_Beginning with New York, she says, “I like the Americans more and more, either they have improved wonderfully lately or else the criticisms on them have been cruelly exaggerated. They are particularly courteous and obliging; and seem, I think, amiably anxious that foreigners should carry away a favorable impression of them. As for me--I am determined not to be prejudiced, but to judge of them exactly as I find them; and I shall most pertinaciously continue to praise them (if I see no good cause to alter my present humble opinion). I have witnessed but very few isolated cases, as yet, of the wonderful habits so usually ascribed to them--the superior classes here have almost always excellent manners, and a great deal of real and natural, as well as acquired, refinement, and are often besides (which perhaps will not be believed in fastidious England) extremely distinguishing looking.”_ _It is written in the spirit of her day and is meant to be extremely complimentary. It pleases me to note that I have already unconsciously corroborated her remark that: “The Americans, I think, are a very musically inclined people--far more naturally so, it strikes me, than we Britishers.”_ _She tells of meeting Mr. Prescott in Boston. “Prescott is one of the most agreeable people I have ever met with--as delightful as his own most delightful books.--He tells me he has never visited either Mexico or Peru. I am surprised that the interest in his own matchless works did not impel him to go to both.”_ _I agree with her, it does indeed seem strange._