Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The following pages duly explain themselves, I judge,as to the Author’s point of view and his relation to hissubject; but I prefix this word on the chance of anysuspected or perceived failure of such references. Myvisit to America had been the first possible to me fornearly a quarter of a century, and I had before my lastprevious one, brief and distant to memory, spent otheryears in continuous absence; so that I was to returnwith much of the freshness of eye, outward and inward,which, with the further contribution of a state of desire,is commonly held a precious agent of perception. I feltno doubt, I confess, of my great advantage on that score;since if I had had time to become almost as “fresh” asan inquiring stranger, I had not on the other hand hadenough to cease to be, or at least to feel, as acute as aninitiated native. I made no scruple of my conviction thatI should understand and should care better and more thanthe most earnest of visitors, and yet that I should vibratewith more curiosity—on the extent of ground, that is, onwhich I might aspire to intimate intelligence at all—thanthe pilgrim with the longest list of questions, thesharpest appetite for explanations and the largest exposureto mistakes.
I felt myself then, all serenely, not exposed to gravemistakes—though there were also doubtless explanationswhich would find me, and quite as contentedly, impenetrable.I would take my stand on my gatheredimpressions, since it was all for them, for them only, thatI returned; I would in fact go to the stake for them—whichis a sign of the value that I both in particular andin general attach to them and that I have endeavouredvito preserve for them in this transcription. My cultivatedsense of aspects and prospects affected me absolutely asan enrichment of my subject, and I was prepared to abideby the law of that sense—the appearance that it wouldreact promptly in some presences only to remain imperturbablyinert in others. There would be a thousandmatters—matters already the theme of prodigious reportsand statistics—as to which I should have no sensewhatever, and as to information about which my recordwould accordingly stand naked and unashamed. Itshould unfailingly be proved against me that myopportunity had found me incapable of information,incapable alike of receiving and of imparting it; for then,and then only, would it be clearly enough attested that Ihad cared and understood.
There are features of the human scene, there areproperties of the social air, that the newspapers, reports,surveys and blue-books would seem to confess themselvespowerless to “handle,” and that yet represented to me agreater array of items, a heavier expression of character,than my own pair of scales would ever weigh, keep themas clear for it as I might. I beca