the lovely sea-coast was explored that I might see the summer homes and " beaches " for which America is so famous. Mansions in Commonwealth Avenue, apartment- houses in Brookline, dear, quaint, wooden houses in the suburbs, all threw open hospitable doors and bade me welcome. I motored to Concord ; I saw where Hawthorne and Emerson had lived, and where the famous (?) Mrs. Eddy once dwelt, and Christian-scientised her follow ing and dupes. I visited Jamaica Plain and its beautiful wooded districts, and the great Arboretum, world-famed for its collection of trees, and Franklin Park, with its generous six hundred acres of picturesque country. It seemed wonderful to think of so much beauty and space and enchantment just half an hour s car-drive from the centre of a city ! But the parks and sylvan retreats of Boston are world- famed, and Nature ha s been lavish in her gene rosity to this State of Massachusetts. Bostonians should be gratified that the natural 123 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES beauties of the country have not been spoilt by its development. The broad drives wind through green valleys to breezy uplands, from which magnificent views of the town can be enjoyed. The roads are splendid for motoring or driving, and the plan which combines an almost unbroken chain of parks and parkways from north to south will include every section of the city when complete. Revere Beach and Winthrop interested me as representative seaside resorts. Not too exclusive, I imagine, for Revere, at all events, seemed laid out on the plan, though not the scale, of Coney Island ; long streets of wooden houses, with shops and entertainments scattered lavishly from end to end. The views all along of harbour and islands and sea are very beautiful. Boston ought to be healthy, with its near proximity to the ocean, and the possibility of getting sea air and invigorating breezes so readily and easily. Rail and steamboat ply constantly from the city, and in the hot 124 BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY summer weather it is possible to go to and fro to office or chambers in the space of an hour. Like most cities Boston looks best seen from outside itself, and away from the congested districts of public streets and public buildings. It possesses one very beautiful thoroughfare Commonwealth Avenue. The houses are stately and imposing ; the street is enormously wide, and its centre is planted with large, shady trees : a useful as well as ornamental addition. The Public Library and Natural History Museum, the University and Botanical Gardens, the many beautiful churches, statues, and public buildings all command notice, and all are interesting. But my time was limited, and I could only see a selection of the many celebrated and famous places and things which I was told I ought to see. I felt rather guilty at my flying trips. No need to accuse the American traveller of " doing " London in a day. They might retaliate on the methods the English 125 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES traveller who does their sights and scenes in equally limited space. One thing, however, which even my hurried observation took in was the extraordinary number of women-doctors that seemed to thrive in Boston. I have never seen so many M.D. qualifications represented by feminine names. At a reception given to me by the Pro fessional Women s Club, I met a great many of these lady doctors ; bright, pretty, charmingly- gowned women, who looked more like society belles than solemn medicos. And yet they were celebrated as surgeons, general practitioners, oculists, aurists, dentists, and other professional dignities. It was quite a revelation to me that Club, and its gifted members. They were all gifted, all celebrated in some way : art, literature, medicine, surgery, music, the drama and even, I think, the law ! Wonderful indeed ; but then is not Boston the Hub of the Universe ! Women are a tremendous force in Boston 126 BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY society. Intellectually and socially considered, they represent certain conditions which one cannot but regard seriously. No use to joke at " suffragette " and " women s rights " here. No use to poke fun at latchkeys and clubs, and feminine independence. You could not take the women s institutions of Boston humorously even if you were Mark Twain redivivus. They may be advanced ; they may be un usual ; many may even be eccentric ; but they are important. That importance is perpetually exemplified. Not boastfully, not with a shriek or a shout, or the flouting of respectability and aggressive rampaging of the English peace- destroyers, but with proofs of ability and dignity of achievement. Calm, gracious, digni fied, well-informed, so the Boston intellectual woman moves amidst her circle of interests. She has got beyond the stage of restlessness and the stirrings of discontent. She has found out exactly what she can do, and she does it. On this basis she is building up the woman s 127 AMEEICA THKOUGH ENGLISH EYES future, and training her daughters and grand daughters to fill her place. The women s clubs of Boston are not mere idle resorts. They are admirable and helpful organisations for a distinct purpose. Wherever I went I found this purpose set forth in some shape or another. The members of these clubs were a distinct contrast to the smart society women of New York, to the political-minded or aristocratic hostess of Washington, to the plutocrat of Chicago, or the belles of Illinois and Indianapolis. Apart and distinctly indi vidualised, the intellectual woman of Boston stands on her own self-made pedestal. She does not demand homage until she achieves the world-wide celebrity of a Christian Science leader. She is content to live where woman hood is sovereign, and all-powerful. She repre sents that great new law Womanhood and its rights for the individual Woman. Free thought, free life, free duties, and no obliga tions save those they voluntarily impose upon 128 BOSTON AND BOSTON SOCIETY themselves. The rich, the learned, the cul tured, the religious, and the business woman of Boston are alike important. Cultured and clever, wholesome and sound ; no idlers or triflers ; just purposeful, useful, intelligent, human beings to whom freedom is the first consideration, and sex the second. I wondered sometimes if the intellectual pre-eminence of the New England woman inter fered with her domestic obligations, or forbade them. Of that, as a stranger, I could not judge. I saw mothers and daughters united by the same interests, if choosing different paths to pursue them. I saw also many, many women who had chosen to remain unwedded and unhampered in order to live their own lives in their own way. I saw young women, middle-aged women, even old women keen on public projects, and public matters ; eager to proselytise, to work, to achieve something. There was no sitting down in chimney-corners with folded hands, no restful 129 i AMEEICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES boudoir nooks for lazy hours, and the last new novel. At least if there was, it was studiously concealed. But no one attempted to conceal the pursuit of high aims ; the study of intel lectual projects ; the exploitation of the woman s view, and the woman s work. Boston was deeply interesting to a woman. 130 VII AMERICAN RELIGIONS 131 VII AMERICAN RELIGIONS A MERICAN religions ! It seems odd to write down these words as if religion possessed a limited meaning, and America had annexed it, or gone in for a mono poly of creeds on the lines of its big Trusts. Yet, as there is no country possessing more forms and creeds and cults and queer Faiths and modes of worship, I feel myself justified in giving the New World its due spiritually as well as socially. If magnificent churches of all sects and denominations stand for religion, New York should be the most pious and God-fearing of cities. The Dutch Reformed Church is the 133 AMBBICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES oldest Protestant organisation ; there are some twenty-four places of worship sacred to its name. Then comes the Episcopalian, which numbers eighty. The Presbyterians count fifty-seven exclusive of small chapels to their credit. The Methodists, Congregationalists, Unitarians, and Lutherans are close on two score. Then come the Quakers, the Moravians, the Universa- lists, the Jews, the Swedenborgians, and many miscellaneous churches and missions. The Roman Catholics have a fine cathedral in Fifth Avenue, and about a hundred other churches or chapels. This would seem as though the majority of the population were Roman Catholics, and indeed that is acknowledged to be the case. Priestly influence and results speak for themselves. There are also numerous Christian Associa tions and Societies in New York. The Salvation Army is well represented, and various Brother hoods and Sisterhoods claim recognition as religious bodies all bent on good work. The 134 AMERICAN RELIGIONS city must give them plenty to do, even if they confined their attentions to Wall Street, and the Bowery ! Sunday in New York like Sunday in Paris is given up to outdoor jaunts and pleasures. In fine weather every one who can get out of the city, speedily does so. The cars and trains and steamers are all crowded. Central Park and Riverside are turned into a public nursery, and the Battery and Castle Gardens become the happy hunting-ground of hooliganism. Air and space and shade and trees are doubly precious to the toiling clerk, the ill-paid stenographer, the shop-girl, and " help " ; the whole workaday world of this busy, money- making city. I cannot understand why, amongst its many places of worship, there is not a temple specially dedicated to the God of Mammon. I am sure the congregation would exceed that of any other church or chapel. Why do not millionaires repair this omission ? 135 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES Fifty Jewish synagogues are representative of the large Jewish element whose names dis tinguish the Broadway of " down town " districts. Most notable of all is the massive yellow-and-brown sandstone building named Temple Emanu-El, in Fifth Avenue. It is of Moorish design, and very out-of-place that Moorish architecture looks amongst modern mansions. Of course the Temple is one of the costliest structures in the city. Being Semitic that goes without saying ! but it cannot compare in point of design or suitability with the beautiful Gothic, twin-spired cathedral which is its spiritual neighbour some seven " blocks " away. If the Catholics fail in other ways they at least never spare the " outward and visible sign " of their faith, or deem any thing too costly or too sacred to spend in its service. With all these symbols of purity and godli ness crowded into its thirteen-mile limit, one might expect a different verdict upon New 136 AMERICAN RELIGIONS York than the one I heard. Of course I did not believe it no stranger could but here it is : " New York is one of the most immoral places on the face of the earth ; no vice, no sin, no blackguardism is too vicious or too unholy to find a welcome there ! " These are not my words. They are the words of an American citizen who " knew his New York upside down," so he said. Whether they are true, is not for me to decide. Washington does not attempt to compete with New York in the number or variety of its creeds and their places of observance. The Capital also seems to favour Low Church and Methodism more than the variegated and ornate styles of ritual for which New York and Chicago are famous. Sunday observance goes well with senatorial integrity, and there is no " hooliganism " about the streets or parks or urban districts of the " City Beautiful " on that day. Hearing the 137 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES chiming bells, noting the quiet, well-dressed crowds made me almost fancy myself back in respectable England ! My theory of giving beauty, space, air, leisure, in order to make a nation self-respecting, healthy, and industrious met a sort of response here. Where all is beautiful and clean and wholesome a certain desire to be worthy of it leaps even out of degradation. The call of Nature is stronger than the call of vice. A worthy nation cannot arise out of scum and filth, from crowded alleys, or swarming tenements. In coming to America I had pictured a land of freedom and true citizenship : I had never pictured such inequalities and contradictions as confront one on every side. Has the land which claims freedom as a nation s birthright, only erected the Goddess of Liberty as witness of a falsified creed ? For there is no more liberty of thought or action in America than in any other country. There is a licensed rudeness, I grant ; a non- 138 AMERICAN RELIGIONS observance of delicacy and refinement in matters touching the Old World s ideas of civilisation ; a bluff, blatant outspokenness chiefly concerned with the Press and its victims ; but as for freedom I fail to see where it comes in, in any degree. People are taxed as heavily, restricted as tyrannically, ruled as despotically, and black mailed as systematically as if all the red-tape of Christendom bound them. The only " free " personage is the loafer, and he is as offensive as he is patriotic ! Let the bewildered onlooker try to explain the puzzle, even as he falters, a la Mark Tapley " Hurrah for Liberty ! " When it comes to liberty of conscience, however, theory and fact sit down in friendly juxtaposition. No creed is too strange, no " religion " too unorthodox, to be without followers in America. Words fail me when I would try to enumerate all the absurd and impossible faiths that have created temporary 139 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES or continuous aberration of intellect through the length and breadth of this marvellous continent ! A catalogue of them would fill a good-sized volume, or form an encyclopaedia of sectarian knowledge. In Boston that old centre of Puritanism religion has as many shapes, forms, and tex tures as the chameleon has colours. Spiritual development has increased on the lines of in tellectual growth. Beginning with the hard seats and harsh tenets of the Meeting House, it has struggled on through Quakerism to Methodism, Congregationalism, Unitarianism, Episcopalianism, Ritualism, and Romanism and Christian Science ! Boston possesses some three hundred churches, chapels, and meeting-houses. It offers creeds to suit all tastes. It invents and exploits religion as other cities invent or exploit industries. It holds the oldest Protestant organisation of the colonist, and the latest " fad " of the enlightened. It owns tragedies of persecution 140 AMEKICAN RELIGIONS and histories of glorious martyrdom. It is a city full of missions and missionaries, of all things charitable and helpful. It answers all spiritual appeals, and every sectarian re quirement. No soul need starve for spiritual food in Boston, and no city has tried harder to oppose the intrusion of Roman Catholicism. Yet now it possesses the largest and most noteworthy Catholic Church in New England ! Is this a proof of enlightenment and advanced thought, or of loosely-implanted principles ? Boston possesses every sort of society and union for spiritual development that can be devised. There are Christian Associations for Young Men and Women, a Young Men s Hebrew Association for Jews, there are industrial, and social, and educational and religious and non- religious societies. Every sort of spiritual food for the mere asking. Such generosity is unexampled. It fills one with wonder, but also makes one question its results. Is Boston really the " Hub of the Universe/ 141 AMERICA THEOUGH ENGLISH EYES set high and irreproachable upon a pedestal of integrity ? Does one find in this religious centre of America, with its Puritan instincts and its Puritan records, a wider benevolence, a deeper charity, a more perfect code of morals than less-favoured and historical cities possess ? These are questions it must answer for itself even though it stands so calm and so secure on its new foundations of feminine intellectu ality. Religion is a word of wide meaning, yet it has only one translation. I spoke of Christian Science in my catalogue of sects. It happened that the dome of that aspiring " First Church of Christ, Scientist " was a very familiar sight from my hotel window. Also I had given much time and some trouble to the investigation of this curious faith before writing my book " Calvary," which (as its sub-title conveys) deals with religious sects and their various tenets and utility. I frankly 142 AMERICAN RELIGIONS confess I gave Mrs. Eddy the Pastor Emeritus up in despair after six months of endeavour to make out what she meant, and why she meant it. Her own life s history makes quaint reading, and what I heard of her, both in Concord and Boston, only left the impression that most of her followers were attracted in the first place by the sublime selfishness of a creed that deals largely with physical ills, and their remedy. A sick person is an easy convert, and a cured person always an enthusiastic one. Mrs. Eddy s own personal record is one of perpetual sickness, perpetual hysteria, and perpetual " claims " on the time and attention of any one who would heal her. Despite the fact of there being no pain, no sickness, and only the fallacies of " mortal mind " to deal with, the High Priestess of Christian Science is a very poor example of either faith or patience. Her wrangles, her broken friendships, her lawsuits, her mater nal indifference, and her evident predilection U3 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES for connubial life, are scarcely things deserving the eulogy of her critics. For anything that Christian Science does or has done in the way of helping hysterical, neurotic, nervous, and feeble-minded creatures to get the better of their ailments, it deserves all due praise. But when it comes to dealing with real problems of disease, with broken limbs and feeble lungs, and the tragedies of typhus, diphtheria, or scarlet-fever, how does it stand ? A failure all the time, as the coroners courts have proved, and a very broken reed to lean upon in case of an epidemic. True that the schools of medicine and their professors are not infallible, any more than the Christian Science Healer (why " healer/ where there is nothing to heal ?). Still, Nature is something to be studied, not ignored ; and if she sends pain as a forerunner of mischief it is perfectly senseless to deny the pain in order to prove there is no mischief. I confess I would like to have seen Mrs. Eddy under the 144 AMERICAN RELIGIONS influence of a raging toothache, or an attack of mal de mer. Would she have denied them, or clamoured for a healer ? I wonder.* There seemed to be a " belief " in Bostonian circles that Mrs. Eddy had ceased to exist. She was never seen. No visitors, even of the Faithful, were admitted to her presence. I drove past her present (supposed) residence, and noted that she was not averse to the archi tectural dignity of a " mansion " and its atten dant luxuries of lodge, stables, and carriage- house. The house was large and roomy enough to have accommodated quite a family ; but I believe the " Pastor Emeritus " is not on friendly terms with her only son ; only with her " adopted " and scientific children. This cult or science, or whatever it calls itself, is now a well-organised and very wealthy one. Like most faiths and sects it proves that mortal dross is an absolute necessity, and does not spare its followers in the matter * This was written before Mrs. Eddy s death. Author. 