Round the world in any number of days

There is no subject in the world more hackneyed than American impressions. Nearly every month a writer of note discovers America over again. In spite of this, I am told, there is no stuff that is more eagerly read in the States, and outside of them, than impressions of America written by a foreigner. It doesn’t seem to matter whether such impressions are written by a writer of renown, such as H. G. Wells or Arnold Bennett, or by a totally unknown tourist; it does not matter whether they are well written or ill written, whether they are serious or flippant, amusing or dull; they are certain to be read.

I think I can understand the reason of this. People in any country like to read about themselves. They like to look upon their own image as it is reflected in the mirror of foreign observers.

It does not much matter what the mirror is like, so long as the image is there. There is no book of impressions of England, for instance, that I could not read with interest.

Nevertheless, all this does not make the task of writing about America to an American public any easier. If one is writing exclusively for one’s own native public, the task is not so difficult. One can describe an American hotel, for instance, a train, a tram-car; one can tell how one is shaved and how one’s boots are blacked; but the American public knows that already. So the task resolves itself into this: one has to write about things which are intimately familiar to the public one is addressing, in such a manner as to make it possible for them to read what one writes without being tired to death and throwing the book at some one’s head.

This being so, I revolve in my mind the different methods which could be applied to the task. First of all, there is the method to which I have already alluded, and in some cases used in these notes: the method of not writing about America at all, but about something else. You would begin writing like this: “The day I arrived at San Francisco, I was thinking about Venice,” and then you would write a chapter on Venice. But I do not think people would stand this.

Then you could use the manner of Bernard Shaw. You could write a “discussion” on America in three acts, in which an aeronaut, a milliner, a Salvation Army girl, a capitalist, a High-Church clergyman, and a lady Socialist would sit round a table and discuss America.

You would begin with a preface on trusts, Italian opera, vivisection, submarines, and prizefighting. Then you would get to the discussion. This would be prefaced by five pages of stage-directions, with regard to the room in which the discussion was to take place. Then one of the characters would enter, and there would be two pages of stage-directions in very small print about the facial expression, the clothes, the boots, the watch, the cigarette-case of that character. Then the character would do a little business,—open the window, perhaps, or shut it. More characters would enter, heralded by more stage-directions. Then the characters, having sat down, would discuss America, and incidentally every other country under the sun, especially England.

The discussion would be forbidden by the censorship in England, because one of the characters would be called Askfour, and this would be considered allusion to

and so the discussion would be acted in the Little Theatre at New York, and in London by the State Society on Sunday evenings.

Then I might adopt the method of Pierre Loti. This is called the “dot-and-dash” method. It is like the Morse code made poetic. You begin a sentence and leave it unfinished, adding a lot of dots like this:—

Translate that into French, and you get the Loti-Morse method.

Then there is the Masefield method. That would consist in writing an enormously long poem about the Bowery, in verse full of expletives, oaths, and tough adjectives, called “Street-pity.”

On reflection, I reject all these methods. I will leave the matter to my pen.

The only way to write is to let the pen do the work, like what happens in planchette (except when somebody cheats). Very few writers think before they write or even when they are writing; they let their pen guide their thoughts. And I am certain that those writers who write too much suffer from a disease of the fingers and not of the brain.

Before saying a word about America, I apologize for anything I shall say which may sound or be absurd.

A wit once said that the American and English people had everything in common, except, of course, the language. There is, I think, a great deal of truth in this: the words are the same, but they mean different things and they are used in different ways.

Some day, when I have learned the American language properly, I mean to write a large book on the American language. In the mean time, the following condensed grammar for foreigners may prove useful for Americans going to England, as well as for Englishmen going to America:—

Chapter I

What differentiates the arrival at an American port or city from the arrival at the port or city of any other country is that in America you will find a whole lot of people who are there to meet your wants and your need. When you arrive in any foreign country, you are necessarily ignorant of nearly all those things which it is essential you should know. Now, in most countries you find nobody to help deal with that ignorance and to help you out of a situation created by it. In America, on the other hand, you will find a whole lot of people who are there to find out what you want to do, and to help you to do it in the most convenient and quickest way. They make a business of it. It pays them and it helps you. It pays them to help you better than some one else helps you.

