ed by externals, and
many definite opinions were expressed after he left concerning his
modesty, his manliness and his faculty for being "a good mixer," which
is the faculty Americans most admire.

II

Wednesday, November 13th, was a busy day. The Prince was out early
driving through the beautiful avenues of the city in a round of
functions.

Washington is one of the most attractive of cities to drive in. It is
a city, one imagines, built to be the place where the architects'
dreams come true. It has the air of being a place where the designer
has been able to work at his best; climate and a clarified air, natural
beauty and the approbation of brother men have all conspired to help
and stimulate.

It has scores of beautiful and magnificently proportioned buildings,
each obviously the work of a fine artist, and practically every one of
those buildings has been placed on a site as effective and as
appropriate as its design. That, perhaps, was a simple matter, for the
whole town had been planned with a splendid art. Its broad avenues and
its delightful parks fit in to the composite whole with an exquisite
justness. Its residences have the same charm of excellent
craftsmanship one appreciates in the classic public buildings; they are
mellow in colouring, behind their screen of trees; nearly all are true
and fine in line, while some--an Italianate house on, I think, 15th
Avenue, which is the property of Mr. McLean of the _Washington Post_,
is one--are supremely beautiful.

The air of the city is astonishingly clear, and the grave white
buildings of the Public Offices, the splendid white aspiration of the
skyscrapers, have a sparkling quality that shows them to full
advantage. There may, of course, be more beautiful cities than
Washington, but certainly Washington is beautiful enough.

The streets have an exhilaration. There is an intense activity of
humanity. Automobiles there are, of course, by the thousand, parked
everywhere, with policemen strolling round to chalk times on them, or
to impound those cars that previous chalk-marks show to have been
parked beyond the half-hour or hour of grace. The sidewalks are vivid
with the shuttling of the smartest of women, women who choose their
clothes with a crispness, a _flair_ of their own, and which owes very
little to other countries, and carry them and themselves with a vivid
exquisiteness that gives them an undeniable individuality. The stores
are as the C