very little—his wife reads for him; he has travelled very little—his daughters travel for him. He has no voice in the State—professional politicians speak for him; he has no amusements, unless you include speculation; and he has no pleasant periods of rest, unless you accept as an equivalent comparatively early and sudden death, which often arises from acute indigestion. He has not time to stop and realize himself, unless, but this is a large exception, when he has dyspepsia. One reason, perhaps, why Americans do not rest is that given to me by a bright woman: “We are all so tired,” and the American is the victim of his own qualities. 

 One, of course, acknowledges the advantages of this amazing energy, and there are times when a stolid Englishman grows envious. A university in America is created in ten years and endowed to the extent of millions sterling, and equipped with chairs of which a European never dreamt, and laboratories which border upon palaces. Libraries and picture galleries are rising in every city, for which the treasuries of Europe have been ransacked; and, were it not for the restriction of governments, the Old Masters would have to be sought, not in Italy and England, but in New York and Chicago. New towns are designed upon a scale of magnificence, as if each were to be the capital of an empire, and are at least outlined in building within a few years. Should it be necessary, an army can be created within a few months, and in a couple of years a new trade can be established which will kill its European rivals. An English farmer with fifteen hundred acres is a considerable man, but an American can have fifteen thousand acres and his different farm buildings will be connected by telephone. A self-made man in England marries his daughter to a baronet and is much lifted; but the daughter of a self-made man in America will marry an English duke, and consider she has conferred a benefit. When you go to a Western town, you may be taken to see a university; if not, you are taken to a dry-goods store; each, in its own way, is the largest of its kind. Certainly, there are stores in America which have no rival in the Old World, and which you are expected to visit with the same appreciation as the Duomo of Florence. 

 There is almost nothing that the United States does not possess, except political purity, and nothing which an American cannot do, except rest; and in the conflict with foreign competition, he has almost discounted victory. Whether he be able, that is, patient and thorough in the discovery of principles, may be a question; that he is clever, by which one means bright and ingenious in turning principles to account, is beyond all question. 

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