eably patient with him. He is genial--very willing to talk with
polyglot headwaiters and chauffeurs; in fact the wife and daughters are
also practised conversationalists, although their most loyal admirers
must admit that their voices _are_ a trifle sharp or flat. These ladies
are more widely read than "papa." He has not had much leisure for
Ruskin and Symonds and Ferrero. His lack of historical training limits
his curiosity concerning certain phases of his European surroundings;
but he uses his eyes well upon such general objects as trains,
hotel-service, and Englishmen. In spite of his habitual geniality, he
is rather critical of foreign ways, although this is partly due to his
lack of acquaintance with them. Intellectually, he is really more
modest and self-distrustful than his conversation or perhaps his
general bearing would imply; in fact, his wife and daughters,
emboldened very likely by the training of their women's clubs, have a
more commendable daring in assaulting new intellectual positions.

Yet the American does not lack quickness, either of wits or emotion.
His humor and sentiment make him an entertaining companion. Even when
his spirits run low, his patriotism is sure to mount in proportion, and
he can always tell you with enthusiasm in just how many days he expects
to be back again in what he calls "God's country."

This, or something like this, is the "American" whom the European
regards with curiosity, contempt, admiration, or envy, as the case may
be, but who is incontestably modifying Western Europe, even if he is
not, as many journalists and globe-trotters are fond of asserting,
"Americanizing" the world. Interesting as it is to glance at him
against that European background which adds picturesqueness to his
qualities, the "Man from Home" is still more interesting in his native
habitat. There he has been visited by hundreds of curious and observant
foreigners, who have left on record a whole literature of bewildered
and bewildering, irritating and flattering and amusing testimony
concerning the Americans. Settlers like Crevecoeur in the glowing dawn
of the Republic, poets like Tom Moore, novelists like Charles
Dickens,--other novelists like Mr. Arnold Bennett,--professional
travellers like Captain Basil Hall, students of contemporary sociology
like Paul Bourget and Mr. H. G. Wells, French journalists, German
professors, Italian admirers of Colonel Roosevelt, political theorists
like De Tocqueville,