In the United States of America, which have not yet acquired the serene
sense of conservative self-satisfaction and repose which centuries of
age may bestow, the spirit of life itself is the aspiration for change.
Ambition itself only means the insistence on change. Each day is to be
better than yesterday fuller of plans, of briskness, of initiative. Each
to-day demands of to-morrow new men, new minds, new work. A to-day which
has not launched new ships, explored new countries, constructed new
buildings, added stories to old ones, may consider itself a failure,
unworthy even of being consigned to the limbo of respectable yesterdays.
Such a country lives by leaps and bounds, and the ten years which
followed the marriage of Reuben Vanderpoel's eldest daughter made many
such bounds and leaps. They were years which initiated and established
international social relations in a manner which caused them to
incorporate themselves with the history of both countries. As America
discovered Europe, that continent discovered America. American beauties
began to appear in English drawing-rooms and Continental salons. They
were presented at court and commented upon in the Row and the Bois.
Their little transatlantic tricks of speech and their mots were repeated
with gusto.
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