Waterbury Democrat., 1901-11-16
SARAH GRAND,


 abroad who will not go home and write a book about the United States. She will spend three months here ln a lecture tour, yet she does not be- lieve she will have acquired slIncient information at that end of time to tell her countrymen and countryWOmen all about Amerlca.
 1t would be almost the height of presumption, ayers the author Of '.The Heavenly Twins" for her to at tempt to do any such thing, and she thinks. it would be, equally presump- tuous for anyone else except such as may be diyinely gifted with intuitive powers. After having been here near Iy one month. says the Chicago Chron- icle, she is free to confess she has only vague,.s farawayv ideas of the nation, it's institutions or it's people.
 Instead Of q stately woman. with eX- alted airs or, pedantic bearing. there. walked into the parlors of the Palmer. House yesterday q modest almost plainly attired woman. She talked earnestly in we'll modulated tones, and apparently was desirous of learning q great deal about American .litera- ture, ideals and customs.
 T look forward with keenest antici- pations to meeting President Roose- velt,' she said. ssFriends to the pres ident and friends to me in Washing ton are endeavoring to arrange for ln audience for me. Mir Roosevelt is an interesting personality to me, since, being q literary man, he has attained to such prominence in state affairs. He is certainly versatile, able man, and one whom the English people are inclined to regard with much favor.
 T knew. not thing about politics in this country when 1 arrived in New York the 18th day of last month. The city campaign was then at it's height. I had been there only few days when I began to take passion ate interest in the fight and to wish to see Tammany crushed. The puri- fication of the municipal government seems to be one of the greatest prob lens before the people of this country and one to which they have just begun to devote the proper amount of at tention.
 My itineray has not yet been fully decided upon by Major Pond. I .X- pect to visit all of the larger American cities. From here I return to New York and thence start out again, talk ing westward course The country is so vast that I have at the present time but slight conception of it. There are so many immense possibili- ties here and. i'll the light of what oas already been achieved, the future is rosy with promise.
 ssMy lecture on fhe subject Mere Man has to do with just this line of thought. I will tell you how chanced to hit upon that title. There is in London an organization called the White Friars' club. composed of men eminent in art and letters. and formed mainly for the purpose of en- tertaining distinguished visitors. Mark Twain is one of the members. Once year the club gives ladies' dinner. on which occasion two toasts are .c~ dered with the inyariable titles sSos ereign Woman and Mere Man
 I was honored with an invitation to the dinner in 1900 and assigned tho toast to Mere Man I fell to think ing about man and his development, how from the savage state in the pale olithic age he had advanced to the high moral and intellectual plane he occupies to-day. So when spoke be- fore the club I expressed my admira- ration for man and what he had done in the past and my confidence in what
 
 to me that man is possessed of some latent poWer-a q power that in the men, tai or psychic world is as electricity ill material things and tie knowledge of which may soon come to him.
 '.After delivering that address I vas asked to make lecture in the United Kingdom. I did so, and then I vas sought to travel in this country. I do not claim to be q lecturer, and I am visiting the United States for the first time largely because of the inter- est I feel in the country and the de sire to learn about it.
 That the literature of America should be what it is I think little short of marvellous. I do not know much about your modern school of writers that is, what is termed modern i'll America-but I am an admirer of Oli- yer Wendell Holmes and Hawthorne and your Emerson. The writings cf Emerson I believe destined to live for all time, and him I regard as belong ing to the entire English speaking world You really must share him with us as we share with you the glo- riolls Shakespeare.
 Historical novels seem to be .n much demand nowadays Tn this corn- try. l have seen little of such produc- tions and know nothing about tEe authors of them. Is. When Knight hood Was in Flower good book Who is the author? The success of that, I understand. was followed by a nerfect del1ge or books written in imitation of it's style. The craze is similar to one that convulsed literary England few years ago. A book was written with the title. believe, of The Forest Lovers It was T great success. at least for time. Soon a multitude of people who could strings words together noopled taa for ests of the world with characters fashioned after those in the successful novel, but the enlightened passed them by"