But if I were
rebuilding Valmond House I would get an American architect to do it for
me, and on the American principle, that is, I should get him to study
all the best they have done and then "go one better!"
Unless you are quite in the poor parts every creature in the streets is
spruce and well dressed; men and women have that look of their things
being brushed and ironed to the last state of perfection. And if it is
the fashion in Paris to have hats two feet across they will have them a
yard; but as they all have the same, one's eye gets accustomed to it,
and it does not look ridiculous.
The longer one stays the more one admires that extraordinary quality of
"go"--a mental alertness and lucidity they have immeasurably beyond
European nations; very few people are intellectual, but all are
intelligent and advancing. No one browses like such hundreds do at
home, and all are much more amusing companions in consequence.
Last night we went to see China Town with Valerie's brother and some
other young men, and two or three women. Valerie would not come because
she has done it before and it bores her, and no American woman
deliberately does what she finds wearisome. They are sensible.
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