e woman who was with him:

"There you are! I told you all along; but you wouldn't read the book!"
at which the woman grasped me by the hand and said:

"You are writing another volume of your life aren't you, Mrs. Asquith,
in which you will tell us everything you think about us."

I explained that I was writing an article on my Impressions of America
for immediate publication and the second and final volume of my life
which would come out in winter.

Flattering cuttings were sent to me from papers, as: "The Margot myth."
And others, which said it was abundantly clear that I was in a chastened
humour and, by guarding myself from my critics, was exercising a caution
that deprived me of all spontaneity; or words to this effect.

These remarks are of little interest, but they tend to show how much
some people and nations depend on the approbation of others and are the
reason why I am going to finish with a short summing-up.

XVII: THINKING IT OVER IN ENGLAND

THINKING IT OVER IN ENGLAND

AMERICANS FRIENDLY BUT VAIN--THE LAND OF THE REFORMER--INTEREST IN
EUROPE'S ARISTOCRACY--NEWSPAPERS PANDER TO VULGAR CURIOSITY--PLEA
FOR ANGLO-AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP

It is probably wiser in writing impressions to keep the conclusions you
arrive at secret; and many may ask--and with justice--:

"What can a woman know who arrived on the 30th of January, and left on
the 4th of April, of America or her people?" In answer to this I can
only say that in those nine weeks I saw and talked to more varied types
of persons than I could have done had I remained in either New York,
Chicago or Washington for as many months. I met and conversed with
senators and niggers, farmers and reporters, judges and preachers,
hotel proprietors, mayors, solicitors, soldiers, shopmen, doctors, men
of science and commerce, and a few of the rarer class of both the
fashionable and the leisured. During this experience there are certain
things I observed that I shall take the risk of writing down.

The Americans, while the most friendly people in the world, are too much
concerned about each other; and, though not personally, they are
nationally vain. They would rather hear themselves abused than
undiscussed; which inclines one to imagine that they are suffering from
the uneasiness of the _nouveaux riches_.

What do you think of us? or, how do you compare our men and women and
their clothes and customs with your own? was the substance of eve