Summary
Wilde begins by saying the Americans' reputation in London this season rests on Buffalo Bill and Mrs. Brown-Potter. Buffalo Bill is sure to draw, because the English care more for American barbarism than for its civilisation: Boston is 'the paradise of prigs', Chicago a monster-shop, Washington politics like a suburban vestry, and 'one can dine in New York' but not dwell there. The Far West of grizzly bears and cowboys is what London wants.
He wishes Mrs. Brown-Potter well and praises American women: cosmopolitan, fond of titles, able to tell a story without forgetting the point. Their voices soften, though their accent peeps out, and together they chatter like peacocks. They never talk seriously except about amusements. Their one grave fault is their mothers, drearier than the Pilgrim Fathers.
American children, Wilde says, spend their time correcting their parents, reminding a father that 'Parents should be seen, not heard' and exposing a mother's faults to strangers. The system fails with the mother, who stays tedious; the father, seen only in Wall Street, is better. The girl still brightens dinners, wins coronets, tries not to grow old and makes an excellent wife.