That was one of the few times in America when I did not miss the poetry of the past.  The poetry of the present, gigantic, colossal and enormous, made me forget it.  The “sky-scrapers”—­what a brutal name it is when one comes to think of it!—­so splendid in the landscape now, did not exist in 1883, but I find it difficult to divide my early impressions from my later ones.  There was Brooklyn Bridge though, hung up high in the air like a vast spider’s web.

Between 1883 and 1893 I noticed a great change in New York and other cities.  In ten years they seemed to have grown with the energy of tropical plants.  But between 1893 and 1907 I saw no evidence of such feverish increase.  It is possible that the Americans are arriving at a stage when they can no longer beat the records!  There is a vast difference between one of the old New York brownstone houses and one of the fourteen-storied buildings near the river, but between this and the Times Square Building or the still more amazing Flat Iron Building, which is said to oscillate at the top—­it is so far from the ground—­there is very little difference.  I hear that they are now beginning to build downwards into the earth, but this will not change the appearance of New York for a long time.

I had not to endure the wooden shed in which most people landing in America have to struggle with the Custom-house officials—­a struggle as brutal as a “round in the ring,” as Paul Bourget describes it.  We were taken off the Britannic in a tug, and Mr. Abbey, Laurence Barrett, and many other friends met us—­including the much-dreaded reporters.

They were not a bit dreadful, but very quick to see what kind of a man Henry was.  In a minute he was on the best of terms with them.  He had on what I used to call his best “Jingle” manner—­a manner full of refinement, bonhomie, elegance and geniality.

“Have a cigar—­have a cigar.”  That was the first remark of Henry’s, which put every one at ease.  He also wanted to be at ease and have a good smoke.  It was just the right merry greeting to the press representatives of a nation whose sense of humor is far more to be relied on than its sense of reverence.

“Now come on, all of you!” he said to the interviewers.  He talked to them all in a mass and showed no favoritism.  It says much for his tact and diplomacy that he did not “put his foot in it.”  The Americans are suspicious of servile adulation from a stranger, yet are very sensitive to criticism.

“These gentlemen want to have a few words with you,” said Henry to me when the reporters had done with him.  Then with a mischievous expression he whispered:  “Say something pleasant!  Merry and bright!”

Merry and bright!  I felt it!  The sense of being a stranger entering a strange land, the rushing sense of loneliness and foreignness was overpowering my imagination.  I blew my nose hard and tried to keep back my tears, but the first reporter said:  “Can I send any message to your friends in England?”