THE "GOLDFISH"

Being the Confessions af a Successful Man

EDITED BY

ARTHUR TRAIN

1921

[Illustration: Arthur Train from the drawing by S. J. Woolf]

"They're like 'goldfish' swimming round and round in a big bowl. Theycan look through, sort of dimly; but they can't get out?"--_Hastings_, p. 315. 

CONTENTS

MYSELF

MY FRIENDS

MY CHILDREN

MY MIND

MY MORALS

MY FUTURE

"We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one whoelects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. We havelost the power of even imagining what the ancient idealization ofpoverty could have meant--the liberation from material attachments; theunbribed soul; the manlier indifference; the paying our way by what weare or do, and not by what we have; the right to fling away our life atany moment irresponsibly--the more athletic trim, in short the moralfighting shape. .. . It is certain that the prevalent fear of povertyamong the educated class is the worst moral disease from which ourcivilization suffers. "

William James, p. 313. 

CHAPTER I

MYSELF

"My house, my affairs, my ache and my religion--"

I was fifty years old to-day. Half a century has hurried by since Ifirst lay in my mother's wondering arms. To be sure, I am not old; but Ican no longer deceive myself into believing that I am still young. Afterall, the illusion of youth is a mental habit consciously encouraged todefy and face down the reality of age. If, at twenty, one feels that hehas reached man's estate he, nevertheless, tests his strength andabilities, his early successes or failures, by the temporary andfictitious standards of youth. 

At thirty a professional man is younger than the business man oftwenty-five. Less is expected of him; his work is less responsible; hehas not been so long on his job. At forty the doctor or lawyer may stillachieve an unexpected success. He has hardly won his spurs, though inhis heart he well knows his own limitations. He can still say: "I amyoung yet!" And he is. 

But at fifty! Ah, then he must face the facts! He either has or has notlived up to his expectations and he never can begin over again. Acreature of physical and mental habit, he must for the rest of his lifetrudge along in the same path, eating the same food, thinking the samethoughts, seeking the same pleasures--until he acknowledges with grimreluctance that he is an old man. 

I confess that I had so far deliberately tried to forget my approachingfiftieth milestone, or at least to dodge it with closed eyes as I passedit by, that my daughter's polite congratulation on my demicentennialanniversary gave me an unexpected and most unpleasant shock. 

"You really ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she remarked as she joinedme at breakfast. 

"Why?" I asked, somewhat resenting being thus definitely proclaimed ashaving crossed into the valley of the shadows. 

"To be so old and yet to look so young!" she answered, with charming_voir-faire_. 

Then I knew the reason of my resentment against fate. It was because Iwas labeled as old while, in fact, I was still young. Of course that wasit. Old? Ridiculous! When my daughter was gone I gazed searchingly atmyself in the mirror. Old? Nonsense!

I saw a man with no wrinkles and only a few crow's-feet such as anybodymight have had; with hardly a gray hair on my temples and with not evena suggestion of a bald spot. My complexion and color were good anddenoted vigorous health; my flesh was firm and hard on my cheeks; myteeth were sound, even and white; and my eyes were clear save for aslight cloudiness round the iris. 

The only physical defect to which I was frankly willing to plead guiltywas a flabbiness of the neck under the chin, which might by a hostileeye have been regarded as slightly double. For the rest I was strong andfairly well--not much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, ifoccasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a driver with a vigor andaccuracy that placed me well out of the duffer class. 

Yes; I flattered myself that I looked like a boy of thirty, and I feltlike one--except for things to be hereinafter noted--and yet middle-agedmen called me "sir" and waited for me to sit down before doing sothemselves; and my contemporaries were accustomed to inquire jocularlyafter my arteries. I was fifty! Another similar stretch of time andthere would be no I. Twenty years more--with ten years of physicaleffectiveness if I were lucky! Thirty, and I would be useless toeverybody. Forty--I shuddered. Fifty, I would not be there. My roomwould be vacant. Another face would be looking into the mirror. 

Unexpectedly on this legitimate festival of my birth a profoundmelancholy began to possess my spirit. I had lived. I had succeeded inthe eyes of my fellows and of the general public. I was married to acharming woman. I had two marriageable daughters and a son who hadalready entered on his career as a lawyer. I was prosperous. I hadamassed more than a comfortable fortune. And yet--

These things had all come, with a moderate amount of striving, as amatter of course. Without them, undoubtedly I should be miserable; butwith them--with reputation, money, comfort, affection--was I reallyhappy? I was obliged to confess I was not. Some remark in CharlesReade's Christie Johnstone came into my mind--not accurately, for I findthat I can no longer remember literally--to the effect that the onlyhappy man is he who, having from nothing achieved money, fame and power, dies before discovering that they were not worth striving for. 

I put to myself the question: _Were_ they worth striving for? Really, Idid not seem to be getting much satisfaction out of them. I began to beworried. Was not this an attitude of age? Was I not an old man, perhaps, regardless of my youthful face?

At any rate, it occurred to me sharply, as I had but a few more years ofeffective life, did it not behoove me to pause and see, if I could, inwhat direction I was going?--to "stop, look and listen"?--to takeaccount of stock?--to form an idea of just what I was worth physically, mentally and morally?--to compute my assets and liabilities?--to findout for myself by a calm and dispassionate examination whether or not Iwas spiritually a bankrupt? That was the hideous thought which like adeathmask suddenly leered at me from behind the arras of my mind--that Icounted for nothing--cared really for nothing! That when I died I shouldhave been but a hole in the water!

The previous evening I had taken my two distinctly blasé daughters tosee a popular melodrama. The great audience that packed the theater tothe roof went wild, and my young ladies, infected in spite of themselveswith the same enthusiasm, gave evidences of a quite ordinary variety ofexcitement; but I felt no thrill. To me the heroine was but a painteddummy mechanically repeating the lines that some Jew had written for heras he puffed a reeking cigar in his rear office, and the villain but apopinjay with a black whisker stuck on with a bit of pitch. Yet Igrinned and clapped to deceive them, and agreed that it was the mostinspiriting performance I had seen in years. 

In the last act there was a horserace cleverly devised to produce aconvincing impression of reality. A rear section of the stage was madeto revolve from left to right at such a rate that the horses wereobliged to gallop at their utmost speed in order to avoid being sweptbehind the scenes. To enhance the realistic effect the scenery itselfwas made to move in the same direction. Thus, amid a whirlwind ofexcitement and the wild banging of the orchestra, the scenery flew by, and the horses, neck and neck, raced across the stage--withoutprogressing a single foot. 

And the thought came to me as I watched them that, after all, thishorserace was very much like the life we all of us were living here inthe city. The scenery was rushing by, time was flying, the band wasplaying--while we, like the animals on the stage, were in a breathlessstruggle to attain some goal to which we never got any nearer. 

Now as I smoked my cigarette after breakfast I asked myself what I hadto show for my fifty years. What goal or goals had I attained? Hadanything happened except that the scenery had gone by? What would be theresult should I stop and go with the scenery? Was the race profiting meanything? Had it profited anything to me or anybody else? And how farwas I typical of a class?

A moment's thought convinced me that I was the prototype of thousandsall over the United States. "A certain rich man!" That was me. I hadyawned for years at dozens of sermons about men exactly like myself. Ihad called them twaddle. I had rather resented them. I was not asinner--that is, I was not a sinner in the ordinary sense at all. I wasa good man--a very good man. I kept all the commandments and I acted inaccordance with the requirements of every standard laid down by othermen exactly like myself. Between us, I now suddenly saw, we made the lawand the prophets. We were all judging ourselves by self-made tests. Iwas just like all the rest. What was true of me was true of them. 

And what were we, the crowning achievement of American civilization, like? I had not thought of it before. Here, then, was a question theanswer to which might benefit others as well as myself. I resolved toanswer it if I could--to write down in plain words and cold figures atruthful statement of what I was and what they were. 

I had been a fairly wide reader in my youth, and yet I did not recallanywhere precisely this sort of self-analysis. Confessions, so called, were usually amatory episodes in the lives of the authors, highly spicedand colored by emotions often not felt at the time, but rather inspiredby memory. Other analyses were the contented, narratives of supposedlypoverty-stricken people who pretended they had no desires in the worldsave to milk the cows and watch the grass grow. "Adventures incontentment" interested me no more than adventures in unbridled passion. 

I was going to try and see myself as I was--naked. To be of theslightest value, everything I set down must be absolutely accurate andthe result of faithful observation. I believed I was a good observer. Ihad heard myself described as a "cold proposition, " and coldness was a_sine qua non_ of my enterprise. I must brief my case as if I were anattorney in an action at law. Or rather, I must make an analyticalstatement of fact like that which usually prefaces a judicial opinion. Imust not act as a pleader, but first as a keen and truthful witness andthen as an impartial judge. And at the end I must either declare myselfinnocent or guilty of a breach of trust--pronounce myself a faithful oran unworthy servant. 

I must dispassionately examine and set forth the actual conditions of myhome life, my business career, my social pleasures, the motivesanimating myself, my family, my professional associates, and my friends--weigh our comparative influence for good or evil on the community anddiagnose the general mental, moral and physical condition of the classto which I belonged. 

To do this aright, I must see clearly things as they were without regardto popular approval or prejudice, and must not hesitate to call them bytheir right names. I must spare neither myself nor anybody else. Itwould not be altogether pleasant. The disclosures of the microscope areoften more terrifying than the amputations of the knife; but by thusstudying both myself and my contemporaries I might perhaps arrive at thesolution of the problem that was troubling me--that is to say, why I, with every ostensible reason in the world for being happy, was not!This, then, was to be my task. 

 * * * * *

I have already indicated that I am a sound, moderately healthy, vigorousman, with a slight tendency to run to fat. I am five feet ten inchestall, weigh a hundred and sixty-two pounds, have gray eyes, a ratheraquiline nose, and a close-clipped dark-brown mustache, with enough grayhairs in it to give it dignity. My movements are quick; I walk with aspring. I usually sleep, except when worried over business. I do notwear glasses and I have no organic trouble of which I am aware. The NewYork Life Insurance Company has just reinsured me after a thoroughphysical examination. My appetite for food is not particularly good, andmy other appetites, in spite of my vigor, are by no means keen. Eatingis about the most active pleasure that I can experience; but in order toenjoy my dinner I have to drink a cocktail, and my doctor says that isvery bad for my health. 

My personal habits are careful, regular and somewhat luxurious. I bathealways once and generally twice a day. Incidentally I am accustomed toscatter a spoonful of scented powder in the water for the sake of theodor. I like hot baths and spend a good deal of time in the Turkish bathat my club. After steaming myself for half an hour and taking a coldplunge, an alcohol rub and a cocktail, I feel younger than ever; butthe sight of my fellow men in the bath revolts me. Almost withoutexception they have flabby, pendulous stomachs out of all proportion tothe rest of their bodies. Most of them are bald and their feet areexcessively ugly, so that, as they lie stretched out on glass slabs tobe rubbed down with salt and scrubbed, they appear to be deformed. Ispeak now of the men of my age. Sometimes a boy comes in that looks likea Greek god; but generally the boys are as weird-looking as the men. Iam rambling, however. Anyhow I am less repulsive than most of them. Yet, unless the human race has steadily deteriorated, I am surprised that theCreator was not discouraged after his first attempt. 

