Yet it is not these traits which make the deepest impression upon the returning traveller. As he leaves the shores of America he forgets for the moment her love of money and of boodle, he forgets her superb energy and hunger for life, he forgets the exquisite taste shown by the most delicately refined of her citizens. He remembers most vividly that he is saying good-bye to the oldest land on earth. It is an irony of experience that the inhabitants of the United States are wont to describe themselves as a young people. They delight to excuse their extravagances on the ground of youth. When they grow older (they tell you) they will take another view of politics and of conduct. And the truth is that old age long ago overtook them. America is not, never was, young. She sprang, ready-made, from the head of a Pilgrim Father, the oldest of God's creatures. Being an old man's daughter, she has escaped the virtues and vices of an irresponsible childhood. In the primitive history of the land her ancestors took no part. They did not play with flint-knives and set up dolmens where New York now stands. They did not adorn themselves with woad and feathers. The Prince Albert coat (or its equivalent) was always more appropriate to their ambition. In vain you will search the United States for the signs of youth. Wherever you cast your eye you will find the signal proofs of an eager, grasping age. Youth loiters and is glad, listening to the songs of birds, wondering at the flowers which carpet the meadow, and recking not of the morrow. America is grave and in a hurry. She is not content to fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden age. The one hope of her citizens is to get to Wall Street as quickly as possible, that they may add to their already useless hoard of dollars. For this purpose they have perfected all those material appliances which increase the rapidity and ease of life. They would save their labour as strenuously as they would add to their fortunes. A telephone at every bed-head has made the toil of letter-writing superfluous. A thousand ingenious methods of "transportation" have taken away the necessity of walking. There is no reason why in the years to come hand and foot should not both be atrophied. But there is nothing young in this sedulous suppression of toil. Youth is prodigal of time and of itself. Youth boasts of strength and prowess to do great deeds, not of skill to pile millions upon millions, a Pelion upon an Ossa of wealth. Nor in the vain luxury of New York can we detect anything save the signs of age. It is only in modern America that the mad extravagance of Nero's Rome may be matched. There the banquet of Trimalchio might be presented without surprise and without reproach. It differs from what are known as "freak dinners" only in the superiority of its invention and in the perfection of its table-talk.