J. Algernon Hawthorne

I must say, if I had the grievous misfortune to be a citizen of this benighted country, I should be the most hesitant at offering any criticism whatever of any other.

Against it? I should be positively astounded to hear of anything that could be said FOR it. Why, the whole bloody place is the most unspeakable matriarchy in the whole history of civilization! Look at yourself, and the way your wife and her strumpet of a mother push you through the hoop! As far as I can see, American men have been totally emasculated. They're like slaves! They die like flies from coronary thrombosis, while their women sit under hairdryers, eating chocolates and arranging for every second Tuesday to be some sort of Mother's Day! And this positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms. In all my time in this wretched, godforsaken country, the one thing that has appalled me most of all is this preposterous preoccupation with bosoms. Don't you realize they have become the dominant theme in American culture: in literature, advertising and all fields of entertainment and everything. I'll wager you anything you like: if American women stopped wearing brassieres, your whole national economy would collapse overnight.

Look, wherever they are, surely the most sensible thing for the two of us to do is to press on. I mean for all we know, your brother-in-law may be out or away somewhere. And even if he were the first to be there, he still has to find the money, hasn't he? Now I earnestly recommend that we forget your good ladies and press on with all possible dispatch.

And I don't really think that personal rancor is going to help the situation. If I may say so.

You know I'm not entirely uncertain you haven't damaged this machine.