“The Americans are funny. You have a funny sense of time--or perhaps you have no sense of time at all, I can't tell. Time always sounds like a parade chez vous--a triumphant parade, like armies with banners entering a town. As though, with enough time, and that would not need to be so very much for Americans, n'est-ce pas?" and he smiled, giving me a mocking look, but I said nothing. "Well then," he continued, "as though with enough time and all that fearful energy and virtue you people have, everything will be settled, solved, put in its place. And when I say everything," he added, grimly, "I mean all the serious, dreadful things, like pain and death and love, in which you Americans do not believe.” TimeProgressSolutionsOptimismAmericansMarch Of Progress Book:Giovanni’s Room Source: Giovanni’s Room