THE AMERICAN OF A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
A little while ago, the Century Magazine published specimens of composite photography. First, there was the portrait of one person, then that of this same face with another superposed, then another containing three faces blended, and so on up to eight or nine. On the last page the result was shown. I can only compare the typical American to the last of those. This appears to me the process of evolution through which the American type is now going. What it will be when this process of evolution is over, no one, I imagine, can tell. The evolution will be complete when immigration shall have ceased, and all the different types have been well mixed and assimilated. While the process of assimilation is still going on, the result is suspended, and the type is incomplete.
But, meanwhile, are there not certain characteristic traits to be found throughout almost all America? That is a question much easier to answer.
Is it necessary to repeat that I put aside good society and confine myself merely to the people?
Nations are like individuals: when they are young, they have the qualities and the defects of children. The characteristic trait of childhood is curiosity. It is also that of the American. I have never been in Australia, but I should expect to find this trait in the Australian.
Look at American journalism. What does it live on? Scandal and gossip. Let a writer, an artist, or any one else become popular in the States, and the papers will immediately tell the public at what time he rises and what he takes for breakfast. When any one of the least importance arrives in America, he is quickly beset by a band of reporters who ask him a host of preposterous questions and examine him minutely from head to foot, in order to tell the public next day whether he wears laced, buttoned, or elastic boots, enlighten them as to the cut of his coat and the color of his trowsers, and let them know if he parts his hair in the middle or not.
CURIOSITY IN AUSTRALIA.
Every time I went into a new town to lecture I was interviewed, and the next day, besides an account of the lecture, there was invariably a paragraph somewhat in this style: