XII: INTERESTING ST. LOUIS MET BY THE MAYOR--ANOTHER INTELLIGENT REPORTER--NEWS FROM HOME AND VIEWS THEREON--LUNCHEON AT WOMEN'S CLUB 147 XIII: KANSAS CITY AND OMAHA AMERICAN VOICES RARELY MUSICAL--SEES LOVELY COUNTRY HOME--DISCUSSION ON CHARACTER BUILDING--MARGOT PREDICTS GREAT FUTURE FOR GOVERNOR ALLEN 155 XIV: THE WAR AND PROHIBITION HEATED DISCUSSION ON ENGLAND'S ENTRY INTO THE WAR--OUR GERMAN FRIENDS--AMERICAN VITALITY--MISQUOTED ON PROHIBITION 165 XV: NEW YORK IDEAL CITY LIFE AND AIR AND GAIETY IN NEW YORK--LETTER FROM GOVERNOR ALLEN--MARGOT MEETS ARTHUR BRISBANE--PRINCESS BIBESCO'S BOOK 177 XVI: CRITICISM AND FAREWELL DOLL SALESMAN TALKS ON PROHIBITION--PERILS OF COMMERCIALISM AND MATERIALISM IN AMERICA--PLEA FOR LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP 189 XVII: THINKING IT OVER IN ENGLAND AMERICANS FRIENDLY BUT VAIN--THE LAND OF THE REFORMER--INTEREST IN EUROPE'S ARISTOCRACY--NEWSPAPERS PANDER TO VULGAR CURIOSITY--PLEA FOR ANGLO-AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP 199 INDEX 211 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA I: ABOARD THE CARMANIA ABOARD THE _CARMANIA_ MARGOT NOT A NATURAL TOURIST; LACKS CURIOSITY--HEADLINES IN LONDON COMPARED WITH HEADLINES IN NEW YORK--AMERICAN WOMEN WORLDLY--AMERICAN MEN THE GENUINE ARTICLE I motored to Southampton on Saturday, the 21st of January, this year, and after saying good-bye to my husband and my son, retired to my berth on the _Carmania_. I am a bad traveller, and had been laid up with a sort of influenza until the day before I left London. Kindly press people tempted me to confide in them on the ship. They asked me if I would be back in time for Princess Mary's wedding; where I was going when I arrived in America, and if I looked forward to my trip. I sometimes wonder what questions I would put if I were obliged to interview a traveller. I would ask with reluctance where they were going, but never what they had seen, because I know I could not listen to their answers. Everyone knows what you are likely to see if you go for any length of time to London, Rome, Athens or the United States; and is there a person living whose impressions you would care to hear either upon the Coliseum, Niagara Falls, or any other of the great works of art or of nature? On such subjects the remarks of the cleverest and stupidest are equally inadequate and the superb vocabulary of a Ruskin will probably not be more illuminating than what the school-boy writes in the Visitors' Book at Niagara, "Uncle and all very much pleased."