President often, because he is said to have interfered
with trusts by probing their methods, which gets back to the vital
point of dollars and cents. People will speak for and against him for
hours, but not from a political point of view, and abstract political
discussions we have never heard.

I have not yet grasped the difference between "Democrat" and
"Republican," and so I don't know if it is just the same as at home,
that whichever is Radical wants to snatch each one for his own hand and
does not care a rush about the nation; while whichever is Conservative
cares nothing for personal advancement--having arrived there
already--so has time and experience to look ahead and think of the
country.

If you had a delicate baby, Mamma, would not you rather give it into
the hands of a thoroughly trained nurse than an ignorant aspiring
nursery maid taking her first place, who was more likely to be thinking
of the head nurse's wages she was going to get than her duties to the
child? That is how I look upon the parties at home, but here I expect
it is more as the Whigs and Tories were, each equal in class and
experience, only holding different views. I should like to have a peep
about five hundred years ahead. I am sure the ignorant nurse-maids will
have killed our baby by then, and we shall be a wretched down-trodden
commune, while they will be a splendidly governed aristocratic nation
under one autocratic king!

I have not told you a thing about the Park, or the general aspect of
the houses; we are rushed so it is hard to write. But the Park is a
perfectly charming place, as nice as the Bois, and much nicer than our
attempt that way, and everyone who goes there seems to be out on a
holiday. Fifth Avenue runs beside it like our Park Lane, beginning at
Fifty-ninth Street, and about every five years people have to move
further up, because of the encroaching shops. So it hardly seems worth
while to spend millions on building white marble palaces which may be
torn down or converted in so short a time. Nothing is allowed to last.
Heaps of the mansions are perfectly beautiful in style, and many simple
as well, which is always the prettiest; but you can meet Francois
Premier Castles, and Gothic Halls, and all sorts of mixed freaks, too,
in half an hour's walk, and it seems to me a pity they can't use their
rollers and just cart these into the side streets. But if I were
rebuilding Valmond House I would get an American architect to