AMERICA THE UNREAL 91

It didn't. It had precisely the opposite effect.
As I tried to follow the to and fro of the con-
troversy—stupid enough as there and then con-
ducted—I found myself sinking deeper and deeper
into the ocean of absolute indifference, that ocean
" without bottom and without shore." Then,
suddenly, the whole scene in which I was taking
part and my fellow-actors in it completely vanished
from consciousness, I saw nothing, heard no-
thing, knew nothing. The next thing I remember
was being seated opposite my wife in the dining-
room of the hotel, to which I must have made
my way in a state of somnambulism, cheerfully
ordering a very good lunch. My wife asked me
to give her news of my morning's doings. I
could think of nothing to reply except that I had
been taking a ride on the surface of the earth
as she performed her daily revolution on her
axis—

" Rolled round in earth's diurnal course
With stones and rocks and trees"

If I am asked to name a cause for these pheno-
mena, which I never experienced elsewhere than
in America, I can only give a speculative answer.
When reality overdoes her part she eeases to be
reality and becomes appearance. When appear-
ance overdoes hers, she ceases to appear. When
facts are too boisterous, too loud voiced, too self-
assertive, too brilliantly lighted up, they cease to
be facts and become nothing. And America is a