Miss Elizabeth L. Banks, who writes an amusing letter to
Tuesday's Times, in answer to Mr. Rudyard Kipling's descrip- tion of the American " down East summer-time," seems very proud of the general speed and hurry of Western civilisatior, which she evidently thinks has far surpassed that of the Yankees of the Eastern States, in quality as well as quantity. The Yankees she treats as almost a worn-out type, and is anxious that in England we should not confound them with the go- ahead people of the West, though she reluctantly admits that perhaps American women are " a nervous set," and that perhaps " too much nervous energy is debilitating in the long- run." "However," says Miss Banks, "we Americans are in- clined to think that the rushing system is a good one for our new country." Why good on account of the newness of the country ?—unless it be that the Americans are, like young children, very anxious to get grown up. We should have thought that the newer the country, and the greater the room for expansion in it, the more the Americans would be inclined to take their time, and to feel that they could afford it as compared with the stinted millions of Europe, who have too narrow a margin for any leisure or meditation. Surely, just the right time for tranquillity and meditation is the time which the great resources of a new country bestow on those who have the privilege of picking and choosing from amongst those resources. If the Eastern States have any great advantage over the Western, it is that they have seen the mistake of hurry, and have learned to prize the fruits of tranquil judgment, thought, and meditation.
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