His surprise at Jerusalem suggested to me the question, Had he been surprised at the United States--what he had seen of it? But he dodged giving any "view" of us. His only comment was on the "multitudinous wooden houses." Had he met many American authors? The one most recently met, a day or so ago in Northampton, though he had met him before in England, was a gentleman he liked very much. He was so thin Mr. Chesterton thought the two of them "should go around together." His name? Gerald Stanley Lee. But there is not a particle more of time that I can spend on this article. CHAPTER VI WHEN IS A GREAT CITY A SMALL VILLAGE? How many times you have noticed it! Regular phenomenon. Suddenly, within a few hours, the whole nature of the great city is changed--your city and mine, New York or Chicago, or Boston or Buffalo or Philadelphia. Though nobody seems to say much about it afterward. Just sort of take the thing for granted. It is just like Armistice Night, every once in awhile. Total strangers suddenly begin to call each other "Neighbor." Voices everywhere become jollier. Numerous passersby begin to whistle and sing. People go with a skip and a jump. Catcalls are heard. Groups may be seen all around going arm in arm, and here and there with arms about necks. Anybody speaks to you merrily. Merrily you speak to anybody. All eyes shine. Roses are in every cheek. Hurry is abandoned. Small boys run wild. Nobody now objects to their stealing a ride. It is fun to see their swinging legs dangling over the tail of every wagon. Sour human nature is purged. Good humor reigns. Hurrah! I mean on the night of a big snow. This year it looked for long as though we were going to be done out of this truly Dickensean festival. Seemed like we were going to be like those unfortunate people in Southern California, who never have any winter to cheer them up. How tired they must get of their wives and neighbors, with it bland summer all the time. Perhaps that is the reason there is such a promiscuous domestic life out there. Young Will Shakespeare had the dope. He piped the weather for jollity and pep. "When blood is nipp'd"--"a merry note!" You remember how it was this time: Spring all winter--and spring fever, too, a good many of us had all the while. (My doctor said it was "malaria" with me.) We were congratulating ourselves that we were going to "get by" without any "blizzards" at all this year. We became "softy." We guarded ourselves with our umbrellas against the shower. We became prudent. And what is it Stevenson says of that? "So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlors with a regulated temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of thin shoes and tepid milk."