Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-09-16

w. l.. George, an English author
who has never been to America
writes his Impressions of the United
States for Everybody's magazine.
l have closed by eyes; said Amer
ica.'' There is a second chaos. Tneh
details grow nor numerous, and
find that it is not America that
Dee, but New York. And, at firs'
sight, New York is skyscrapers. Tht
rest is indefinite. ! picture the city
as almost entirely composed Of sky
scrapers. | see them at every Col,
ner of every street, thrusting .ntc
the sky as countless spears of brick
and mortar. l may be haunted by
some photograph, but this does not
matter, for it is precisely this photo
graph, long forgotten and lost, when
this vision of New York. | canNot
has helped to build UP in my mimi
detach my attention from the sky.
scrapers. The word 'Flatiron,' the
meaning Of which | do not know, be
gins to preoccupy me. Then !
think Of lifts, demon lifts which rush
from the ground floor to the f~ortietl
story at thirty-siX miles an hour. !
think of the height-insolent Babel
like height.
L suppose you have hotels, but my
vision is limited to Sherry's and Del
monico's.' Il can see nothing else,
not even the East side. Nobody has
told me anything about East Side ex-
sept that it's inhabited by China
yHfenG add the word Steamboat
and iSshaVelsdone with New York. 1t
is. asfaint picture the picture of some
Kind&ofsa .tWont in the foreground OF
which IS a, statue of Liberty. That
is all.
The Aristocracy.
Your ~aristOcracy: | figure them as
strong rather than languid, conscious
of power rather than weary of pow.
err. They are all enormously rich,
So rich that they have acquired a
tast&9a9fnr the. arts. which we cannot
afford in EngfahA7gsAric that they
cannot dine save III gondolas in a
flooded hotel yard, while Melba and
Caruso, distinguished as Italian peas
ants, sing expensive duets.
| do ont know any more-Or rather.
all else that imagine concerns the
American, not the New Yorker. For
me the New Yorker is a fierce bust
mar and the rest is silence.
The American is more definite. can
think of him as poor, which the
New Yorker mainly never is. l see.
the New Yorker mainly in Wall
street Ca thOroughfare entirely filled
with straw hats, indulging in "Fren!
zied Finance; but the American
may somewhere be humble.' He is
probably oppressed by the trusts.
L believe there is a trust in every
thing, from government to literature.
But the real American men and wo.
men live in many towns. /. They diff
fer in inscrutable ways, according 70
the latitude, and, in my mind, &C
cording to the name of the town.
Some of these names are for me
mere geographical expressions: To.
peka, Atlanta, Baltimore, lndianapo-
lis-all these could be removed from
the map and my vision Of the United
States would be uni:npaired. They
have for me no personality. They are
not inhabited. They do not exist.
But other towns, Boston, Newport,
Chicago Salt Lake City, are for me
living characterized entities. l can
not see them but L can feel them. |
know they are there as a blind nan
knows when a friend enters the
room.
For me Newport is costly bathing.
a Madison Square Garden by the sea
But l cannot imagine it with any
reality. | can see no lovers walking