... I say that these accidents and
these guerrillas mysteriously and grimly proceeding in the skyey fabric
of metal-ribbed constructions, do really form part of the poetry of life
in America--or should it be the poetry of death? Assuredly they are a
spectacular illustration of that sublime, romantic contempt for law and
for human life which, to a European, is the most disconcerting factor
in the social evolution of your States. I have sat and listened to tales
from journalists and other learned connoisseurs till--But enough!

* * * * *

When I left New York and went to Washington I was congratulated on
having quitted the false America for the real. When I came to Boston I
received the sympathies of everybody in Boston on having been put off
for so long with spurious imitations of America, and a sigh of happy
relief went up that I had at length got into touch with a genuine
American city. When, after a long pilgrimage, I attained Chicago, I was
positively informed that Chicago alone was the gate of the United
States, and that everything east of Chicago was negligible and even
misleading. And when I entered Indianapolis I discovered that Chicago
was a mushroom and a suburb of Warsaw, and that its pretension to
represent the United States was grotesque, the authentic center of the
United States being obviously Indianapolis.... The great towns love thus
to affront one another, and their demeanor in the game resembles the
gamboling of young tigers--it is half playful and half ferocious. For
myself, I have to say that my heart was large enough to hold all I saw.
While I admit that Indianapolis struck me as very characteristically
American, I assert that the unreality of New York escaped me. It
appeared to me that New York was quite a real city, and European
geographies (apt to err, of course, in matters of detail) usually locate
it in America.

Having regard to the healthy mutual jealousy of the great towns, I feel
that I am carrying audacity to the point of foolhardiness when I state
that the streets of every American city I saw reminded me on the whole
rather strongly of the streets of all the others. What inhabitants of
what city could forgive this? Yet I must state it. Much of what I have
said of the streets of New York applies, in my superficial opinion, for
instance, to the streets of Chicago. It is well known that to the
Chinaman all Westerners look alike. No tourist on his first visit