145 K AMEBICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES of contributions. It has become a sine qua non that Christian Science converts are wealthy, and given to disbursing their worldly goods in gratitude for the Christian Science book. Their church is one of the most imposing edifices in Boston ; the large building near it has been bought for offices, and the printing and publication of Unscientific Testimonies to Health ! Spiritualism was once wildly rampant in Boston. There is still a Spiritual Temple and a working union of spiritualists in the city. The People s Temple is a " free " church of no special creed. It only aims at attracting a congregation, and giving them simple Bible teaching. I should much like to have investigated the creeds of The Latter Day Saints, and The Seventh Day Adventists, but it was not possible. Surely some Bostonian zealot will soon set up a " Church of the Comet," and build an astronomical edifice, and hold Stellar and Lunar 146 AMERICAN RELIGIONS celebrations ! The sole art requisite for a new faith is the art of making statements which are absolutely unfounded sound like truth. The more incomprehensible the statement, the greater the curiosity it arouses ; and curiosity is largely the factor that proselytises the American convert. Something new, some thing strange, something startling. If the New Creed sets the universe in a new aspect before the inquirer, or sets the inquirer in a new aspect to the universe, then the first great aim is achieved. Conversion and con fusion are not always far apart. Religion has as many aspects as human intelligence chooses to give it. It seems strange that Boston, with its splendid educational advantages, its wonderful State Library, and its studious culture of art and science should yet exemplify this attitude towards religion ; number, variation, and novelty. Commencing with the simplest form of Puritanism, it now welcomes the most mystical 147 AMEEICA THKOUGH ENGLISH EYES and unsubstantial of beliefs. Possibly at the root of all lurks the vital element of faith, looking forward and onward to the perfecting of life. Possibly restlessness, ambition, or desire may have unlatched the gates of pre judice, and set free the prisoned soul. Possibly some great purpose impels eager hands to grasp at new ideals, to pursue the Fata Morgana of Revelation a little further day by day. Soundness of faith has not always stood for integrity of life. The professor of fine creeds is not always the doer of fine works. Religion is sometimes a wholesome experience taking a novel or unexpected form ; sometimes a will-o -the-wisp, tempting and illogical in its flight ; but it becomes a veritable kaleido scope of varied meaning when the thousand- and-one creeds and cranks of the New World profess to represent it. 148 VIII AMERICAN MARRIAGES 149 VIII AMERICAN MARRIAGES "TpROM the obligations of things spiritual to the supreme necessity of things temporal is not such a wide leap as it appears. Therefore I place the importance of wedlock as only secondary to the importance of those invisible mysteries we take in faith, and deny in action. Religion and marriage are both possessed of spiritual significance rightly considered. Of course this consideration is not obligatory on the contracting parties, even in America, the country of half a million creeds. Americans treat marriage as a jest, or a mere legal contract capable of being dissolved at will. Ambition, rank, wealth, policy, neces- 151 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES sity, each and all of these are concerned in that contract. What is more concerned and less considered is the one important factor in the matter that another life may be born, another soul sent into this world of misery and suffering ; that high duties and great responsibilities attend this possibility, and these should not be lost sight of beneath the overwhelming importance of worldly considera tions. When the American bride concerns herself so deeply with the details of the wedding cere mony, the latest thing in bridesmaids toilettes, the probable number of diamond necklaces she will receive, and the knowledge that a tiara is eminently becoming to a Gibson-girl head, she is not entering into the true spirit of marriage. She is merely setting herself up as an orna mental figure at which press reporters can aim pellets of admiring adjectives, and the " monde oh son amuse " may sneer. The more I see of transatlantic marriages 152 AMERICAN MARRIAGES the more convinced I am that they are disas trous to anything like mutual happiness. Of " respect " the less said the better. They begin with a " show," and usually end with a " show-up." And who can wonder ? The English man and the American woman are dangerous subjects for the experiment of marriage. The one is perpetually running up against ideas, manners, and customs foreign to his own; the other is engaged in a continu ous, high-handed battle with such prejudices, manners, and customs. She takes refuge in defiance, and her husband in disdain. The chain girds and irks and tortures both, until it is forcibly snapped in twain, or dragged through mire of scarce concealed scandal. Example after example we have had, and still will have. The American duchess, or princess, or countess, or baroness soon learns to loathe her empty honours. She has been spoilt, petted, adored in her own land by her 163 AMEEICA THEOUGH ENGLISH EYES own compeers, but when it comes to holding her own against blue-blooded rank, against European exclusiveness, against the hereditary assurance of the well-born and haughty aristo crats of Court circles, she is as out of place as a ballet dancer in a monastery ! This does not mean that the American duchess or countess is not very charming, very chic, very popular, but it does mean that she is only a sham duchess, a copy of a countess ; and the genuine article always makes the imitation look well, let us say an imitation. No one is to blame, except the nationality that marks division. When the Daughter of Independence takes a fancy to a title, or desires to exchange democracy for royal prerogatives, her adoring parents never seek to deny her wishes. On the contrary, they bait them with such glit tering temptations that foolish princeling or needy peer rush in to clench the bargain with all possible speed. The purchase-money is 154 AMERICAN MARRIAGES paid ; the Press has a good time in cataloguing presents, and making ludicrous mistakes over the arrogance of titles, and the beautiful bride (no American bride was ever anything else) is carried off into exclusive banishment, there to find out the worth of her bargain, or recon cile herself to its obligations. But as the spirit of Independence usually kicks at restraint, mocks at feudal customs, and lives by " comparisons/ the aristocratic union soon falls short of promised bliss. Some times for sake of pride, for fear of mockery, the disappointed wife puts up with disillusion, and consoles herself with frequent visits to her own beloved land, and the home of her dyspeptic, but heavily-dollared, " poppa." Sometimes the English husband or the foreign " blackguard " agrees to go his way and leave the American wife to go hers, irrespective of confusion in Debrett, or the Almanac de Gotha. Sometimes a desire for genuine happiness and the real things of true marriage gives one or other 155 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES the courage to break conventional fetters. But very, very rarely does it happen that the transatlantic marriage is a suitable one, or a happy one. When I visited American homes and noted the paramount importance of the wife, I was not surprised that the American girl does not bear transplanting. We may be " cousins " ; we may even regard ourselves as belonging to the same race, but apart from far-off claims of blood or birthright the American and the English are absolutely foreign to each other. They live a different life, they hold a different creed (of honesty), they speak a different lan guage (metaphorically), and they are essentially and physiologically apart in all matters apper taining to domestic life. Each in their own country is admirable, and admirably suited to what that country demands, but let them change places, and they are a failure all the time. It may seem as if I were prejudiced, but indeed I am not. If the real truth were spoken 156 AMEEICAN MARRIAGES of most of these international alliances, they would be proved not only unsatisfactory, but immoral. Wholly and entirely immoral as con cerned with the true obligations and the true meaning of marriage. But the truth never is spoken of such matters. It hurts too much, or humiliates too cruelly. I had been told so much of the perfections of the American husband that I naturally studied him as a valuable addition to my snap shots of American character. Except that he made money for his wife to spend, and gave her too little of his time for quarrelling, and let her do exactly as she pleased, there was nothing to discover. His public attitude was what his national pride in himself demanded. His private life and his views of marital obliga tions were just those of the ordinary, selfish, polygamous creature who has existed since the foundations of the world. The American husband is neither better nor worse than any other husband, but it is considered unwise 157 AMEEICA THEOUGH ENGLISH EYES for his wife to say so. She praises him in notes of exclamation, and affects a pity for her English sister, who has less " freedom " and less money to spend on her own pretty, selfish, vain person. A story was going through the length and breadth of the States as to a bogus title pur chased by the usual American dollars for the usual American daughter. I felt so sorry for the sordid story, the shame and misery that it had entailed, that I could not even say, Well, you deserve what you get ! Si But I did ask, " Will this be a lesson to the American father and the American daughter ? >: No one believed it would. Which brings me back to my starting-point. If marriage is not looked upon as a sacred obligation, it must of necessity sink to sordid barter. And when an " alliance " between two absolutely indifferent, yet commercially- minded people is published, advertised, and gloried in, there is no one on earth to be more 158 AMEEICAN MARRIAGES commiserated than those two people. And in their heart of hearts they know it, or will know it ere the echo of their wedding-bells has ceased to haunt their ears. I was perpetually worried by interviewers as to my ideas on divorce. American divorce, of course. / refused to give any opinion, so it was given for me, in that airy, independent fashion of your American interviewer. When I had read up " statistics " on the subject, and made various injudicious inquiries, I learnt that reports as to the number of divorces being a third of the number of marriages, were slightly exaggerated. True, that marriage is not looked upon as a binding contract ; it is given a pleasing illusion of instability; but that does not necessitate divorce ; it only simplifies the contract. The " lamb is led to the slaughter " with a chastened hope of green meadows and sweet pasturage beyond the slaughter-house. She grows less 159 AMERICA THKOUGH ENGLISH EYES fearful of the ordeal, and looks forward to the escape. Just a leap into blindness, darkness, momentary confusion, and then freedom. To the American girl freedom is the breath of life. She expects it as her right, and accepts marriage as one of its prerogatives. No self- respecting American husband denies his wife her coterie of " boys " ; her faithful admirers ; the donors of candy and flowers and corsage bouquets ; the escort to theatre and restaurant ; and the glad, wild hooliganism of Newport or Manhattan Beach, or Long Island, or the romantic shelter of the Adirondacks. With all this liberty there is absolutely no need for any radical " change of partners," unless indeed the lawful husband desires it, or obliges it by some untoward scandal. With a little discretion an American marriage might be the happiest and most tolerant of American institutions ; far less exacting than any professional or business contract. It is certainly less important. 160 AMERICAN MARRIAGES Domestic unity in wedlock is not a necessity of the American marriage, but the majority seem very happy, and very satisfactory. The husband has his occupations, friends, and amusements ; the wife hers. They often move in entirely different " sets/ 3 and meet at a table or an entertainment with a pleasant sense of surprise. It is understood that an American husband must not intrude into a "higher" social circle than that of his own limitations, even if his wife be a shining light therein. These matters are beautifully managed in the States. No wonder that an Englishman finds it difficult to act up to the etiquette of such a position ! There is a word of which American people are very fond. It is " attractive." It is an English word, but they do not use it in English fashion. It is a synonym for the seaside girl, and the engaged girl. They are always " attractive " when they fall short of being 161 L AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES " just lovely." It lets them down gracefully to a safe vantage-point of exploitation. The " attractive " girl is perpetually being engaged or breaking off engagements. If she is afraid of scandal she goes off to Europe, and tries her * prentice hand " on the liner en route. The " deck-chair " is a fearful incentive to sentimentality. What with it and the pro menades for health s sake, and the dances and concerts and other amusements got up to enliven the voyage, it is nothing short of miraculous that any young man gets to land without being labelled " Appropriated by Miss Columbia till further notice." It is quite right for an American girl to flirt, or even engage herself as often as she pleases. It only proves her attractiveness. Her father and mother have let her do exactly as she wished in childhood, and she carries on the habit when she is " out." It is no wonder, therefore, that marriage has come to be con sidered a pastime, not an obligation. 162 AMEBICAN MARRIAGES I expect to be told that my views are wildly exaggerated, and that I " must not judge of American marriages " by what I have heard, read, or seen in America. But my readers must please remember that I am looking at them through English binoculars. Possibly I do not focus them aright. Possibly we do not look at things in the same way, even as we do not speak the same language or follow the same rules of life. But of this I am sure : as long as a wedding is merely an exposition of vanity and extravagance, as long as it is made an excuse for getting headlines in the papers, and treated as a mere theatrical spectacle, so long will it be a travesty of the name, and its sacred and social obligations ! Do not suppose I consider America as the sole offender in this respect. We are just as bad on our side. We too send the unimportant photograph, the list of wedding presents, the names (especially titles) of the wedding guests to any paper that will publish them. As yet 163 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES our Press is a little more decorous, but they are following close on the heels of their trans atlantic brotherhood. America first showed us the value of advertising. It only remains for us to prove it in the interests of the marriage, as well as the commercial, market. The happiest marriages in America seem to be those of professional men ; the happiest homes those of their wives and families. Possibly the brutalising force of money-making is less an element of existence in these instances. Commerce and speculation get into the busi ness man s blood, and vitiate his tastes and habits. The perpetual excitement of " deals/ the perpetual chink of gold, are of more vital interest than his wife s companionship or his children s dawning intelligence. To the pro fessional man domesticity is a welcome relief, to the mere " wealth accumulator " it is of secondary importance. Hence the very small 164 AMERICAN MARRIAGES amount of family life seen in the United States, or in any way representative of family importance. I could not discover if there was a " middle- class " in America. I believe not. Every one is enormously rich, or insignificantly poor. If they are not rich they try to pretend they are by taking expensive houses or " apart ments/ and keeping automobiles, and attending every possible millionaire function that gives out " names of guests " to the press reporters. Equality has more than one interpretation. I have spoken about the conspicuous absence of maternal instinct as a feature of American marriages. The American woman does not desire a large family or, indeed, any family at all. When, however, nature gets the better of prudence, and she finds herself saddled with a child, she proceeds to bring it up on the most free and enlightened principles. Its nourish ment is a series of experiments in patent 165 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES foods ; its clothing a compromise between French, German, Russian, and English " styles." When it is three or four years old it is called a " kid," and goes everywhere with its parents, and becomes a general nuisance to everybody in hotels, or on steamer, car, or train. It is never rebuked or kept in its place like an English child, because that would be acting against true American principles. It has nerves ; it looks pasty and unhealthy ; it is allowed to eat any sort of food at any time of day or night, and it would never grow up a healthy or intelligent human being if it were not for school life and college training. The American youth and the American maiden are the result. Whether the training explains that no one even an American citizen was ever born " free," or could possibly be the equal in brains, character, or social position of every other American citizen I cannot say, but it does turn out men and women of whom their country 166 AMERICAN MARRIAGES may be proud. One need not go further than Colonel Roosevelt as an example. He speedily discarded the false for the real, the feeble things for the strong things. No one has read their country s limitations more accurately, its possibilities more proudly, than this much- beloved and much-abused President. Could America be induced to have a reigning monarch I should like to see " King Theodore " on the throne. What Napoleon was to France, what Wilhelm II. is to Germany, what Edward the Peacemaker has been to Great Britain, so might Roosevelt be to the United States could they but see into their own future, and throw aside greed, brutality, and narrow- mindedness in one effort to achieve greatness. 167 IX AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS 169 IX AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS SPHERE was nothing in the American cities that I admired so much as their splendid public buildings ; nothing which spoke so eloquently of a young nation s philanthropic spirit. No town, however small, was without its public hall or hospital ; its social or political club. Even the quaint wooden villages possessed them, devoted to uses of varied utility. In New York their name is legion ! How room was ever found for them is a mystery. Evidently no money has been spared on the design or architecture or decoration of a public institute, whatever its nature. Also it is per- 171 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES mitted to stand on its original foundations long enough for people to get to know it. As a rule New York razes whole buildings and streets to the ground once in five years or so, therefore a permanent site for a national monu ment is a difficult thing to acquire. The New York Public Library now in process of building on Fifth Avenue, will be a mag nificent edifice when complete. It includes two reference branches those of the Lenox and the Astor. But all the reference branches now scattered through the city will be gathered into this one great building. I believe twenty- eight or more branches are at present included in the circulating department. This depart ment provides about half a million volumes, and is entirely free to applicants. The Lenox and the Astor are the most popular consult ing libraries in New York. Our old-fashioned British Museum may take a " back seat " in comparison with the space, splendour, comfort, and convenient arrangements of these buildings. 172 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS The New Public Library will be even more splendid, more spacious, and more convenient in point of organisation than either of its predecessors. Americans never go back on what they have done. Their motto is progress in some form or another, and that is one reason why in ventors have such a wide field. At least they would have if the Patent Office could depend absolutely on its officials. But the finest machine ever set a-going is dependent on its most insignificant screw, and the secret of an invention has sometimes leaped into the light of day before the seal of security was, as yet, affixed to the article or project invented. New York is full of institutes and institu tions of all sorts and descriptions : for art, for science, for charity, for health, for use, and for ornament ; for societies secret and public ; for education and edification in short for everything the human mind can conceive. As yet, like Great Britain, it lacks an " In- 173 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES stitution of Commercial Integrity." Will that ever be founded, or ever find students ? Education is more important to the mind of the ordinary American citizen than a know ledge of the fine arts. Hence for hundreds of schools and colleges and scientific institutes in and about New York, there is only one great art centre that of the American Fine Art Society. It has located mural painters, archi tectural students, artists, and sculptors under one roof, and holds a yearly exhibition of their works. Like our own Royal Academy, the Fine Art Society has the exclusive privilege of a Private View day, when admission can only be secured by permission of the secretary. One cannot but admire the readiness with which Ameri cans adopt or adapt such foreign customs as lend any sort of prestige to any sort of function. Besides this national academy, there is the Society of American Artists, founded 1877 ; 174 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS a National Sculpture Society, and an Art Students League. Exhibitions and sales are held twice yearly at the Art Association galleries. Also there are occasional " private " exhibitions. Other views and exhibitions are given by art dealers who have acquired foreign pictures, or " old Masters." In noticing American institutions I cannot omit the subject of clubs. They form a great feature of national architecture and national existence. They embrace various degrees of public life. Business men have their own special retreats ; military, naval, literary, and dramatic clubs claim each a distinctive place, and a distinctive membership. Women also have social or professional clubs. The Colony and Barnard in New York, and the New England Women s Club and Somerset Club in Boston are possibly the most important. The County Club, at Chevy Chase in Washington, is a very charming mixed club, and includes golf among its attractions. The President frequents it, 175 AMEEICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES I was told, in order to indulge in his favourite game. Possibly Washington society is too much engaged with its senators and its political wrangles to need club life as further relaxation. I heard of no special women s clubs in the capital, but there is the great Memorial Hall erected by the Daughters of the Revolution. This memorial represents a national society of women, and is commemorative of their deeds and services. Boston naturally has more clubs and societies and unions and circles connected with women s work, and organised for women s benefit, than the commercial or political cities of the States ; also its institutions and educational seminaries number more than those of its contemporaries. Boston seems to have every sort of club for every grade and sort of man and woman, whether they are intellectual or merely unenlightened. I don t know if it possessed one bearing the stamp of the Century in New York, or the Athenaeum in London. I was not informed 176 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS on that point. But I feel sure it does, or will own such a one. America has every sort of institution for human need, or human aid. It proclaims a spirit of charity, despite the terrible tragedies of slum and tenement. It endows splendid hospitals, it organises departments of help fulness, it is filled with philanthropic in stitutions built and endowed by private individuals. The keen practicality of the American mind is constantly displayed in its public work. