onaires of Johannesburg.

But, as a matter of fact, the man in the fur coat was not even an
American millionaire, but simply an American. It did not signify luxury,
but rather necessity, and even a harsh and almost heroic necessity.
Orson probably wore a fur coat; and he was brought up by bears, but not
the bears of Wall Street. Eskimos are generally represented as a furry
folk; but they are not necessarily engaged in delicate financial
operations, even in the typical and appropriate occupation called
freezing out. And if the American is not exactly an arctic traveller
rushing from pole to pole, at least he is often literally fleeing from
ice to ice. He has to make a very extreme distinction between outdoor
and indoor clothing. He has to live in an icehouse outside and a
hothouse inside; so hot that he may be said to construct an icehouse
inside that. He turns himself into an icehouse and warms himself against
the cold until he is warm enough to eat ices. But the point is that the
same coat of fur which in England would indicate the sybarite life may
here very well indicate the strenuous life; just as the same walking
stick which would here suggest a lounger would in England suggest a
plodder and almost a pilgrim.

And these two trifles are types which I should like to put, by way of
proviso and apology, at the very beginning of any attempt at a record of
any impressions of a foreign society. They serve merely to illustrate
the most important impression of all, the impression of how false all
impressions may be. I suspect that most of the very false impressions
have come from the careful record of very true facts. They have come
from the fatal power of observing the facts without being able to
observe the truth. They came from seeing the symbol with the most vivid
clarity and being blind to all that it symbolises. It is as if a man who
knew no Greek should imagine that he could read a Greek inscription
because he took the Greek R for an English P or the Greek long E for an
English H. I do not mention this merely as a criticism on other people's
impressions of America, but as a criticism on my own. I wish it to be
understood that I am well aware that all my views are subject to this
sort of potential criticism, and that even when I am certain of the
facts I do not profess to be certain of the deductions.

In this chapter I hope to point out how a misunderstanding of this kind
affects the common impression, not altogeth