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THROUGH FRENCH OPTICS

A Critical View of the American People by Paul Bourget.

The Analytical Race Specialist Tells What He Thinks of Us After Twenty Days' Inspection

Some Criticisms of His View by Mrs. Peattie - We Are Children, but We Are Glad of It.

We have been viewed and reviewed - we Americans, by any number of foreign visitors. Some of them have been foolish, shallow and provincial, some have been honest, earnest, and even profound. A great many have babbled nothings and bored us to the verge of extinction. Some of them have been simply stupid, and have taken the bad manners of foreign immigrants, finding hospital in this country, as the standard of American manners.

But the other day a great observer of men came among us, and viewed us as he had viewed many other people, from the point of view of Race. Since "Cosmopolis" was written, Paul Bourget has stood identified with the question of Race -the great modern delineator and discriminator of [?] -the man who reads humans as the Egyptologist reads hieroglyphs. His facile and scholarly genius has become identified with this question, and it is, therefore, with profound interest that one reads what he has to say about the American race, that new, yet very individual thing, which yesterday was not, and which today embodies so large a part of the best energy and pride in the world.

For it is in fact that while other nations grown languid, sated and overcultivated, so that patriotism has degenerated in them into a vanity or disappeared altogether into a vague cosmopolism, that in America the sentiment strengthens and grows, bracing itself as foes to its principles appear, growing defiant as philosophers threaten its overthrow, and asserting itself passionately with the vehemence of youth and of faith.

All this is a part of the involuntary and spontaneous effort of the American race to create, formulate and cement itself. Indeed, we have cast the mold, and given it free, strong lines. It is hardening now. and by and by we will take it out of the mold. It will be finished. Time will behold it, and will begin its work upon it. It will mellow it, beautify it, and, presently, begin to weaken it. The ravages will become apparent. And the disintegration will come - home many centuries from now?

But never mind.

That is altogether another, a different story.

M. Boourgel's first impressions of American, on leaving the steamer, appear to have been that we are rather terrible. He certainly considers us astonishing. We gave his nerves a tingle - even a shock. And it must be admitted that we are horribly noisy and brutal in our business life. To be sure, he enjoyed the harbor, it would be hard to forgive anyone who did not enjoy the harbor of New York.

"On the morning of the seventh day we come in sight of New York - a summer's morning, burning and veiled. We were not able to enter yesterday, and I am glad of it, before the inconceivable picture of this arrival. The steamer is mounting the mouth of Hudson, which forms the harbor for the great town, with a movement as gentle as it had been rapid twenty-four hours ago. This sensation would be worth the voyage alone, so unexpected and profound is it. The enormous estuary shivers and ripples, stirred by the last throbbings of the Atlantic, and, on these two banks, as far as the eye can reach, on the right where New York spreads itself our, on the left where Jersey City swarms, indefinitely, interminable, it is a series of short wooden jetties, broad and covered in. Names are written on them, here that of a railroad company, then of a shipping company, then of another railroad company, and of another shipping company, and continuously also from each of these jetties a ferryboat starts out or arrives in, carrying away or emitting passengers by the hundreds, dozens of carriages with horses harnessed to them, entire trains full of goods. I count five or six of those ferry-boats, then fifteen, then twenty. Enormous, overhanging the green water with their two decks painted in white and brown, they go beating the heavy waters with their iron wheels, and at their summit a gigantic swing beam regulates their uniform movement they go, encountering one another, pushing up against each other, without doing any harm, so steady is their speed, with their appearance of colossal, laborious animals, each performing its task with a conscientious safety."

As for the city itself, he paid that the tribute of being very much surprised at it.

"The two towns, on the right and on the left, continue to extend themselves beyond what you could dream of. Leaning out on the New York side, I can distinguish some very small houses, an ocean of low constructions whence emerge, like islands with abrupt cliffs, buildings of brick so boldly colossal that even from here their height is crushing to the eye. I count the stories above the line of roofs. One of them has ten, another twelve. Another is unfinished. A hollow framework of iron is outlined against the sky, a project of six such stories stop of eight others already built.

