It was while I was meditating on these thoughts in mid-ocean that the idea occurred to me of writing something different from a book of impressions on Argentina and Brazil. Too many books of impressions of the two Americas are written in Europe; and literature of this sort, as copious as it is useless, has justly satiated the public. Inasmuch as this idea of progress implies a great conflict of tendencies, from which may arise a profound upheaval of our civilisation, why should I not contrast in a book the two conceptions of progress, that which America has created and is trying to impose on the world, and that which is even now professed in Europe by the classes most faithful to tradition, and which they ought to seek to defend? If I succeeded in giving a vivid representation of this conflict, should I not have described a living part of America better than if I had merely accumulated thousands of detached impressions and observations? And so the idea flashed across my mind of writing a dialogue introducing some Europeans and Americans who on board a steamer in mid-ocean discussed Europe and America, that is to say, progress, in the sense proper to the word as well as in the sense given to it by the Americans. Is not the dialogue an ancient and glorious literary form? It is true that for many reasons it has lately been neglected, one particular reason being, that in modern life, busy and exhausting as it is, it is difficult to find a scene which will give verisimilitude to a conversation lasting several days. Modern civilisation is a civilisation of much action and little discussion. However, there is still one scene left in modern life on which one can stage with artistic verisimilitude a discussion lasting several days: a transatlantic liner. A liner is perhaps the only spot in the modern world where one may find discussion holding the field. Usually discussions on board ship deal with frivolous and empty topics. Why might not a writer suppose, however, that for once in a way, four or five serious-minded persons met on board a liner and began a casual talk which later developed into a discussion of one of the gravest of the problems which oppress our own generation, no less than every one of its predecessors?
Among the persons whose acquaintance I had made during the voyage, some appeared to me to lend themselves to the rôle of interlocutor in the dialogue. So, directly I got back, I began to sketch out my dialogue. It was then that I experienced a curious phenomenon. With every fresh attempt I made to embody in certain characteristic personages the American idea of progress, as I had observed it in so many of my friends on that side, and the European idea, as I had many times defended it, both ideas seemed to me to evaporate, and to lose consistency and colour. That conflict of tendencies, ideas, and passions which had seemed to me so lively and so profound in my meditations in mid-ocean appeared to have melted away after I had touched the soil of old Europe. The dialogue which I was writing seemed to me cold, dead, and academic.
I was torn in two directions by these difficulties, uncertain whether to abandon the enterprise, and asking myself whether American progress had not been a passing hallucination of the voyage; when towards the middle of February, 1908, I received from North America a new surprise of a still greater and more agreeable nature, in the shape of a letter from Baron Eduardo Mayor de Planches, at that time Italian Ambassador at Washington, in which he told me that President Roosevelt at his last diplomatic reception had expressed to him his wish to see me in the United States, and to have me as his guest for a few days at the White House before his presidential term ended. At any time, so courteous an invitation from a man for whose culture, intellect, and statesmanlike qualities I had so great an admiration, would have given me much pleasure. My joy was much increased, however, by the fact of its having arrived two months after my return from South America. A visit to the United States directly after one to South America was a rare stroke of luck. For, to tell the truth, in visiting Brazil and Argentina, I had seen only a fragment of the New World. But to come to know that great New-World State which by itself personifies America in the eyes of all, and to come to know the two largest states of South America into the bargain, was equivalent to saying that I had studied at least what was most important, characteristic, and deserving of study in the boundless continent which Columbus discovered. All the curiosity to which the rumours and legends current in Europe about the United States had given birth in me, and which was dominant in the recesses of my mind, awoke to life. I forgot the problem of progress, the doubts which tormented me, and the problems which I had posed to myself on my travels in Argentina, as well as the dialogue I intended to write, in my preparation for my fresh journey and for the lectures in Roman history which I was scheduled to give at the Lowell Institute, at Columbia University, and at the University of Chicago. I set to work to read as many books as I could about North America. I resumed the mantle of Roman historian to prepare my course of lectures and gave no further thought to the book on America which I had promised to write.
