Let me quote a few others taken at random here
and there over the continent.
"I took from Pittsburg," says an English visitor, "an impression
of something that I could hardly define--an atmosphere rather than
an idea."
All very well, But, after all, had he the right to take it? Granted
that Pittsburg has an atmosphere rather than an idea, the attempt
to carry away this atmosphere surely borders on rapacity.
"New Orleans," writes another visitor, "opened her arms to me and
bestowed upon me the soft and languorous kiss of the Caribbean."
This statement may or may not be true; but in any case it hardly
seems the fair thing to mention it.
"Chicago," according to another book of discovery, "struck me as a
large city. Situated as it is and where it is, it seems destined to
be a place of importance."
Or here, again, is a form of "impression" that recurs again and
again-"At Cleveland I felt a distinct note of optimism in the air."
This same note of optimism is found also at Toledo, at Toronto--in
short, I believe it indicates nothing more than that some one gave
the visitor a cigar. Indeed it generally occurs during the familiar
scene in which the visitor describes his cordial reception in an
unsuspecting American town: thus:
"I was met at the station (called in America the depot) by a member
of the Municipal Council driving his own motor car.
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