"Gigantic, colossal, immoderate, unbridled, words fall to equal that apparition, that landscape in which the enormous mouth of the river [?] as frame to a development of human energy greater than itself. Having reached this intensity of collective efforts that energy becomes an element of nature. History adds to that impression, in order to redouble it, the indisputable bluntness of figures

THROUGH FRENCH OPTICS

A Critical View of the American People by Paul Bourget.

The Analytical Race Specialist Tells What He Thinks of Us After Twenty Days' Inspection

Some Criticisms of His View by Mrs. Peattie - We Are Children, but We Are Glad of It.

We have been viewed and reviewed - we Americans, by any number of foreign visitors. Some of them have been foolish, shallow and provincial, some have been honest, earnest, and even profound. A great many have babbled nothings and bored us to the verge of extinction. Some of them have been simply stupid, and have taken the bad manners of foreign immigrants, finding hospital in this country, as the standard of American manners.
But the other day a great observer of men came among us, and viewed us as he had viewed many other people, from the point of view of Race. Since "Cosmopolis" was written, Paul Bourget has stood identified with the question of Race -the great modern delineator and discriminator of [?] -the man who reads humans as the Egyptologist reads hieroglyphs. His facile and scholarly genius has become identified with this question, and it is, therefore, with profound interest that one reads what he has to say about the American race, that new, yet very individual thing, which yesterday was not, and which today embodies so large a part of the best energy and pride in the world.
For it is in fact that while other nations grown languid, sated and overcultivated, so that patriotism has degenerated in them into a vanity or disappeared altogether into a vague cosmopolism, that in America the sentiment strengthens and grows, bracing itself as foes to its principles appear, growing defiant as philosophers threaten its overthrow, and asserting itself passionately with the vehemence of youth and of faith.
All this is a part of the involuntary and spontaneous effort of the American race to create, formulate and cement itself. Indeed, we have cast the mold, and given it free, strong lines. It is hardening now. and by and by we will take it out of the mold. It will be finished. Time will behold it, and will begin its work upon it. It will mellow it, beautify it, and, presently, begin to weaken it. The ravages will become apparent. And the disintegration will come - home many centuries from now?
But never mind,
That is altogether another, a different story.
M. Boourgel's first impressions of American, on leaving the steamer, appear to have been that we are rather terrible. He certainly considers us astonishing. We gave his nerves a tingle - even a shock. And it must be admitted that we are horribly noisy and brutal in our business life. To be sure, he enjoyed the harbor, it would be hard to forgive anyone who did not enjoy the harbor of New York.
"On the morning of the seventh day we come in sight of New York - a summer's morning, burning and veiled. We were not able to enter yesterday, and I am glad of it, before the inconceivable picture of this arrival. The steamer is mounting the mouth of Hudson, which forms the harbor for the great town, with a movement as gentle as it had been rapid twenty-four hours ago. This sensation would be worth the voyage alone, so unexpected and profound is it. The enormous estuary shivers and ripples, stirred by the last throbbings of the Atlantic, and, on these two banks, as far as the eye can reach, on the right where New York spreads itself our, on the left where Jersey City swarms, indefinitely, interminable, it is a series of short wooden jetties, broad and covered in. Names are written on them, here that of a railroad company, there of a shipping company, then of another railroad company, and of another shipping company, and continuously also from each of these jetties a ferryboat starts out or arrives in, carrying away or emitting passengers by the hundreds, dozens of carriages with horses harnessed to them, entire trains full of goods. I count five or six of those ferry-boats, then fifteen, then twenty. Enormous, overhanging the green water with their two decks painted in white and brown, they go beating the heavy waters with their iron wheels, and at their summit a gigantic swing beam regulates their uniform movement they go, encountering one another, pushing up against each other, without doing any harm, so steady is their speed, with their appearance of colossal, laborious animals, each performing its task with a conscientious safety."