H. G. Wells on America

I came to America balancing between hope and skepticism. The European world is full of the criticism of America; and, for the matter of that, America, too, is full of it; hostility and depreciation prevail—overmuch; for, in spite of rawness and vehemence and a scum of blatant, oh! quite asinine, folly, the United States of America remains the greatest country in the world and the living hope of mankind. It is the supreme break with the old tradition; it is the freshest and most valiant beginning that has ever been made in human life.—The Passionate Friends.