With pardonable pride he tells how, on one occasion, when a woman in New York told him she knew her ancestral line as far back as 1200 A. D., he replied that he himself had "a tree without a break for thirty-two hundred years." He was sure she did not believe him, but he found her "indeed!" delightful. The author's name has been withheld for personal reasons that will be sufficiently obvious to those who read the letters. The period during which he wrote them is embraced in the ten years from 1892 to 1902.
Henry Pearson Gratton.
San Francisco, California,
May 10th, 1904.
CONTENTS
- [PREFACE.]
- [I.] The American, who he is
- [II.] The American Man
- [III.] American Customs
- [IV.] The American Woman
- [V.] The Superstitions of the American
- [VI.] The American Press
- [VII.] The American Doctor
- [VIII.] Peculiarities and Mannerisms
- [IX.] Life in Washington
- [X.] The American in Literature
- [XI.] The Political Boss
- [XII.] Education in America
- [XIII.] The Army and Navy
- [XIV.] Art in America
- [XV.] The Dark Side of Republicanism
- [XVI.] Sports and Pastimes
- [XVII.] The Chinaman in America
- [XVIII.] The Religions of the Americans