I have met in England quite a lot of people who are frightened at the thought of going to America, because they feel so ignorant of the conditions obtaining there. They need feel no such alarm. They will find a crowd of people competing among themselves as to who can best put them in the way of what they want to do. For instance, when I arrived at San Francisco, agents came on board the ship from all of the different railway lines, each of which was ready to fix up your journey for you and do anything you wanted. Each railway line wants you to travel by their line, so each line makes it his business that you should have every possible inducement to do so.

When I arrived at San Francisco, I thought I might have to proceed on my journey that same night, but I also wanted to get some money from the bank. I had arrived after the closing-time of banks. In any other country this would have been an insuperable obstacle in the way of getting money. In San Francisco, not at all. The representative of the Santa Fé Line, which I wished to travel by, immediately took me to an office where I could get money on presentation of my letter of credit. The whole business was fixed up in about ten minutes; in most other countries it takes about half a day to draw on a letter of credit in a bank; it is quite impossible to draw on it after business hours.

As a matter of fact, I did not proceed on my journey that night. Here, again, there was no difficulty in cancelling my sleeping-berth.

All these things, which are a matter of course to the American, are unheard of in European countries. Nobody in Europe has made it a fine art to meet the convenience of travellers, with the exception, of course, of Messrs. Cook & Son; but when Cook’s office is closed, it is closed, and nothing can open it. In America, as far as I can see, nothing is ever completely closed. There will always be somebody somewhere to get you what you want.

In San Francisco, to-day, it is difficult to detect any traces of the fire which followed the earthquake. The enormous high buildings look as if they had always been there.

I drove to the hotel—the St. Francis—after having finished my business in the city, in a taxi. This is an expensive thing to do, but practically the only time you need do it is when you are coming from the boat. In spite of this, one sometimes wishes that taxis in America were cheaper. I think there is only one country in the world where it is within the means of the really poor to hire a cab, and that is—Russia. A poor man can take a cab just as easily as a rich man there, because there is no standard charge. The charge depends on the cabman, and sometimes he will drive you for almost nothing. I have often seen extremely poor people take cabs in Russia.

In Moscow, the cab-drivers very often own their cabs. They bargain with you before you get into the cab, as to the price of the drive, and if the driver does not agree to your price, he will not drive you.

New York, I suppose, is the only city now where hansom cabs still exist. In London, the only place where you can find one is the British Museum.

The first thing that struck me in San Francisco, and in America altogether, was the architecture. Many years ago, when I was in Florence, I was present in the house of a famous picture expert, when he and some well-known archæologists were discussing architecture, and some one who was present said he wondered whether there would ever be a Renaissance in architecture. One of the archæologists present said that this Renaissance was already happening in America.

I do not think there are any modern buildings in Europe which can compare with the modern buildings in America, But apart from such masterpieces as the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, Pierpont Morgan’s library, and the wonderful towers and skyscrapers in New York, it struck me that all the little houses you saw everywhere in the country round San Francisco and along the Santa Fé Railway track, and again in Long Island, were remarkable for their symmetry, their good proportions, and their daintiness. For instance, the country in New Zealand is covered with little bungalows; so is the country round San Francisco; but the difference between them is immense. There is no elegance or prettiness about the bungalows in New Zealand; they are heavy, unshapely, and monotonous; there is no taste or design about them; while in San Francisco, on the contrary, they are extremely varied, remarkable for their proportion, attractive-looking, and often extremely pretty. I believe that in the American character there is a deep sense of symmetry, shape, and neatness. I think there are evidences of this in all departments of American life: in the clothes of the men and women; in their neatness; in the quickness and neatness of their phrases and their humour; in the ingenuity of their machinery. There is a constant tendency to do away with what is unnecessary. In the finest American buildings what strikes one most is the absence of unnecessary ornamentation and detail of architect’s “twiddles,” which, in England, for instance, it is impossible to get architects to leave out, do what you will.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Station and Pierpont Morgan’s library have the simplicity of Greek architecture.

To go back again to San Francisco, the climate is like champagne. There is gaiety in the air. The streets and the houses seem to radiate with amusement and cheerfulness. San Francisco is essentially a night city, and next to Paris, I should say it was the gayest night city in the world.

I have met with a great deal of hospitality all over the world, but I have never met with people who take so much trouble for the stranger as the Americans. A friend of mine in New York met a friend of his, and asked this friend if he had any acquaintances in San Francisco, and if so, whether they could do anything for me. This friend of my friend’s immediately sent a lot of telegrams to San Francisco, the result of which was that I instantly received cards of invitation to three different clubs, and that I was, that very night, entertained at the Pacific Union Club.

