at as soon as an English literary man finishes
a book he is rushed across to America to tell the people of the United
States and Canada all about it, and how he came to write it. At home, in
his own country, they don't care how he came to write it. He's written
it and that's enough. But in America it is different. One month after
the distinguished author's book on The Boyhood of Botticelli has
appeared in London, he is seen to land in New York very quietly out of
one of the back portholes of the Olympic. That same afternoon you will
find him in an armchair in one of the big hotels giving off impressions
of America to a group of reporters. After which notices appear in
all the papers to the effect that he will lecture in Carnegie Hall on
"Botticelli the Boy". The audience is assured beforehand. It consists of
all the people who feel that they have to go because they know all about
Botticelli and all the people who feel that they have to go because they
don't know anything about Botticelli. By this means the lecturer is
able to rake the whole country from Montreal to San Francisco
with "Botticelli the Boy". Then he turns round, labels his lecture
"Botticelli the Man", and rakes it all back again. All the way across
the continent and back he emits impressions, estimates of national
character, and surveys of American genius. He sails from New York in a
blaze of publicity, with his cordon of reporters round him, and a month
later publishes his book "America as I Saw It". It is widely read--in
America.

In the course of time a very considerable public feeling was aroused
in the United States and Canada over this state of affairs. The lack of
reciprocity in it seemed unfair. It was felt (or at least I felt)
that the time had come when some one ought to go over and take some
impressions off England. The choice of such a person (my choice) fell
upon myself. By an arrangement with the Geographical Society of America,
acting in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society of England (to
both of whom I communicated my proposal), I went at my own expense.

It is scarcely feasible to give here full details in regard to my outfit
and equipment, though I hope to do so in a later and more extended
account of my expedition. Suffice it to say that my outfit, which was
modelled on the equipment of English lecturers in America, included a
complete suit of clothes, a dress shirt for lecturing in, a fountain
pen and a silk hat. The dress