I clothe my body in the choicest apparel that my purse can buy, but amcareful to avoid the expressions of fancy against which Polonius warnsus. My coats and trousers are made in London, and so are myunderclothes, which are woven to order of silk and cotton. My shoes costme fourteen dollars a pair; my silk socks, six dollars; my ordinaryshirts, five dollars; and my dress shirts, fifteen dollars each. Onbrisk evenings I wear to dinner and the opera a mink-lined overcoat, forwhich my wife recently paid seven hundred and fifty dollars. The storageand insurance on this coat come to twenty-five dollars annually and therepairs to about forty-five. I am rather fond of overcoats and own halfa dozen of them, all made in Inverness. 

I wear silk pajamas--pearl-gray, pink, buff and blue, with frogs, cuffsand monograms--which by the set cost me forty dollars. I also have apair of pearl evening studs to wear with my dress suit, for which mywife paid five hundred and fifty dollars, and my cuff buttons cost me ahundred and seventy-five. Thus, if I am not an exquisite--which Idistinctly am not--I am exceedingly well dressed, and I am glad to beso. If I did not have a fur coat to wear to the opera I should feelembarrassed, out of place and shabby. All the men who sit in the boxesat the Metropolitan Opera House have fur overcoats. 

As a boy I had very few clothes indeed, and those I had were made tolast a long time. But now without fine raiment I am sure I should bemiserable. I cannot imagine myself shabby. Yet I can imagine any one ofmy friends being shabby without feeling any uneasiness about it--that isto say, I am the first to profess a democracy of spirit in which clothescut no figure at all. I assert that it is the man, and not his clothes, that I value; but in my own case my silk-and-cotton undershirt is anecessity, and if deprived of it I should, I know, lose some attributeof self. 

At any rate, my bluff, easy, confident manner among my fellow men, whichhas played so important a part in my success, would be impossible. Icould never patronize anybody if my necktie were frayed or my sleevestoo short. I know that my clothes are as much a part of my entity as myhair, eyes and voice--more than any of the rest of me. 

Based on the figures given above I am worth--the material part of me--asI step out of my front door to go forth to dinner, something overfifteen hundred dollars. If I were killed in a railroad accident allthese things would be packed carefully in a box, inventoried, and givena much greater degree of attention than my mere body. I saw Napoleon'sboots and waistcoat the other day in Paris and I felt that he himselfmust be there in the glass case beside me. 

Any one who at Abbotsford has felt of the white beaver hat of Sir WalterScott knows that he has touched part--and a very considerable part--ofSir Walter. The hat, the boots, the waistcoat are far less ephemeralthan the body they protect, and indicate almost as much of the wearer'scharacter as his hands and face. So I am not ashamed of my silk pajamasor of the geranium powder I throw in my bath. They are part of me. 

But is this "me" limited to my body and my clothes? I drink a cup ofcoffee or a cocktail: after they are consumed they are part of me; arethey not part of me as I hold the cup or the glass in my hand? Is mycoat more characteristic of me than my house--my sleeve-links than mywife or my collie dog? I know a gentlewoman whose sensitive, quivering, aristocratic nature is expressed far more in the Russian wolfhound thatshrinks always beside her than in the aloof, though charming, expression of her face. No; not only my body and my personal effects buteverything that is mine is part of me--my chair with the rubbed arm; mybook, with its marked pages; my office; my bank account, and in somemeasure my friend himself. 

Let us agree that in the widest sense all that I have, feel or think ispart of me--either of my physical or mental being; for surely mythoughts are more so than the books that suggest them, and my sensationsof pleasure or satisfaction equally so with the dinner I have eaten orthe cigar I have smoked. My ego is the sum total of all these things. And if the cigar is consumed, the dinner digested, the pleasure flown, the thought forgotten, the waistcoat or shirt discarded--so, too, do thetissues of the body dissolve, disintegrate and change. I can no moreretain permanently the physical elements of my personality than I canthe mental or spiritual. 

What, then, am I--who, the Scriptures assert, am made in the image ofGod? Who and what is this being that has gradually been evolved duringfifty years of life and which I call Myself? For whom my father and mymother, their fathers and mothers, and all my ancestors back through thegray mists of the forgotten past, struggled, starved, labored, suffered, and at last died. To what end did they do these things? To produce me?God forbid!

Would the vision of me as I am to-day have inspired my grandfather toundergo, as cheerfully as he did, the privations and austerities of hislong and arduous service as a country clergyman--or my father to die atthe head of his regiment at Little Round Top? What am I--what have Iever done, now that I come to think of it, to deserve those sacrifices?Have I ever even inconvenienced myself for others in any way? Have Iever repaid this debt? Have I in turn advanced the flag that they andhundreds of thousands of others, equally unselfish, carried forward?

Have I ever considered my obligation to those who by their patientlabors in the field of scientific discovery have contributed toward mywell-being and the very continuance of my life? Or have I been contentfor all these years to reap where I have not sown? To accept, as amatter of course and as my due, the benefits others gave years of laborto secure for me? It is easy enough for me to say: No--that I havethought of them and am grateful to them. Perhaps I am, in a vaguefashion. But has whatever feeling of obligation I may possess beenevidenced in my conduct toward my fellows?

I am proud of my father's heroic death at Gettysburg; in fact I am amember, by virtue of his rank in the Union Army, of what is called TheLoyal Legion. But have I ever fully considered that he died for me? HaveI been loyal to him? Would he be proud or otherwise--_is_ he proud orotherwise of me, his son? That is a question I can only answer after Ihave ascertained just what I am. 

Now for over quarter of a century I have worked hard--harder, I believe, than most men. From a child I was ambitious. As a boy, people wouldpoint to me and say that I would get ahead. Well, I have got ahead. Backin the town where I was born I am spoken of as a "big man. " Old men andwomen stop me on the main street and murmur: "If only your father couldsee you now!" They all seem tremendously proud of me and feel confidentthat if he could see me he would be happy for evermore. And I know theyare quite honest about it all. For they assume in their simple heartsthat my success is a real success. Yet I have no such assurance aboutit. 

Every year I go back and address the graduating class in the highschool--the high school I attended as a boy. And I am "Exhibit A"--thetangible personification of all that the fathers and mothers hope theirchildren will become. It is the same way with the Faculty of my college. They have given me an honorary degree and I have given them a drinkingfountain for the campus. We are a mutual-admiration society. 

I am always picked by my classmates to preside at our reunions, for I amthe conspicuous, shining example of success among them. They are proudof me, without envy. "Well, old man, " they say, "you've certainly madea name for yourself!" They take it for granted that, because I have mademoney and they read my wife's name in the society columns of the NewYork papers, I must be completely satisfied. 

And in a way I _am_ satisfied with having achieved that material successwhich argues the possession of brains and industry; but the encomiums ofthe high-school principal and the congratulations of my college mates, sincere and well-meaning as they are, no longer quicken my blood; for Iknow that they are based on a total ignorance of the person they seek tohonor. They see a heavily built, well-groomed, shrewd-looking man, withclear-cut features, a ready smile, and a sort of brusque frankness thatseems to them the index of an honest heart. They hear him speak in astraightforward, direct way about the "Old Home, " and the "Dear OldCollege, " and "All Our Friends"--quite touching at times, I assureyou--and they nod and say, "Good fellow, this! No frills--straight fromthe heart! No wonder he has got on in the city! Sterling chap! Hurrah!"

Perhaps, after all, the best part of me comes out on these occasions. But it is not the _me_ that I have worked for half a century to buildup; it is rather what is left of the _me_ that knelt at my mother's sideforty years ago. Yet I have no doubt that, should these good parents ofmine see how I live in New York, they would only be the more convincedof the greatness of my success--the success to achieve which I havegiven the unremitting toil of thirty years. 

 * * * * *

And as I now clearly see that the results of this striving and theobjects of my ambition have been largely, if not entirely, material, Ishall take the space to set forth in full detail just what this materialsuccess amounts to, in order that I may the better determine whether ithas been worth struggling for. Not only are the figures that followaccurate and honest, but I am inclined to believe that they representthe very minimum of expenditure in the class of New York families towhich mine belongs. They may at first sight seem extravagant; but if thereader takes the trouble to verify them--as I have done, alas! manytimes to my own dismay and discouragement--he will find themeconomically sound. This, then, is the catalogue of my success. 

I possess securities worth about seven hundred and fifty thousanddollars and I earn at my profession from thirty to forty thousanddollars a year. This gives me an annual income of from sixty-fivethousand to seventy-five thousand dollars. In addition I own a house onthe sunny side of an uptown cross street near Central Park which costme, fifteen years ago, one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and isnow worth two hundred and fifty thousand. I could sell it for that. Thetaxes alone amount to thirty-two hundred dollars--the repairs and annualimprovements to about twenty-five hundred. As the interest on the valueof the property would be twelve thousand five hundred dollars it will beseen that merely to have a roof over my head costs me annually overeighteen thousand dollars. 

My electric-light bills are over one hundred dollars a month. My coaland wood cost me even more, for I have two furnaces to heat the house, an engine to pump the water, and a second range in the laundry. One manis kept busy all the time attending to these matters and cleaning thewindows. I pay my butler eighty dollars a month; my second manfifty-five; my valet sixty; my cook seventy; the two kitchen maidstwenty-five each; the head laundress forty-five; the two secondlaundresses thirty-five each; the parlor maid thirty; the two housemaidstwenty-five each; my wife's maid thirty-five; my daughter's maid thirty;the useful man fifty; the pantry maid twenty-five. My house payroll is, therefore, six hundred and fifty dollars a month, or seventy-eighthundred a year. 

We could not possibly get along without every one of these servants. Todischarge one of them would mean that the work would have to be done insome other way at a vastly greater expense. Add this to the yearly sumrepresented by the house itself, together with the cost of heating andlighting, and you have twenty-eight thousand four hundred dollars. 

Unforeseen extras make this, in fact, nearer thirty thousand dollars. There is usually some alteration under way, a partition to be taken out, a hall to be paneled, a parquet floor to be relaid, a new sort ofheating apparatus to be installed, and always plumbing. Generally, also, at least one room has to be done over and refurnished every year, andthis is an expensive matter. The guest room, recently refurnished inthis way at my daughter's request, cost thirty-seven hundred dollars. Since we average not more than two guests for a single night annually, their visits from one point of view will cost me this year eighteenhundred and fifty dollars apiece. 

Then, too, styles change. There is always new furniture, new carpets, new hangings--pictures to be bought. Last season my wife changed thedrawing room from Empire to Louis Seize at a very considerable outlay. 

Our food, largely on account of the number of our servants, costs usfrom a thousand to twelve hundred dollars a month. In the spring andautumn it is a trifle less--in winter it is frequently more; but itaverages, with wine, cigars, ice, spring water and sundries, overfifteen thousand dollars a year. 

We rent a house at the seashore or in the country in summer at from fiveto eight thousand dollars, and usually find it necessary to employ acouple of men about the place. 

Our three saddle-horses cost us about two thousand dollars forstabling, shoeing and incidentals; but they save me at least that indoctors' bills. 

Since my wife and daughters are fond of society, and have differentfriends and different nightly engagements, we are forced to keep twomotors and two chauffeurs, one of them exclusively for night-work. I paythese men one hundred and twenty-five dollars each a month, and thegarage bill is usually two hundred and fifty more, not counting tires. At least one car has to be overhauled every year at an average expenseof from two hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars. Both cars have tobe painted annually. My motor service winter and summer costs on aconservative estimate at least eight thousand dollars. 

I allow my wife five thousand dollars; my daughters three thousand each;and my son, who is not entirely independent, twenty-five hundred. Thisis supposed to cover everything; but it does not--it barely covers theirbodies. I myself expend, having no vices, only about twenty-five hundreddollars. 

