st slavery; and in
enraging the North after the war began, by reason of our totally
unexpected Southern sympathies. It is a curious history of
wrongheadedness and ignorance.

This was a big thing. The things which the English traveller in the
States now notices are little things; as life is made up of little
things, he is noting differences all day long, because everything that
he sees is different. Speech is different: the manner of enunciating
the words is different; it is clearer, slower, more grammatical; among
the better sort it is more careful; it is even academical. We English
speak thickly, far back in the throat, the voice choked by beard and
moustache, and we speak much more carelessly. Then the way of living
at the hotels is different; the rooms are much--very much--better
furnished than would be found in towns of corresponding size in
England--_e.g._, at Providence, Rhode Island, which is not a large
city, there is a hotel which is most beautifully furnished; and at
Buffalo, which is a city half the size of Birmingham, the hotel is
perhaps better furnished than any hotel in London. An immense menu is
placed before the visitor for breakfast and dinner. There is an
embarrassment of choice. Perhaps it is insular prejudice which makes
one prefer the simple menu, the limited choice, and the plain food of
the English hotels. At least, rightly or wrongly, the English hotels
appear to the English traveller the more comfortable. I return to the
differences. In the preparation and the serving of food there are
differences--the mid-day meal, far more in America than in England, is
the national dinner. In most American hotels that received us we found
the evening meal called supper--and a very inferior spread it was,
compared to the one o'clock service. In the drinks there is a
difference--the iced water which forms so welcome a part of every meal
in the States is generally the only drink; it is not common, out of
the great cities, to see claret on the table. There are differences in
the conduct of the trains and in the form of the railway carriages;
differences in the despatch and securing of luggage; difference in the
railway whistle; difference in the management of the station, until
one knows the way about, travelling in America is a continual trial to
the temper. Until, for instance, an understanding of the manners and
customs in this respect has been attained, the conveyance of the
luggage to the hotel is a ruino