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in its provision for the army and navy. They are for use, not ornament. Uniform takes a back seat in comparison with intelli gence. The American soldier and the American officer have to work hard, and are not exactly the beauty show of European or English regiments. The nation at large does not play up to the vanity of its national protectors. They are to serve a purpose, and their only 177 M AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES decorations are the laurels won on the battle field. The War Department is, of course, situated in the capital. It embraces the Navy and the State, and possesses the largest and most magnificent offices in the world. Yet I never saw any military regiment or corps in the streets of New York, or Washington, or Boston. The American soldier is certainly not a street loafer, whatever else he may be. In New York the most important force is that of the police. You are left in no doubt as to the existence of that protective institution. It is in evidence as you face the Custom House on arrival, as you pass through the streets, and as you signal car or " taxi/ The mounted police of New York are a fine body of men, and their beautifully trained horses were always a source of joy to me, for as a rule the American horse is a poor, half-starved, overworked beast of burden. Rare was it to see a well-fed, well- cared-for animal between the shafts of any 178 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS public conveyance. I believe there is a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York. Why do they not parade Lower Broad way and the City districts occasionally, and stop the overladen wagon or dray, and help the poor, lame, stumbling brutes that labour from morning to night in the cruel traffic of those regions ? My heart used to ache for the misery I saw in the overdriven horse s patient eyes. And I had to tell myself I was in America s wealthiest and most important city ! The police regulate the traffic, arrest the too- eager chauffeur, and gossip in friendly fashion with the waiting " car-driver," but they never seem to heed the poor labouring horses stumbling under their heavy loads ; beaten and cursed by brutal owners ; sweating, toiling, tortured, with staring eyes and straining limbs a sight to move any heart that throbs with common humanity ! The Chief of Police is an important functionary 179 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES in New York. He possibly knows more secrets of society than any other state official. But he is discreet. I saw more police in New York than in the other cities I visited. I was told that some time back the regulation of the street traffic was very bad, but certain officials had been sent to London to learn the art of con trolling it. Now it is excellently managed, and it is quite possible to traverse the worst crossways and thoroughfares without risk of continuing your journey in a hospital ambulance. After this brief allusion to matters military and civic I must glance at the still more imposing and important institution of the American Navy. The Navy Yard at Washington, situated on the east of the Potomac River, is one of those impressively simple yet extraordinarily useful establishments which perpetually meet American requirements. I saw the famous "Long Tom/ and many other trophies and relics of revolutionary days 180 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS and foreign victories. The gun shop gives a wonderful exhibition of machinery in operation. Great lathes are boring and turning the steel of the breech-loaders. The guns, brought here in their rough state, are trimmed, fired, cooled, and fitted in the most amazing manner. The operations of carrying the gun to its boring- lathe, and then to its machine for cutting the grooves inch by inch, foot by foot, through the length of the barrel, are so skilful, so gigantic, yet so smooth and easy of performance that it was with difficulty I turned from their inspection. But there were other wonders to behold, other " institutions " to visit. I should love to have gone over an Ameri can man-of-war, an armoured ship of the White Squadron, but it was not possible ; and I had to content myself with the famous naval pictures of the Capitol. Washington possesses every thing in the shape of public institutes for public service, public benefit, and past commemoration that mind can devise : libraries, galleries, monu- 181 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES ments, statues ; soldiers and sailors homes ; hos pitals, arsenals, museums the catalogue would fill a column. If I have said anything to prove that whatever America does for her cities she does thoroughly and magnificently, I must also say that she does it for their lasting honour and her own. With regard to " inventions," I am confronted at once by that curious quality of the Trans atlantic mind " cuteness." It no sooner detects a want than it hastens to supply it. The thing given may not adequately represent the thing required, but if only sufficiently advertised and pushed it will make the public believe in its efficacy. Hence fortunes are made ! The old story of the wooden nutmegs is by no means so incredible as it sounds on first hearing. The inventor merely imagined that if you could invent a thing to look as nearly 182 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS like the real thing as possible, you had fulfilled the whole duty of an inventor. Occasionally an inspiration does flash to the American mind. Sometimes he patents it, if he is of a trustful nature ; sometimes he resolves to exploit it by his own single-handed efforts. If he succeeds he launches a company, or founds a " trust," and retires into dyspeptic million- airism. Occasionally his exploits land him temporarily in the chaste seclusion of the Tombs Prison. But even there he will devote his energies to evolving something else, equally necessary to human needs (American needs), so that he may at once set to work on making another fortune when he is free. The spirit of the inventor is largely the spirit of America ; something new, something extra ordinary, something " cute/ A new medicine, a new fabric, a new way of using machinery, or exploiting capital ; of " running " invest ments, or patenting burglary and arson, or, in fact, of dealing with any material fact or fiction 183 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES in colossal, hyperbolic fashion, appeals instinct ively to that spirit. The inventor is always to the front in any great national scheme. He has a project, a suggestion, entirely novel and entirely calculated to make the rest of the unimportant universe " sit up." It is always great, it is always sure in his estimation, and sometimes he is right. There is no printing press with letters enough, no volume big enough, and no publisher with leisure enough to induce any one to compile a list of American inven tions ! They deal with everything under the sun, and even above it, for the queer cults and faiths that bear religious signification have invented a new heaven as well as a new earth. For every need, for every desire, for every ambition, and for every physical ailment, there has been a supply or a remedy organised in the States. In fact, why any one is ever ill over there is a mystery. It is the land of patent medicines, and lightning cures ; of miracles and 184 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS marvels. It is the land of wonderful body building foods, and wonderful brain-destroying drinks. It puts the strangest assortment of viands on a table that ever mocked human nature, or poisoned human digestion, and its long-suffering population proceed to eat and drink and poison themselves with hilarious indifference. But all this is part of a helpful system. The strain of commerce sets up a strain on the human system. The strain of invention leads from the office desk to the restaurant kitchen. The cook invents for the doctor, and the doctor invents for the patient, and the undertaker invents for them all. He can plan something novel for the millionaire, something appropriate for the chef, and something professional for the medico. So life runs merrily on to its appointed end ! In all the big stores of America there is a special counter set aside for what are termed 185 AMERICATHROUGH ENGLISH EYES " Notions." It is in " notions " that the young inventor finds his chance, and may let himself go as he pleases. The queerest and oddest and yet the cutest " things are found at the Notion Counter. It is a study in the unexpected. A perpetual invitation of the " Try one " and " Try all " type. But, taking one thing with another, the fertility and resource of the American inventor is marvellous. He deserves to succeed in all branches save that of the " kill or cure " patent medicine remedy. Its victims are numberless, and, too often, of the poorer classes ; for cheap remedies appeal to those who can least afiord to suffer. The " catch-penny cure " tempts its victims from the open page of journal and periodical as well as from the open fields. Far from being a benefactor to his country, the Patent Drug inventor is its most insidious foe. He plays havoc with constitutions, he assists or invents disease; and he sets up a craving for the drug store 186 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS and the store drug that is as fatal in its way as the drink traffic. But he is safe and well protected. He has found that the quickest road to fortune is that of the credulity of the human fools who are magnetised by advertisement. With them he deals, and they reward him with countless dollars, and the grateful thanks of mourning warehouses, and spectacular funeral providers. One of the inventive specialists of America is the dentist. He is sometimes called a " gum architect/ possibly because he builds " bridges " and repairs structural deficiencies. He has in vented one truly hideous memorial to his own genius. It is the Gold Tooth. Why, oh why do American men and women glory in this sort of mural decoration ? Is it because it is a proof of wealth 1 Assuredly it cannot be con sidered an ornament. Artificial teeth are sup posed to supply a defect of Nature, and their 187 AMEEICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES one and only aim should be to resemble Nature as closely as possible. But Nature never gave any one a gold tooth, or several gold teeth, to glitter amongst the ivory of a well- furnished mouth ! I used to dread the first smile of a new acquaintance. The relief when there was no " expensive fixings " was supreme. I ventured to question some of my American friends on the subject, but it appeared never to have occurred to them as anyway remarkable. Gold fillings, gold " bridges," gold teeth, were a synonym for American dentistry. And being American dentistry, it was, of course, the only sort of dentistry worth the name. The greatest of all American inventions is " bluff." Exactly what that means is best explained in the pages of Dickens, or by the operators of Wall Street. An American humorist once wrote that the business of that illustrious commercial centre was conducted under a code of ethics worthy of the professional burglar. One must, of 188 INSTITUTIONS AND INVENTIONS course, take the statement as American humour, and worthy of a nation who claim " poker " as a representative national game. Still, a " deal " on the Stock Exchange is a pretty stiff thing to pull off. Every share bought must be paid for the same day. The American financier and the American stockbroker do not give credit, even to each other ! Hence the invention of " bluff." It is a sort of sleight- of-hand method of giving money without the receiver ever getting it ! But the transaction is so cleverly done that the trickster is rarely con founded with the trick. He " bluffs " you into a thing, and he " bluffs " himself out of it. If you were to call him a liar he would only laugh. He is smart and you are a fool. That is all. After this I consider I have said enough about American inventions. 189 X THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY 191 X THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY TT7 HAT is the secret of America s greatness ? What has raised her to a position so important, and so imperative ? That is a question one has to ask as one criticises or laughs at American doings, opinions, and habits. It is not an easy question to answer. Henry James tried to do it. H. G. Wells tried to do it. Many noted men and women of letters and of political and social importance have tried to do it. Theodore Roosevelt has tried to do it. Yet no satisfactory answer has been given. Far, far back one goes to learn the history of pioneer and settler, of the stalwart fighter and the dogged emigrant. Then comes the history 193 N AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES of achievement ; then that of pride and vain glory, and the cruel tyranny of race. Following these we turn the stained pages of a ruthless civil war, yet a war that brought out so much heroism and nobility that the stains are half obliterated by tears of sympathy and regret. It leaps to light again under the protection of a great Federal Republic. It proclaims union and liberty of thought, and announces a State as sufficient for itself in all matters connected with self-support. Industries, commerce, trade, invention, all spring to life like giants armed for conquest, and they conquer every opposition. With an activity unexampled, the great level headed, far-seeing American continent displays to a wondering world its rapid growth to power and wealth. We have all we need in our own land," is the proud boast " all that the need of man, the ambition of man, and the greed of man has decreed as necessary for man s welfare and importance. We are great ! " 194 THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY And in its pride and in its greatness this amazing country throws down the gauntlet of independence before all other countries. They may laugh, they may sneer, they may criticise, America cares^nothing ; and that for the one supreme reason that it is America. The name that stands for so much, whose dazzling bait draws all nationalities and all powers into its net of attraction ; a name that men may one day whisper in fear, or in shame, but never, never in love. There possibly lies the weak spot ; the loose link of the boasted armour. There are countries one loves instinctively or protectively, just as there are people to whom one s heart goes out at once. But I cannot imagine any one outside its own mixed polyglot race loving America. Its people love it as a boast, not as an instinct ; love it because they are drilled and educated into a belief that its name stands for every great and good and desirable thing the world holds. To the American patriot (whether natural 196 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES or imported) America is the world. No other country or state of the inhabited globe can compare with it. What it does not possess is old-fashioned and useless. What it does, is all-sufficient. That terrible mistake of the money standard for everything is the mistake of the United States to-day. It is the poorest standard a nation can hoist, and the least trustworthy. I was speaking of Carlyle to a wealthy New York publisher, and he only murmured de- precatingly, " I guess he only made six hun dred dollars a year out of his royalties ! " That was Carlyle s literary value to the American mind. This man could tell you the " sales " of almost every known author, from George Meredith down to Laura Jean Libby ! It was his standard of appreciation. And it is the same with other things. " How does it sell ? ; " Is there money in it ? " Never a question of the good it might do, the genius it might aid, the ethical standard 196 THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY of benefit. Only " How much can I, as an individual, make out of it ? Applying this test to art and literature, to the things that grace and beautify the mind, one cannot wonder that American talent sinks to the commercial level. I was told that the backbone of American prosperity was its great industries and its great commercial trusts. I had imagined just the opposite. Again I was told that the true democrat and the true republican did not hold with these huge monopolies, and were using every effort to restrain them ! Mr. Roosevelt was explained as a true Demo crat, Mr. Taft as a true Republican. It needed an American mind to translate such contra dictions. I gave up the struggle. To my own thinking the spirit of self-reliance is the existing force of American political life. But it has to bear a tremendous strain from time to time when the favour of party as well as the keen 197 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES eye of opposition tests it or criticises it. Yet again and again in the annals of statecraft, or war, or leadership, one comes across this spirit ; a high-strung, powerful, keen-sighted force that is really and truly the spirit of America ; the embodiment of theories, the maker of history. It speaks out in the form of independence ; it throws its halo around departed heroes ; it lifts great names on high to its crowned Liberty ; it works in the relation of the man to his State, and the State to the people. It is the grit of the tr,ue democrat showing itself beneath its modern garb of convention, the voice of one in the wilderness crying to the crowd of the city : We ask no absolute power, we seek no licensed mob-ocracy. We work for personal liberty of thought and conscience the in dividual in the Union ; the freedom for which our forefathers fought and died." Right back in the heart of things lives this spirit, working for a noble end, developing citizen ship, public good, public service, keeping the 198 THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY forces of self-reliance for ever to the front, in the small township as in the larger state, in the poor or unimportant community as in the large and wealthy city ; doing something, doing it well or ill, feebly or grandiosely, but doing it " all the time." And this is the spirit which has made America great. The importance of the individual is at once the first lesson America teaches, and the last it forgets. The embryo president of the United States lurks in the bosom or radiates through the ambition of the humblest citizen. You never know. You never can tell. A turn of fortune s wheel, a whisper in the right ear, an action at the right moment, and the trick is done. The rough, boorish farmer, the petty shop keeper, the pig-sticker of Chicago, the miner of the Klondyke, bring each his little lad from his own petty state to the great capital. They 199 AMEEICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES bid him shake hands with the President of that capital as friend and countryman. You may be in his place one day, sonny/ they say ; and " sonny answers, " You bet." Then they take the long journey home cheer fully and patiently, and the tiny spark set alight in the boy s young breast smoulders on and on until the day arrives when self-assurance lands him into public life, and his name becomes a power in the land. One man is not as good as another al ways ; the qualification stands for mental supremacy. Not by its failures or its errors must this spirit of " grit " be judged. It has won success in the face of crushing obstacles. It has enabled America to assert herself and her independence. It has survived civil war and world-wide jealousies. It has given the New World much that the Old lacked : a race of pioneers and explorers, the hardy backwoodsmen, the enter- 200 THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY prising zealot ; great patriots, great generals, great leaders ; a Washington, a Lee, a Cleve land, and a Roosevelt. With the buoyancy of youth it has boasted ; with the cool-headedness of manhood it has achieved. Through sin and sorrow and bloodshed and turmoil this spirit has lived on, and will live on. It renews the soul of a people, sufficient for themselves, relying on themselves, and proud of themselves as well they may be ! The spirit of Grit what finer thing can you find ? Fenimore Cooper found it, Mayne Reid found it, Emerson found it, Bret Harte found it. Right through the land it runs like a streak of quicksilver to the magnet ; quivering, leaping, shining, glorifying the rudest or simplest thing. It is not a spirit of rashness. Only fools are foolhardy, and self-reliance is largely self- protection. It is not a spirit that leads men into the recklessness of a Balaclava charge, or is content to " heroise " for sake of a line of 201 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES poetry, or a national subscription to a monu ment by a national sculptor ! It is a calm, strong, steady thing ; progressing to a given end ; relentless to weakness, unsparing to treachery. The farmer of Kentucky has it, the cowboy has it, the American miner, woodcutter, pork dealer, oil or mining magnate may have it. And no one who does possess this spirit is ever unremarkable. Something he must do, some thing he must say, or teach, or write, that shall make him a power for present or future genera tions. It is this spirit that underlies the birth- throes of New Worlds in their first struggles to life. We who are so old in traditions and memories have forgotten our first efforts. The march of progress has been such a long march that the foot-tracks on the sands of time are faded or lost. And because we forget we are apt to be intolerant. We talk of " rush," when we should remember the unsparing energy behind it. We rebuke boastfulness, when we 202 THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY might recall the parent s pride in the child whose hand it so recently held. That the child is a trifle too eager to stand alone is less a fault than a dislike of helplessness. Again our old nations are getting tired of the toil and the long day s work. " Surely it is time to sit in the chimney corner and rest/ say we. But the young, ardent souls across the sea scoff at the idea of rest yet. There is so much to do, to learn, to see, to achieve. Life is all before them ; a never-ending mirage of glorious possibilities. In this tireless looking forward lies the secret of America s prosperity. It is not " What I have done," but " What I am going to do," that is for ever on her lips. The American is always pro ducing, inventing, amplifying, enlarging, and doing it all with a whole-souled interest in results that sets fortune galloping along the race-course of national enterprise ! We are young ; we are strong ; we are great." 