Your United States

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Your United States

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Your United States, by Arnold
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Title: Your United States Impressions of a first visit
Author: Arnold Bennett
Release Date: February 15, 2005 [EBook #15063]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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UNITED STATES ***

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[Illustration: THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN
THOSE ON FOOT]

YOUR UNITED STATES
IMPRESSIONS OF A FIRST VISIT

BY ARNOLD BENNETT
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK CRAIG

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND
LONDON MCMXII

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1912

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE FIRST NIGHT 3 II. STREETS 27 III. THE CAPITOL AND
OTHER SITES 49 IV. SOME ORGANIZATIONS 73 V. TRANSIT
AND HOTELS 99 VI. SPORT AND THE THEATER 123 VII.
EDUCATION AND ART 147 VIII. CITIZENS 171

ILLUSTRATIONS
THE GLORY OF FIFTH AVENUE INSPIRES EVEN THOSE ON
FOOT Frontispiece DISEMBARKING AT NEW YORK _Facing p._

10 THE DOWN-TOWN BROADWAY OF CROWED
SKY-SCRAPERS 16 BROADWAY ON ELECTION NIGHT 20 A
BUSY DAY ON THE CURB MARKET 34 A WELL-KNOWN
WALL STREET CHARACTER 36 THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF
LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT 38 A WINTER MORNING IN
LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO 42 A RIVER-FRONT HARMONY IN
BLACK AND WHITE--CHICAGO 44 THE APPROACH TO THE
CAPITOL 50 ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE 52 ON THE STEPS
OF THE PORTICO--THE CAPITOL 54 UNDER THE GREAT
DOME OF THE CAPITOL 56 THE PROMENADE--CITY POINT,
BOSTON 60 THE BOSTON YACHT CLUB--OVERLOOKING THE
HARBOR 64 AT MORN POURING CONFIDENCES INTO HER
TELEPHONE 74 LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB 86 A
YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG 90
ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY 94 IN
THE PARLOR-CAR 100 BREAKFAST EN ROUTE 108 IN THE
SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING
STREAM 112 THE STRAP-HANGERS 114 THE PASSENGERS ON
THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY ASSORTED 116 THE
RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF
ITS SPLENDOR 118 THE HORSE-SHOWS ARE WONDROUS
DISPLAYS OF FASHION 124 THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND
CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE AIR 130 THE
VICTORS LEAVING THE FIELD 134 UNIVERSITY
BUILDINGS--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 156 MITCHELL
TOWER AND HUTCHINSON COMMONS--UNIVERSITY OF
CHICAGO 164 PART OF THE DAILY ROUND OF THE
INDOMITABLE NEW YORK WOMAN 172 THE ASTOUNDING
POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE 186

YOUR UNITED STATES

I
THE FIRST NIGHT

I sat with a melting ice on my plate, and my gaze on a very distant
swinging door, through which came and went every figure except the
familiar figure I desired. The figure of a woman came. She wore a
pale-blue dress and a white apron and cap, and carried a dish in uplifted
hands, with the gesture of an acolyte. On the bib of the apron were two
red marks, and as she approached, tripping, scornful, unheeding, along
the interminable carpeted aisle, between serried tables of correct diners,
the vague blur of her face gradually developed into features, and the
two red marks on her stomacher grew into two rampant lions, each
holding a globe in its ferocious paws; and she passed on, bearing away
the dish and these mysterious symbols, and lessened into a puppet on
the horizon of the enormous hall, and finally vanished through another
door. She was succeeded by men, all bearing dishes, but none of them
so inexorably scornful as she, and none of them disappearing where she
had disappeared; every man relented and stopped at some table or other.
But the figure I desired remained invisible, and my ice continued to
melt, in accordance with chemical law. The orchestra in the gallery
leaped suddenly into the rag-time without whose accompaniment it was
impossible, anywhere in the civilized world, to dine correctly. That
rag-time, committed, I suppose, originally by some well-intentioned if
banal composer in the privacy of his study one night, had spread over
the whole universe of restaurants like a pest, to the exasperation of the
sensitive, but evidently to the joy of correct diners. Joy shone in the
elated eyes of the four hundred persons correctly dining together in this
high refectory, and at the end there was honest applause!... And yet you
never encountered a person who, questioned singly, did not agree and
even assert of his own accord that music at meals is an outrageous
nuisance!...