ell, sir, and what do you think of America?"
Without pretending to judge America ex cathedra, I will sum up the impressions jotted down in this little volume, and reply to the traditional question of the Americans.
When one thinks of what the Americans have done in a hundred years of independent life, it looks as if nothing should be impossible to them in the future, considering the inexhaustible resources at their disposition.
America has been doubling its population every twenty-five years. If emigration continues at the same rate as it has hitherto, in fifty years she will have more than two hundred millions of inhabitants. If, during that time, continental Europe makes progress only in arts and sciences, while the social condition of its nations does not improve, she will be to America what barbarism is to civilisation.
While the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, and the Firebrandenburgs review their troops; while her standing armies cost Europe more than £200,000,000 a year in peace time; whilst the European debt is £5,000,000,000, the American treasury at Washington, in spite of corruption, which it is well known does exist, has a surplus of sixty million dollars. Whilst European Governments cudgel their wits to devise means for meeting the expenses of absolute Monarchies, the Washington Government is at a loss to know what to do with the money it has in hand. Whilst the European telegrams in the daily papers give accounts of reviews, mobilisations, and military manœuvres; of speeches in which the people are reminded that their duty is to serve their Emperor first, and their country afterwards; of blasphemous prayers in which God is asked to bless soldiers, swords, and gunpowder; the American telegrams announce the price of wheat and cattle and the quotations on the American Stock Exchange.
Happy country that can get into a state of ebullition over a Presidential Election, or the doings of John Sullivan while Europe in trembling asks herself, with the return of each new spring, whether two or three millions of her sons will not be called upon to cut each other's throats, for the great glory of three Emperors in search of a little excitement!
America is not only a great nation, geographically speaking. The Americans are a great people, holding in their hands their own destiny; learning day by day, with the help of their liberty, to govern themselves more and more wisely; and able, thanks to the profound security in which they live, to consecrate all their talents and all their energy to the arts of peace.
The well-read, well-bred American is the most delightful of men; good society in America is the wittiest, most genial, and most hospitable I have met with.
But the more I travel, and the more I look at other nations, the more confirmed am I in my opinion that the French are the happiest people on earth.
The American is certainly on the road to the possession of all that can contribute to the well-being and success of a nation; but he seems to me to have missed the path that leads to real happiness. His domestic joys, I am inclined to think, are more shadowy than real. To live in a whirl is not to live well.