The bills of our family doctor, the specialists and the dentist arenever less than a thousand dollars, and that is a minimum. They wouldprobably average more than double that. 

Our spring trip to Paris, for rest and clothing, has never cost me lessthan thirty-five hundred dollars, and when it comes to less than fivethousand it is inevitably a matter of mutual congratulation. 

Our special entertaining, our opera box, the theater and socialfrivolities aggregate no inconsiderable sum, which I will notoverestimate at thirty-five hundred dollars. 

Our miscellaneous subscriptions to charity and the like come to aboutfifteen hundred dollars. 

The expenses already recited total nearly seventy-five thousand dollars, or as much as my maximum income. And this annual budget contains noallowance for insurance, books, losses at cards, transportation, sundries, the purchase of new furniture, horses, automobiles, or for anyof that class of expenditure usually referred to as "principal" or"plant. " I inevitably am obliged to purchase a new motor every two orthree years--usually for about six thousand dollars; and, as I havesaid, the furnishing of our city house is never completed. 

It is a fact that for the last ten years I have found it an absoluteimpossibility to get along on seventy-five thousand dollars a year, evenliving without apparent extravagance. I do not run a yacht or keephunters or polo ponies. My wife does not appear to be particularlylavish and continually complains of the insufficiency of her allowance. Our table is not Lucullan, by any means; and we rarely have game out ofseason, hothouse fruit or many flowers. Indeed, there is an elaboratefiction maintained by my wife, cook and butler that our establishment isrun economically and strictly on a business basis. Perhaps it is. Ihope so. I do not know anything about it. Anyhow, here is the smallestbudget on which I can possibly maintain my household of five adults:

 ANNUAL BUDGET--MINIMUM--FOR FAMILY OF FIVE PERSONS

 Taxes on city house $ 3, 200 Repairs, improvements and minor alterations 2, 500 Rent of country house--average 7, 000 Gardeners and stablemen, and so on 800 Servants' payroll 7, 800 Food supplies 15, 000 Light and heat--gas, electricity, coal and wood 2, 400 Saddle-horses--board and so on 2, 000 Automobile expenses 8, 000 Wife's allowance--emphatically insufficient 5, 000 Daughters' allowance--two 6, 000 Son's allowance 2, 500 Self--clubs, clothes, and so on 2, 500 Medical attendance--including dentist 1, 000 Charity 1, 500 Travel--wife's annual spring trip to Paris 3, 500 Opera, theater, music, entertaining at restaurants, and so on 3, 500 _____ Total $74, 200

A fortune in itself, you may say! Yet judged by the standards ofexpenditure among even the unostentatiously wealthy in New York it ismoderate indeed. A friend of mine who has only recently married glancedover my schedule and said, "Why, it's ridiculous, old man! No one couldlive in New York on any such sum. "

Any attempt to "keep house" in the old-fashioned meaning of the phrasewould result in domestic disruption. No cook who was not allowed to dothe ordering would stay with us. It is hopeless to try to save money inour domestic arrangements. I have endeavored to do so once or twice andrepented of my rashness. One cannot live in the city without motors, andthere is no object in living at all if one cannot keep up a scale ofliving that means comfort and lack of worry in one's household. 

The result is that I am always pressed for money even on an income ofseventy-five thousand dollars. And every year I draw a little on mycapital. Sometimes a lucky stroke on the market or an unexpected feeevens things up or sets me a little ahead; but usually January firstsees me selling a few bonds to meet an annual deficit. Needless to say, I pay no personal taxes. If I did I might as well give up the struggleat once. When I write it all down in cold words I confess it seemsridiculous. Yet my family could not be happy living in any other way. 

It may be remarked that the item for charity on the preceding scheduleis somewhat disproportionate to the amount of the total expenditure. Ioffer no excuse or justification for this. I am engaged in an honestexposition of fact--for my own personal satisfaction and profit, and forwhat lessons others may be able to draw from it. My charities arenegligible. 

The only explanation which suggests itself to my mind is that I lead socircumscribed and guarded a life that these matters do not obtrudethemselves on me. I am not brought into contact with the maimed, thehalt and the blind; if I were I should probably behave toward them likea gentleman. The people I am thrown with are all sleek and well fed; buteven among those of my friends who make a fad of charity I have neverobserved any disposition to deprive themselves of luxuries for the sakeof others. 

Outside of the really poor, is there such a thing as genuine charityamong us? The church certainly does not demand anything approximatingself-sacrifice. A few dollars will suffice for any appeal. I am not aprofessing Christian, but the church regards me tolerantly and takes mymoney when it can get it. But how little it gets! I givefrequently--almost constantly--but in most instances my giving is lessan act of benevolence than the payment of a tax upon my social standing. I am compelled to give. If I could not be relied upon to take tickets tocharity entertainments and to add my name to the subscription lists forhospitals and relief funds I should lose my caste. One cannot be _too_cold a proposition. I give to these things grudgingly and because Icannot avoid it. 

Of course the aggregate amount thus disposed of is really not large andI never feel the loss of it. Frankly, people of my class rarelyinconvenience themselves for the sake of anybody, whether their ownimmediate friends or the sick, suffering and sorrowful. It is trite tosay that the clerk earning one thousand dollars deprives himself of morein giving away fifty than the man with an income of twenty thousanddollars in giving away five thousand. It really costs the clerk more togo down into his pocket for that sum than the rich man to draw his checkfor those thousands. 

Where there is necessity for generous and immediate relief Ioccasionally, but very rarely, contribute two hundred and fifty or fivehundred dollars. My donation is always known and usually is noticed withothers of like amount in the daily papers. I am glad to give the moneyand I have a sensation of making a substantial sacrifice in doing so. Obviously, however, it has cost me really nothing! I spend two hundredand fifty dollars or more every week or so on an evening's entertainmentfor fifteen or twenty of my friends and think nothing of it. It is partof my manner of living, and my manner of living is an advertisement ofmy success--and advertising in various subtle ways is a businessnecessity. Yet if I give two hundred and fifty dollars to a relief fundI have an inflation of the heart and feel conscious of my generosity. 

I can frankly say, therefore, that so far as I am concerned my responseto the ordinary appeal for charity is purely perfunctory and largely, ifnot entirely, dictated by policy; and the sum total of my charities onan income of seventy-five thousand dollars a year is probably less thanfifteen hundred dollars, or about two per cent. 

Yet, thinking it over dispassionately, I do not conclude from this thatI am an exceptionally selfish man. I believe I represent the average inthis respect. I always respond to minor calls in a way that pleases therecipient and causes a genuine flow of satisfaction in my own breast. Itoss away nickels, dimes and quarters with prodigality; and if one ofthe office boys feels out of sorts I send him off for a week's vacationon full pay. I make small loans to seedy fellows who have known betterdays and I treat the servants handsomely at Christmas. 

I once sent a boy to college--that is, I promised him fifty dollars ayear. He died in his junior term, however. Sisters of Mercy, thepostman, a beggar selling pencils or shoelaces--almost anybody, inshort, that actually comes within range--can pretty surely count onsomething from me. But I confess I never go out of my way to look forpeople in need of help. I have not the time. 

Several of the items in my budget, however, are absurdly low, for theopera-box which, as it is, we share with several friends and which isours but once in two weeks, alone costs us twelve hundred dollars; andmy bill at the Ritz--where we usually dine before going to the theateror sup afterward--is apt to be not less than one hundred dollars amonth. Besides, twenty-five hundred dollars does not begin to cover myactual personal expenses; but as I am accustomed to draw checks againstmy office account and thrust the money in my pocket, it is difficult tosay just what I do cost myself. 

Moreover, a New York family like mine would have to keep surprisinglywell in order to get along with but two thousand dollars a year fordoctors. Even our dentist bills are often more than that. We do not goto the most fashionable operators either. There does not seem to be anyparticular way of finding out who the good ones are except byexperiment. I go to a comparatively cheap one. Last month he looked meover, put in two tiny fillings, cleansed my teeth and treated my gums. He only required my presence once for half an hour, once for twentyminutes, and twice for ten minutes--on the last two occasions he filchedthe time from the occupant of his other chair. My bill was forty-twodollars. As he claims to charge a maximum rate of ten dollars anhour--which is about the rate for ordinary legal services--I have spentseveral hundred dollars' worth of my own time trying to figure it allout. But this is nothing to the expense incident to the straightening ofchildren's teeth. 

When I was a child teeth seemed to take care of themselves, but my boyand girls were all obliged to spend several years with their smallmouths full of plates, wires and elastic bands. In each case the costwas from eighteen hundred to two thousand dollars. A friend of mine witha large family was compelled to lay out during the tooth-growing periodof his offspring over five thousand dollars a year for several years. Their teeth are not straight at that. 

Then, semioccasionally, weird cures arise and seize hold of the femaleimagination and send our wives and daughters scurrying to the parlors offashionable specialists, who prescribe long periods of rest at expensivehotels--a room in one's own house will not do--and strange diets of mushand hot water, with periodical search parties, lighted by electricity, through the alimentary canal. 

One distinguished medico's discovery of the terra incognita of thestomach has netted him, I am sure, a princely fortune. There seems to besomething peculiarly fascinating about the human interior. One of ouracquaintances became so interested in hers that she issued engravedinvitations for a fashionable party at which her pet doctor delivered alecture on the gastro-intestinal tract. All this comes high, and I havenot ventured to include the cost of such extravagances in my budget, though my wife has taken cures six times in the last ten years, eitherat home or abroad. 

And who can prophesy the cost of the annual spring jaunt to Europe? Ihave estimated it at thirty-five hundred dollars; but, frankly, I neverget off with any such trifling sum. Our passage alone costs us fromseven hundred to a thousand dollars, or even more and our ten-days'motor trip--the invariable climax of the expedition rendered necessaryby the fatigue incident to shopping--at least five hundred dollars. 

Our hotel bills in Paris, our taxicabs, theater tickets, and dinners atexpensive restaurants cost us at least a thousand dollars, withoutestimating the total of those invariable purchases that are paid for outof the letter of credit and not charged to my wife's regular allowance. Even in Paris she will, without a thought, spend fifty dollars atReboux' for a simple spring hat--and this is not regarded as expensive. Her dresses cost as much as if purchased on Fifth Avenue and I amobliged to pay a sixty per cent duty on them besides. 

The restaurants of Paris--the chic ones--charge as much as those in NewYork; in fact, chic Paris exists very largely for the exploitation ofthe wives of rich Americans. The smart French woman buys no such dressesand pays no such prices. She knows a clever little modiste down somealley leading off the Rue St. Honoré who will saunter into Worth's, sweep the group of models with her eye, and go back to her own shop andturn out the latest fashions at a quarter of the money. 

A French woman in society will have the same dress made for her by herown dressmaker for seventy dollars for which an American will cheerfullypay three hundred and fifty. And the reason is, that she has beentaught from girlhood the relative values of things. She knows that mereclothes can never really take the place of charm and breeding; thatexpensive entertainments, no matter how costly and choice the viands, can never give equal pleasure with a cup of tea served with vivacity andwit; and that the best things of Paris are, in fact, free to allalike--the sunshine of the boulevards, the ever-changing spectacle ofthe crowds, the glamour of the evening glow beyond the Hôtel desInvalides, and the lure of the lamp-strewn twilight of the ChampsElysées. 

