Instantly we got on. He said if we were seeing America
we were not to judge the nation by the men we should see in society in
New York (each person we meet tells us this!); that we should go out
West if we wanted to find the giant brains who make the country great.
"It's not that I mean to disparage Mrs. Latour's guests," he said,
looking round the table; "they are what they are, good enough in their
way, humming birds and mocking birds to flit among the flowers, and
pretty poor at that when you compare them with Europeans; but they
don't amount to anything for the nation. They couldn't evolve a scheme
that would benefit a foot beyond their noses!" And when I asked him why
he had allowed his daughter to marry one of them, he said with such a
whimsical air, that women in America did what they "darned well
pleased," and that he guessed that everyone had to "work out their own
problem along that line."
"The Almighty played a trick on us," he said. "Putting the desire for
one particular person into our heads, now and again in our lives leads
to heaps of trouble, and don't benefit the race. If we'd no feelings we
could select according to reason and evolve perfection in time."
Isn't that a splendid idea, Mamma? He went on to say he studied
psychology a good deal, and he found to look at life from that
standpoint was the most satisfactory way.
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