These things and more will be found in that book of the American in
England when it appears. You see how small and worthless and
prejudiced would be such a volume. Well, it is precisely such a volume
that the ordinary traveller is capable of writing. All the things that
I have mentioned are accidentals; they are differences which mean
nothing; they are not essentials; what I wish to show is that he who
would think rightly of a country must disregard the accidentals and
get at the essentials. What follows is my own attempt--which I am well
aware must be of the smallest account--to feel my way to two or three
essentials.
First and foremost, one essential is that the country is full of
youth. I have discovered this for myself, and I have learned what the
fact means and how it affects the country. I had heard this said over
and over again. It used to irritate me to hear a monotonous repetition
of the words, 'Sir, we are a young county.' Young? At least, it is
three hundred years old; nor was it till I had passed through New
England, and seen Buffalo and Chicago--those cities which stand
between the east and time west--and was able to think and compare,
that I began to understand the reality and the meaning of those words,
which have now become so real and mean so much.
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