Your United States

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Your United States

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Your United States, by Arnold Bennett This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
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
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR UNITED STATES ***

Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[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!...
However, my desired figure was at length manifest. The man came hurrying and a little breathless, with his salver, at once apologetic and triumphant. My ice was half liquid. Had I not the right to reproach him,