Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the
amazing changes that I have seen around me on every side--changes
moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and
peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the
growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the
graces and amenities of life, changes in the press, without whose
advancement no advancement can be made anywhere. Nor am I, believe
me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there
have been no changes in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no
extreme impressions to correct when I was here first.
And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever
since I landed here last November, observed a strict silence,
though tempted sometimes to break it, but in reference to which I
will, with your good leave, take you into my confidence now. Even
the press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed,
and I rather think that I have in one or two rare instances known
its information to be not perfectly accurate with reference to
myself. Indeed, I have now and again been more surprised by
printed news that I have read of myself than by any printed news
that I have ever read in my present state of existence. Thus, the
vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past been
collecting materials for and hammering away at a new book on
America have much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has
been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the
Atlantic that I positively declared that no consideration on earth
should induce me to write one.
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