on shall have ceased, and all the different types
have been well mixed and assimilated. While the process of assimilation
is still going on, the result is suspended, and the type is incomplete.

But, meanwhile, are there not certain characteristic traits to be found
throughout almost all America? That is a question much easier to answer.

Is it necessary to repeat that I put aside good society and confine
myself merely to the people?

Nations are like individuals: when they are young, they have the
qualities and the defects of children. The characteristic trait of
childhood is curiosity. It is also that of the American. I have never
been in Australia, but I should expect to find this trait in the
Australian.

Look at American journalism. What does it live on? Scandal and gossip.
Let a writer, an artist, or any one else become popular in the States,
and the papers will immediately tell the public at what time he rises
and what he takes for breakfast. When any one of the least importance
arrives in America, he is quickly beset by a band of reporters who ask
him a host of preposterous questions and examine him minutely from head
to foot, in order to tell the public next day whether he wears laced,
buttoned, or elastic boots, enlighten them as to the cut of his coat and
the color of his trowsers, and let them know if he parts his hair in the
middle or not.

[Illustration: CURIOSITY IN AUSTRALIA.]

Every time I went into a new town to lecture I was interviewed, and the
next day, besides an account of the lecture, there was invariably a
paragraph somewhat in this style:

The lecturer is a man of about forty, whose cranium is getting visible
through his hair. He wears a double eye-glass, with which he plays
while talking to his audience. His handkerchief was black-bordered. He
wore the regulation patent leather shoes, and his shirt front was
fastened with a single stud. He spoke without effort or pretension,
and often with his hands in his pockets, etc.

A few days ago, on reading the morning papers in a town where I had
lectured the night before, I found, in one of them, about twenty lines
consecrated to my lecture, and half a column to my hat.

I must tell you that this hat was brown, and all the hats in America are
black. If you wear anything that is not exactly like what Americans
wear, you are gazed at as if you were a curious animal. The Americans
are as great _badauds_ as the Parisians. In London,