203 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES Yes, they are all this. The most casual visitor to their country cannot but acknowledge it. Possibly no Englishman or foreigner has any real conception of the tremendous resources or the tremendous wealth of America. If they visit the Treasury of the capital they will open their eyes. It is the bank of the nation ; the storehouse of its financial supplies. In the cash room the daily transactions run into millions. In another department new money is made ; in another old is exchanged for new ; in a third the old is destroyed and finished with. The process of counting, printing, numbering, and sealing the notes is most interesting, and visitors are permitted to see these varied pro cesses under the custody of an official. Almost all the work is done by women another sur prising fact. In the vaults of this great building are strong safes containing the bonds, the gold and silver currency, and the Gold Reserve Fund. 204 THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY The Treasury is obliged to hold a reserve of $100,000,000 in gold, to the credit of the United States. When a new President is elected a new Treasurer also assumes office. Then all the money in these various vaults is counted by a special committee. It is a task of three months duration. At its conclusion the new Treasurer gives a receipt to his predecessor for the sum delivered to his keeping. The figures are so colossal they make one s brain reel ! If America had to go to war to-morrow she need not borrow a cent for supplies. She could equip navy or army without trouble from her own stores of treasure. She could finance half Europe and be none the worse herself. She is the richest country in the world, and she is the youngest, and she was once ours. How many statesmen have gnashed the r teeth over England s bygone error in losing so valuable a possession, and how many a President and financier have laughed in their sleeve at 205 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES England s difficulties with her colonies and her allies. For though it suits politicians to bluff, there is not too much goodwill between the two countries. Canada is loyal to the core despite the indifference the mother-country has dis played, but the United States have no reason to be loyal and every reason to be aggressively patriotic. If an English politician visited the States during the frenzied orgies of an election he would learn some surprising things ; possibly some useful ones. But, as a rule, he is too occupied with home affairs to examine them in the light of other opinions. The main " grit " of America is centred in its workers, not its talkers. Of course the latter would make you think otherwise, if you did not use your eyes as well as your ears. But the true American has found out that there are better things than money, a purer love than the love of Dives, and for sake of them and what his country may make of them he opposes a stern integrity and a fine common 206 THE GRIT OF THE COUNTRY sense to the shallow pretences of the financial bluffer, and all the terrible crew of rowdies and ruffians who play havoc with the mag nificent theories of independence. 207 XI DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA 209 XI DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA V\7HENEVER I met an American and had answered that first question What do you think of us ? to their satisfaction, I was sure to be asked if I saw any difference between the way they lived, spoke, ate, drank, moved, and had their being, and the way we, in our poor old-fashioned country, performed the same duties. I could not truthfully answer their appeal as they wanted it answered. As I have already said in one of these articles, America might be a foreign country, so wide is the difference between its manners, speech and customs, and our own. I think, too, that we on our side and they 211 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES on theirs would get on a great deal better if we resolved to look upon ourselves as strangers instead of relatives. We should then judge each country on its own merits instead of from the false standard of supposed similarity. There is no similarity, or, at least, so little that it is not worth taking into account. But there are tremendous differences. Therefore the best method of understanding each other is to throw prejudice overboard, and to treat each other as we treat any foreign nation whom we are visiting or criticising. We don t say of the Germans, or Italians, or Russians, or Turks, or Esquimaux, " Why don t you do everything as we English do it ? Why then should we always be judging of America by its difference from, or likeness to, ourselves ? At first I made this mistake. But I soon found it out, and was all the more comfortable for the discovery. I gave up expecting to find English bedrooms, English furniture, English 212 HOW ENGLAND AND AMEEICA DIFFER food, and English table manners. The Germans and the French, the Swiss and the Chinese, have each their own quaint methods of eating and drinking ; why should not the free-and-easy American have the same ? Again, in a foreign country we accept foreign food. We don t look for bacon and eggs and well-made tea for breakfast in France. We accept coffee, and petit-pains, and make our lunch our dejeuner. America gives us " dish water " for tea, and leather for bacon, and we say, " Oh, how much better the food is in England ! 9i Instead of that we should eat fruit, and drink iced water, and then plunge into a repast of steak, chops, fish, omelettes, and coffee, and be thankful we have an appetite, and are in say New York. To go further, the picturesque American language is specially adapted to American needs. It is rapidly enunciated, forcibly ex pressed, and only casually permeated with slang. Well, why not learn it as we learn French 213 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES idioms, and Swiss patois, and Italian dialects ? Why not become simply assimilative instead of prejudiced ? It is the same with other matters. When we see a Frenchman dressed in chess board tweeds, or a Frenchwoman in tartan- patterned skirts, we only say " How French ! J Therefore when we view the shoulder-cushions of an American coat, the curiously baggy, slovenly effect of the American trouser, why don t we say " How American " ! At least, we do say it, but they don t like us to say it. They want us to say " How English ! Surely those clothes must have come from Bond Street, or Piccadilly/ This creates a prejudice at once. If an Englishman goes to an American tailor and is measured, fitted, and supplied in American fashion, he does not walk through London expecting his friends to say " Bond Street " or " Piccadilly." He is content to bear the stamp of Cook s coupons. Let each country have its due. 214 HOW ENGLAND AND AMEEICA DIFFER Of course with women the etiquette of clothes varies. They are such ardent copyists and such slaves to fashion that one country is apparelled very much like another. The material may vary, but not the style. Again, we in the Old Country have a prefer ence for quiet home life, artistic surroundings, leisured hours for reading, refinement in all matters appertaining to the table ; simplicity in street dressing ; luxury without display. Such qualifications are altogether wanting in the average American s life. But they don t realise it, even after & trip to Europe, or a week s stay in an English country house. ^ Well, why expect it of them, and why persist in telling them that they are just like ourselves when we know they are not ? They are simply themselves ; as purely American as the Frenchman is French, and the German is German. These facts should be recognised and under stood, and then we would exchange visits on 215 AMERICA THKOUGH ENGLISH EYES quite a different footing. Possibly we should also enjoy them much more. When I found that an American restaurant furnished me with a slice of roast beef an inch thick and of san guinary hue as an English dish, or with two eggs and a small basin to break them into as American, I at once refrained from ordering English roast beef, or American eggs. I reverted to grape fruit, and "clam-chowder/ to soft shell crab, and French entrees, and was well satisfied. In like manner it is unwise of the American to demand " corn-cob " or " clam- chowder " or " terrapin " in the Strand, or even at the Ritz. He should accept the deli cately cut slice of properly cooked beef, or the succulent chop from the " grill," or the well- made crisp toast, with the gratification of a foreigner eating foreign food and surprised that it is eatable. I might go on in this style ad infinitum, giving points " all the time " for some spirited American journalist to do " England through 216 HOW ENGLAND AND AMEEICA DIFFER American eyes." I am sure it would be vastly amusing and instructive. I tried to find some such book or criticism in the States, but the only one I did discover was a small paper-backed volume, purporting to deal with the visit of a plain American to Eng land. Why plain ? I wondered. The humour of this volume was less conspicuous than its grammatical deficiencies. The author frankly declared that he had written it in order for once in his life to have free and full oppor tunity of using the pronoun "I." If he was an American I cannot understand that he had ever lacked such an opportunity or been driven to literature to provide it. He then went on to state the " egg difficulty " at an English breakfast-table. But why he imagined that one had to " swing a knife freely at the egg in order to decorate the hostess s walls " I cannot understand. Is it possible that no American has been taught even by observation how to use an egg-spoon ? 217 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES The traveller next gives a description of a house party in England, and is considerate enough to burden himself with " gold pieces " (think of it !) so as to " help set up the maids and valets in a business of their own." Here the writer tumbles headlong into a second blunder. The " maids " and " valets " are in the service of the respective visitors not of the hostess. They neither expect nor receive tips. If he had said the butler and footman, or the chauffeur and gamekeeper, he would have been on safe ground. But again this proves what I have been saying, that we must treat each other as a foreign nation in order to understand each other s customs. The American author next goes " pheasant shooting " ; but not to shoot, as he had been informed that to bring a " gun " of your own meant more tipping, and higher fees than a merely wealthy American cares to disburse. He describes the pheasant run as a big chicken yard (of course, an American chicken yard !). 218 HOW ENGLAND AND AMEEICA DIFFER There were hundreds of birds feeding on " scraps " (what does that mean ?) and grain thrown to them by the keeper. The American concluded that the pheasant run was a sort of poultry business, because he had seen these birds hanging up in the markets for sale at low prices, and had bought their eggs at swell res taurants at high ones. Good Heavens ! Could anything prove the " foreigner abroad " more conclusively ? Since when have " swell " English restaurants taken to sell pheasants eggs ? Is it possible our foreign friend has confused the words " supply " with " sell/ and " pheasant " with "plover"? He next expresses surprise that an English host and hostess do not come to the door of their country mansion to welcome the arriving guest ! He does not recognise the fact that arriving guests are better to look at when they have removed the dust of travel, and dispensed with veils and wraps and dust-coats. The same 219 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES thing is done in America, in good society (The Four Hundred, Limited !). The enterprising writer then describes how his bag is opened by a house servant, and its contents displayed for the owner s humiliation. But why does he arrive at a smart English country house with " old worn underclothes " and " patched suspenders " ? Surely the fact of gravely arranging these articles in appropriate drawers or cupboards is more to the credit of the valet than that of the owner. Next he inquires " if the bathroom is far away ? * Here I am quite in sympathy with him. The American hotel and apartment house have a splendid arrangement of bath and hot- water service. But then the American hotel and apartment house are just the latest thing in modern inventions. An English country mansion, dating one, two, even three centuries back, cannot compete with such inventions without reconstruction. To set up adequate 220 HOW ENGLAND AND AMEEICA DIFFER heating arrangements, to have a bath in every dressing-room would be impossible. The owner, therefore, prefers to leave his house to its tra ditional old-fashioned discomfort. Any million aire can have new things. It takes a fine old English family to be content with old ones. Then our American friend goes on to complain of not being introduced to " everybody." It is an American custom, but not an English one. Have I not tried to point out the differences between the two countries ? Not being intro duced, he is then passed off to the " partner " he is to take in to dinner. He notes that the " animals go in two by two " according to position. The big swell heads the march, the moderate swell is in the middle, and the plain " scrub " (this is untranslatable) " trails in like the last run of shad in May." And we pretend that the Americans are not a foreign nation ! I wish that this bewildered traveller had 221 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES given more details about that house party, but he only concludes that it was a " terrible position for a free-born citizen of Ohio, U.S.A., to find himself amongst British ladies and gentlemen with his country s reputation resting upon his shrinking shoulders." An American, and with "shrinking shoulders" ! Is it possible ? What had become of national assurance, national pride, traditions of equality and American tailors ? The description of the next morning is very funny, when the American is wakened from slumber by the entrance of "a young lady dressed in simple yet becoming costume " ; not a " help," or a " coloured girl," or a chamber maid. We are in England now, and an ordinary housemaid becomes a " young lady " to our foreign cousin. The " lady 9i draws up the blinds, and then asks if the guest would like tea. It surprises him as much to be offered tea at 8 o clock in the morning, as it surprises us in 222 HOW ENGLAND AND AMEEICA DIFFEE America not to be offered it at all. That the guest finds the toast made of motor-tyre fabric is just what an American would say of our English crisp, thinly-cut toast. In America it is two inches thick, and scored over with black bars as if it had been grilled on a gridiron ! Next the young lady brings in a huge round polished zinc bath ! I feel sure our friend is wrong again. We have enamelled baths, and porcelain baths ; we have hip baths, plunge baths, foot baths, and shower baths, but I have never seen a zinc bath in any private house or English country mansion ! Then follows a description of the aforesaid bath. It now becomes a " zinc pan " eighteen inches in diameter with a " bilge keel " (even a dictionary is hopeless where this special foreigner is concerned !). The young lady has left two " pails " of water beside this pan, and the enterprising traveller endeavours to do " acrobatic feats in tepid water with a damp atmosphere of 40 degrees, in a stone-walled 223 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES room with the concentrated cold of four hundred or more long years hermetically sealed in its diameter ! " (Our friend has got into proper typical British feudalism, and no mistake about it !) But of all things that seem to astound and confuse him in the old country the most as tounding is that his boots can be cleaned for him! Now at last he recognises the difference between slavery and freedom. In the United States you may put your boots outside your bedroom door from one week s end to another and you will find them in exactly the same state of mud and dust every morning. No American hotel-servant, coloured or uncoloured, will clean boots ! He has not come to America to be a slave to any other sort of fellow-man. The first clause in the Law of Independence is the law that you shall not indulge in boot- blacking except as a profession/ You may set up a " shine parlour " ; you may humiliate a free-born citizen by exposing him on a bench in 224 HOW ENGLAND AND AMEEICA DIFFEB the street in the undignified position of under going a " five-cent shine/ but clean his boots in the old accepted household fashion of Europe you must never, never do ! Hail Columbia ! The stars and stripes have it all the time ! An American lady told me that she had been some twenty times across to the " other side/ 5 and still couldn t say " Keally ! " or " Indeed ? " as we manage to say them with a " cold- shiver-down-the-back-eflect, that sort of makes you feel you re not wanted/ If an American desires you to know you are not wanted he tells you so. His phrase is brief and emphatic. He just says " Git ! " This saves time, and keeps up the standard of independence. In how many hundreds of small ways we differ, our foreign cousins and ourselves ! In accepted standards of social importance ; in household arrangements ; in the cheerful tolera- 225 p AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES tion of insolence from the lower classes ; in the perpetual lowering of self-esteem; in the way we eat and drink and clothe ourselves and amuse ourselves ; in our respective views of life and the way to live it ; our knowledge or ignorance of art ; our standard of good manners or good breeding ; our attitude towards genius and celebrity ; our distinction between the moral side of business and the commercial profits thereof ; our gifts and graces of speech ; our likes and dislikes ; our pride and our dignity ; our instincts of refinement, and our free and easy acceptance of fork-and-knife equality. In fact, we are so different in our alikeness, and so unlike in our difference that I must again fall back upon my original idea of foreign relationship. Let the English traveller accept novelties as the natural products of a new country, but do not let him fall into the error of imagining he is going to find an exact copy of the old. If he does he will be disappointed, and possibly become critical. 