So she gets a new dress or two and, after the three months of her seasonin the Capital are over, is content to lead a more or less simple familylife in the country for the rest of the year. One rarely sees a realParisian at one of the highly advertised all-night resorts of Paris. NoFrenchman would pay the price. 

An acquaintance of mine took his wife and a couple of friends oneevening to what is known as L'Abbaye, in Montmartre. Knowing that it hada reputation for being expensive, he resisted, somewhatself-consciously, the delicate suggestions of the head waiter andordered only one bottle of champagne, caviar for four, and a couple ofcigars. After watching the dancing for an hour he called for his billand found that the amount was two hundred and fifty francs. Rather thanbe conspicuous he paid it--foolishly. But the American who takes hiswife abroad must have at least one vicarious taste of fast life, nomatter what it costs, and he is a lucky fellow who can save anything outof a bill of exchange that has cost him five thousand dollars. 

After dispassionate consideration of the matter I hazard the sincereopinion that my actual disbursements during the last ten years haveaveraged not less than one hundred thousand dollars a year. However, letus be conservative and stick to our original figure of seventy-fivethousand dollars. It costs me, therefore, almost exactly two hundreddollars a day to support five persons. We all of us complain of what iscalled the high cost of living, but men of my class have no realknowledge of what it costs them to live. 

The necessaries are only a drop in the bucket. It is hardly worth whileto bother over the price of rib roast a pound, or fresh eggs a dozen, when one is smoking fifty-cent cigars. Essentially it costs me as muchto lunch off a boiled egg, served in my dining room at home, as to carvethe breast off a canvasback. At the end of the month my bills would notshow the difference. It is the overhead--or, rather, in housekeeping, the underground--charge that counts. That boiled egg or the canvasbackrepresents a running expense of at least a hundred dollars a day. Slightvariations in the cost of foodstuffs or servants' wages amount topractically nothing. 

And what do I get for my two hundred dollars a day and my seventy-fivethousand dollars a year that the other fellow does not enjoy for, let ussay, half the money? Let us readjust the budget with an idea toascertaining on what a family of five could live in luxury in the cityof New York a year. I could rent a good house for five thousand dollarsand one in the country for two thousand dollars; and I would have noreal-estate taxes. I could keep eight trained servants for threethousand dollars and reduce the cost of my supplies to five thousandalmost without knowing it. Of course my light and heat would cost metwelve hundred dollars and my automobile twenty-five hundred. My wife, daughters and son ought to be able to manage to dress on five thousanddollars, among them. I could give away fifteen hundred dollars and allowone thousand for doctors' bills, fifteen hundred for my own expenses, and still have twenty-three hundred for pleasure--and be living onthirty thousand dollars a year in luxury. 

I could even then entertain, go to the theater, and occasionally take myfriends to a restaurant. And what would I surrender? My saddle-horses, my extra motor, my pretentious houses, my opera box, my wife's annualspending bout in Paris--that is about all. And I would have a cashbalance of forty-five thousand dollars. 

REVISED BUDGET

Rent--City and country $7, 000Servants 3, 000Supplies 5, 000Light and heat 1, 200Motor 2, 500Allowance to family 5, 000Charity 1, 500Medical attendance 1, 000Self 1, 500Travel, pleasure, music and sundries 2, 300 ______Total $30, 000

In a smaller city I could do the same thing for half the money--fifteenthousand dollars; in Rome, Florence or Munich I could live like a princeon half the sum. I am paying apparently forty-five thousand dollars eachyear for the veriest frills of existence--for geranium powder in mybath, for fifteen extra feet in the width of my drawing room, for a seatin the parterre instead of the parquet at the opera, for the privilegeof having a second motor roll up to the door when it is needed, and thatmy wife may have seven new evening dresses each winter instead of two. And in reality these luxuries mean nothing to me. I do not want them. Iam not a whit more comfortable with than without them. 

If an income tax should suddenly cut my bank account in half it wouldnot seriously inconvenience me. No financial cataclasm, however dire, could deprive me of the genuine luxuries of my existence. Yet in myrevised schedule of expenditure I would still be paying nearly a hundreddollars a day for the privilege of living. What would I be getting formy money--even then? What would I receive as a _quid pro quo_ for mythirty thousand dollars?

I am not enough of a materialist to argue that my advantage over my lesssuccessful fellow man lies in having a bigger house, men servantsinstead of maid servants, and smoking cigars alleged to be from Havanainstead of from Tampa; but I believe I am right in asserting that mysocial opportunities--in the broader sense--are vastly greater than his. I am meeting bigger men and have my fingers in bigger things. I giveorders and he takes them. 

My opinion has considerable weight in important matters, some of whichvitally affect large communities. My astuteness has put millions intototally unexpected pockets and defeated the faultily expressedintentions of many a testator. I can go to the White House and get animmediate hearing, and I can do more than that with judges of theSupreme Court in their private chambers. 

In other words I am an active man of affairs, a man among men, a man offorce and influence, who, as we say, "cuts ice" in the metropolis. Butthe economic weakness in the situation lies in the fact that a boiledegg only costs the ordinary citizen ten cents and it costs me almost itsweight in gold. 

Compare this de-luxe existence of mine with that of my forebears. We areassured by most biographers that the subject of their eulogies was bornof poor but honest parents. My own parents were honest, but my fatherwas in comfortable circumstances and was able to give me the advantagesincident to an education, first at the local high school and later atcollege. I did not as a boy get up while it was still dark and break theice in the horsetrough in order to perform my ablutions. I was, to besure, given to understand--and always when a child religiouslybelieved--that this was my father's unhappy fate. It may have been so, but I have a lingering doubt on the subject that refuses to bedissipated. I can hardly credit the idea that the son of the villageclergyman was obliged to go through any such rigorous physicaldiscipline as a child. 

Even in 1820 there were such things as hired men and tradition declaresthat the one in my grandparents' employ was known as Jonas, had but onegood eye and was half-witted. It modestly refrains from asserting thathe had only one arm and one leg. My grandmother did the cooking--herchildren the housework; but Jonas was their only servant, if servant hecan be called. It is said that he could perform wonders with an ax andcould whistle the very birds off the trees. 

Some time ago I came upon a trunkful of letters written by mygrandfather to my father in 1835, when the latter was in college. Theywere closely written with a fine pen in a small, delicate hand, and thelines of ink, though faded, were like steel engraving. They werestilted, godly--in an ingenuous fashion--at times ponderously humorous, full of a mild self-satisfaction, and inscribed under the obviousimpression that only the writer could save my father's soul from hell orhis kidneys from destruction. The goodness of the Almighty, asexemplified by His personal attention to my grandfather, the efficacy ofoil distilled from the liver of the cod, and the wisdom of Solomon, camein for an equal share of attention. How the good old gentleman must haveenjoyed writing those letters! And, though I have never written my ownson three letters in my life, I suppose the desire of self-expression isstirring in me now these seventy-eight years later. I wonder what hewould have said could he read these confessions of mine--he who marriedmy grandmother on a capital of twenty-five dollars and enough bleachedcotton to make half a dozen shirts! My annual income would have boughtthe entire county in which he lived. My son scraped through Harvard ontwenty-five hundred dollars a year. I have no doubt that he leftundisclosed liabilities behind him. Most of this allowance was spent onclothes, private commons and amusement. Lying before me is my father'sterm bill at college for the first half year of 1835. The items are:

To tuition $12. 00Room rent 3. 00Use of University Library 1. 00Servants' hire, printing, and so on 2. 00Repairs . 80Damage for glass . 09Commons bill, 15-1/2 weeks at $1. 62 a week 25. 11Steward's salary 2. 00Public fuel . 50Absent from recitation without excuse--once . 03 -------Total $46. 53

The glass damage at nine cents and the three cents for absence withoutexcuse give me joy. Father was human, after all!

Economically speaking, I do not think that his clothes cost himanything. He wore my grandfather's old ones. There were no amusements inthose days, except going to see the pickled curios in the old BostonMuseum. I have no doubt he drove to college in the family chaise--ifthere was one. I do not think that, in fact, there was. 

On a conservative estimate he could not have cost my grandfather much, if anything, over a hundred dollars a year. On this basis I could, on mypresent income, send seven hundred and fifty fathers to collegeannually! A curious thought, is it not?

Undoubtedly my grandfather went barefoot and trudged many a weary mile, winter and summer, to and from the district school. He worked his waythrough college. He married and reared a family. He educated my father. He watched over his flock in sickness and in health, and he died at aripe old age, mourned by the entire countryside. 

My father, in his turn, was obliged to carve out his own fate. He leftthe old home, moved to the town where I was born, and by untiringindustry built up a law practice which for those days was astonishinglylucrative. Then, as I have said, the war broke out and, enlisting as amatter of course, he met death on the battlefield. During hiscomparatively short life he followed the frugal habits acquired in hisyouth. He was a simple man. 

Yet I am his son! What would he say could he see my valet, my butler, myFrench cook? Would he admire and appreciate my paintings, my _objetsd'art, _ my rugs and tapestries, my rare old furniture? As an intelligentman he would undoubtedly have the good taste to realize their value andtake satisfaction in their beauty; but would he be glad that I possessedthem? That is a question. Until I began to pen these confessions Ishould have unhesitatingly answered it in the affirmative. Now I aminclined to wonder a little. I think it would depend on how far hebelieved that my treasures indicated on my own part a genuine love ofart, and how far they were but the evidences of pomp and vainglory. 

Let me be honest in the matter. I own some masterpieces of great value. At the time of their purchase I thought I had a keen admiration forthem. I begin to suspect that I acquired them less because I reallycared for such things than because I wished to be considered aconnoisseur. There they hang--my Corots, my Romneys, my Teniers, myDaubignys. But they might as well be the merest chromos. I never look atthem. I have forgotten that they exist. So have the rest of my family. 

It is the same way with my porcelains and tapestries. Of course they goto make up the _tout ensemble_ of a harmonious and luxurious home, butindividually they mean nothing to me. I should not miss them if theywere all swept out of existence tomorrow by a fire. I am no happier inmy own house than in a hotel. My pictures are nothing but so muchfurniture requiring heavy insurance. 

It is somewhat the same with our cuisine. My food supply costs me fortydollars a day. We use the choicest teas, the costliest caviar andrelishes, the richest sterilized milk and cream, the freshest eggs, thechoicest cuts of meat. We have course after course at lunch and dinner;yet I go to the table without an appetite and my food gives me littlepleasure. But this style of living is the concrete expression of mysuccess. Because I have risen above my fellows I must be surrounded bythese tangible evidences of prosperity. 

I get up about nine o'clock in the morning unless I have been out verylate the night before, in which case I rest until ten or later. I stepinto a porcelain tub in which my servant has drawn a warm bath of waterfiltered by an expensive process which makes it as clear and blue ascrystal. When I leave my bath my valet hands me one by one the garmentsthat have been carefully laid out in order. He is always hovering roundme, and I rather pride myself on the fact that I lace my own shoes andbrush my own hair. Then he gives me a silk handkerchief and I strollinto my upstairs sitting room ready for breakfast. 

My daughters are still sleeping. They rarely get up before eleven in themorning, and my wife and I do not, as a rule, breakfast together. Wehave tried that arrangement and found it wanting, for we are slightlyirritable at this hour. My son has already gone downtown. So I enter thechintz-furnished room alone and sit down by myself before a bright woodfire and glance at the paper, which the valet has ironed, while I nibblean egg, drink a glass of orange juice, swallow a few pieces of toast andquaff a great cup of fragrant coffee. 

