Isabella Bird States Quotations

Americans specially love superlatives. The phrases 'biggest in the world,' 'finest in the world,' are on all lips.

One of the most painful things in the Western States and Territories is the extinction of childhood. I have never seen any children - only debased imitations of men and women, cankered by greed and selfishness, and asserting and gaining complete independence of their parents at ten years old.

I went to the States with that amount of prejudice which seems the birthright of every English person, but I found that, under the knowledge of the Americans which can be attained by a traveller mixing in society in every grade, these prejudices gradually melted away.

The ladies in the United States appeared to me to be extremely domestic. However fond they may be of admiration as girls, after their early marriages they become dutiful wives and affectionate, devoted mothers. And in a country where there are few faithful attached servants, far more devolves upon the mother than English ladies have any idea of.

Grapes are grown in such profusion in the Southern and Western States that I have seen damaged bunches thrown to the pigs. Americans find it difficult to understand how highly this fruit is prized in England.