English visitors have been able to receive impressions at the rate of
four to the second; in fact, they seem to get them every time they
see twenty cents. But without jealousy or complaint, I do feel that
somehow these impressions are inadequate and fail to depict us as we
really are.

Let me illustrate what I mean. Here are some of the impressions of
New York, gathered from visitors' discoveries of America, and
reproduced not perhaps word for word but as closely as I can remember
them. "New York", writes one, "nestling at the foot of the Hudson,
gave me an impression of cosiness, of tiny graciousness: in short, of
weeness." But compare this--"New York," according to another
discoverer of America, "gave me an impression of size, of vastness;
there seemed to be a big ness about it not found in smaller places."
A third visitor writes, "New York struck me as hard, cruel, almost
inhuman." This, I think, was because his taxi driver had charged him
three dollars. "The first thing that struck me in New York," writes
another, "was the Statue of Liberty." But, after all, that was only
natural: it was the first thing that could reach him.

Nor is it only the impressions of the metropolis that seem to fall
short of reality. Let me quote a few others taken at random here
and there over the continent.

"I took from Pittsburg," says an English visitor, "an impression
of something that I could hardly define--an atmosphere rather than
an idea."

All very well, But, after all, had he the right to take it? Granted
that Pittsburg has an atmosphere rather than an idea, the attempt