hrough one at once and beyond, and his hands were strong and
well shaped, with the most exquisitely polished nails. He did not make
horrid noises clearing his throat as lots of them do, and he was not
the least deaf. Instantly we got on. He said if we were seeing America
we were not to judge the nation by the men we should see in society in
New York (each person we meet tells us this!); that we should go out
West if we wanted to find the giant brains who make the country great.

"It's not that I mean to disparage Mrs. Latour's guests," he said,
looking round the table; "they are what they are, good enough in their
way, humming birds and mocking birds to flit among the flowers, and
pretty poor at that when you compare them with Europeans; but they
don't amount to anything for the nation. They couldn't evolve a scheme
that would benefit a foot beyond their noses!" And when I asked him why
he had allowed his daughter to marry one of them, he said with such a
whimsical air, that women in America did what they "darned well
pleased," and that he guessed that everyone had to "work out their own
problem along that line."

"The Almighty played a trick on us," he said. "Putting the desire for
one particular person into our heads, now and again in our lives leads
to heaps of trouble, and don't benefit the race. If we'd no feelings we
could select according to reason and evolve perfection in time."

Isn't that a splendid idea, Mamma? He went on to say he studied
psychology a good deal, and he found to look at life from that
standpoint was the most satisfactory way. He said it was no use mixing
up sentiment and what you thought things ought to be with what things
really were. "We've got to see the truth Ma'am, that's all," he said.
Then he said, "these cotton wool ba-lambs" never saw the truth of
anything from one year's end to another, and, "it ain't because it's
too difficult, but because they have not got a red cent of brains to
think for themselves!"

While he was saying all this he never took his eyes off me, and he
spoke with quiet force. He went on and was too interesting expounding
his theories along every line (I am getting American), and I looked up
and caught Valerie's eye, and she collapsed with laughter; she thought
it quite funny that I should find him thrilling. Presently I asked him
what his views were about us in England, we of the leisure class, and
he said he thought most of us were pretty sound because we did