226 HOW ENGLAND AND AMERICA DIFFER Once I began to look upon America as the very antithesis of England, I grew quite at ease with its charming people. I even grew tolerant of the unnatural-looking landscapes and the wooden shanties. I gave up expecting thatched cottages, neat homesteads, leafy avenues, lordly parks. I ceased to look for the neat fences and trim hedges and charming gardens of the English country. It was all different, but interesting ; and oh ! how I appreciated that lovely English country when I saw it again ! " Don t you think the English country beau tiful ? I asked an American, who had been back and fore countless times. " I guess you ha n t got any villages," he answered. Villages ? I repeated in surprise, for surely the English village is as much a part of England, as the wooden shanty is of America. Yes," he went on, " villages like we have home/ 227 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES I found he meant the straggling wooden towns and the terraces of wooden houses scattered through the length and breadth of the States. " No, thank goodness, we haven t ! " I said. * Your country is all under cultivation, every mile of it/ he went on. " Looks as you d been rolling the grass, and sowing the grain, and grazing the cattle since the world began. Now in the States you can travel hundreds of miles and not find an acre of cultivated ground. We don t set such store on it as you do. When we want wood, we cut down our trees. When we want grain, we go West and grow it. When we want cattle, we just locate a district, or set up a ranch, and give ourselves up to the supply. We don t need to chop up every little bit of land into farms and home steads. We concentrate. You kind of spread." If this is any explanation of the difference between the two countries, agriculturally con sidered, I am pleased to offer it. 228 XII GENERAL REFLECTIONS 229 XII GENERAL REFLECTIONS T ET nothing I have said be taken in bad part. It is only the impression of one mind only the view of one pair of eyes. I sat in my deck-chair on the great liner, and reflected on American experiences. I looked out on the rolling width of ocean, and marvelled that the " foreign cousin " is so fond of visiting his relatives. To and fro, year after year, he comes to stay with us, or sell to us, or teach us some new way of performing old tricks. In business as in pleasure the American is for ever with us, and the barriers of past strife have been overthrown. To him we owe our advertising equipment, our wonderful " drug stores/ our flaring, glaring boot and shoe 231 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES depots, our dental parlours, and even our new duchesses ! Our shops cater for the American visitors, and our prices have been adapted to dollar currency for American comprehension. They do not show us the same courtesy on their side. We still have to plough our way through the mysteries of dirty " greenbacks " and the perpetual accumulation of the ten-cent and five-cent piece. But progress has nothing to do with petty international differences. Be sides, John Bull is such a fool ! He just lets the cheeky cousin take his goods, his literature, his inventions, and his investments, and turn them into American copyrights, or American profits. After all, what do such things matter ? s( Each for himself " and well, the rest of the proverb is the true interpretation of success. The one for the one, and the whole for the whole, and out of it you may evolve a great nation. True, that nation has split itself into internal hostilities ; true, it never has and never can 232 GENERAL REFLECTIONS possess the sense of loyalty which unites England and its colonies into one sentiment for one ruler ; but it has proved that a Republic has a spirit of its own, and that spirit is leavening the seething mass of population into a truer knowledge of fraternity, a truer development of life. The soul of a people is for time to evolve, even as the manhood of the man must work up through the immaturity of the child. It is only when one looks at the recent childhood of America that one realises its amazing growth to maturity. And it is still young, still at college, so to say ; still capable of learning, and of readjusting itself to new dignities. An American writer has said that the men who framed the Declaration of In dependence were not creating a new state of things for America, but recognising them as already created. They met the need of an authoritative Constitution later. It is rather a fine thing to picture the spirit of Liberty AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES brooding over the consciousness of a newborn world. Rather a fine thing to picture the strong, self-reliant powers of a people bursting the fetters of past conventions, and resolving to be their own makers, their own rulers, their own defence. While turmoil and bloodshed were rending the cities of Europe, a winged goddess descended upon the new land and engendered a new life. A century later, an age of reason and reflection tempered the fierce passions of conquest, and with a knowledge of higher duties came the desire of enlightenment. Now this wonderful country stands equipped on every side ; commercially, industrially, educationally, and intellectually. What is there that America cannot do ? What is there that America may not do ? These are questions that arise insensibly after even such a brief survey as these pages contain. For the strange thing about America is that it did not achieve liberty in the fashion of older republics. It recognised it as part of 234 GENEEAL KEFLECTIONS itself a living, conscious fact only seeking recognition. At least that is what Lincoln declared if we translate his phrase " A nation conceived in liberty " in its true sense. The feeling was there ; the spirit was there ; the legalised framework of a Constitution simply established it on a judicious basis. And this spirit has grown into power, swiftly yet gradu ally. It demands recognition not only through out the length and breadth of the great American continent, but in the archives and council cham bers of the world at large. Is there a country worth the name where America has not am bassador, products, and a floating population of people ? Is there a nook or corner of the earth where her name is unknown ? Is there a poverty-stricken nation to whom that name does not whisper of El Dorado, and tempt with golden spells ? How has it been accomplished ? What birth right had this hydra-headed giant that sent it leaping full-armed into the pulsing life of revolt 235 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES and conflict ; crowned it with its own supremacy, and gave it a sovereignty of worth, not of accident ? No one can answer. It is the iashion to laugh at America, to ridicule America, to criticise America ; but there are not wanting those who fear America ; fear its large and tranquil confidence, its mighty energies, and its mighty wealth. It has gathered tribute of blood and race from all other living races ; the best as well as the worst. It has shown it can make laws and defend them. It has tested the worth of its chosen rulers by their own deeds. It has boasted largely, but it has also performed largely. The essence of bravado is still latent in the American citizen, but it is tempered now with a citizen s dignity, and a citizen s pride. They have constituted self-government as a nation s rightful inheritance, and the world at large acknowledges their right. The Americans have a sort of j cyclopaedia 236 GENEEAL REFLECTIONS which is called " Who s Who in America." It- contains the biographies of some sixteen thousand celebrated persons lawyers, doctors, authors,, bankers, preachers, and millionaires. The most noteworthy fact about the names is that 86 per cent, are those of native Americans. Some of them profess to have a majority of three generations of American ancestry. From these ancestral families the aristocracy is formed ; not necessarily a wealthy one, but a refined and cultured community. They possess the free and frank charm and the hospitable in stincts of their country, with just a little added distinction that other countries are quick to recognise. They resent hostile criticism, though they should be the very first to acknowledge how deserved it is. For there is no more de testable human being on the face of the earth than the really vulgar American. He is sup pressed in his own country, but he " lets himself go " when he leaves it, and he has done more to discredit his nation and himself 237 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES than the veriest ruffian who haunts a bar parlour, or runs a dime-museum of frauds and freaks ! I cannot go lower in the social scale than these specimens. An American President must be American born, bred and educated. He need not have an ancestry of more than two generations, but he is usually provided with four. When Theodore Roosevelt was President, the Hepublic became so refined and so exclusive that it even gave his daughter the prefix of " Princess." Why no one seemed to know. She certainly did not look more like a princess than a pretty woman ; more like a royal person age than any other young American citizeness but there it is. America will occasionally break out into a revolutionary attitude towards existing platitudes. It takes a fancy to a title and annexes it, just as a free and enlightened millionaire will take the trouble of hunting up a crest, and then affixing it in full-blown glory 238 GENERAL REFLECTIONS of coat-of-arms and motto upon the panels of his carriage or his automobile. These inconsistencies are very perplexing. Surely if an American is proud of his Republic he would never wish to go against its prin ciples ! Yet a weakness for titles, for ancestral possessions, (other people s,) as well as a slight jealousy of rightful owners of such useless in stitutions, is a very marked feature of American social life and its new aristocracy ! About twenty million of foreign persons have come to the States in the last half -century, and more keep on coming every year. The present population is estimated at ninety millions. I wonder in what proportion the alien races stand to the native-born product ? Of course immigration is conducted on very different principles in America from the methods of other countries, and Ellis Island is usually an eye-opener to the steerage passenger to El Dorado. But the accepted emigrant is soon 239 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES transformed into American material by an in genious process, and his children are citizens of the New World from the hour of birth. The new patriot and the young patriot are the strongest personal advertisers of the Re public. They rather overdo it as when they crowd the docks to welcome the incoming, or speed the outgoing, liner. Also when they consider it necessary to display their absurd pocket-handkerchief flags on sighting English soil, or occupying an English bedroom. We don t go about waving our Union Jack in the streets and hotels of America. But I am forgetting again. I promised to leave comparisons alone. The general character of the American people is less composite than it might be, considering the queer admixture of races brought to bear upon its composition. This seems to prove that the true essence of Americanism has never been lost. We look back at the admixture oi 240 GENEKAL REFLECTIONS Puritanism with the gay strain of Cavalier blood ; the stolid Hollander with the light French race; the Quaker of William Penn s times with the patriot of the Happy Fatherland ; the violent, hot-blooded Irish and the calm, thrifty Scot; the aristocrat of Virginia, and the slave-owner of plantation days in Carolina. Yet despite the blending of these races and breeds and religions and adventurists the spirit of America has lived behind all, and lives on to the present century. The ultimate significance of the country played its part in the patriotism of the early settlers. The result is the America of to day ! What personal energy, what strenuous zeal has gone to the making of America ! What hope of something unseen yet glorious withal has underlain each new achievement ! Surely when state calls to state and power to power, when the humblest citizen or the greatest is alike free to visit his capital and touch his President s 241 Q AMEKICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES hand, surely this spirit thrills the heart of the individual, and calls to the united forces of the people ! When they translate liberty by self-reliance, and freedom by self-sufficiency, and power by self-government, are they very boastful or only very wise ? Are they as much ahead of prejudices as they are behind socialism in actual national existence ? Is independence the greatest and most glorious possession for a nation, or for an individual ? Is Emerson speaking out the greatest inspiration of American confidence when he says " We will work with our own hands ; we will walk on our own feet ; we will speak our own minds." With such a resolve as backbone for a Con stitution, one cannot wonder that America is inclined to boast inclined to set its torch of freedom higher than its crowned Liberty. It is only because those words " freedom " and " liberty " have been so misunderstood and so misapplied in the earlier as in the later chronicles 242 GENERAL REFLECTIONS of the States of America, that all its mistakes have arisen. In political controversies there is always one side to clamour for right, and another side to clamour for its abandonment. There are not wanting those who assert that the famous Declaration can be construed into just what the individual Macchiavelli of politics chooses to make of it. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness according to each man s in clination are dangerous as well as delightful privileges. But to secure these rights some governing power has to be established, and when the individual is governed and law-ridden and state-managed, he is not free. So whether the figurehead of control wears a crown, or merely a silk hat, whether he rules by majesty of divine right or by the elective voice of a universal suffrage, he is still a ruler, and as such stands one degree higher, is one degree more important, and a few degrees more power ful than the rest of his subjects, or his State. 243 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES Possibly in matters appertaining to the people, a constitutional ruler has less to say than an electoral one. But the moneyed plutocrat, who is such a tremendous power in America, can so mould political machinery that it may be used for a faction, or a " Ring/ and end in over throwing the power that is best for the nation by establishing the power most useful to that " Ring." Bad men control votes, influence politics, and upset the share market as easily and more frequently than good patriots. We have had proof and to spare of this during Presidential and Representative elections. There are times when principle and conscience are " up to win," and times when faction and coercion are to the fore. It is at such times that the true spirit of Republicanism should appear, encouraging the feeble, bracing the weak, and carrying high above the strife and turmoil its banner of fair play. That banner is the one most needed to be displayed on all public and 244 GENERAL REFLECTIONS political occasions. It is the one and best translation of liberty. " Play the game ! * Play it straight and with clean hands, no matter whether the issue be victory, or defeat. Play it in sport, in commerce, in political wrangles as in intellectual struggles. Let the best man win and be glad that he has won, not forgetful of the powers that favoured him. President Roosevelt spoke once of the " fair deal for everybody." The spirit of the people answered him for a time, but the spurt of energy, like the spurt of enthusiasm, is short lived. The old ways, the old methods are easiest. Old habits are the hardest to break ; and, after all, is any ideal ever realised ? Majestic and dominant, the great statue of Liberty stands out to greet the stranger to her shores ; holds hand of greeting to returning patriot or travelled citizen who is saying to himself, " There are a few things that the 246 AMERICA THROUGH ENGLISH EYES Old Country could teach us, proud and self- satisfied as we are ! " And it is just those " few things " that make all the difference between England and America ; just those " few things " that keep us bristling and antagonising instead of being sympathetic ally comprehensive. It is just those " few things " that make us laugh at pretensions, and scoff at moneyed arrogance. Is there a nation left so free to pursue ideals, and so protected in the enjoyment of life and liberty as the American nation ? But is it happier, freer, wiser, better than any other nation ? This is a question for the individual and the community to answer as they will. It has nothing to do with my opinions, or my criti cisms or my mistakes. The statue of Liberty gave me first greeting in the golden sunshine of the New World, and to it I sent my last farewell as the mists enclosed 246 GENERAL REFLECTIONS it on my departure. I salute it now in memory as I write these last lines in my own land ; and I repeat here what it seemed to say to me, " I am the emblem of great things achieved ; the promise of Greater Things yet to be done/ FINIS Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury telephone- CLIFFORD S INN, * HOLBORN LONDON _ E c Telegraphic Address "GUCIEN LONDON" MESSRS. STANLEY PAUL & CO. S ANNOUNCEMENTS %* PREVIOUS LISTS CANCELLED AUTUMN, 1910 The Amours of Henri de Navarre and of Marguerite de Valois. Lieut. -Colonel ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, D.S.O. Author of "Sidelights on the Court of France" [see page 14], " Sporting Yarns," " The Regent of the Roues," etc. In one volume, demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with Photogravure Frontispiece and 1 6 full-page Illustrations printed on art paper, i6s. net. Henri IV. of France, whose renown as a warrior is so well deserved, was also one of the most libertine princes of a libertine age. From youth until well on in middle age, his roving fancy was for ever being caught by the turn of a well-shaped ankle or the snowy frill of what Herrick calls "the tempestuous petticoat." It is of many of the fair and frail companions of Henri de Navarre that Colonel Andrew Haggard gives us most interesting details in this work, to obtain which he has sought for and consulted the records of contemporary chroniclers but little known to-day. Among the most celebrated women of the court of France was Henri s first wife, the licentious and talented " Reine Margot." A woman so gifted and brilliant was nevertheless unable to retain the ardent passions of the valiant victor of Arques and Ivry. Marguerite, however, cast her fascinating spell upon most of the gallants of the day, and swayed alike the hearts of men and women with her sparkling wit and love of pleasure. That the many amours of this brilliant princess were no less interesting than those of her brave but fickle spouse, will be readily apparent to the readers of this latest volume from the entertaining pen of the author of Sidelights on the Court of France." An Ideal Gifl Book Intimate Society Letters of the i8th Century. By His GRACE THL DUKE OF ARGYLL, K.T. In two volumes, demy 8vo, cloth gilt and gilt top. With two photogravure frontis pieces and lifty-six other full-page illustrations, printed on art paper, of original letters, autographs, and other interesting matter. 245. net the set. Few families possess a richer correspondence than the House of Argyll, and in this valuable work are collected for the first time many impor tant letters which deal intimately with high society life under the Georges. The letters extend back to the reign of Queen Anne, many being illuminated by brilliant wit, sparkling repartee, and amusing anecdote. Much interest will be evoked by the correspondence (over fifty pages) of Madame de Stael; other interesting letters are those from Queen Charlotte, the Duchess of Brunswick, Douglas, Duke of Hamilton, Dr. Moore, Lady Derby, George Washington, William Pitt, Felicia Hemans, etc. Many letters and documents are reproduced in facsimile, and also an original poem by Thomas Moore and original verses by Sir W r alter Scott. SOME EARLY PRESS OPINIONS " Instinct with the life that makes literature and history. The eighteenth Century is a magic phrase, a name to conjure with. It is because the men and women of the eighteenth century are near enough to us, think and feel as we do, with different clothes and different standards of comfort, that we find them so piquantly alluring." Times. " Two handsome volumes. We have, in various letters, most interesting sidelights on life in London in the i8th Century. There are some charming letters." Daily Telegraph. " These two volumes contain a great deal of very interesting matter . . . attractive pages. Standard. " All who are interested in the i8th Century will give a hearty welcome to these letters and the instructive commentary which accompanies them." Daily Graphic. " Many of the documents throw a strong illustrative light upon politics, society and manners." Pall Mall Gazette. " No more vivid picture of life in the i8th Century could be presented than is given us by these letters, and much gratitude is dr.e to the Duke of Argyll for the judgment with which they have been selected out of the voluminous correspondence in the possession of his family." Globe, "Old letters are always interesting, and the Duke s two volumes give the reader a clearer idea of the actual conditions of life a hundred years ago than the careful pages of an historian. . . . few more entertaining volumes than these." Daily Express. "These letters add materially to our knowledge of iSth Century life." Sunday Chronicle. "There are letters in which the curtain is lifted upon the inside life of the leaders of the i8th Century upon manners and customs of the time, upon private confidences and boudoir confessions. . . . We cannot but be grateful for the labour and taste and scholarship which the editor has lavished on the arrangement and annotation of his nutorial." Sunday Times, An Important New Work on Photography The Artistic Side of Photography. In Theory and Practice. A. J. ANDERSON. Author of " The Romance of Fra Filippo Lippi." With 12 photogravure plates and 16 half-tone illustrations printed in black and sepia, as well as numerous illustrations and diagrams in the text. In one volume, demy Svo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 125. 