In Europe, the dead go on shaping life, crushing it with a weight of history, tradition, and custom. The stability of old forms obstructs, hinders, or arrests all vital motion. In America, to the contrary, life belongs to the living. Still, whereas life means constant motion, it must compose itself in forms. Because the two conditions are opposed, life is neither perpetual motion nor eternal consistency. Just consider: if life were in perpetual flux it would lack all consistency, while if it remained eternally consistent, it would be motionless.

Whereas life in Europe suffers from the stability of its old forms, perhaps life in America suffers from an excessive mobility that prevents enduring forms. As a result, in response to an American gentleman who boasted to me, "We have no past, we thrust ourselves completely into the future!" I was able to say, "One sees, dear sir, that you rush to make yourselves a past. [...]