"I should not transmit such a message if I were not quite sure. You will do as you please about accepting the invitation." Then, turning abruptly to Mrs. Barham, "Can you recommend to me a thoroughly representative American book—I mean representative of real American life, not from the satirical or humorist point of view? I see there is a capital library here."
"Our New England life is very well depicted in Mary Wilkins's tales, and also in Sarah Orne Jewett's. They are truthful pictures of our quiet homes, our quiet lives, removed from the turmoil of the great cities. But perhaps you might find them dull."
"I have read them, and thought them charming. Spinsterhood is great, and Miss Wilkins is its prophet. But I want to know about something besides those dear old women. Miss Jewett, also, charming as she is, is circumscribed. I want something wider in range. I was given 'On Both Sides' the other day. It amused me, but as a caricature."
"You mean that the English are caricatured—not the American," said Saul Barham, with a smile.
"Yes, I do. No woman in society ever said the outrageously vulgar things Mrs. Sykes is made to say. She may think them—she may even act them—she could not say them. It strikes a false note. Then there is a beautiful young man, supposed to be a typical young man of society, who tells a long story in which he repeats over and over again, 'I says to him.' Why! no one above a stable-boy ever used such a form of speech."
"Is it quite possible for one nation to judge another fairly?" asked Mrs. Barham, gently.
"I hope so. Why not? I am sure I have no anti-American prejudices. But as we are so closely bound together by language and origin, it is more difficult for us not to look at differences between us from an English standpoint, than it is when we are discussing any European nation. And no doubt it is the same with you, if you confess it."
"I do confess it," said the young man.
Mrs. Barham murmured something about there being "quite a number of persons in America who imitate everything English now."
Saul laughed.