6d. net. The author is well known as a critic and authority on photographic topics. He has had the assistance of Mr. Alvin L. Coburn in the pre paration of this book. The Artistic Side of Photography " is no rechauffe of what has already been written on pictorial photography, but it is quite the latest word on the artistic development of the move ment. Starting with some most convincing chapters on the artistic quality of photography a straight print from a straight negative Mr. Anderson proceeds to show how the full quality of the medium may be brought out by the exposure and development ; he shows, with the aid of diagrams, the focal length of a lens that is calculated to give good drawing and pleasing perspective ; he devotes two chapters to composition, as applied to photography ; he treats such questions as values, tone, selection of subject, at considerable length ; he devotes chapters to colour rendering, portrait work, architecture, flower photo graphy, etc., and ends with very simple and practical directions on taking, making and enlarging negatives. From the commencement to the end the author takes a line that will appeal to painter?, as well as the most progressive photographers ; he does not try to clothe photography in the rules that were made for the older Arts, but treats it as an art "in the making." The book is pleasantly written and inten sting ; and Mr. Anderson never shirks a difllculty, or leaves a point without making it perfectly clear. He illustrates his argument by reproductions of the finest works in pure photography produced by Messrs. Steichen, Steglitz, Holland Day, Eugene and Coburn of the American School, Messrs. Evans, Cadby & Co., of England, and by Baron de Meyer and Mrs. Kasebier. The reproduction in photogravure, will be under the direction of Mr. Coburn, and in half-tone under the direction of the Author. The Argentine Republic. Its History, Physical Features, Natural History, Government, Productions, etc. A. STUART PENNINGTON. In one volume, demy Svo, handsome cloth gilt, profusely illustrated with half-tone illustrations, printed on art paper. los. 6d. net. The author has treated his subject in a delightfully light and interesting way, and the book will be c f particular interest to travellers and students. Mr. Pennington has been a resident in the Republic for over 20 years, and is an authority on the subjects dealt with. He has contributed extensively to the local press during more than two decades, and his articles have ranged over many phases of Argen tine History, Literature, Geography, Natural History, etc. The Romance of a Medici Warrior. GIOVANNI DELLE BANDE NERE. To which is added the story of his son COSIMO. By CHRISTOPHER HARE. Author of Ladies of the Rena issance," "Felicita: A Romance of Old Sienna," etc. In one volume, demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with a photogravure frontispiece and 16 other illustrations, on art paper, IDS. 6d. net. This fascinating volume traces 1 he adventurous and romantic career of Giovanni, the son of Caterina Sforza, that supreme example of a warrior woman, and Giovanni Medici, a man in all ways worthy of her. Giovanni displayed all the courage and fierce daring of his Sforza ance.^try, whose exploits he surpassed in his magnificent audacity. Never had leader such complete and supreme command over his soldiers. He exhausted his short brilliant life in fighting desperate battles, serving Pope and Prince without pay or reward, until his heroic death set the seal upon his fame. His story is the more pathetic from our sympathy with his devoted wife, Maria Muddelena Romola, a woman of modern temperament, always trembling for the safety of her mediaeval husband, and to whom the coming of a messenger from the battlefield was like a sword piercing her heart. To this fascinating biography of Giovanni Medici is added the little- known story of Giovanni s only son Cosimo, who, by his craft and cruelty, achieved the worldly success denied to the splendid hero of many battles, attaining the highest position a Medici warrior had ever reached, and becoming the First Grand Duke of Tuscany. The Life of Cesare Borgia. RAFAEL SABATINI Author of "The Lion s Skin," " Bardelys the Magnificent," etc. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with photogravure frontispiece and other illustrations printed on art paper, i6s. net. Cesare Borgia, the most conspicuous figure in Italy s most conspicu ous age, has hitherto been no more than a figure of romance, a villain of melodrama, and sucli conceptions as there are of him are vaguely of a splendid criminal, based upon the fictions of Hugo and Dumas. It is time we knew more of the prototype of " The Prince " of Machiavelli, singular that in an age of historical biographies so amazing a subject should so long have been neglected by the historian. Mr. Rafael Sabatini has undertaken the task of telling this tremen dous and picturesque story. Ruthless, swift and terrific does Cesare Borgia appear in the pages of this engrossing biography, yet a man of sound judgment, as just as he was merciless too just, indeed, for mercy a subtle statesman and a military genius. An Eighteenth Century Marquise. EMILIE DU CHATELET AND HER TIMES. FRANK HAMEL. Author of " Famous French Salons," " The Dauphines of France," etc. In one volume, demy 8vo, cloth gilt. With a photogravure frontispiece and 16 other illustrations, printed on art paper. i6s. net. Among all the famous French women of the eighteenth century none represents more typically certain interesting phases of social and court life than Madame du Chatelet. Born in 1706, her most impressionable years were spent under the Regency. Highly educated, she was precieuse and pedantic, yet womanly and coquettish. She occupied a position in literature and philosophy which, in St. Beuve s opinion, it was easier for the women of her day to smile at than to dispute. Her marriage was a marriage of convenience, and she allowed her affec tions to stray elsewhere. Her liaison with Voltaire lasted fifteen years, through storm and stress, passion and friendship, fidelity and betrayal. When she was no longer young, she fell passionately in love with the handsome poet-soldier, St. Lambert. The background of Mme. du Chcitelet s life forms a variegated picture. Salons were then a force, Mme. de Lambert, Mmes. de Tencin, de Geoffrin, and du Deffand being prominent hostesses at that time. The cafes were meeting places of men of letters, dramatists, actors, artists, men of the robe, soldiers and scientists. Masculine in intellect, ultra-feminine in her emotions, pre-eminently passionate, yet highly endowed with reason, the Marquise-mathema tician has been over-shadowed by the great poet-philosopher with whom she lived, and has not before been chosen as the central figure of a biography in English. By the Sams Author The Dauphines of France. FRANK HAMEL Author of " Famous French Salons," etc. In one volume, demy 8vo, handsome cloth gilt, gilt top, with a photogravure frontispiece and 16 full-page illustrations on art paper, i6s. net. 11 Mr. Hainel has the right touch, and treats history in a mood of gay vivacity. The various studies are always animated, well informed, and excellently phrased. Cer tainly these stories make romant.c reading, and Mr. Hamel handles his material with dexterity and force. In his glowing pages he seizes every opportunity for lively jid impressive description." Dail) Telegraph. " Mr. Hamel does for French history what Miss Strickland did for the lives of the English queens. An admirable volume." Morning Leader, The Amazing- Duchess. The Romantic History of Elizabeth Chudleigh, Maid of Honour Duchess of Kingston Countess of Bristol. CHARLES E. PEARCE. Author of " Love Besieged," etc. In two volumes, demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with 2 photogravure frontispieces and numerous illustrations. 2^s. net the set. " The Amazing Duchess " is the title Mr. Charles E. Pearce has given to one of the most puzzling and fascinating Court Beauties of the Eighteenth Century. The career of the elusive Elizabeth Chudleigh Duchess of Kingston and Countess of Bristol after the result of her historic trial in Westminster Hall is as dramatic and adventurous as any story evolved by the imaginative fictionist. Her history is insepar able from that of the Courts of George II. and of his son Frederick, Prince of Wales, and round her are clustered all the notabilities of the time, their frivolities, their intrigues, their scandals. Mr. Pearce s volumes abound with anecdotes which throw interesting sidelights on the social life, the follies, the fashions and the amusements of the gayest and most reckless period of English history. Of especial piquancy is the account of the domestic life of the duke and duchess told in a series of letters by the duke s valet and for the first time incorporated in a biography of the most-talked-of woman of her day. A Queen of Tragedy : The Romance of HYPPOLITE CLAIRON, the great Eighteenth Century Tragedienne. H. KENDRICK HAYES. Demy 8vo, handsome cloth gilt, with a photogravure frontispiece and numerous illustrations, printed on art paper. The story of the wonderful career of Hyppolite Clairon who well deserves the title of Queen of Tragedy is told with lightness of touch and fullness of knowledge in the sparkling narrative of Miss H. Ken- drick Hayes. It is the story of the triumph of a little soubrette daring to aspire to the interpretation of Corneille and Racine ; a triumph all the more wonderful because she was a born comedienne. Only by endless study did she conquer the tragic Muse, and bring the sceptical playgoers of Paris to her feet. Then, borne on the tide which " leads on to Fortune," she gathered at her table Voltaire, Diderot, Vanloo, Louis XV. himself, whilst she numbered amongst her intimate ac quaintances such women as the Princess de Galitzin, Mesdames de Chabrillant, d Aiguillon, de Villeroy, Geoffrin, and du Deffand. Our own David Garrick probably paid her the most flattering homage a great actor has ever bestowed upon a great actress, for he, too, fell under the spell of her personality. The Beaux and the Dandies : NASH, BRUMMELL and D ORSAY, with their Courts. CLARE JERROLD. In one volume, demy 8vo, handsome cloth gilt, with photogravure frontispiece and numerous other illustrations, on art paper, i6s. net. This book gives a lively study of that quality of vanity which has from time to time during periods of peace been exemplified by the Macaronies, Fops, Bucks, Beaux and Dandies, a quality which mani fested itself in an allied splendour of dress, sharpness of wit and love of gambling. One quality might predominate over another, as in the cases of Beau Nash, who worked laboriously for the attainment of wit, and Lord Alvanley, who was more noted for his wit than his dress, but the three were necessary for the individual to play the part. The greater portion of the book is devoted to the three great English Beaux, the earliest of which is Beau Nash, the King of Bath, who set himself with autocratic severity to inculcate good manners and refinement of dress to the gaudy dandies of the age. Brummell was the Beau par excellence, for he was nothing more and nothing less than a Beau. He was the inventor of the starched cravat, and met royal disfavour with nonchalant indifference and humorous impudence of speech. Count D Orsay, who followed Brummell as a leader of society in England, was from youth to age so intimate with the Blessington household, that there is some doubt even to-day as to his exact relations with Lady Blessington, one diarist calling him as ultra a villain as either London or Paris could produce. The dandies who surrounded the Beau of the nineteenth century were very various in their characters, in some cases being foolish and foppish, in others most able. They included statesmen, soldiers, men of title and men of letters, men who would risk tens of thousands on the cast of the dice, and who lived in such a round of fierce excitement that the careers of many were prematurely terminated by suicide or madness. The book is full of good stories illustrative of the manners of the times. Memories of Old Clifford s Inn. Illustrated witn nearly 50 drawings by PERCIVAL J. S. PERCEVAL. In large crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net. Like the mortal frames of men, architectural fabrics, through the relentless, sometimes heartless inevitability of time, ultimately creep back to their parent dust; like man, to be 1 orgotten. We deplore the passing of historic structures, but we are as impotent to resist their destruction as we are to oppose the modern forces at work which destroy them. Buildings and places of beauty, full of historic interest and traditiom are constantly handed over to the house-breaker, to make way for erections of dubious architectural value to house the vast and growing business concerns which, for good or ill, form the most conspicuous feature of our time. Many of us remember with sorrow the obliteration of several famous buildings, the destruction of several historic spots in London, but unhappily the same force which deprived us of them is still as active as ever, and nothing can check the rising tide. "Old Clifford s Inn " has long been doomed; already, a considerable portion has disappeared, and this work is an attempt by author and artist to preserve, as far as possible, the historical, traditional, legal, artistic and architectural features and remains of a small but important and ancient Inn of Chancery one of the daughters of more consequential Inn of Court located in the Temple. Whilst the subject will be accurately treated, the text will be written in a popular style, and the copious number of delicate pen and ink sketches with which it will be accompanied will be executed fully in accordance with the spirit of the place itself, and with a keen eye to its artistic and other charms. THE LADY S REALM. Vol. 28 (May, 1910 October, 1910) In handsome cloth gilt, full gilt edges, 6s. net " The Lady s Realm " is published Monthly at 6d. net Since the first number was issued more than fourteen years ago, it has been recognised as one of the most beautifully illustrated maga zines for cultured gentlewomen. Almost every notable author and celebrity in political life, literature or society, has at one time or another contributed to the pages of "The Lady s Realm." Among its annual subscribers are many of the reigning monarchs and the leaders of society in all parts of the civilized world. To be obtained from all booksellers or newsagents, or will be sent, post free, each month (including Double Numbers), by the Publishers to any address in the world for ios. per annum (or to Canada for 2 dols.). A Charming Gift Book Joy of Tyrol. A human revelation. Edited by J. M. BLAKE. Author of "Lily Work," "A Reasonable View of Life," etc. Profusely illustrated with over 100 original drawings in the text by the Author. In crown Svo, cloth gilt, 6s. net. A series of ingeniously intimate after-dinner letters, written by a viry young cleric to a university don. They are of the kind which rarely meet the eye of any but the intended recipient ranging from what is gayest to what is gravest. The whole excitement of mountain travel and of first love is in them. Pen and pencil sketches lend a particular charm to the letters, which are full of human feeling, humanly expressed. An interloping aunt, a doting sister, and a gargoyle brother are a running background of comedy to what at first appears to be moving to an inevitable tragedy. Not at all in the ordinarv run of books. Two Russian Reformers (!VAN TURGENEV AND LEO TOLSTOY). J. A. T. LLOYD. In demy Svo, cloth gilt and gilt top, with illustrations, los. 6d. net. All the world knows that Count Tolstoy is an ardent reformer, but even now few realise that Ivan Turgenev, who all his life was accused of lukewarmness in the cause of freedom, was the originator of the supreme reform in his country. Undoubtedly, "The Annals of a Sportsman " did for the Russian Morijik what " Uncle Tom s Cabin " did for the American negro. It is the object of these biographical studies to present to the general reader these great nineteenth century novelists as far as possible in terms of their own self-portraiture. Different, antipathetic even, in temperament, these two great novelists will live through the centuries not only as consummate artists but as reformers, each after his fashion, in the universal cause of freedom. A Chateau in Brittany. MARY J. ATKINSON In one volume, demy Svo, cloth gilt, with many illustrations, TOS. Gd. net. This delightful volume of travel recounts the journeys of a party through the high- ways and by-ways of picturesque Brittany. It describes in a chatty but scholarly manner the quaint customs of the simple peasantry and fisher-folk, the fairs, festivals and markets, the famous chateaux and the folk-lore which surrounds them with a halo of romance. No one contemplating a visit to this quaint and unspoiled corner of France should fail to read this entertaining book. In the Land of the Pharoahs : A Snort History of Egypt from the fall of Ismael to the Assassination of Boutros Pasha. DUSE MOHAMED. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with numerous illustrations, IDS. 6d. net. The author of this important work, who is a native Egyptian and was educated in England, possesses a thorough knowledge of his subject. He writes with the impartiality and detachment of view of one who has travelled in Asia, Europe, and North and South America. Not only does he possess an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of his own people, but he has also studied the peoples of the West for upwards of a quarter of a century. He speaks and writes English with fluency, and har, successfully written plays, lectured on Shake speare, and acted Othello, and also in modern drama. He has been previously known to English literature, not only as a special contri butor to important journals on matters Egyptian, but also as a brilliant short-story writer and a gifted poet, a copy of his " Hull Coronation Ode " being graciously accepted by his late Majesty, King Edward VII. His excellent Egyptian article in the October number of " T. P. s Magazine" may justly be regarded as a fair taste of thing? to come. The Love Affairs of the Vatican. DR. ANGELO S. RAPPOPORT. Author of " Royal Lovers," " Mad Majesties," " Leopold Jl.," etc. In demy 8vo, handsome cloth gilt, with photogravure plates and numerous other illustrations, printed on art paper. The history of Rome and the Popes has often been treated in an exhaustive manner, but there is scarcely any authoritative work dealing with the more intimate side of the affairs of the Vatican. Dr. A. S. Rappoport, who has made a special study of the lighter side of history, and especially of the influence exercised by the favourites of kings and queens upon the politics of nations, endeavours to show the important part played by the favourites of the Popes in the history of the Vatican and Christianity. As an impartial historian this author draws attention to the discrepancy existing between the noble and sublime teaching of Christ and the practice of his followers. Beginning with the earliest history of the Bishops of Rome, who soon became the spiritual rulers of Christendom, he deals with the morality of the priests and the various love affairs of the Popes. The words of the prophet, "and the women rule over us," may literally be applied to the history of the Papacy during the middle ages and the Renaissance. Eor not only were such famous courtesans as Theodora and Marozia the actual rulers of the Vatican, and in possession of the Keys of Heaven, but a woman one day ascended the throne of St. Peter, and became Pope. The author further relates the story of Pope Alexander VI. and Signora Venozza of Pope Leo X. and a French court beauty, of Sixtus V. and the beautiful English heretic Anna Osten, of Innocent X. and his sister-in-law Olympia, and of many other Popes. Dr. Rappoport is a philosopher as well as a master of light biographical literature, and unobtrusively he teaches a lesson and draws a moral. Whilst exposing the intrigues of the Papal Court, he does justice to such Popes as were worthy Vican of Christ. rs Two Books which every Boy should possess The Sweep of the Sword. From Marathon to Mafe- king. Being a Battle Book for Boys. