You will understand that if I have chosen a subject which is not strictly academic, it is because the best part of my life has been spent out of doors among men. You will perceive that my failure to speak of Boston as the centre of the United States may have some connection with the accident that I am not a Bostonian. You will account for the absence of a suggestion that any one political party is the only hope of the Republic by the fact that I am not a politician. You will detect in my attitude towards literature the naïve conviction that it is not merely an art existing for art's sake, but an expression of the inner life and a factor in the moral character. Finally, you will conclude, with your French logicality of mind, that I must be an obstinate idealist, because I am going to venture to lecture to you on _The Spirit of America_. That is as much as to say that I believe man is led by an inner light, and that the ideals, moral convictions, and vital principles of a people are the most important factors in their history. All these things are true. They cannot be denied or concealed. I would willingly confess them and a hundred more, if I might contribute but a little towards the purpose of these lectures: to help some of the people of France to understand more truly the real people of America,--a people of idealists engaged in a great practical task. I THE SOUL OF A PEOPLE THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA I THE SOUL OF A PEOPLE There is a proverb which affirms that in order to know a man you have only to travel with him for a week. Almost all of us have had experiences, sometimes happy and sometimes the reverse, which seem to confirm this saying. A journey in common is a sort of involuntary confessional. There is a certain excitement, a confusion and quickening of perceptions and sensations, in the adventures, the sudden changes, the new and striking scenes of travel. The bonds of habit are loosened. Impulses of pleasure and of displeasure, suddenly felt, make themselves surprisingly visible. Wishes and appetites and prejudices which are usually dressed in a costume of words so conventional as to amount to a disguise now appear unmasked, and often in very scanty costume, as if they had been suddenly called from their beds by an alarm of fire on a steamboat, or, to use a more agreeable figure, by the announcement in a hotel on the Righi of approaching sunrise.