York, our own mental barometer
might be lower. It is difficult to say. At any rate, after an ocean
voyage of nine days one's spirits rise perceptibly as the ship nears
Nantucket; and the icy-bright sunlight of New York harbour, the sight of
the buildings aspiring to blue skies restore the throbbing optimism which
with us is normal; and it was with an effort, when I talked to the
reporters on landing, that I was able to achieve and express the
pessimism and darkness out of which I had come. Pessimism is perhaps too
strong a word, and takes no account of the continued unimpaired morale
and determination of the greater part of the British and French peoples.
They expect much from us. Yet the impression was instantaneous, when I
set forth in the streets of New York, that we had not fully measured the
magnitude of our task--an impression that has been amply confirmed as the
weeks have passed.

The sense of relief I felt was not only the result of bright skies and a
high barometer, of the palpable self-confidence of the pedestrians, of
the white bread on the table and the knowledge that there was more, but
also of the ease of accomplishing things. I called for a telephone
number and got it cheerfully and instantly. I sent several telegrams,
and did not have to wait twenty minutes before a wicket while a
painstaking official multiplied and added and subtracted and paused to
talk with a friend; the speed of the express in which I flew down-town
seemed emblematic of America itself. I had been transported, in fact,
into another world--my world; and in order to realize again that from
which I had come I turned to a diary recording a London filled with the
sulphur fumes of fog, through which the lamps of the taxis and buses
shone as yellow blots reflected on glistening streets; or, for some
reason a still greater contrast, a blue, blue November Sunday afternoon
in parts, the Esplanade of the Invalides black with people--sad people
--and the Invalides itself all etched in blue as seen through the wide
vista from the Seine.

A few days later, with some children, I went to the Hippodrome. And it
remained for the Hippodrome, of all places, to give me the thrill I had
not achieved abroad, the thrill I had not experienced since the first
months of the war. Mr. George Cohan accomplished it. The transport with
steam up, is ready to leave the wharf, the khaki-clad regiment of erect
and vigorous young Americans marches across the