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. With a Preface by a well-known Military Leader. In large crown 8vo (over 600 pages), with a photogravure frontispiece, 16 full-page illustrations of world-famous pictures, printed on art paper, and nearly 200 illustrations in the text, handsomely bound in cloth gilt, with special cover design, 6s. The historical pageants which have aroused such keen interest of late have shown that the modern mind is fully alive to the glamour of bygone ages, and this book will specially appeal to all lovers of the pageantry of the past. In this volume all the great battles of the world, from Marathon to Mafeking, whether on land or sea, are faith fully recorded by a pen that never for a moment dips into dulness. Besides a stirring account of every battle of importance in the world s history, the book also contains much other material of interest, making it the most complete and up-to-date battle book in existence ; and many illustrations showing methods of warfare, types of warriors and weapons, etc., etc. The Publishers have obtained only at considerable expense the reproduction rights of many famous pictures. The Boy s Book of Sports, Pastimes, Hobbies and Amusements. E. KEBLE CHATTERTON In large crown 8vo, handsome cloth gilt and gilt top, with special cover design, and many illustrations specially drawn for the book, 55. This book is intended for boys of the age of ten to seventeen. It has been the aim of the author to cover, as far as possible, all the subjects that are of interest to a boy out of school. The volume, which con tains both practical and theoretical information on many and varied subjects, will be welcomed by every teacher and parent. Among the subjects treated are Flying Machines, Boats, Pets, Car pentry, Athletics, Sports, Pastimes, Camping Out, Wireless Telegraphy, the Navy, Ships, How to Succeed in Life, and many other articles appealing to a healthy-minded boy. " The Boy s Book " is handsomely bound in cloth, and illustrated. It will make an ideal prize or present to any schoolboy. There is not a dull page from cover to cover. A Book for every Housewife The Everyday Pudding Book. F. K. A tasty Recipe for every day in the year. In crown 8vo, strongly bound, i/- net. Containing recipes for 366 puddings, one for every day in the year, including February 2gth. The sauce for each pudding is given on the same page as the ingredients, and the recipes are so arranged that where only the yolks of eggs are required one day, the whites are to be used the following day. ii STANLEY PAUL S ABC SERIES FOR COLLECTORS Indispensable to Collectors, Amateurs, Students, Auctioneers and Valuers This Series of books constitutes a publishing record. The text of each volume is written by a competent authority, in a popular style, the letterpress is printed from new, clear type, and the illustrations have been reproduced with the utmost care. The ABC of Japanese Art. J F. BLACKER Profusely illustrated with 150 line and 48 half-tone illustrations, printed on art paper. In large crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. net. Mr. J. F. Blacker s work will be exceedingly useful to the collector, whom it will guide, assist and interest in many branches of the Art of Old Japan. The subject is a fascinating one which has the advantage of not being overdone. An immediate market at moderate prices awaits the buyer whose knowledge enables him to utilise it quickly. Armour and Swords with their furniture, Bronzes, Colour Prints, Ivory and Wood Carvings, including Netsukes, are amongst the subjects dealt with. Technical processes are explained and many illustrations given in the text in addition to 48 pages of half-tone illustrations, and the marks, signatures and sale prices. The "Old Japan Taste " is admittedly refined, and its future is full of promise. Those who desire to collect with profit will hardly discover any object so suitable, whilst for home decoration the quaint beauty of Japanese Art is unequalled in its peculiar attractiveness. A B C of Collecting Old English China. J. F. BLACKER Profusely illustrated with numerous line and 64 half-tone illus trations, printed on art paper. In large crown 8vo, cloth, 55. net. This volume by Mr. J. F. Blacker is not a new edition of the Author s work previously published under the same title, but in all respects a new book. The text has been re-written in greater detail, new chapters dealing with Madeley, Church Gresley, Belleek, etc., have been embodied, the whole work has been reset from new type, many new illustrations of the highest class of china have been incorporated, and the prices realised at the sale of the late William Bemrose s collection are also given. Of the book which the present volume is designed to replace, 10,000 copies were sold within ten months. ABC of Collecting: Old English Pottery. J. P. BLACKER. Illustrated with about 400 line and 32 half-tone Illus trations. In large crown 8vo, cloth, 55. net. " Practically every known variety of old English pottery is dealt with, and the use fulness of the book is enhanced by the facsimile reproduction of the various marks, and by an appendix giving the prices realised by good examples at auction." Observer. " In this book the range is wide, stretching from Greek vrses to Napoleon jugs, and including a great deal of information on the Wedgwood productions and even on the willow-pattern. Salt glaze, lustre, slipware, puzzle jugs, Fulham, Astlniry, Lambeth, Leeds, Yarmouth, and numerous other wares are all given careful attention. Mr. Blacker speaks with the authority which comes from care, study and experience, and his pages are full of knowledge and accuracy which come from long familiarity with the subject." Bookmiin. " Mr. Blacker is to be congratulated on the production of a thoroughly good, trust worthy and informing handbook, and one that every co lector will find not only desirable but necessary." Pall Mall Gazette. The ABC about Collecting 1 . J. H. YOXALL, M.P. Profusely illustrated with numerous line and 32 half-tone illustra tions. In large crown 8vo, cloth, 55. net. Sir James H. Yoxall, M.P., as everyone knows, is a competent guide, and dealers, as well as amateurs, will find his book decidedly interesting and exceedingly helpful. Among a host of other subjects rrnb ared in this volume are Baxter Prints and Chiaroscuro, Licensee Oil Prints, Old Miniatures, Old Water-colour Drawings, Grandfather Clocks, Etchings, Old Books and Book Plates, Old Violins, Prout Prints and Drawings, Old China, Wedgwood Ware, etc. Indispensable to all Students of the Building Profession and all persons interested in Building Houses The Quantities of a Detached Residence; TAKEN-OFF, MEASURED, AND BILLED. With Drawings to Scale. GEORGE STEPHEXSON. Author of " Estimating," " Repairs," etc. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 75. 6d. net. Mr. George Stephenson who is a well-known authority on the subject, and author of many works on surveying and valuing gives a complete set of drawings figured and to scale of a modern residence, and a fully-detailed specification of all the trades, and then proceeds to show how to take off the Quantities from the drawings, and to Abstract and Bill them ready to prepare an estimate of the cost to erect and complete the building the work is shown in so clear and simple a manner that no student should fail to follow the instructions. " The book deals exhaustively with every detail of the subject. . . . The work of the dozen or so trades called in to co-operate in the formation of a domestic habitation being set out in the clearest tabular fashion, with specifications. The volume is admirably arranged and printed, and should meet with a steady demand, not only from students of architecture and building construction, but from the largo numbers of able, practical men who are desirous of improving their clerical and theoretical knowledge." Estates Gazette. " The leading Hying exponent of bis subject." Building Newt. 3 His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to accept a copy of Original Poems, Ballads and Tales in Verse for Reading, and Recitation. ALFRED H. MILES With frontispiece portrait in photogravure. In crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 35. 6d. net. This volume includes, with many poems which have never before appeared in print, the first collected presentation of the verse contri buted by the author to various anthologies and magazines, during the last twenty-five yenrs. The several sections comprise poems classified under headings: "The Romance of History," "In the Open," "Of Life," "Of Love," "Patria," "Religio," "In Lighter Vein," "On the Plat form, "Babydom," and "God s Acre," etc., etc., and include many varieties of subject, style and form. SOME PRESS OPINIONS " We are specially grateful to Mr. Miles for Pan : an Autumn Memory. " West minster Gazette. " Many pieces would serve capitally as recitations or readings. Some of the tales are highly diverting, and some marked by a shrewdness of observation and hint of satire. The would-be reciter may select things historical and things romantic, pieces dramatic, tragic, or humorous. A pleasantly attractive volume." Daily Te If graph. "The poems cover a wide range of thought and emotion ; many of the lyrics are full of tenderness and charm." Bookman. A New Departure. A 1 6/- net book at //- net Sidelights on the Court of France. Lieut. -Colonel ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, D.S.O. Author of " The Amours of Henri de Navarre a;;d of Marguerite de Valois," " Louis XIV. in Court and Camp," " The Regent of the Roue s," etc. In pictorial cover, is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. Colonel Andrew Haggard, is justly famed for the lightness of his touch as a writer of French Memoirs, with the result that critic after critic has described his successive romantic historical works as being " as interesting as a novel." Of these books none exceeds in the glamour of chivalry and human interest " Sidelights on the Court of France." SOME PRESS OPINIONS " Gifted with considerable ability in the presentation of character, and with a keen eye for dramatic effect, Colonel Andrew Haggard has studied the records of his stirring period with excellent results, and has evolved a series of vividly presented tragedies and comedies of love, war, intrigue, conspiracy, plot and counter plot, sketching in his sovereigns and famous statesmen, his soldiers and churchmen, his Queens and Court beauties, with a firm and vigorous hand. No lover of the romance of French history will be able to resist the fascination of this attractive volume." The World. " It may be said that not only is there not a dull page in Colonel Haggard s book, but he has also succeeded in bringing vividly before our eyes some of the most dra matic and exciting incident! of a dramatic and exciting period." The Athenteum. M %* The only New Gift Books of Mr. ALFRED H. MILES to be published tin s Autumn A NEW SERIES FOR BOYS AND GIRLS Each in large crown 8vo, 384 pages, fully illustrated, in handsome cloth gilt, with special cover designs, full gilt edges. 5s. each. " Mr. Alfred H. Miles is the Homer of modern Ajaxes and Hectors. He seems to have heard of more brave deeds than any man living." -Christian World. New Volumes Twixt Life and Death on Sea and Shore. A Book for Boys. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. A collection of stories of perilous adventures, dangerous situations, thrilling experiences, hairbreadth escapes, close calls and wild hap penings under all conditions of life and in all parts of the world. The soldier, the sailor, the explorer, the engineer, the hunter, the fireman, the diver, the courier, the pioneer, the Hindoo of the East and the Indian of the West, all afford true illustrations of courage and heroism shown in strait defiles twixt life and death. Most men pass through their own Thermopylae, and the Spartan though he be defeated is never disgraced. Heroines of the Home and the World of Duty. A Book for Girls. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. " Heroines of the Home and the World of Duty " is a volume of stories of girl life and experience under circumstances which bring out sterling qualities and develope womanly character. Some of these are of a domestic and others of a more adventurous order, but all tend to the encouragement of the high sense of duty that induces courage in effort and fortitude in endurance. The wider sphere of the modern girl demands of her increased strength of purpose and vigour of action, and true records of heroic conduct are her best inspirations. Volumes Already Issued A Book of Brave Boys All the World Over. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. " What could be more fascinating to the boy than the stories of brave deeds con tained in A Book of Brave Boys. 1 " Truth. A Book of Brave Girls At Home and Abroad. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. " It provides numerous mnd thrilling examples of heroism in all parts of the globe, and ought to prove very Inspiring." Morning Leader. In the Teeth of Adventure Up and Down the World. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. " A gloriously eiciting book for boys." Manchester Courier. 15 THE GUIDE SERIES These volumes fill a long- felt want. They are designed to supply useful information and instruction in a readily assimilable form on Art, the Drama, Music, etc. They take the young student by the hand and lead him by smooth and pleasant paths to the elysian fields of knowledge. Each volume handsomely bound in cloth gilt, and fully illustrated, price 5s. net A Guide to Mythology. HELKN A. CLARKE The gifted author of this book has lectured -and written extensively on Mythology for many years, hence she was admirably fitted to prepare this book for which there has been a long-felt need. She defines the myth, and traces the development of the various nature myths through their Greek, Norse and Oriental sources. This book is adapted either as an exhaustive guide or for occasional reading. In the constantly growing interest in the study of myths this volume will be found to possess unusual interest because of its educational value and genuine literary qualities. A Guide to Music. DANIEL GREGORY MASON The author discusses the theory of music in a simple but entertaining fashion, and then takes up in turn piano, orchestral and vocal music, treating the master composers and their work with brief but significant analysis. The author has avoided technical expressions as much as possible, and this book may be recommended not only to young readers but also to adult lovers of music who wish to increase their knowledge of the art. A Guide to Great Cities. ESTHER SINGLETON No one is more competent to write on the cities of Europe than Miss Singleton, ;md she lias here described with faithfulness and narrative skill the ten most notable cities of north-western Europe. A Guide to Pictures. CHARLES H. CAFFIN Author of "How to Study Pictures." Mr. Caffin is well known as the author of many other art books. In the present book Mr. Caffin instructs the child how to distinguish for himself those qualities which make for greatness in pictorial compo sition. He analyzes these qualities from well known examples, and his instructive criticism will prove of much value to parents and educators, while the perfect simplicity of reasoning and the entertain ing style will hold the attention of the average child. No attempt has been made to present many examples of the world s best paintings, since it has been thought more advisable to use the space to present to the reader the principles which will readily provide the means of selecting intelligently the pictures which most appeal to the individual taste. A Guide to United States History. HENRY W. ELSON. This is an excellent book to put into the hands of the adolescent, with a view to inspiring a taste for history. The young person who has known history only through the medium of school text-books will be agreeably surprised to find how fascinating it can be when told picturesquely by a nimble penman like Mr. H. W. Elson. This book outlines the salient features of United States History from the discovery of the new world by Columbus down to the close of the war with Spain and the construction of the Panama Canal. %* The above Series was originally entitled " The Child s Guide Series." A Handsome Gift Book. This is My Birthday. ANITA BARTLE With an introduction by ISRAEL ZANGWILL. Handsomely bound, gilt and gilt top, 756 pages, 2s. 6d. net. Also in various leather bindings. This is a unique volume, being a birthday-book of the great, living and dead, whether poets, artists, philosophers, statesmen, warriors, or novelists. A page of beautiful and characteristic quotations is appro priated to each name, and the page opposite is left blank for the filling in of new names. Everyone likes to know the famous people who were born on their natal day, and few will refuse to add their signa tures to such a birthday book as this. Mr. Zangwill has written a .charming introduction to the book, and there is a complete index. 17 An Imperial Failure : MARIE LOUISE, ARCHDUCHESS OF AUSTRIA, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH AND DUCHESS OF PARMA. EDITH E. CUTHELL, F.R.Hist.Soc. Author of " Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth," etc. Fully illustrated. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt. Bonapartist writers have been unsparing in their condemnation of Marie Louise, the second wife of Napoleon I. History has never judged her fairly, nor has her life-story hitherto been fully and impartially told. Artistic, cultivated, well-read, she was a peculiarly sweet and gentle, if weak character, possessing great charm, and a power of making and retaining devoted friendships. She was thrice sacrificed by an unscrupulous, if fond father, and his callous mentor Meternich, to reasons of policy. First as a mere girl, brought up in cloister-like seclusion, she was hastily forced into marriage with Napoleon. At his downfall, the same hands and for the same reasons ruthlessly tore her from him, and separated her cruelly from her son, throwing her with brutal want of principle into the snares of a fascinating libertine. After the storm and stress of her youth and early married life in the vortex of the Napoleonic upheaval and cataclysm, for 31 years she was the adored sovereign of the one happy and peaceful principality in Italy, when the Peninsular was wrecked with her travail for Liberty. Three Modern Seers. Mrs. HAVELOCK ELLIS Author of " My Cornish Neighbours," " Kit s Woman," etc. Illus trated from portraits. In crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 33. 6d. net. This fascinating volume treats of certain modern ideas expounded by three different types of men who are in the forefront of modern thought, namely : James Hinton, F.Nietzsche and Edward Carpenter. The re-valuation of moral ideas is always a startling process. Hinton shocked the prudes of the day by his view of the relations of the sexes. The time is now ripe for a sympathetic comprehension of his mystical message. Mrs. Havelock s Ellis s review of Hinton s life and ethics should receive an appreciative reading from all who are interested in social progress. In the daring iconoclastic utterances of Nietzsche, and the social message of Edward Carpenter, Mrs. Ellis finds much in common with the teachings of Hinton, and she has chosen these three men as representatives of the various sides of the moral and spiritual outlook of the age. Some Early Press Opinions. " A revelation of the minds of the writers concerned, and what is equally interest ing, a revelation of the views and ideas of their capable and earnest interpreter. "- Mr. HOLBROOK-JACKSON in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph. " Mrs. Havelock Ellis is a sincere, earnest and able writer." British Weekly. " Timely and suggestive." Daily Chronicle. " Stimulating and suggestive." Daily Telegraph. " Hinton was a pioneer who had to cut his way with an axe through forests of sus picion and misconception. . . . Mrs. Havelock Ellis furnishes a very vivid and instructive statement of several of his most distinctive tenets. 1 The Nation. " It is a pleasure to find an English writer, and especially a woman, writing with such moderation and understanding of Nietzsche. . . . Even those who think that s all right with our moral code must admit that there is force and reason in Mrs. Ellis s arguments." Sunday Times. 18 STANLEY PAUL S NEW 6/- FICTION The Lion s Skin. RAFAEL SABATINI Author of " Bardelys, the Magnificent," etc. Mr. Rafael Sabatini s new romance has London of the early eigh teenth century for its mise-en-scene, London of the time of George I., when the country was still quivering under the shock it had sustained from the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. The story has a strong human interest and a brisk rush of dramatic incidents. It will probably be adjudged that Mr. Sabatini has done nothing better than this. The Desire of Life. MATILDK SERAO Author of " Farewell Love," " Fantasy," " The Conquest of Rome," "After the Pardon," etc. Translated from the Italian by William Collinge, M.A. Matilde Serao enjoys a world-wide reputation. She strikes the cosmopolitan note in all her novels. In none has this international interest been so prominent as in " The Desire of Life " (Evviva La Vita), the scene of which is mainly laid in the Engadine, amidst the cosmo politan crowd that frequents the fashionable resorts of that earthly paradise. With such an environment the talented Italian novelist has full scope for that jewelled description and character analysis for which she is famous. The heroine is an English girl of rare charm and sweetness of disposition. An Empress in Love. FRED WHISHAW The " Empress " is Catherine the Great, who has fallen in love with Keith Malcolmson, a handsome Scotch merchant in St. Petersburg. This happens in the days of her youth, when Gregory and Alexis Orlof are still prime favourites, and her husband, Peter III., is still alive. The story describes Catherine s efforts to seduce the stalwart Scotsman from his allegiance to pretty Marjory Hungerford, daughter of an English merchant ; her failure to do so ; her anger, jealousy, vengeance ; the jealousy of Gregory Orlof and his animosity against the handsome Scotsman ; the Tsar s efforts to befriend Keith and the girl, and the eventual triumph and escape of the lovers. The Mulberries of Daphne. KATE HORN Author of "Edward and I and Mis. Honeybun," "Ships of Desire," etc. This story is full of those light and dainty touches which the authc-r of " Edward and I and Mrs. Honeybun " knows so well how to attain. Daphne, the daughter of a gay society woman, is engaged to a million aire, but her heart is unresponsive, and nature revolts against the alliance which expediency approves. She meets her life s hero in a young Army officer, but the prospect of poverty throws difficulties in the way of marriage. Whether love will ultimately triumph remains uncertain until the close of the story. 