he was more than half way to dreamland or he could not have supposed
anything so incredible.

"There's a curious sort of difference," he was saying. "It is difficult
to define, but on the whole I might express it by saying that such a
gathering as this if it was in America would be drawn with harder lines,
would show its bones more and have everything more emphatic. And just to
take one illustrative point: in America in such a gathering as this
there would be bound to be several jokes going on as it were, running
jokes and running criticisms, from day to day and from week to week....
There would be jokes about your writing and your influence and jokes
about Miss Corner's advanced reading.... You see, in America we pay much
more attention to personal character. Here people, I notice, are not
talked to about their personal characters at all, and many of them do
not seem to be aware and do not seem to mind what personal characters
they have....

"And another thing I find noteworthy is the way in which what I might
call mature people seem to go on having a good time instead of standing
by and applauding the young people having a good time.... And the young
people do not seem to have set out to have a good time at all.... Now in
America, a charming girl like Miss Corner would be distinctly more aware
of herself and her vitality than she is here, distinctly more. Her
peculiarly charming sidelong look, if I might make so free with
her--would have been called attention to. It's a perfectly beautiful
look, the sort of look some great artist would have loved to make
immortal. It's a look I shall find it hard to forget.... But she doesn't
seem to be aware in the least of it. In America she would be aware of
it. She would be distinctly aware of it. She would have been _made_
aware of it. She would have been advised of it. It would be looked for