_But what really interests me is a sidetrack in which she launches out in opinions about Russia. She writes: “There are but few Russian visitors here in New York, it seems; but I am very much struck by the apparent entente-cordiale that exists between Russia and the United States. There seems an inexplicable instinct of sympathy, some mysterious magnetism at work, which is drawing by degrees these two mighty nations into closer contact. Napoleon, we know, prophesied that the world, ere long, would be either Cossack or Republican.... I cannot resist dwelling a little on this interesting subject: Russia is certainly the grand representative of despotic principles, as the U. S. are the representatives of democratic ones. How is it that these antagonistic principles, embodied in these two mighty governments, allow them to be so friendly and cordial towards one another?... Russia and the U. S. are the two young giant nations of the world.... The Leviathans of the lands!... These two grand young nations are strong to the race, and fresh to the glorious contest. Far off in the future, centuries and ages beyond this present hour, is the culminating point. What to other Nations may be work and labor, to them is but, as it were, healthful relaxation, the exercising of their mammoth limbs, the quickening of the mighty current of their buoyant and bounding life-blood, the conscious enjoyment of their own inexhaustible vitality. There is much similarity, in short, in the position of these two vast powers.... She (Russia) has plenty of time, too, before her--she can watch and she can wait....”_ _If Lady Emmeline had had an American mother, to help her to be just a little less English and a little less class-conscious, she might have evolved into quite an emancipated thinker!_ _I cannot help wishing that she, too, had kept a diary, instead of compiling her book from letters “after adding somewhat, to give them the usual narrative form,” as she says in the preface. Consequently one loses many of the little details often illustrative or human that only a daily diary can remember to record. Following her travels, I see that at Vera Cruz she probably stayed in the same hotel, “In the great Plaza, almost close to the fine old Cathedral.” In comparison with our experience at Vera Cruz hers was not so very unlike. They “ran into a Norther” which relieved them of the expected heat, but “in spite of all our precautions in the night, our balcony-doors blew open, and my little girl and I were almost blown away, beds and all.”_