Here again was an example of beautiful architecture. The club is the last word of luxury, but the luxury is subordinate to taste and design. It is not over-ornamented. When new clubs are built in England, for the sheer purpose of luxury, such as, for instance, the Automobile Club, the result is ramshackle, shoddy, pretentious, and hideous. There is nothing solid about it in taste or in design—merely luxurious gaudiness. I do not think there is in the whole of the world a club to compare in luxury, solid comfort, and fine proportion with the San Francisco Pacific Union. The food is as excellent as the architecture.

I was also taken to the Bohemian Club, which is famous for its great yearly entertainment in the redwood region.

There is also a wonderful home of athletics, which I visited, called the Olympic Club, which has not long been built. It contains every kind of bath you can imagine, and an enormous salt-water swimming-bath. It is the kind of bath you can imagine the ancient Romans built for themselves, and, indeed, American cities lead one to think that in many respects they are like ancient Rome: the quantity of marble employed; the detailed supply which is ever present to meet the demands and the needs of the individual.

During my second day in San Francisco, I was taken by a friend to see a ranch. We went by train, and then drove in a machine over the beautiful hills, right into the heart of the country. There is no country more beautiful than California. At this moment, although no rain had fallen for some time, the green was still vivid, the colours of the foliage mellow and soft and indescribably varied. The atmosphere of the hills softened the tints, and the harmony of colour was soft and gorgeous.

Riding back we passed through Stanford University, which possesses in its university buildings a striking example of American genius for architecture.

Next day I went to see the Australian Football Team play a local team. I do not think the American public is very highly interested in Rugby football, judging from the gate, which was not a very good one, as the introduction of the Rugby game in America is comparatively recent. The local team played very well, but they did not seem familiar with some of the rules. The Australian boys had not yet recovered from their journey; nevertheless, they won.

After the match was over, I drove back with them to the Olympic Club, where they bathed.

The next day I went with some friends, first by ferry across the bay, then by train, till we reached the hills. We climbed up into the hills, where great vistas of gorgeous scenery lay beneath one, and then, walking down into the valley, we wandered about amongst the trunks of the huge topless redwood. A mountain railway took us down to the level again.

No words can describe the glory of the California scenery when you get up into these hills, which are covered with woods, and nothing can give you any idea of the sweetness and the freshness of the air there.

The next night I left San Francisco for Chicago. Before leaving San Francisco, I had dinner at a restaurant called the “New Franks.” It is a small restaurant, and it provides the best food I have ever eaten anywhere. When people speak in this way of a restaurant, they often mean that they happened on that day to be hungry and to have a good appetite. I was not hungry the night I went to the New Franks. I was not inclined to eat, but the sheer excellence of the cooking there excited my greed, and bade my appetite rise from the dead.

The cooking was perfect. There is no other word for it. When I say the cooking was perfect, I mean the food was perfectly cooked. I don’t mean that there were dozens of messy entrées and highly spiced sauces. The food was of the simplest. I had soup (soup à l’oignon, a dream!), fish, and chicken, and I never tasted anything so good in my life.

Anatole France tells somewhere the story of a king, who, powerful as he was (or rather just because he was all-powerful), was condemned to the luxury of a huge kitchen and a huge staff of cooks, who served him up elaborate tasteless dishes which meant nothing to him. And this was sad, adds Anatole France, for he liked good food (Car il aimait la bonne chère).

He would have found it at the New Franks, which is under the direction of Mr. Peter Kochely, a Dalmatian. His cook, or cooks, are Frenchmen, and I| think a part of the success which his restaurant enjoys and the greater part of the excellence which it reaches are due to his eagle eye, which detects from a distance the likes and dislikes of every customer.

The trouble about small restaurants, when they are excellent, is, that they become well known, and are then so largely patronized that they become large and ultimately bad.

Once I was walking in Normandy with a friend, and we stopped in a very small town to have luncheon at a hotel. We asked if there was any wine. Yes, there was some wine, some Burgundy, some Beaune. We tried a bottle, and it surprised us. Surprise is, in fact, a mild word to describe the sharpness of our ecstasy.

“Is not this wine very good?” we asked of the host.

“Yes, sirs,” he answered, “it is very good. It is very old, but there is not much of it left.”

Now, my friend was a journalist, who writes about French towns and French wines in the English press.

