It was these talks with Old Louis about England, the atmosphere of England as well, that my sister somehow left behind her, my own yearnings now suddenly reawakened too, that decided me. My detestation of the city both cleared and deepened. I began to understand more vividly, more objectively, the reasons for my feeling alien in it. I missed tradition, background, depth. There was a glittering smartness everywhere. The great ideal was to be sharper, smarter than your neighbour, above all things sharp and smart and furiously rapid, above all things--win the game. To be in a furious rush was to be intelligent, to do things slowly was to be derided. The noise and speed suggested rapids; the deep, quiet pools were in the older lands. Display, advertisement, absence of all privacy I had long been aware of, naturally; I now realized how little I desired this speed and glittering brilliance, this frantic rush to be at all costs sharper, quicker, smarter than one’s neighbour, to win the game at any price. I realized why my years in the city had brought no friendships, and why they had been starved as well as lonely.... Some months passed before I booked a passage, however. I was sorry to leave James Speyer. Then one day he spoke to me about--marriage. For a year or more I had noticed his friendship with Mrs. Lowry, a Christian, well-known figure in the social world; and, being the confidant of both parties, I had done all I could to encourage a marriage that promised happiness and success. In due course, Bishop Potter, of New York, officiated. The ceremony was performed in the drawing-room, and just before it began, James Speyer came up to me, took the beautiful links out of his cuffs, and handed them to me. “I should like you to have these,” he said, “as a little memento.” I have them still. A few months later, just before I was thirty, I found myself in a second-class cabin in a Cunarder, with my savings in my pocket. Old Louis, who followed me a year or two later, came down to see me off. I was glad when the Statue of Liberty lay finally below the sea’s horizon, but I shall never forget the thrill of strange emotion I experienced when I first saw the blue rim of Ireland rise above the horizon a few days later. A shutter dropped behind me. I entered a totally new world. Life continued to be _mouvementée_, indeed, one adventure succeeding another, and ever with the feeling that a chance letter, a chance meeting might open any morning a new chapter of quite a novel kind; but my American episodes were finished. Of mystical, psychic, or so-called “occult” experiences, I have purposely said nothing, since these notes have sought to recapture surface adventures only. INDEX “A Case of Eavesdropping,” 252 Abbott, Dr. Lyman, sermons on the theology of an Evolutionist, 292 _et seq._ tribute to _N.Y. Times_ report of his sermons, 294 Aberdeen, Lord, Governor-General of Canada, 66 Advertising extraordinary, 105