e for not having discussed it sooner. I am quite familiar with
other people's chapters on "The Mind of America," and "The Chinese
Mind," and so forth. Indeed, so far as I know it has turned out that
almost everybody all over the world has a mind. Nobody nowadays travels,
even in Central America or Thibet, without bringing back a chapter on
"The Mind of Costa Rica," or on the "Psychology of the Mongolian." Even
the gentler peoples such as the Burmese, the Siamese, the Hawaiians, and
the Russians, though they have no minds are written up as souls.
It is quite obvious then that there is such a thing as the mind of
London: and it is all the more culpable in me to have neglected it in as
much as my editorial friend in New York had expressly mentioned it to
me before I sailed. "What," said he, leaning far over his desk after his
massive fashion and reaching out into the air, "what is in the minds of
these people? Are they," he added, half to himself, though I heard him,
"are they thinking? And, if they think, what do they think?"
I did therefore, during my stay in London, make an accurate study of the
things that London seemed to be thinking about. As a comparative basis
for this study I brought with me a carefully selected list of the things
that New York was thinking about at the moment. These I selected
from the current newspapers in the proportions to the amount of space
allotted to each topic and the size of the heading that announced it.
Having thus a working idea of what I may call the mind of New York, I
was able to collect and set beside it a list of similar topics, taken
from the London Press to represent the mind of London. The two placed
side by side make an interesting piece of psychological analysis. They
read as follows:
THE MIND OF NEW YORK THE MIND OF LONDON
What is it thinking? What is it thinking?
1. Do chorus girls make 1. Do chorus girls marry
good wives? well?
2. Is red hair a sign of 2. What is red hair a
temperament? sign of?
3. Can a woman be in 3. Can a man be in love
love with two men? with two women?
4. Is fat a sign of genius? 4. Is genius a sign of fat?
Looking over these lists, I think it is better to present them without
comment; I feel sure that somewhere or other in them one should detect
the heart-throbs, the pulsations of two great peoples. But I don't get
it. In
|