"Yes, U.S.A., you do put a strain upon the nerves. Mexico puts a strain on the temper. Choose which you prefer. Mine's the latter. I'd rather be in a temper than pulled taut. ...The old people had a marvellous feeling for snakes and fangs down here in Mexico. And after all, Mexico is only the sort of solar plexus of North America. The great paleface overlay hasn't gone into the soil half an inch. ... It's a queer continent. The anthropologists may make what prettiness they like out of the myths. But come here, and you'll see that the gods bit. There is none of the phallic preoccupation of the old Mediterra-nean. Here they hadn't even got as far as hot-blooded sex. Fangs and cold serpent folds, and bird-snakes with fierce cold blood, and claws. .... And this is what seems to me the difference between Mexico and the United States. And this is why, it seems to me Mexico exasperates, whereas the U.S.A. puts an unbearable tension on one. Because here in Mexico the fangs are still obvious. Everybody knows the gods are going to bite within the next five minutes. While in the United States, the gods have had their teeth pulled out, and their claws cut, and their tails docked, till they seem like real mild lambs. Yet all the time, inside it's the same old dragon's blood. The same old American dragon's blood. And that discrepancy of course, is a strain on the human psyche."