ower, because just to look at we should not call these of the
Senator's class. But think what brains they must have, and what
vitality; and those things matter a great deal more than looks to a
country.

The Senator said the type would culminate in Chicago, and gradually get
finer again out in the far West. And he seemed right, from the
impression we got of the crowd in this hotel. It was rather like a
Christmas nightmare, when everyone had turned into a plum pudding, or
those gingerbread men the old woman by the Wavebeach pier used to sell.
Do you remember, Mamma? Perfectly square and solid. They are ahead of
Detroit, and at the six coat stage here. Probably all as good as gold,
and kind and nice and full of virtues; but for strangers who don't know
all these things, just to look at, they make one think one is dreaming.

Do you suppose it is, if they have to be so much among pork and meat
generally, perhaps that makes them solid? We did not know a soul to
speak to, nor did the Senator either, though he said he was acquainted
with many nice people in Chicago; so perhaps they were just travellers
like us after all, and we have no right to judge of a place by them.

We supped--we had arrived very late--and watched the world in from the
theatres. We don't know of what class they were, or of what society,
only they were not the least like New York. The women were, some of
them, very wonderfully dressed, though not that exquisite Paris look of
the New Yorkers, and they had larger hats and brighter colours; and
numbers of them were what the Senator calls "homely." We were very
silent,--naturally, we did not like to say our thoughts aloud to the
Senator, an American; but he spoke of it to us himself.

He said his eye, accustomed to the slender lean cowboys and miners,
found them just as displeasing as he was sure we must. "Lordy," he
said, "they look a set of qualifying prize-fighters gorged with
sausage-meat, and then soaked in cocktails." And though that sounds
frightfully coarse to write, Mamma, it is rather true. Then he added,
"And yet some of the brightest brains of our country have come from
Chicago. I guess they kept pretty clear of this crowd."

One of the strangest things is that no one is old, never more than
sixty and generally younger; the majority from eighteen to thirty-five,
and also, something we have remarked everywhere, everyone seems happy.
You do not see weary, tired, bored faces, like in Europe, and n