The average American face is, I think, keener than ours and healthier.
One sees fewer ruined faces than in English cities, fewer men and women
who have lost self-respect and self-control. The American people as a
whole strike the observer as being more prosperous, more alert and
ambitious, than the English. Where I found mean streets they were always
in the occupation of aliens.
To revert to the matter of clothes, the American does as little as
possible to make things easy for the conjectural observer. In England
one can base guesses of some accuracy on attire. In a railway carriage
one can hazard without any great risk of error the theory that this man
is in trade and that in a profession, that another is a stockbroker, and
a fourth a country squire. But America is full of surprises, due to the
uniformity of clothing and a certain carelessness which elevates comfort
to a ritual. The man you think of as a millionaire may be a drummer, the
drummer a millionaire. Again, in England people are known to a certain
extent by the hotels they stay at, the restaurants they eat at, and the
class in which they travel. Such superficial guides fail one in America.
PROHIBITION AGAIN
I can best indicate, without the mechanical assistance of dates, the
time of my sojourn in New York by saying that, during those few weeks,
Woodrow Wilson's successor was being sought, the possibility of the
repeal of the Prohibition Act was a matter of excited interest, and
"Babe" Ruth was the national hero.
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