Understand, I do not mean to say that European scholars and critics have not studied American affairs and institutions to advantage and thrown a clear light of intelligence, of sympathy, of criticism, upon the history and life of the United States. A philosophical study like that of Tocqueville, a political study like that of Mr. James Bryce, a series of acute social observations like those of M. Paul Bourget, M. André Tardieu, M. Paul Boutmy, M. Weiller, an industrial study like that of M. d'Avenel, or a religious study like that of the Abbé Klein,--these are of great value. But they are quite apart, quite different, from the popular impression of America in Europe, an impression which is, and perhaps to some extent must naturally be, based upon the observations of Americans _en voyage_, and which by some strange hypnotism sometimes imposes itself for a while upon the American travellers themselves. I call this the international postal-card view of America. It is often amusing, occasionally irritating, and almost always confusing. It has flashes of truth in it. It renders certain details with the accuracy of a kodak. But, like a picture made by the kodak, it has a deficient perspective and no atmosphere. The details do not fit together. They are irrelevant. They are often contradictory. For example, you will hear statements made about America like the following:-- 'The Americans worship the Almighty Dollar more than the English revere the Ponderous Pound or the French adore _les beaux écus sonnants_. _Per contra_, the Americans are foolish spendthrifts who have no sense of the real value of money.' 'America is a country without a social order. It is a house of one story, without partitions, in which all the inhabitants are on a level. _Per contra_, America is the place where class distinctions are most sharply drawn, and where the rich are most widely and irreconcilably separated from the poor.' 'The United States is a definite experiment in political theory, which was begun in 1776, and which has succeeded because of its philosophical truth and logical consistency. _Per contra_, the United States is an accident, a nation born of circumstances and held together by good fortune, without real unity or firm foundation.' 'The American race is a new creation, aboriginal, autochthonous, which ought to express itself in totally new and hitherto unheard-of forms of art and literature. _Per contra_, there is no American race, only a vast and absurd _mélange_ of incongruous elements, cast off from Europe by various political convulsions, and combined by the pressure of events, not into a people, but into a mere population, which can never have a literature or an art of its own.'