{"product_id":"2940013682511","title":"A Search for America","description":"I Emigrate\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was twenty-four years old when one day in the month of July I\u003cbr\u003etook passage from Liverpool to Montreal.  I was not British-born;\u003cbr\u003ebut my mother had been a Scotswoman, and from my earliest childhood\u003cbr\u003eI had been trained to speak the English of fashionable governesses.\u003cbr\u003eI had acquired--by dint of much study of English literature--a\u003cbr\u003erather extensive reading and arguing vocabulary which however\u003cbr\u003eshowed--and, by the way, to this day shows--its parentage by a\u003cbr\u003epeculiar stiff-necked lack of condescension to everyday slang.  My\u003cbr\u003efather, Charles Edward Branden by name, had been of Swedish\u003cbr\u003eextraction, himself rather an Anglophile.  For many years previous\u003cbr\u003eto my emigration, I, too, had affected English ways in dress and\u003cbr\u003emanners; occasionally, when travelling in Sweden or in the\u003cbr\u003ecountries bordering on the Mediterranean, I had connived at being\u003cbr\u003etaken for an Englishman.  I am afraid, if I could meet myself as I\u003cbr\u003ethen was, I should consider my former self as an insufferable snob\u003cbr\u003eand coxcomb.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI must explain at some length what induced me to go to America.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I was a boy, my parents lived \"in style\"; that is to say, they\u003cbr\u003ehad a place in the country, a rather \"palatial\" home, and a house\u003cbr\u003ein the fashionable residential district of a populous city on the\u003cbr\u003econtinent of Europe.  The exact localities are irrelevant.  Every\u003cbr\u003esummer, as soon as at home the heat became oppressive, my mother,\u003cbr\u003ewhom I adored and whom I remember as a Junoesque lady of very\u003cbr\u003epronounced likes and dislikes, used to pack up and to go to the\u003cbr\u003eFrench coast--to Boulogne, Harfleur, St. Malo, Parisplage--or to\u003cbr\u003eSwitzerland--the Zurich Lake, Landshut, Lucerne.  She preferred the\u003cbr\u003eless frequented places, such as were prepared to meet her demands\u003cbr\u003efor comfort without being infested by tourist-crowds.  And\u003cbr\u003einvariably she took one of her ten children along, mostly myself,\u003cbr\u003eprobably because I was the youngest one and her only boy.  She died\u003cbr\u003ewhen I was an adolescent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAbout a year after my mother's death I went on a \"tour of the\u003cbr\u003econtinent\", planned to take me several years.  The ostensible\u003cbr\u003ereason was that I intended to pursue and to complete my studies at\u003cbr\u003evarious famous universities--Paris, Bonn, Oxford, Rome.  In reality\u003cbr\u003eI went because I had the wandering instinct.  I by no means adhered\u003cbr\u003eto the prearranged plan, but allowed myself to be pushed along.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI will give one example.  At Naples I made the acquaintance of a\u003cbr\u003edelightful young man--I forget whether he was Dutch or Danish--who\u003cbr\u003eknew the artistic circles of Paris--Gide, Regnier, and others.  He\u003cbr\u003esomehow declared that I was the invariably best-dressed man whom he\u003cbr\u003ehad ever met, a highly desirable acquaintance, and just the young\u003cbr\u003eCroesus who should interest himself in modern literary aspirations.\u003cbr\u003eHe wished me to meet his Parisian friends and offered me cards of\u003cbr\u003eintroduction; and although I had not been thinking of France just\u003cbr\u003ethen--rather of Egypt and Asia Minor--I promptly took the next\u003cbr\u003etrain to Nice and from there the Riviera Express to Paris.  Soon I\u003cbr\u003ewas all taken up with that particular brand of literature which was\u003cbr\u003ethen becoming fashionable, filled with contempt for the practical\u003cbr\u003eman, and deeply ensconced in artificial poses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy reputed wealth opened every door.  I sometimes think that some\u003cbr\u003eof the men with whom I linked up--or upon whom I thrust myself--\u003cbr\u003emen, some of whom have in the meantime acquired European or even\u003cbr\u003eworld-wide reputation, must have smiled at the presumptuous pup who\u003cbr\u003ethought he was somebody because he threw his father's money about\u003cbr\u003ewith noble indifference.  It is a strange fact that they received\u003cbr\u003eme on a footing of equality and led me on; they had time to spare\u003cbr\u003efor exquisite little dinners no less than for the nonsensical\u003cbr\u003eprattle of one who gave himself airs.  Of course, there was an\u003cbr\u003eoccasional man who kept himself at a distance; but on the whole I\u003cbr\u003ecannot avoid the conclusion that these idols had feet of clay.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145704980720,"sku":"2940013682511","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013682511_p0.jpg?v=1763597063","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013682511","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}