It was a tense moment in my relationship to my guests, but I ventured to say: “We have a better reason for the faith which is in us than most other nations, for we are trying to realize it without killing off other people. In fact we are trying to realize it at a greater hazard than that of being conquered by an alien enemy. We are keeping open these doors which have swung both ways freely, for nearly three hundred years, and your Old World weary ones have been coming; bringing their traditions, their ideals, their worn out faiths and their heaped up wrath. We did not forbid them; they have come to our towns, our schools, our homes, they are here for better for worse, and we cannot divorce them, or drive them away.
“Yes,” I continued, much to the discomfiture of the Herr Director, “we have a meaning to the Old World, a larger meaning than you think. We have a place under the Sun, not to satisfy national ambitions; but to keep alive faith in humanity.”
The Angels around the table were disquieted by our vehemence, the Frau Directorin urged that it was growing late, and we left that center of quiet which we had so disturbed, to return to our hotel. We entered a street car crowded beyond its capacity by burly Irishmen the worse for liquor, good-natured Slavs none the better for it, aggressive looking Russian Jews and sleek Chinamen. There were mothers with their crying babies, and thoughtless boys and girls chewing gum most viciously. After the Herr Director and the Frau Directorin had been jostled unmercifully, we left the uncomfortable car, and when we were again breathing unpolluted air the Herr Director asked quizzically:
“Do you still believe in humanity?”
Boldly and bravely I answered: “Yes, I believe,” and lifting my face to the stars I whispered: “Lord, help my unbelief.”
III
The Spirit Out-of-Doors
MUCH to my regret the Herr Director did not sleep well that second night in the United States. His nerves had suffered from those first thronging impressions, he looked pale and was decidedly irritable; “for how could a man sleep or be expected to sleep in this business canyon, loud from the thunder of the elevated, and bright from the flashing of illuminated signs?” Together they had the effect of an electric storm upon him.
When he did fall asleep he dreamed that the Metropolitan Tower, the Woolworth Building and St. Patrick’s Cathedral were dancing Tango upon his chest.
This nightmare may have been due to the fact that just before retiring we witnessed an exhibition of this modern madness, which seemed to be indulged in everywhere except in the churches and possibly the barber shops. Partly also, perhaps, because the Herr Director insisted upon eating lobster shortly before midnight, in spite of the fact that I warned him against that indulgence. It was one of those generous, United States lobsters, and not the diminutive shell-fish with which cultured Europeans merely tickle their palates.
The Herr Director had repeatedly pointed out our bad habit of leaving a great deal of food on our plates, and to impress upon me his better manners, he had eaten the entire lobster.