New Orleans and
others, are not as a rule beautiful; even Washington, the capital, was a
tremendous disappointment to my expectant gaze; though my judgment might
possibly be affected by the following incident. While standing at the
entrance of the extremely beautiful New Union Railway Station a cab
drove up, out of which a woman stepped, followed by a man. He hurried
after her, and right in front of me drew a pistol and shot her dead, and
even again fired twice into her body as she lay on the ground. Then he
quickly but coolly put the gun to his own head and killed himself.

This city seems badly planned and some of its great federal buildings
are monstrous. The Pennsylvania Avenue is an eyesore and a disgrace to
the nation. Boston, I believe, is all that it should be. Denver is a
delightful town. New York, incomparable for its fabulous wealth, its
unequalled shops, its magnificently and boldly-conceived office
buildings and apartment blocks, its palatial and perfectly-appointed
hotels, its dirty and ill-paved streets, is the marvel of the age and is
every year becoming more so. Its growth continues phenomenal. If not
now it will soon be the pulse of the world.

There is never occasion in American hotels, as there is in English, in
my own experience, to order your table waiter to go and change his
greasy, filthy coat or to clean his finger-nails! No, in the smallest
country hotel in the United States the proprietor knows that his guests
actually prefer a table servant to have clean hands, a clean coat, etc.,
and waiters in restaurants are obliged to wear thin, light and noiseless
boots or shoes, not clodhoppers.

That phenomenon and much-criticized individual, the American child, is
blessed with such bright intelligence that at the age of ten he or she
is as companionable to the "grown-up" as the youth of twenty of other
countries, and much more interesting.

English people are inclined to think Americans brusque and even not very
polite. Let me assure them that they are the politest of people, though
happily not effusive. They are also the most sympathetic and, strange as
it may appear, the most sentimental. Their sympathy I have tested and
experienced. Their brusqueness may arise from the fact that they have no
time to give to formalities. But a civil question will always be civilly
answered, and answered intelligently. Nor are Americans toadies or
snobs; they are independent, self-reliant and self-respecting peopl