19 New Six Shilling Fiction continued The Third Wife. HERBERT FLOWERDEW Author of " The Second Elopement," etc. In this story we have another of those poignant dramas of married life with which the author s name is chiefly associated. It is a problem story in the sense that it makes the most orthodox of readers ask them selves whether there are not cases in which the marriage laws are not more honoured in their breach than in their observance. But it has nothing in common with those studies of neurotic temperaments and sexual obsessions which have brought discredit on the so-called "problem novel." The Werewolf. W. B. BEATTIE This historical novel of French life in the time of Anne of Austria and De Retz, tells of the power and passion of a brutal Grand Seigneur, and the wretched peasantry he oppresses. In this faithful and impressive Rembrandt picture of a brutal age, the dark and fiery Jeanse glows like a lamp in darkness. By the Grand Seigneur s orders she is forced to wed a man she does not love, and whom he hates, intending to perpe trate on their wedding night a terrible revenge. Jeanne is on het mettle, and thrilling struggles and hairbreadth escapes end in Jeanne s happi ness. The famous beauty, Ninon de L Enclos, and the Cardinal De Retz, figure prominently in this moving drama. The Justice of the King. HAMILTON DRUMMOND Author of " Shoes of Gold," etc. This story centres round the reign of Louis XL, one of the most interesting periods in the history of France. Crafty and cruel, Louis XI. was indifferent to the welfare of individuals, though devoted to the building up of his country, and this story is full of exciting incidents, plots and counter-plots. Other historical characters dealt with in the story include Charles the Dauphin, Commines, and Francis Villon. There is a strong love interest. The Bungalow under the Lake. CHARLES E. PEARCE Author of "The Amazing Duchess," " Love Besieged," etc. The immediate and pronounced success of this author s first novel, " Love Besieged, 1 has encouraged Mr. Pearce long known as the prince of serial writers to venture on a further effort. This novel of mystery tells of a woman of strongly emotional nature who, through force of circumstance, has been compelled from childhood to fight the world alone. New Six Shilling Fiction - continued Across the Gulf. NEWTON V. STEWART Author of " A Son of the Emperor." All lovers of historical fiction will remember the " Son of the Emperor," as a vivid story taken from the I3th century. " Across the Gulf " deals with modern times, and is of unusual interest as it unravels the difficul ties of a friendship between a woman of high birth and a man of the people, which gives occasion for some uncommon situations. Love at Cross Purposes. ALEXANDER OTIS A light, bright, and amusing comedy of mistaken identity. Basil Plympton, a dramatic critic of distinction, leaving town by night express for a much needed holiday, is mistaken by a porter for a certain Rev. gentleman who is bound for the country residence of a millionaire who is determined to marry his daughter to a man she dislikes. Half- asleep, Basil is hurried into the parson s clothes, helped into a vehicle, driven off to the house of the millionaire. He is welcomed as the Rev. Tupper, and amusing complications arise, which end in happiness for Plympton and the daughter of the millionaire. The Amazing Mutes : Their Week in Lovely Lucerne WARD MUIR. Author of " When we are Rich." A gently satirical comedy of that very modern institution the "rheap trip " though the satire touches not only the trippers themselves, but also those Superior Persons who would indignantly repudiate that name, yet to whom it is quite literally applicable. The well-born and leisured hero joins a conducted party on a five guinea " week in Lovely Lucerne," and is startled lo find that his aunt s butler is one of the most distin- gu of his fellow travellers. Many farcical complications arise, but end after a happy disentanglement, with the sound of wedding bells. A Week at the Sea. HAROLD AVERY Author of "Mobsley s Mohicans," "Heads or Tails," "Shale s Sharpshooters," etc. An amusing light comedy of a holiday week at the sea, crowded with diverting incidents, strange happenings, mistakes, misconceptions and misunderstandings. Angela. ST. JOHN TREVOR Foysyth, a cynical bachelor, is startled one evening by the intrusion into his sanctum of a strange lady. Thereafter she is destined to play an important part in Forsyth s life. She falls in love with him, but he is impervious. Later he meets "Angela," charming, innocent beautiful ; the other woman, with remorseless cruelty, plots her ruin. Thence arises a very interesting situation. 21 New Six Shilling Fiction continued In Extenuation of Sybella. URSULA A BECKETT There is a charm and freshness about Sybella which eludes description, and she is not half so naughty as she seems. Expert though she is in all feminine arts, she somehow fails to capture any of her wealthy admirers. Her protracted spinsterhood beginning to alarm, she and her aunt Venables, a charming widow, welcome an invitation from a relative to spend a " cold weather " in India, as an opportunity not to be missed. The voyage affords love episodes sufficient to satisfy even Sybella, and there seems every prospect of her "hooking" a millionaire, but, at the last moment, he falls a prize to the more adroit angling of the Aunt ; Sybella, however, is requited by a true love match. The Lady of the Bungalow. E. EVERETT-GREEN Author of "A Will in a Well," "Co-Heiresses," "City of the Golden Gate," etc. Vera Glenarvon is engaged to the " lion " of the season, Hailsham, who suddenly informs her that he must break off the engagement. He and a man called Cassilis are together when she comes upon them, and instinct tells her that Cassilis is responsible for the rupture ; he does not deny it. Her object thenceforth is to wreck the life of Cassilis as he has wrecked hers. But under remarkable circumstances she gradually begins to find that Cassilis and not Hailsham is the lover of her choice, and she learns why it was that Cassilis stood between her and Hail sham. She saves his life from the latter, who seeks to take it, and rewards him with her own love. [Feb. 1911 Love and Bissaker. WILFRID L. RANDELL Author of " Quaker Robins," etc. Bissaker is engaged to a girl belonging to the " Primitive Indepen dents," a narrow-minded sect, and on coming to business in London has his eyes opened rather widely. The story of his experiments in love, his curious experiences with the women he meets, form the main theme of the book, and in one incident at least a difficult subject is treated with originality and delicacy. There is tragedy as well as comedy in the story of bewildered Bissaker, but the end is on a note of happiness. The Feet of the Years. JOHN DALISON HYDE Author of "Mrs. Maclean," " The Cloudy Porch," etc. This new novel should rank as one of the successes of the season. It tells of the betrayal of Penelope, a darkly beautiful and passionate girl, innocent but trustful. Her lover, a rich fast man, thinks to throw her off with impunity, and make a marriage of convenience, but in the end his better self prevails. The Dragon Painter. SIDNEY MCCALL Author of " The Breath of the Gods," etc. " A story of Japan its air shimmering with the movement of Japanese life, thought and art in which we see the old master Kano Indara, the last of a mighty line of artists, his daughter Ume-Ko, and an untamed mountain artist, Fatsu, the Dragon Painter ; and trace the conflict between art and passion, filial and marital love developed with line insight." The Times. New Six Shilling Fiction continued The Little Gods. ROWLAND THOMAS " One of the best volumes we have read for a long time . . such as Mr. Rudyard Kipling might have written throbbing with warm life, glowing with vivid colour, intensely human and extraordinarily realistic." Standard. " The artistry of the narrative is almost worthy of Maupassant . . . a fascinating book." Academy. Where Truth Lies. FORD H. MADOX HUEFFER Author of "The Half Moon," "Mr. Apollo," "An English Girl," etc. Truscott, a destitute clerk, suddenly becomes an earl. He finds him self starving the same night on the Thames Embankment with a 1,000 cheque in his pocket, no means of cashing it, and unable to persuade any one to believe his story. He undertakes a mysterious errand, and meets a runaway girl supposed to be guilty of forgery, but really innocent. Truscott, out of sympathy for the girl, pretends he is a criminal also. After many comic incidents, the tangle is at last unravelled satisfactorily to all. The story shows vividly the perils of impersonation, but there is no attempt to point a moral. [Ready Spring, 1911 The Dean s Daughter. CECIL ADAIR Author of " Cantacute Towers." The Dean s Daughter, a girl possessed of much personal charm, is wooed by the son of a neighbouring squire. She had loved once and could not give her whole heart to him, but she inclined to believe it her duty to accept his addresses in the hope that she might reform his character. Before she has quite decided, the young man and his father are murdered. Thus the wooing of the squire s son is brought to a tragic close, and the Dean s daughter, greatly beloved, remains a spinster. The story goes on to describe how suspicion falls on the next heir, and how, after many thrilling incidents, he and his sweetheart enter on a life of happiness. Love in Armour. PHILIP L. STEVENSON Author of " The Rose of Dauphiny," " A Gallant of Gascony," etc. Mr. Stevenson writes historical romances with a vigour, verve and enthusiasm which have led several critics to compare him with Dumas. He does not, like some writers, economise his situations. He is lavish of hairbreadth escapes and exciting incidents, and his readers are whirled along with him in a high state of excitement from the first page to the last. " Love in Armour " is, perhaps, the best novel Mr. Stevenson has yet written. " The Times " critic, writing of his last novel, "The Rose of Dauphiny," says: "Mr. Stevenson is winning an honourable place among the school of Mr. Stanley Weyman." A Man with a Past. A, ST. JOHN ADCOCK Author of " Billicks," etc. Tells how on Olive s wedding day her husband is wanted ; of the exploits of a clever and designing villian, and of the ultimate happi ness of a long-suffering heroine. Instinct with comedy, and the kind of melodrama that happens in real life. New Six Shilling Fiction continued A Lady of the Garter. FKANK HAM EL Author of " The Dauphines of France," "An Eighteenth Century Marquise," etc. The gorgeous ceremonies attending the inauguration of the Most Noble Order of the Garter inspire Lady Katherine Merivale, who has had chivalric ideals from childhood, with a longing to embark upon an adventurous career. Her beauty arouses the passions of two knights, who fight for the right to wear her colours. The difficulties into which their rivalry plunges her necessitates her taking a journey to France in time of war. There she wins the friendship of the wife of the dauphin Charles, and follows up a quest of no little importance. Her message of peace to the F.nglish King, her courage during the siege of Meaux, her devotion, her suffering, and her triumphant rescue of the man she loves gain for her an unexpected reward. When We are Rich WARD MUIR Author of " The Amazing Mutes." A frivolous chronicle of frivolous affairs, with a hint of the serious that gives it a decided charm and convincingness. [Spring, 1911 Did Gordon Die in Vain? DOUGLAS SLADEN Author of " The Tragedy of the Pyramids," etc. This novel is brimful of romance and glowing battle scenes. It presents a study of the heroic figure of Gordon that will stir the reader s deepest emotions. The story has for its background the new Soudan, the tropical Utopia of peace and prosperity which has arisen from the blood and ashes of the Mahdi s reign. Amid the drums of war advancing across the desert, to the final days of Omdurman and Omdebrekat, the heroine of the story figures prominently in a great love episode. Cantacute Towers. CECIL ADAIR Author of "The Dean s Daughter." This is an exciting and intensely interesting love story. The human interest is very strong, and there is plenty of incident and plot. This writer is winning his way rapidly and steadily to a wide public. The Riding Master. DOLF WYLLARDE Dolf Wyllarde is one of those writers who move easily from triumph to triumph every new novel from her pen is a new success, and " The Riding Master " will certainly be accounted by a wide public one of the most fascinating stories she has written. Madge Carrington and her Welsh Neighbours. "DRAIG GLAS." Author of "The Perfidious Welshman" (Ninth Edition). In "The Perfidious Welshman" " Draig Glas" showed a gift for satirising the oddities and idiosyncrasies of a race that won him instantaneously a wide public. In "Madge Carrington and her Welsh Neighbours " he manifests equal ability in the field of fiction. It is a clever study of 4 Welsh village life. 24 New Six Shilling fiction continued Just Published Young Nick and Old Nick. S. R. CROCKETT* " Written with Mr. Crockett s characteristic force of style." Academy, " Typical of Mr. Crockett s characteristic strength of invention and picturesqueness of diction . . . the book will find many pleased readers among his admirers." Scotsman, The Cheerful Knave. KEBLE HOWARD " He is an unconscionable knave, a thorough paced knave, yet, in the words of the song, yer can t elp likin him. " Daily ChrcniJe. " The story is excellent light fare, especially for hammock, punt, or railway carriage corner." Observer, " The knave is delightful, the hero is loveable, the policemen and servants are most delectable, and the whole thing is funny from beginning to tad*" Evening Standard, A Wild Intrigue. HEW SCOT " \vigorous and genuinely sensation* novel, exciting and original." Morning Leader. " The story is well told and interesting, reminding us somewhat of Mr. Le Queux s interesting romances of foreign intrigue and secret societies." Literary World. The Crimson Gate. G. COLMORE " Miss Colmore is too much of an artist to forget that the tale s the thing. Miss Colmore s book is deeply interesting in a very simple and human way." Evening Standatd, " A curiously minute study of a woman s temperament. Crisply written." Pall Mali Gazette, " It would be difficult to better the opening chapters with their complete realisation of the scenes, the selection of the details, the whole economy of words." Standard. Lying Lips. WILLIAM LE QUEUX " This is a typical Le Queux story, from the title and the arresting chapter headings onwards." Outlook, " There is movement and breathless interest in " Lying Lips." Daily Chronicle, " Mr. Le Queux is a master of mystery. A capital plot handled in the author $ best style." Literary World. A Splendid Heritage. Mrs. STEPHEN BATSON " A delightful story, interesting, clever and original." Evening Standard. " The village social life is delightfully handled, and Mrs. Batson deserves full credit for the variety and Uuth of her characters." The Times. " This is one of the few novels that imprebs one on every page with extraordinary truth to life. It works out capitally and ends effectively, and is a real contribution to real novels." Observer. The Marriage Ring. F. J. Cox " The book is solid thought, honest writing and very good reading." Truth. " It is a decidedly strong book, the strength coming out alike in the boldness with which the subject is handled and in the portrayal of the leading characters. The;e are also some excellent descriptive passages in the book, and the dramatic power of th writer is obvious from beginning to end." Aberdeen Journal, 25 SIX SHILLING NOVELS The Bottom of the Well. The Secret Terror. The Gay Paradines. The Trickster. Priests of Progress. Golden Aphrodite. An Adventure in Exile. Pretty Barbara. Co-Heiresses. A Will in a Well. The Second Elopement. The Dream and the Woman. The Chippendales Troubled Waters. The Ghost Pirates. Edward and I and Mrs. Honeybun. Plumage. Strange Fire. Love, the Thief. Gay Lawless. The Flame Dancer. In Calvert s Valley. The Leveller. i ear. Banzai ! Love Besieged. That is to Say A Lady of France. Quaker Robins. The Hose of Dauphiny. Tumult. The Submarine Girl. Heartbreak Hill. The Vortex. Tropical Tales. CORALIE F. UPHAM ADAMS " BRENDA " MRS. STEPHEN BATSON G. B. BURGIN G. COLMORE WINIFRED CRISPE RICHARD DUFFY ANTHONY DYLLINGTON E. EVERETT-GREEN E. EVERETT-GREEN HERBERT FLOWERDEW TOM GALLON ROBERT GRANT HEADON HILL W. HOPE HODGSON KATE HORN STANTON & HEATH HOSKEN CHRISTOPHER MAUGHAN HELEN MATHERS HELEN MATHERS F. A. MATHEWS M. I RESCOTT MONTAGUE ALEXANDER MCARTHUR E. NESBIT " PARABELLUM " CHARLES E. PEARCE " RITA " B. SYMONS WILFRID L. RANDELL PHILIP L. STEVENSON WILKINSON SHERREN EDGAR TURNER HERMAN K. VIELE FRED WHISHAW DOLF WYLLARDE No. 5 John Street. RICHARD WHITEING In crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 35. 6d. NEW SHILLING NOVELS In attractive pictorial covers, Is. net. In cloth, 2s. net " The pictorial covers of Messrs. Stanley Paul s new shilling series are an attractive feature on the bookstalls, and the numbers seen in the hands of travellers by train is sure testimony to the great popularity of these books. 1 Bedford Guardian. The Mystery of Roger Bullock. TOM GALLON In this entirely new novel Mr. Tom Gallon takes full advantage of his great gift for depicting certain types of human character on a background of thrilling mystery. It is replete with exciting incident in which woman plays no mean part. Bardelys, the Magnificent. RAFAEL SABATINI Author of "The Lion s Skin," " Cesare Borgia," etc. This is one of the breeziest and briskest stories Mr. Rafael Sabatini has erer penned. It had a very great success in the six shilling form, and is now published for the first time at a popular price. A dramatic version has been prepared, in which Mr. Lewis Waller takes the leading part. Love, the Thief. HELEN MATHERS "The book is absorbingly interesting. Helen Mathers has never done anything better than the character of the squire. Next in vivid interest comes Kit, the heroine, an extraordinary study, compact of opposite qualites. puzzling and delightful." Truth. Billicks. A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK With cover design and original illustrations by GEORGE FYFFE-CHRISTIE. "Billicks," is a quaint, sagacious cockney, who drives one of the fast-vanishing horse omnibuses. He is a humorist and a philosopher, and chats with and discourses to passengers or to his conductor on love and marriage, work and holidays, education, old age, illusions, plain speaking, riches, poverty, kissing, patriotism, and other topics of universal interest, illustrating his quaintly shrewd opinions and aphorisms with anecdotes drawn from a very wide and varied experience of men and affairs. The Cabinet Minister s Wife. GEO. R. SIMS The Dream and the Woman. TOM GALLON ALREADY ^PUBLISHED 1 The Widow to Say Nothing of the Man. HELEN ROWLAND 2 Thoroughbred. FRANCIS DODSWORTH 3 The Spell of the Jungle. ALICE PERRIN 4 The Sins of Society (Drury Lane Novels). CECIL RALEIGH 5 The Marriages of Mayfair. ditto E. KEBLE CHATTERTON 6 A Ten Pound Penalty. H. NOEL WILLIAMS 7 Priests of Progress. G. COLMORE 8 Gay Lawless. HELEN MATHERS 9 A Professional Rider. MRS EDWARD KENNARD 10 The Devil in London. GEO. R. SIMS 11 The Unspeakable Scot. T. W. H. CROSLAND 12 Lovely Woman. T. W. H. CROSLAND 13 Fatal Thirteen. WILLIAM LE QUEUX 14 Brother Rogue and Brother Saint. TOM GALLON 15 Ihe Death Gamble. GEO. R. SIMS 16 Indiscretions. COSMO HAMILTON 27 STANLEY PAUL S CLEAR TYPE SIXPENNY NOVELS Readers of the delightful love stories of Mr. Charles Garvice and Effie Adelaide Rowlands will appreciate the charming love romances of Charlotte Brame, now issued in the first instance at Sixpence each in Stanley Paul s < Clear Type Novels. " For sheer value, for interest, for careful production, we have never seen any thing better." Colonial Bookseller, " Wonderful value." Dundee Advertiser. 1 Stolen Honey. ADA & DUDLEY JAMES 2 The Human Boy Again. EDEN PHILLPOTTS 3 Troubled Waters. HEADON HILL 4 Adventures of a Pretty Woman. FLORENCE WARDEN 5 Shoes of Gold. HAMILTON DRUMMOND 6 City of the Golden Gate. E. EVERETT-GREEN 7 The Trickster. G. B. BURGIN 8 Indiscretions. COSMO HAMILTON 9 St. Elmo. AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON 10 Traffic. E. TEMPLE THURSTON 1 1 Cornelius. Mrs. HENRY DE LA PASTURE 12 A Splendid Destiny. EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS 13 Little Lady Charles. 14 The Mistress of the Farm. 15 The Man She Married. J6 Beneath a Spell. 17 Dare and Do. ,, 18 The House of Sunshine. 19 A Charity Girl. 20 The Love of his Life. 25 White Abbey. 26 The Wooing of Rosie. 27 Love s Mask. 21 The Evolution of Katherine. E. TEMPLE THURSTON 22 Co-Heiresses. E. EVERETT-GREEN 23 The Wonder of Love. E. MARIA ALBANESI 24 Heart of his Heart. 28 At the Eleventh Hour. CHARLOTTE BRAME 29 ClaribePs Love Story 30 Lord Lynne s Choice. 31 The Mystery of Colde Fell. 32 A Shadowed Life. 33 A Struggle for a Ring. 18 MUSIC AND ELOCUTION Our National Songs. ALFRED H. MILES. With Pianoforte Accom paniments. Full music size. Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges, 6s. The Library of Elocution. 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