Coffee! Goddess of the nerve-exhausted! Sweet invigorator of tiredmanhood! Savior of the American race! I could not live without you! Onedraft at your Pyrenean fountain and I am young again! For a moment thesun shines as it used to do in my boyhood's days; my blood quickens; Iam eager to be off to business--to do, no matter what. 

I enter the elevator and sink to the ground floor. My valet and butlerare waiting, the former with my coat over his arm, ready to help me intoit. Then he hands me my hat and stick, while the butler opens the frontdoor and escorts me to my motor. The chauffeur touches his hat. I lighta small and excellent Havana cigar and sink back among the cushions. Theinterior of the car smells faintly of rich upholstery and violetperfume. My daughters have been to a ball the night before. If it isfine I have the landaulette hood thrown open and take the air as far asWashington Square--if not, I am deposited at the Subway. 

Ten o'clock sees me at my office. The effect of the coffee has begun towear off slightly. I am a little peevish with my secretary, who hasopened and arranged all my letters on my desk. There are a pile ofdividend checks, a dozen appeals for charity and a score of lettersrelating to my business. I throw the begging circulars into thewaste-basket and dictate most of my answers in a little over half anhour. Then come a stream of appointments until lunchtime. 

On the top floor of a twenty-story building, its windows commanding aview of all the waters surrounding the end of Manhattan Island, is mylunch club. Here gather daily at one o'clock most of the men with whomI am associated--bankers, railroad promoters and other lawyers. I lunchwith one or more of them. A cocktail starts my appetite, for I have nodesire for food; and for the sake of appearances I manage to consume anegg Benedictine and a ragout of lamb, with a dessert. 

Then we wander into the smoking room and drink black coffee and smokelong black cigars. I have smoked a cigar or two in my office already andam beginning, as usual, to feel a trifle seedy. Here we plan some pieceof business or devise a method of escaping the necessity of fulfillingsome corporate obligation. 

Two or half-past finds me in my office again. The back of the day isbroken. I take things more easily. Later on I smoke another cigar. Idiscuss general matters with my junior partners. At half-past four Ienter my motor, which is waiting at the Wall Street entrance of thebuilding. At my uptown club the men are already dropping in andgathering round the big windows. We all call each other by our firstnames, yet few of us know anything of one another's real character. Wehave a bluff heartiness, a cheerful cynicism that serves in place ofsincerity, and we ask no questions. 

Our subjects of conversation are politics, the stock market, "big"business, and the more fashionable sports. There is no talk of art orbooks, no discussion of subjects of civic interest. After our cocktailswe usually arrange a game of bridge and play until it is time to go hometo dress for dinner. 

Until this time, usually, I have not met my wife and daughters since thenight before. They have had their own individual engagements forluncheon and in the afternoon, and perhaps have not seen each otherbefore during the day. But we generally meet at least two or three timesa week on the stairs or in the hall as we are going out. Sometimes, also, I see my son at this time. 

It will be observed that our family life is not burdensome to any ofus:--not that we do not wish to see one another, but we are too busy todo so. My daughters seem to be fond of me. They are proud of my successand their own position; in fact they go out in the smartest circles. They are smarter, indeed, than their mother and myself; for, though weknow everybody in society, we have never formed a part of the intimateinner Newport circle. But my daughters are inside and in the very centerof the ring. You can read their names as present at every smart functionthat takes place. 

From Friday until Monday they are always in the country at week-endparties. They are invited to go to Bermuda, Palm Beach, California, Aiken and the Glacier National Park. They live on yachts and in privatecars and automobiles. They know all the patter of society and everythingabout everybody. They also talk surprisingly well about art, music andinternational politics. They are as much at home in Rome, Paris andLondon as they are in New York, and are as familiar with Scotland asLong Island. They constantly amaze me by the apparent scope of theirinformation. 

They are women of the world in a sense unheard of by my father'sgeneration. They have been presented at court in London, Berlin andRome, and have had a social season at Cairo; in fact I feel at a greatpersonal disadvantage in talking with them. They are respectful, verysweet in a self-controlled and capable sort of way, and, so far as I cansee, need no assistance in looking out for themselves. They seem to bequite satisfied with their mode of life. They do as they choose, and askfor no advice from either their mother or myself. 

My boy also leads his own life. He is rarely at home except to sleep. Isee less of him than of my daughters. During the day he is at theoffice, where he is learning to be a lawyer. At wide intervals we lunchtogether; but I find that he is interested in things which do not appealto me at all. Just at present he has become an expert--almost aprofessional--dancer to syncopated music. I hear of him as dancing forcharity at public entertainments, and he is in continual demand forprivate theatricals and parties. He is astonishingly clever at it. 

Yet I cannot imagine Daniel Webster or Rufus Choate dancing in publiceven in their leisure moments. Perhaps, however, it is better for him todance than to do some other things. It is good exercise; and, to be fairwith him, I cannot imagine Choate or Webster playing bridge or takingscented baths. But, frankly, it is a far cry from my clergymangrandfather to my ragtime dancing offspring. Perhaps, however, thelatter will serve his generation in his own way. 

It may seem incredible that a father can be such a stranger to hischildren, but it is none the less a fact. I do not suppose we dinetogether as a family fifteen times in the course of the winter. When wedo so we get along together very nicely, but I find myself conversingwith my daughters much as if they were women I had met casually out atdinner. They are literally "perfect ladies. "

When they were little I was permitted a certain amount of decorousinformality, but now I have to be very careful how I kiss them onaccount of the amount of powder they use. They have, both of them, excellent natural complexions, but they are not satisfied unless theirnoses have an artificial whiteness like that of marble. I suspect, also, that their lips have a heightened color. At all events I amcareful to "mind the paint. " But they are--either because of thesethings or in spite of them--extraordinarily pretty girls--prettier, I amforced to admit, than their mother was at their age. Now, as I write, Iwonder to what end these children of mine have been born into theworld--how they will assist in the development of the race to a higherlevel. 

For years I slaved at the office--early, late, in the evenings, oftenworking Sundays and holidays, and foregoing my vacation in the summer. 

Then came the period of expansion. My accumulations doubled and trebled. In one year I earned a fee in a railroad reorganization of two hundredthousand dollars. I found myself on Easy Street. I had arrived--achievedmy success. During all those years I had devoted myself exclusively tothe making of money. Now I simply had to spend it and go through themotions of continuing to work at my profession. 

My wife and I became socially ambitious. She gave herself to this endeventually with the same assiduity I had displayed at the law. It issurprising at the present time to recall that it was not always easy toexplain the ultimate purpose in view. Alas! What is it now? Is it otherthan that expressed by my wife on the occasion when our youngestdaughter rebelled at having to go to a children's party?

"Why must I go to parties?" she insisted. 

"In order, " replied her mother, "that you may be invited to otherparties. "

It was the unconscious epitome of my consort's theory of the whole dutyof man. 

CHAPTER II

MY FRIENDS

By virtue of my being a successful man my family has an establishedposition in New York society. We are not, to be sure--at least, my wifeand I are not--a part of the sacrosanct fifty or sixty who run the showand perform in the big ring; but we are well up in the front of theprocession and occasionally do a turn or so in one of the side rings. Wegive a couple of dinners each week during the season and a ball or two, besides a continuous succession of opera and theater parties. 

Our less desirable acquaintances, and those toward whom we have minorsocial obligations, my wife disposes of by means of an elaborate "athome, " where the inadequacies of the orchestra are drowned in the roarof conversation, and which a sufficient number of well-known people aregood-natured enough to attend in order to make the others feel that theoccasion is really smart and that they are not being trifled with. Thismethod of getting rid of one's shabby friends and their claims is, I aminformed, known as "killing them off with a tea. "

We have a slaughter of this kind about once in two years. In return forthese courtesies we are invited yearly by the élite to some two hundreddinners, about fifty balls and dances, and a large number ofmiscellaneous entertainments such as musicales, private theatricals, costume affairs, bridge, poker, and gambling parties; as well as in thesummer to clambakes--where champagne and terrapin are served byfootmen--and other elegant rusticities. 

Besides these _chic_ functions we are, of course, deluged withinvitations to informal meals with old and new friends, studio parties, afternoon teas, highbrow receptions and _conversaziones_, reformers'lunch parties, and similar festivities. We have cut out all these longago. Keeping up with our smart acquaintances takes all our energy andavailable time. There are several old friends of mine on the next blockto ours whom I have not met socially for nearly ten years. 

We have definitely arrived however. There is no question about that. Weare in society and entitled to all the privileges pertaining thereto. What are they? you ask. Why, the privilege of going to all these balls, concerts and dinners, of course; of calling the men and women one readsabout in the paper by their first names; of having the satisfaction ofknowing that everybody who knows anything knows we are in society; andof giving our daughters and son the chance to enjoy, without any efforton their part, these same privileges that their parents have spent alife of effort to secure. 

Incidentally, I may add, our offspring will, each of them--if I am notvery much mistaken--marry money, since I have observed a certainfrankness on their part in this regard, which seems to point that wayand which, if not admirable in itself, at least does credit to theirhonesty. 

Now it is undubitably the truth that my wife regards our place among thesocially elect as the crowning achievement--the great desideratum--ofour joint career. It is what we have always been striving for. Withoutit we--both of us--would have unquestionably acknowledged failure. Myfuture, my reputation, my place at the bar and my domestic life wouldhave meant nothing at all to us, had not the grand cordon of successbeen thrown across our shoulders by society. 

 * * * * *

As I have achieved my ambition in this respect it is no small part of myself-imposed task to somewhat analyze this, the chief reward of mydevotion to my profession, my years of industrious application, mycareful following of the paths that other successful Americans haveblazed for me. 

I must confess at the outset that it is ofttimes difficult to determinewhere the pleasure ends and work begins. Even putting it in this way, Ifear I am guilty of a euphemism; for, now that I consider the matterhonestly, I recall no real pleasure or satisfaction derived from thevarious entertainments I have attended during the last five or tenyears. 

In the first place I am invariably tired when I come home at night--lessperhaps from the actual work I have done at my office than from theamount of tobacco I have consumed and the nervous strain attendant onhurrying from one engagement to another and keeping up the affectationof hearty good-nature which is part of my stock in trade. At any rate, even if my body is not tired, my head, nerves and eyes are distinctlyso. 

I often feel, when my valet tells me that the motor is ordered at tenminutes to eight, that I would greatly enjoy having him slip into thedress-clothes he has so carefully laid out on my bed and go out todinner in my place. He would doubtless make himself quite as agreeableas I. And then--let me see--what would I do? I sit with one of myaccordion-plaited silk socks half on and surrender myself to all thedelights of the most reckless imagination!

Yes, what would I choose if I could do anything in the world for thenext three hours? First, I think, I would like an egg--a poached egg, done just right, like a little snowball, balanced nicely in the exactcenter of a hot piece of toast! My mouth waters. Aunt Jane used to dothem like that. And then I would like a crisp piece of gingerbread and aglass of milk. Dress? Not on your life! Where is that old smoking-jacketof mine? Not the one with Japanese embroidery on it--no; the old one. Given away? I groan aloud. 

Well, the silk one will have to do--and a pair of comfortable slippers!Where is that old brier pipe I keep to go a-fishing? Now I want abook--full of the sea and ships--of pirates and coral reefs--yes, Treasure Island; of course that's it--and Long John Silver and the BlackSpot. 

"Beg pardon, sir, but madam has sent me up to say the motor is waiting, "admonishes my English footman respectfully. 

