Then there are the skyscrapers. These are obviously useful, since the narrowness of the area in which New York is built makes it, if not necessary, at least highly desirable to economize as much space as possible, and since it is impossible to build broadly, the only way to acquire houseroom is to build skyward. And this has been done, again without the addition on the face of the buildings of a lot of unnecessary excrescences and ornaments. Mr. Pennell, who is an artist of fame, says that the sight of the skyscraper, from the seas, beats Venice. I don’t care two pins for comparisons, for what seems to me amusing and appreciable is that we live in a world so rich in invention and so various that it produces and contains things so striking and so different as Venice and the skyscrapers of New York. That’s what we ought to be thankful for. Another useful thing which seems to me to result in a spectacle of amazing beauty is the illuminated advertisements on Broadway at night. There, by their quantity and their quality, they compose a fairy city which is constantly changing--a city of stars, glow-worms, fireflies, and Roman candles. Just the right thing to light up a street which is almost exclusively devoted, at night, to theatres, restaurants, and places of amusement. Is America comfortable? I have already said something about the trains; but since writing that I have been for two long journeys in the Orient Express. I suppose the Orient Express professes to represent and embody the acme of human luxury in the way of European travelling. It certainly represents, to my mind, the acme of human discomfort. The train is narrow. It shakes. The restaurant car is too small, and the food has a peculiar nauseating quality which is the special and exclusive invention and property of the International Sleeping-Car Company. The curious thing is that the food is the same on whatever line you travel, so long as the restaurant car belongs to the International Sleeping-Car Company. It does not matter if you are travelling on the Nord Express, the Sud Express, or the Orient Express, you will get exactly the same dinner, and that same dinner will have the same taste--that unique taste you find nowhere else in the world. And, what is more, if you ever feed at one of the hotels belonging to the International Sleeping-Car Company, you will even there find the same meal and the same taste to it, the same taste pervading all the dishes--a peculiar kind of staleness, something slightly rancid and altogether unappetizing. One wonders who invented it and by what manner and means it was made universal. On the Trans-Siberian Railway, which goes from Moscow to Vladivostok, on certain days of the week there is a dining-car belonging to the International Sleeping-Car Company, and on other days there is a dining-car belonging to the State. In the car belonging to the State you get good, ordinary food; the same kind of food as you can get at a hotel or a station buffet; but in