The Columbian epoch glitters resplendently when I look back along the line of years that stretch behind me, a motley company dressed in cloth-of-gold, sackcloth, and brown holland. Something of the glow of new life that came to the world four hundred years earlier was reflected in the time. Fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus crossed the ocean blue! The old intoxication seized upon my mother and me the moment we stepped out of Saint Pancras Station and into the moldy-smelling four-wheeler. Alice, fresh from boarding school, was not less deeply stirred perhaps, but showed it less, according to the manner of her generation. A fellow traveler on the train had said to us: “I call this the American season! You Americans are furnishing more of the year’s sensations than ever.” At Earl’s Court our old acquaintance, Buffalo Bill, with his bronco busters and cowboys was making a great hit. A friend offered me a seat in the weather-beaten Deadwood Coach during the pursuit by Arapahoe Indians. “Places are not easy to get,” he assured me. “You will be in the best of company,--peeresses, professional beauties, members of Parliament.” A lady wishing to take us to the play advised, “‘Cleopatra’, with your pretty compatriot, Mrs. James Brown Potter, and Kyrle Bellew.” This was New Orleans over again! At the Royal Academy everybody talked of John Sargent’s seven magnificent portraits; “Have you seen Sargent’s Wertheimer? Best thing in the show--perfectly rippin’.” It certainly was. More to my liking was a portrait of a different Hebrew type, a young chemist in his laboratory,--subtle, delicate, all spirit, in strong contrast to that other, which was of the flesh “fleshly.” At the exhibition of the Society of Portrait Painters we saw an excellent portrait of Paderewski by the Princess Louise of Lorne, which was deservedly much noticed. In the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone was still the leading figure: he was supported by Lord Rosebery--who now looked almost grown up--and Sir Vernon Harcourt. Sir Randolph Churchill was much in evidence and Mr. Arthur Balfour was already a recognized leader. Thoughtful people were feeling the menace of Germany’s growing aggression and of the constantly increasing host of Germans holding positions of trust in the business world. “From the Bank of England down, German clerks are employed everywhere,” a friend complained. “They work for less money than our own people and they know our resources, our strength, and our weakness better than we do ourselves!”