Gone--gone is my poached egg, my pipe, my dream of the Southern Seas! Idash into my evening clothes under the solicitous guidance of my valetand hastily descend in the electric elevator to the front hall. My wifehas already taken her seat in the motor, with an air of righteousannoyance, of courteously suppressed irritation. The butler is standingon the doorstep. The valet is holding up my fur coat expectantly. I amsensible of an atmosphere of sad reproachfulness. 

Oh, well! I thrust my arms into my coat, grasp my white gloves and cane, receive my hat and wearily start forth on my evening's task of beingentertained; conscious as I climb into the motor that this curious formof so-called amusement has certain rather obvious limitations. 

For what is its _raison d'être_? It is obvious that if I know anypersons whose society and conversation are likely to give me pleasure Ican invite them to my own home and be sure of an evening's quietenjoyment. But, so far as I can see, my wife does not invite to ourhouse the people who are likely to give either her or myself anypleasure at all, and neither am I likely to meet such people at thehomes of my friends. 

The whole thing is a mystery governed by strange laws and curiousconsiderations of which I am kept in utter ignorance; in fact, I rarelyknow where I am going to dine until I arrive at the house. On severaloccasions I have come away without having any very clear idea as towhere I have been. 

"The Hobby-Smiths, " my wife will whisper as we go up the steps. "Ofcourse you've heard of her! She is a great friend of Marie Van Duser, and her husband is something in Wall Street. "

That is a comparatively illuminating description. At all events itinsures some remote social connection with ourselves, if only throughMiss Van Duser and Wall Street. Most of our hosts are something in WallStreet. Occasionally they are something in coal, iron, oil or politics. 

I find a small envelope bearing my name on a silver tray by thehatstand and open it suspiciously as my wife is divested of her wraps. Inside is a card bearing in an almost illegible scrawl the words: Mrs. Jones. I hastily refresh my recollection as to all the Joneses of myacquaintance, whether in coal, oil or otherwise; but no likely candidatefor the distinction of being the husband of my future dinner companioncomes to my mind. Yet there is undoubtedly a Jones. But, no! The ladymay be a divorcée or a widow. I recall no Mrs. Jones, but I visualizevarious possible Miss Joneses--ladies very fat and bursting; ladiesscrawny, lean and sardonic; facetious ladies; heavy, intelligent ladies;aggressive, militant ladies. 

My spouse has turned away from the mirror and the butler has pulled backthe portières leading into the drawing room. I follow my wife's composedfigure as she sweeps toward our much-beplumed hostess and find myself ina roomful of heterogeneous people, most of whom I have never seen beforeand whose personal appearance is anything but encouraging. 

"This is very _nice_!" says our hostess--accent on the nice. 

"So _nice_ of you to think of us!" answers my wife. 

We shake hands and smile vaguely. The butler rattles the portières andtwo more people come in. 

"This _is_ very nice!" says the hostess again--accent on the is. 

It may be here noted that at the conclusion of the evening each guestmurmurs in a simpering, half-persuasive yet consciously deprecatorymanner--as if apologizing for the necessity of so bald aprevarication--"Good-night! We have had _such_ a good time! _So_ goodof you to ask us!" This epilogue never changes. Its phrase is cast andset. The words may vary slightly, but the tone, emphasis and substanceare inviolable. Yet, disregarding the invocation good-night! the factremains that neither have you had a good time nor was your host in anyway good or kind in asking you. 

Returning to the moment at which you have made your entrance and beenreceived and passed along, you gaze vaguely round you at the otherguests, greeting those you know with exaggerated enthusiasm and beingthe conscious subject of whispered criticism and inquiry on the part ofthe others. You make your way to the side of a lady whom you havepreviously encountered at a similar entertainment and assert yourdelight at revamping the fatuous acquaintanceship. Her facetiousness iselephantine, but the relief of conversation is such that you laughloudly at her witticisms and simper knowingly at her platitudes--both ofwhich have now been current for several months. 

The edge of your delight is, however, somewhat dulled by the discoverythat she is the lady whom fate has ordained that you shall take in todinner--a matter of which you were sublimely unconscious owing to thefact that you had entirely forgotten her name. As the couples pair offto march to the dining room and the combinations of which you may form apossible part are reduced to a scattering two or three, you realize witha shudder that the lady beside you is none other than Mrs. Jones--andthat for the last ten minutes you have been recklessly using up theevening's conversational ammunition. 

With a sinking heart you proffer your arm, wondering whether it will bepossible to get through the meal and preserve the fiction of interest. You wish savagely that you could turn on her and exclaim honestly:

"Look here, my good woman, you are all right enough in your own way, butwe have nothing in common; and this proposed evening of enforcedcompanionship will leave us both exhausted and ill-tempered. We shallgrin and shout meaningless phrases over the fish, entrée and salad aboutlife, death and the eternal verities; but we shall be sick to death ofeach other in ten minutes. Let's cut it out and go home!"

You are obliged, however, to escort your middle-aged comrade downstairsand take your seat beside her with a flourish, as if you were playingRudolph to her Flavia. Then for two hours, with your eyes blinded bycandlelight and electricity, you eat recklessly as you grimace firstover your left shoulder and then over your right. It is a foregoneconclusion that you will have a headache by the time you have turned, with a sensation of momentary relief, to your "fair companion" on theother side. 

Have you enjoyed yourself? Have you been entertained? Have you profited?The questions are utterly absurd. You have _suffered_. You have strainedyour eyes, overloaded your stomach, and wasted three hours during whichyou might have been recuperating from your day's work or really amusingyourself with people you like. 

This entirely conventional form of amusement is, I am told, quiteunknown in Europe. There are, to be sure, occasional formal banquets, which do not pretend to be anything but formal. A formal banquet wouldbe an intense relief, after the heat, noise, confusion andpseudo-informality of a New York dinner. The European is puzzled andbaffled by one of our combined talk-and-eating bouts. 

A nobleman from Florence recently said to me:

"At home, when we go to other people's houses it is for the purpose ofmeeting our own friends or our friend's friends. We go after our eveningmeal and stay as long as we choose. Some light refreshment is served, and those who wish to do so smoke or play cards. The old and the youngmingle together. It is proper for each guest to make himself agreeableto all the others. We do not desire to spend money or to make a fête. At the proper times we have our balls and _festas_. 

"But here in New York each night I have been pressed to go to a grandentertainment and eat a huge dinner cooked by a French chef and servedby several men servants, where I am given one lady to talk to forseveral hours. I must converse with no one else, even if there is awitty, beautiful and charming woman directly opposite me; and as I talkand listen I must consume some ten or twelve courses or fail to dojustice to my host's hospitality. I am given four or five costly wines, caviar, turtle soup, fish, mousse, a roast, partridge, pâté de foisgras, glacés, fruits, bonbons, and cigars costing two francs each. Notto eat and drink would be to insult the friend who is paying at leastforty or fifty francs for my dinner. But I cannot enjoy a meal eaten insuch haste and I cannot enjoy talking to one strange lady for so long. 

"Then the men retire to a chamber from which the ladies are excluded. Imust talk to some man. Perhaps I have seen an attractive woman I wish tomeet. It is hopeless. I must talk to her husband! At the end ofthree-quarters of an hour the men march to the drawing room, and again Italk to some one lady for half an hour and then must go home! It may beonly half-past ten o'clock, but I have no choice. Away I must go. I saygood-night. I have eaten a huge dinner; I have talked to one man andthree ladies; I have drunk a great deal of wine and my head is verytired. 

"Nineteen other people have had the same experience, and it has cost myhost from five hundred to a thousand francs--or, as you say here, fromone hundred to two hundred dollars. And why has he spent this sum ofmoney? Pardon me, my friend, if I say that it could be disbursed to muchbetter advantage. Should my host come to Florence I should not _dare_ toask him to dinner, for we cannot afford to have these elaboratefunctions. If he came to my house he would have to dine _en famille_. Here you feast every night in the winter. Why? Every day is not a feastday!"

I devote space and time to this subject commensurate with what seems tome to be its importance. Dining out is the metropolitan form of socialentertainment for the well-to-do. I go to such affairs at least onehundred nights each year. That is a large proportion of my whole lifeand at least one-half of all the time at my disposal for recreation. Sofar as I can see, it is totally useless and a severe drain on one'snervous centers. It has sapped and is sapping my vitality. During thewinter I am constantly tired. My head aches a large part of the time. Ican do only a half--and on some days only a third--as much work as Icould at thirty-five. 

I wake with a thin, fine line of pain over my right eye, and a heavyhead. A strong cup of coffee sets me up and I feel better; but as themorning wears on, especially if I am nervous, the weariness in my headreturns. By luncheon time I am cross and upset. Often by six o'clock Ihave a severe sick headache. When I do not have a headache I am usuallydepressed; my brain feels like a lump of lead. And I know precisely thecause: It is that I do not give my nerve-centers sufficient rest. If Icould spend the evenings--or half of them--quietly I should be wellenough; but after I am tired out by a day's work I come home only toarray myself to go out to saw social wood. 

I never get rested! My head gets heavier and heavier and finally givesway. There is no immediate cause. It is the fact that my nervous systemgets more and more tired without any adequate relief. The feeling ofcomplete restedness, so far as my brain is concerned, is one I almostnever experience. When I do wake up with my head clear and light myheart sings for joy. My effectiveness is impaired by weariness andovereating, through a false effort at recuperation. I have known thisfor a long time, but I have seen no escape from it. 

Social life is one of the objects of living in New York; and social lifeto ninety per cent of society people means nothing but eating oneanother's dinners. Men never pay calls or go to teas. The dinner, whichhas come to mean a heavy, elaborate meal, eaten amid noise, laughter andchatter, at great expense, is the expression of our highest socialaspirations. Thus it would seem, though I had not thought of it before, that I work seven or eight hours every day in order to make myselfrather miserable for the rest of the time. 

"I am going to lie down and rest this afternoon, " my wife will sometimessay. "We're dining with the Robinsons. "

Extraordinary that pleasure should be so exhausting as to require restin anticipation! Dining with these particular and other in-generalRobinsons has actually become a physical feat of endurance--a _tour deforce_, like climbing the Matterhorn or eating thirteen pounds ofbeefsteak at a sitting. Is it a reminiscence of those dim centuries whenour ancestors in the forests of the Elbe sat under the moss-hung oaksand stuffed themselves with roast ox washed down with huge skins ofwine? Or is it a custom born of those later days when, round the blazinglogs of Canadian campfires, our Indian allies gorged themselves intoinsensibility to the sound of the tom-tom and the chant of themedicine-man--the latter quite as indispensable now as then?

If I should be called on to explain for what reason I am accustomed toeat not wisely but too well on these joyous occasions, I should besomewhat at a loss for any adequate reply. Perhaps the simplest answerwould be that I have just imbibed a cocktail and created an artificialappetite. It is also probable that, in my efforts to appear happy and atease, to play my part as a connoisseur of good things, and to keep theconversational ball in the air, I unconsciously lose track of the numberof courses I have consumed. 

It is also a matter of habit. As a boy I was compelled to eat everythingon my plate; and as I grew older I discovered that in our home town itwas good manners to leave nothing undevoured and thus pay a concretetribute to the culinary ability of the hostess. Be that as it may, Ihave always liked to eat. It is almost the only thing left that I enjoy;but, even so, my palate requires the stimulus of gin. I know that I amgetting fat. My waistcoats have to be let out a little more every fiveor six months. Anyhow, if the men did not do their part there would belittle object for giving dinner parties in these days when slender womenare the fashion. 