“Whatever happens,” I said to him, “if you write about this town and about this wine, which I know you will do, you must not divulge the name of the town.”

He agreed. He wrote an article about the town, he grew lyric over the wine, and looted all the poets of the world from Homer downwards for epithets and comparisons fit for it. And he did not mention the name of the place.

The year after, he returned to the same place and ordered a bottle of the Burgundy. There was no more left. Some English gentlemen, the host told him, had come on purpose from England to finish it.

Now, I am sure some very intelligent man, and a man who was desperately fond of good wine, read the article, and guessed from the description the whereabouts of the little French town and the precious liquid.

The moral of this is: “Don’t tell secrets in the newspapers; don’t even tell half a secret.”

The evening I left San Francisco, I had a small adventure. I asked a man the way to some street. He told me the way, and then, catching hold of my arm, he said, “You will stand me a drink.”

I said I would, and we went into a drinking-saloon. Then he said, “I’m a bum. I was [and he stated his profession], and I’ve been fixed. I’m a booze-fighter.” He added with engaging frankness that he was half drunk.

In the course of conversation, it turned out that we had a common friend, and had I not been going off on the train, I would have taken him off to supper.

A singular proof of the smallness of the world.

Before taking leave of San Francisco, however, I want to say a word or two more. First of all about the clubs.

To a man who is used to the staid silence of London clubs, American clubs are exhilarating. I was present, for instance, at a dinner at the Bohemian Club, the “High Jinks Dinner,” which takes place once a year. Every year the members of the club camp out in the redwood region, where the enormous trees grow which you see in pictures, and there, in an amphitheatre formed by these vast topless trunks, they give an open-air opera, written, composed, and played by themselves. Later on, when they come back to the city, they give a dinner in the club, followed by a theatrical entertainment, which is a burlesque on the opera given in the camp: also written, composed, and played by themselves. It was at this dinner I was present, and spontaneous gaiety bubbled from that entertainment like champagne out of a bottle.

There was champagne in the concrete also, as well as in the abstract. But the gaiety was more spontaneous and more infectious than I have seen at any, even Bohemian, club in London. I fancy that San Francisco some day will be the great pleasure city of the world: the meeting-place of East and West, owing to its situation, its incomparable climate, its beautiful surroundings, and the microbe of gaiety which is in the air of the place. And then San Francisco is the golden gate which opens on to the enchanted realms of the Pacific.

I travelled to New York on the Santa Fé Line, meaning to stop and see the Grand Cañon, but, as it turned out, I had to go right on to Chicago.

Writers of American impressions generally deliver themselves of a solemn verdict on the trains, the sleeping-car accommodations, and their merits and demerits.

“You won’t like the sleeping-berths,” said an American to me, before I started; “no Englishman ever does.”

When I got on to the Pullman car, I found it was quite different from what I had imagined. I thought the berths would be stretched horizontally three quarters of the way across the car. The fact of their being placed sideways gives the sleeper a much broader berth than he has on European trains.

But I will discuss this presently.

There is one feature on American trains which is very different from anything in England and Europe—the attitude of the conductors. In England, and in most European countries, the conductor hovers round you for a tip. In America the conductor is an independent citizen; but I found him a singularly kind-hearted one.

I wanted to send a telegram to Chicago. He did it for me. He “dead-headed” it. He found out everything I wanted to know. He was my guide, philosopher, and friend on my way to Chicago.

There is something very attractive about this warm-hearted human kindness which one meets with in America, and something very refreshing in the absence of servility.

It makes one breathe deep from his lungs to be among people who treat you as an equal, and expect to be treated as an equal by you.

There are some countries which profess democracy, where, under the pretence of treating you as an equal, the inhabitants take pains to treat you as an inferior, but this is not so in America.

Somebody—a historian, I believe—said that in the far future America and Russia would carry everything before them, owing to their driving power, which came from a fundamental kindness of heart. I believe this to be true. Russia and America are the two most hospitable countries I have ever visited. I think the Russians and the Americans are the kindest people in the world, and their countries the most really democratic (whatever their respective governments may be).

I spent only a few hours at Chicago, where I wandered like an ant among the gigantic buildings; then I went right on to New York, along the beautiful Hudson River, all glorious in the October tints of its woods and foliage, and then I reached New York.

After my first two days in New York, I felt as the Queen of Sheba felt after she had been shown over King Solomon’s private residence: there was no spirit in me. The place took my breath away, and I haven’t yet got it back, but of that later.