america's defenceless coasts just suppose that america were twenty days distant from england.
then a man could study its customs with undivided soul;but being so very near next door,he goes about the land with one eye on the smoke of the flesh-pots of the old country across the seas,while with the other he squints biliously and prejudicially at the alien.
i can lay my hand upon my sacred heart and affirm that up to to-day i have never taken three consecutive trips by rail without being delayed by an accident.that it was an accident to another train makes no difference.my own turn may come next.
a few miles from peaceful,pleasure-loving lakewood they had managed to upset an express goods train to the detriment of the flimsy permanent way;and thus the train which should have left at three departed at seven in the evening.i was not angry.iwas scarcely even interested.when an american train starts on time i begin to anticipate disaster--a visitation for such good luck,you understand.
buffalo is a large village of a quarter of a million inhabitants,situated on the seashore,which is falsely called lake erie.it is a peaceful place,and more like an english county town than most of its friends.
once clear of the main business streets,you launch upon miles and miles of asphalted roads running between cottages and cut-stone residences of those who have money and peace.all the eastern cities own this fringe of elegance,but except in chicago nowhere is the fringe deeper or more heavily widened than in buffalo.
the american will go to a bad place because he cannot speak english,and is proud of it;but he knows how to make a home for himself and his mate,knows how to keep the grass green in front of his veranda,and how to fullest use the mechanism of life--hot water,gas,good bell-ropes,telephones,etc.his shops sell him delightful household fitments at very moderate rates,and he is encompassed with all manner of labor-saving appliances.this does not prevent his wife and his daughter working themselves to death over household drudgery;but the intention is good.