After the long straight front and the habit back, social usage isfrowning on the stomach, hips and other heretofore not unadmiredevidences of robust nutrition. Temperance, not to say total abstinence, has become _de rigueur_ among the ladies. My dinner companion nibblesher celery, tastes the soup, waves away fish, entrée and roast, pecksonce or twice at the salad, and at last consumes her ration of ice-creamwith obvious satisfaction. If there is a duck--well, she makes anexception in the case of duck--at six dollars and a half a pair. Acouple of hothouse grapes and she is done. 

It will be observed that this gives her all the more opportunity forconversation--a doubtful blessing. On the other hand, there is anequivalent economic waste. I have no doubt each guest would prefer tohave set before her a chop, a baked potato and a ten-dollar goldpiece. It would amount to the same thing, so far as the host is concerned. 

 * * * * *

I had, until recently, assumed with some bitterness that my dancing dayswere over. My wife and I went to balls, to be sure, but not to dance. Weleft that to the younger generation, for the reason that my wife did notcare to jeopardize her attire or her complexion. She was also consciousof the fact that the variety of waltz popular thirty years ago was anoddity, and that a middle-aged woman who went hopping and twirling abouta ballroom must be callous to the amusement that followed her gyrations. 

With the advent of the turkey trot and the tango, things have changedhowever. No one is too stout, too old or too clumsy to go walkingsolemnly round, in or out of time to the music. I confess to aconsciousness of absurdity when, to the exciting rhythm of TrèsMoutard, I back Mrs. Jones slowly down the room and up again. 

"Do you grapevine?" she inquires ardently. Yes; I admit the softimpeachment, and at once she begins some astonishing convolutions withthe lower part of her body, which I attempt to follow. After severalentanglements we move triumphantly across the hall. 

"How beautifully you dance!" she pants. 

Aged roisterer that I am, I fall for the compliment. She is a nice oldthing, after all!

"Fish walk?" asks she. 

I retort with total abandon. 

"Come along!"

So, grabbing her tightly and keeping my legs entirely stiff--as perinstructions from my son--I stalk swiftly along the floor, while shebacks with prodigious velocity. Away we go, an odd four hundred poundsof us, until, exhausted, we collapse against the table where thechampagne is being distributed. 

Though I have carefully followed the directions of my preceptor, I amaware that the effect produced by our efforts is somehow not the same ashis. I observe him in a close embrace with a willowy young thing, dipping gracefully in the distance. They pause, sway, run a few steps, stop dead and suddenly sink to the floor--only to rise and repeat theperformance. 

So the evening wears gaily on. I caper round--now sedately, nowdeliriously--knowing that, however big a fool I am making of myself, weare all in the same boat. My wife is doing it, too, to the obviousannoyance of our daughters. But this is the smartest ball of the season. When all the world is dancing it would be conspicuous to loiter in thedoorway. Society has ruled that I must dance--if what I am doing can beso called. 

I am aware that I should not care to allow my clients to catch anunexpected glimpse of my antics with Mrs. Jones; yet to be permitted todance with her is one of the privileges of our success. I might danceelsewhere but it would not be the same thing. Is not my hostess' hoarse, good-natured, rather vulgar voice the clarion of society? Did not mywife scheme and plot for years before she managed to get our names onthe sacred list of invitations?

To be sure, I used to go to dances enough as a lad; and good times I hadtoo. The High School Auditorium had a splendid floor; and the girls, even though they were unacquainted with all these newfangled steps, could waltz and polka, and do Sir Roger de Coverley. Good old days! Iremember my wife--met her in that old hall. She wore a white muslindress trimmed with artificial roses. I wonder if I properly appreciatethe distinction of being asked to Mrs. Jones' turkey-trotting parties!My butler and the kitchen-maid are probably doing the same thing in thebasement at home to the notes of the usefulman's accordion--and having abetter time than I am. 

It is a pleasure to watch my son or my daughters glide through theintricacies of these modern dances, which the natural elasticity andsuppleness of youth render charming in spite of their grotesqueness. Butwhy should I seek to copy them? In spite of the fact that I am stillrather athletic I cannot do so. With my utmost endeavor I fail toimitate their grace. I am getting old. My muscles are stiff and out oftraining. My wind has suffered. Mrs. Jones probably never had any. 

And if I am ridiculous, what of her and the other women of her age who, for some unknown reason, fatuously suppose they can renew their lostyouth? Occasionally luck gives me a débutante for a partner when I goout to dinner. I do my best to entertain her--trot out all my old jokesand stories, pay her delicate compliments, and do frank homage to heryouth and beauty. But her attention wanders. My tongue is stiff, like mylegs. It can wag through the old motions, but it has lost itsspontaneity. One glance from the eye of the boy down the long table andshe is oblivious of my existence. Should I try to dance with her Ishould quickly find that crabbed middle-age and youth cannot step intime. My place is with Mrs. Jones--or, better, at home and in bed. 

Apart, however, from the dubious delight of dancing, all is not goldthat glitters socially. The first time my wife and I were invited to aweek-end party at the country-house of a widely known New York hostesswe were both much excited. At last we were to be received on a footingof real intimacy by one of the inner circle. Even my valet, animperturbable Englishman who would have announced that the house was onfire in the same tone as that my breakfast was ready, showed clearlythat he was fully aware of the significance of the coming event. Forseveral days he exhibited signs of intense nervous anxiety, and when atlast the time of my departure arrived I found that he had filled twosteamer trunks with the things he regarded as indispensable for mycomfort and well-being. 

My wife's maid had been equally assiduous. Both she and the valet had nointention of learning on our return that any feature of our respectivewardrobes had been forgotten; since we had decided not to take either ofour personal servants, for the reason that we thought to do so mightpossibly be regarded as an ostentation. 

I made an early getaway from my office on Friday afternoon, met my wifeat the ferry, and in due course, but by no means with comfort, managedto board the train and secure our seats in the parlor car before itstarted. We reached our destination at about half-past four and weremet by a footman in livery, who piloted us to a limousine driven by aFrench chauffeur. We were the only arrivals. 

In my confusion I forgot to do anything about our trunks, whichcontained our evening apparel. During the run to the house we were bothon the verge of hysteria owing to the speed at which we weredriven--seventy miles an hour at the least. And at one corner we werethrown forward, clear of the seats and against the partition, by anunexpected stop. An interchange of French profanity tinted theatmosphere for a few moments and then we resumed the trajectory of ourflight. 

We had expected to be welcomed by our hostess; but instead we wereinformed by the butler that she and the other guests had driven over towatch a polo game and would probably not be back before six. As we hadnothing to do we strolled round the grounds and looked at the shrubberyfor a couple of hours, at the end of which period we had tea alone inthe library. We had, of course, no sooner finished than the belatedparty entered, the hostess full of vociferous apologies. 

I remember this occasion vividly because it was my first introduction tothat artificially enforced merriment which is the inevitable concomitantof smart gatherings in America. The men invariably addressed each otheras Old Man and the women as My Dear. No one was mentioned except by hisor her first name or by some intimate diminutive or abbreviation. Itseemed to be assumed that the guests were only interested in personalgossip relating to the marital infelicities of the neighboringcountryside, who lost most at cards, and the theater. Every remarkrelating to these absorbing subjects was given a feebly humorous twistand greeted with a burst of hilarity. Even the mere suggestion of goingupstairs to dress for dinner was a sufficient reason for an explosion ofmerriment. If noise was an evidence of having a good time these peoplewere having the time of their lives. Personally I felt a little out ofmy element. I had still a lingering disinclination to pretend to aubiquity of social acquaintance that I did not really possess, and I hadnever learned to laugh in a properly boisterous manner. But my wifeappeared highly gratified. 

Delay in sending to the depot for our trunks--the fault of the butler, to whom we turned over our keys--prevented, as we supposed, our gettingready in time for dinner. Everybody else had gone up to dress; so wealso went to our rooms, which consisted of two huge apartments connectedby a bathroom of similar acreage. The furniture was dainty andchintz-covered. There was an abundance of writing paper, envelopes, magazines and French novels. Superficially the arrangements were whollycharming. 

The baggage arrived at about ten minutes to eight, after we had sathelplessly waiting for nearly an hour. The rooms were plentifullysupplied with buttons marked: Maid; Valet; Butler's Pantry--and so on. But, though we pressed these anxiously, there was no response. Iconcluded that the valet was hunting or sleeping or otherwise occupied. I unpacked my trunks without assistance; my wife unpacked hers. Butbefore I could find and assemble my evening garments I had to unwrap thecontents of every tray and fill the room knee-high with tissue-paper. 

Unable to secure any response to her repeated calls for the maid, mywife was nearly reduced to tears. However, in those days I was notunskillful in hooking up a dress, and we managed to get downstairs, withready apologies on our lips, by twenty minutes of nine. We were thefirst ones down however. 

The party assembled in a happy-go-lucky manner and, after the cocktailshad been served, gathered round the festive board at five minutes pastnine. The dinner was the regulation heavy, expensive New York meal, eaten to the accompaniment of the same noisy mirth I have alreadydescribed. Afterward the host conducted the men to his "den, " aluxurious paneled library filled with rare prints, and we listened foran hour to the jokes and anecdotes of a semiprofessional jester who tookit on himself to act as the life of the party. It was after eleveno'clock when we rejoined the ladies, but the evening apparently had onlyjust begun; the serious business of the day--bridge--was at hand. Butin those days my wife and I did not play bridge; and as there wasnothing else for us to do we retired, after a polite interval, to ourapartments. 

While getting ready for the night we shouted cheerfully to one anotherthrough the open doors of the bathroom and, I remember, became quitejolly; but when my wife had gone to bed and I tried to close the blindsI discovered that there were none. Now neither of us had acquired theart of sleeping after daylight unless the daylight was excluded. Withgrave apprehension I arranged a series of makeshift screens andextinguished the lights, wandering round the room and turning off thekey of each one separately, since the architect had apparently forgottento put in a central switch. 

If there had been no servants in evidence when we wanted them beforedinner, no such complaint could be entered now. There seemed to be abowling party going on upstairs. We could also hear plainly the rattleof dishes and a lively interchange of informalities from the kitchen endof the establishment. We lay awake tensely. Shortly after one o'clockthese particular sounds died away, but there was a steady tramp of feetover our heads until three. About this hour, also, the bridge partybroke up and the guests came upstairs. 

There were no outside doors to our rooms. Bells rang, water ran, andthere was that curious vibration which even hairbrushing seems to setgoing in a country house. Then with a final bang, comparative silencedescended. Occasionally still, to be sure, the floor squeaked over ourheads. Once somebody got up and closed a window. I could hear twodistant snorings in major and minor keys. I managed to snatch a fewwinks and then an alarm-clock went off. At no great distance thescrubbing maid was getting up. I could hear her every move. 

The sun also rose and threw fire-pointed darts at us through thewindowshades. By five o'clock I was ready to scream with nerves; and, having dug a lounge suit out of the gentlemen's furnishing store in mytrunk, I cautiously descended into the lower regions. There was a richsmell of cigarettes everywhere. In the hall I stumbled over the feet ofthe sleeping night-watchman. But the birds were twittering in thebushes; the grassblades threw back a million flashes to the sun. 

Not before a quarter to ten could I secure a cup of coffee, thoughseveral footmen, in answer to my insistent bell, had been running roundapparently for hours in a vain endeavor to get it for me. At eleven acouple of languid younger men made their appearance and conversedapathetically with one another over the papers. The hours drew on. 