On November 1, 1908, I sailed for New York, and a three months’ course of the intense life began again for me; rapid journeys, incessant visits, interviews with journalists, hundreds of conversations, banquets, receptions, speeches, and inquiries. I visited schools, hospitals, universities, prisons, law-courts, factories, banks, and co-operative enterprises. I made the acquaintance of millionaires and artisans, industrialists and professors, lawyers and journalists. I managed to get a peep into the wealthy abodes of the rich families of the great cities of the East, and into the little houses in which the middle classes drag out a crowded and pinched existence. I witnessed the frenzy for work, the incessant activity, the unending agitation which wears out every class in America. Most important of all, however, I saw reappear before me—and this time in gigantic form, monstrous, unrestrained, almost sublime in its savage energy—that demon of American progress which had impressed me so much in Brazil and Argentina, comparatively small though it had there appeared to me, and which in Europe seemed to me to have almost melted away. Was it not this which imbued everything American with that startling air of novelty, extravagance, and grandeur, which stunned and almost frightened me? So I devoted myself not only to the accumulation of impressions, informations, and recollections in profusion; I also set to work in the tumult of American life to think again about American progress. I made an effort to dive deeper down into the nature of this strange phenomenon, to guard against its melting away from before me when I got back to Europe. And at last, one day, I really thought I had found the clue.
My wife and I had been invited to luncheon with a cultured and clever author, who knew three languages, had received an extensive and liberal education, and lived by her pen, writing for newspapers, translating, and giving lessons. She belonged, in fact, to what one might call the intellectual middle class. She lived with a sister in a street of old New York, occupying a little flat of the kind in which many middle-class New Yorkers live. One reached it by a little wooden staircase, and entered it by a little door, opening on to a little corridor, which gave access to four tiny rooms, whose floors creaked under foot and whose walls let the voices and noises of the neighbours and co-lodgers be clearly heard. Outside the windows and extending to the court-yard, the fire-escapes reminded one that the house, partly constructed of wood, might at any moment catch fire like a match. Naturally there were no servants in the house. With her sister’s help the charming author, when she returned home, laid down the pen and became cook and chambermaid. The luncheon, considered from an artistic point of view, gave us clearly to understand, that the hands which had prepared it did not possess any very considerable technical skill. That did not prevent us, however, from enjoying ourselves mightily, so interesting and pleasant was the company.
Now, while I was eating my luncheon, and looking round me, I thought that America must certainly be much wealthier than the wealthiest of European countries. A woman as richly endowed with intellect and culture as my kind hostess, who lived by her pen in Paris, Rome, or London, would certainly earn less than she. And yet the foreign woman could live in better style, keep a servant to relieve her of the most troublesome and humble of her domestic duties, live in a large and less inflammable house, and have fresher and better prepared food to eat. If she married a man of her own station, she could more easily and with less stint, bring into the world, rear, and educate a family.
From my hostess, I passed on to think of all the other persons of the same station in life, of those middle classes which are everywhere the support and foundation of democratic institutions and the great reserve of energy of modern civilisation. In New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the great cities of the East, I had seen several families belonging to this class. I had even been the recipient of their confidences and complaints. At that moment, I realised clearly how much more difficult and laborious, owing to the greater cost of food and lodging, the extreme difficulty of finding servants, and the enormous expense of rearing, and still more of educating, children must be the life of those middle classes in the great cities of the United States than in the great cities of Europe. Like my hostess, a business clerk, a humble employé, or an artisan in the most select industries, though he gains less in Paris or in London than in New York, can live much better in the former towns. He can eat better, lodge more comfortably, employ someone to help in the household, and rear his family without excessive drudgery.
Then I asked myself: “But what is the use of wealth, then, if it is not a means of living better, of securing some extra ease, comfort, or pleasure? What is the reason for this startling paradox, of riches turning from a blessing into a torment? How comes it that America, which has shown such energy in the exploitation of the immense wealth hidden in her boundless territory, has not followed up her conquests by converting these riches to the benefit of the whole population? How is it that, in this fortunate country, it is these middle classes who suffer most who yet have an influence on the Government such as they have in no European country? Why can we find in poorer countries individuals and classes who are happier because they are better satisfied with their condition?”
It was by reflecting on this problem that I at last arrived at a comprehension of the real nature of American progress, and that I finally lighted on the subject, the frame, and the key of the dialogue over which I had so long worried. How and in what way, I shall recount in the following chapter.