FOOTNOTES:

[1] I have some suspicion that this ought to be in quotation marks,
but cannot now trace the passage.




II

The Land of Contrasts


When I first thought of writing about the United States at all, I soon
came to the conclusion that no title could better than the above
express the general impression left on my mind by my experiences in
the Great Republic. It may well be that a long list of inconsistencies
might be made out for any country, just as for any individual; but so
far as my knowledge goes the United States stands out as preëminently
the "Land of Contrasts"--the land of stark, staring, and stimulating
inconsistency; at once the home of enlightenment and the happy hunting
ground of the charlatan and the quack; a land in which nothing happens
but the unexpected; the home of Hyperion, but no less the haunt of the
satyr; always the land of promise, but not invariably the land of
performance; a land which may be bounded by the aurora borealis, but
which has also undeniable acquaintance with the flames of the
bottomless pit; a land which is laved at once by the rivers of
Paradise and the leaden waters of Acheron.