Meanwhile an illusion of antiquity is set up by New York's habit of
commingling business houses and private residences, which surely belongs
to an older order of society. In London we have done away with such a
blend. Our nearest approach to Fifth Avenue is, I suppose, Regent
Street; but there are no mansions among the shops of Regent Street. Our
shops are there and our mansions are elsewhere, far away, in what we
call residential quarters--such as Park Lane, Queen's Gate, Mayfair,
the Bayswater Road, and Grosvenor Square. To turn out of Fifth Avenue
into the quiet streets where people live is to receive a distinct
impression of sedateness such as New York is never supposed to convey.
One has the same feeling in the other great American cities.
But when it comes to their inhabitants there are to the English eye
fewer signs of maturity. I have never been able to get rid of the idea
that every one I have met in America, no matter how grave a senior,
instead of being really and self-consciously in the thick of life, is
only getting ready to begin. Perhaps this is due in part to the
pleasure--the excitement almost--which American business men--and all
Americans are business men--take in their work. They not merely do it,
but they enjoy doing it and they watch themselves doing it. They seem to
have a knack of withdrawing aside and observing themselves as from the
stalls, not without applause.
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