Lunch came at two o'clock, bursting like a thunder-storm out of asunlit sky. Afterward the guests sat round and talked. People werecoming to tea at five, and there was hardly any use in doing anythingbefore that time. A few took naps. A young lady and gentleman played animpersonal game of tennis; but at five an avalanche of social leaderspoured out of a dozen shrieking motors and stormed the castle withsalvos of strident laughter. The cannonade continued, with one brieftruce in which to dress for dinner, until long after midnight. _Vox, etpraeterea nihil!_

I look back on that house party with vivid horror. Yet it was one of themost valuable of my social experiences. We were guests invited for thefirst time to one of the smartest houses on Long Island; yet we wereneglected by male and female servants alike, deprived of all possibilityof sleep, and not the slightest effort was made to look after ourpersonal comfort and enjoyment by either our host or hostess. Incidentally on my departure I distributed about forty dollars amongvarious dignitaries who then made their appearance. 

It is probable that time has somewhat exaggerated my recollections ofthe miseries of this our first adventure into ultrasmart society, butits salient characteristics have since repeated themselves in countlessothers. I no longer accept week-end invitations;--for me the quiet of mylibrary or the Turkish bath at my club; for they are all essentiallyalike. Surrounded by luxury, the guests yet know no comfort!

After a couple of days of ennui and an equal number of sleepless nights, his brain foggy with innumerable drinks, his eyes dizzy with the pips ofplaying cards, and his ears still echoing with senseless hilarity, theguest rises while it is not yet dawn, and, fortified by a lukewarm cupof faint coffee boiled by the kitchen maid and a slice of leatherliketoast left over from Sunday's breakfast, presses ten dollars on thebutler and five on the chauffeur--and boards the train for the city, nervous, disgruntled, his digestion upset and his head totally out ofkilter for the day's work. 

Since my first experience in house parties I have yielded weakly to mywife's importunities on several hundred similar occasions. Some of thesevisits have been fairly enjoyable. Sleep is sometimes possible. Servantsare not always neglectful. Discretion in the matter of food and drink isconceivable, even if not probable, and occasionally one meets congenialpersons. 

As a rule, however, all the hypocrisies of society are intensifiedthreefold when heterogeneous people are thrown into the enforced contactof a Sunday together in the country; but the artificiality andinsincerity of smart society is far less offensive than thepretentiousness of mere wealth. 

 * * * * *

Not long ago I attended a dinner given on Fifth Avenue the invitation towhich had been eagerly awaited by my wife. We were asked to dineinformally with a middle-aged couple who for no obvious reason have beenaccepted as fashionable desirables. He is the retired head of a greatcombination of capital usually described as a trust. A canopy and acarpet covered the sidewalk outside the house. Two flunkies in cockadedhats stood beside the door, and in the hall was a line of six liveriedlackeys. Three maids helped my wife remove her wraps and adjust herhair. 

In the salon where our hostess received us were hung picturesrepresenting an outlay of nearly two million dollars--part of acollection the balance of which they keep in their house in Paris; forthese people are not content with one mansion on Fifth Avenue and acountry house on Long Island, but own a palace overlooking the Bois deBoulogne and an enormous estate in Scotland. They spend less than tenweeks in New York, six in the country, and the rest of the year abroad. 

The other male guests had all amassed huge fortunes and had given upactive work. They had been, in their time, in the thick of the fray. Yetthese men, who had swayed the destinies of the industrial world, stoodabout awkwardly discussing the most trivial of banalities, as if theyhad never had a vital interest in anything. 

Then the doors leading into the dining room were thrown open, disclosinga table covered with rosetrees in full bloom five feet in height and aconcealed orchestra began to play. There were twenty-four seats and afootman for each two chairs, besides two butlers, who directed theservice. The dinner consisted of hors-d'oeuvre and grapefruit, turtlesoup, fish of all sorts, elaborate entrées, roasts, breasts of ploverserved separately with salad, and a riot of ices and exotic fruits. 

Throughout the meal the host discoursed learnedly on the relativeexcellence of various vintages of champagne and the difficulty ofprocuring cigars suitable for a gentleman to smoke. It appeared thatthere was no longer any wine--except a few bottles in his owncellar--which was palatable or healthful. Even coffee was not fit foruse unless it had been kept for six years! His own cigars were made toorder from a selected crop of tobacco he had bought up entire. Hiscigarettes, which were the size of small sausages, were prepared fromspecially cured leaves of plants grown on "sunny corners of the walls ofSmyrna. " His Rembrandts, his Botticellis, his Sir Joshuas, his Hoppners, were little things he had picked up here and there, but which, headmitted, were said to be rather good. 

Soon all the others were talking wine, tobacco and Botticelli as well asthey could, though most of them knew more about coal, cotton or creosotethan the subjects they were affecting to discuss. 

This, then, was success! To flounder helplessly in a mire ofartificiality and deception to Tales of Hoffmann!

If I were asked what was the object of our going to such a dinner Icould only answer that it was in order to be invited to others of thesame kind. Is it for this we labor and worry--that we scheme andconspire--that we debase ourselves and lose our self-respect? Is thereno wine good enough for my host? Will God let such arrogance be withouta blast of fire from heaven?

 * * * * *

There was a time not so very long ago when this same man was thankfulenough for a slice of meat and a chunk of bread carried in a tinpail--content with the comfort of an old brier pipe filled with cut plugand smoked in a sunny corner of the factory yard. "Sunny corners of thewalls of Smyrna!"

It is a fine thing to assert that here in America we have "out of ademocracy of opportunity" created "an aristocracy of achievement. " Thephrase is stimulating and perhaps truly expresses the spirit of ourenergetic and ambitious country; but an aristocracy of achievement istruly noble only when the achievements themselves are fine. What are theachievements that win our applause, for which we bestow our decorationsin America? Do we honor most the men who truly serve their generationand their country? Or do we fawn, rather, on those who merely servethemselves?

It is a matter of pride with us--frequently expressed in disparagementof our European contemporaries--that we are a nation of workers; that tohold any position in the community every man must have a job orotherwise lose caste; that we tolerate no loafing. We do not conceal ourcontempt for the chap who fails to go down every day to the office orbusiness. Often, of course, our ostentatious workers go down, but dovery little work. We feel somehow that every man owes it to thecommunity to put in from six to ten hours' time below the residentialdistrict. 

Young men who have inherited wealth are as chary of losing one hour astheir clerks. The busy millionaire sits at his desk all day--his ear tothe telephone. We assume that these men are useful because they arebusy; but in what does their usefulness consist? What are they busyabout? They are setting an example of mere industry, perhaps--but towhat end? Simply, in seven cases out of ten, in order to get a fewdollars or a few millions more than they have already. Their exertionshave no result except to enable their families to live in even greaterluxury. 

I know at least fifty men, fathers of families, whose homes mightradiate kindliness and sympathy and set an example of wise, generous andbroad-minded living, who, already rich beyond their needs, rushdowntown before their children have gone to school, pass hectic, nerve-racking days in the amassing of more money, and return after theirlittle ones have gone to bed, too utterly exhausted to take theslightest interest in what their wives have been doing or in thepleasure and welfare of their friends. 

These men doubtless give liberally to charity, but they giveimpersonally, not generously; they are in reality utterly selfish, engrossed in the enthralling game of becoming successful or moresuccessful men, sacrificing their homes, their families and theirhealth--for what? To get on; to better their position; to push in amongthose others who, simply because they have outstripped the rest in thematter of filling their own pockets, are hailed with acclamation. 

It is pathetic to see intelligent, capable men bending their energiesnot to leading wholesome, well-rounded, serviceable lives but to gaininga slender foothold among those who are far less worthy of emulation thanthemselves and with whom they have nothing whatsoever in common except adespicable ambition to display their wealth and to demonstrate that theyhave "social position. "

In what we call the Old World a man's social position is a matter offixed classification--that is to say, his presumptive ability andqualifications to amuse and be amused; to hunt, fish and shoot; to ride, dance, and make himself generally agreeable--are known from the start. And, based on the premise that what is known as society exists simplyfor the purpose of enabling people to have a good time, there is farmore reason to suppose that one who comes of a family which has made aspecialty of this pursuit for several hundred years is better endowed byNature for that purpose than one who has made a million dollars out of apatent medicine or a lucky speculation in industrial securities. 

The great manufacturer or chemist in England, France, Italy, or Germany, the clever inventor, the astute banker, the successful merchant, havetheir due rewards; but, except in obvious instances, they are notpresumed to have acquired incidentally to their material prosperity thearts of playing billiards, making love, shooting game on the wing, entertaining a house party or riding to hounds. Occasionally one of thembecomes by special favor of the sovereign a baronet; but, as a rule hisso-called social position is little affected by his business success, and there is no reason why it should be. He may make a fortune out of anew process, but he invites the same people to dinner, frequents thesame club and enjoys himself in just about the same way as he didbefore. His newly acquired wealth is not regarded as in itself likely tomake him a more congenial dinner-table companion or any more delightfulat five-o'clock tea. 

The aristocracy of England and the Continent is not an aristocracy ofachievement but of the polite art of killing time pleasantly. As such ithas a reason for existence. Yet it can at least be said for it that itsfounders, however their descendants may have deteriorated, gained theiroriginal titles and positions by virtue of their services to their kingand country. 

However, with a strange perversity--due perhaps to our having theDeclaration of Independence crammed down our throats as children--we inAmerica seem obsessed with an ambition to create a social aristocracy, loudly proclaimed as founded on achievement, which, in point of fact, isbased on nothing but the possession of money. The achievement that mostcertainly lands one among the crowned heads of the American nobility isadmittedly the achievement of having acquired in some way or other aboutfive million dollars; and it is immaterial whether its possessor got itby hard work, inheritance, marriage or the invention of a porousplaster. 

In the wider circle of New York society are to be found a considerablenumber of amiable persons who have bought their position by the lavishexpenditure of money amassed through the clever advertising and sale oftable relishes, throat emollients, fireside novels, canned edibles, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco. The money was no doubt legitimatelyearned. The patent-medicine man and the millionaire tailor have myentire respect. I do not sneer at honest wealth acquired by thesehumble means. The rise--if it be a rise--of these and others like themis superficial evidence, perhaps, that ours is a democracy. Lookingdeeper, we see that it is, in fact, proof of our utter and shamelesssnobbery. 

Most of these people are in society not on account of their personalqualities, or even by virtue of the excellence of their cut plug orthroat wash which, in truth, may be a real boon to mankind--but becausethey have that most imperative of all necessities--money. Theachievement by which they have become aristocrats is not the kind ofachievement that should have entitled them to the distinction which istheirs. They are received and entertained for no other reason whateversave that they can receive and entertain in return. Their bank accountsare at the disposal of the other aristocrats--and so are their houses, automobiles and yachts. The brevet of nobility--by achievement--isconferred on them, and the American people read of their comings andgoings, their balls, dinners and other festivities with consuming andreverent interest. Most dangerously significant of all is the fact that, so long as the applicant for social honors has the money, the method bywhich he got it, however reprehensible, is usually overlooked. That aman is a thief, so long as he has stolen enough, does not impair hisdesirability. The achievement of wealth is sufficient in itself toentitle him to a seat in the American House of Lords. 

A substantial portion of the entertaining that takes place on FifthAvenue is paid for out of pilfered money. Ten years ago this rhetoricalremark would have been sneered at as demagogic. To-day everybody knowsthat it is simply the fact. Yet we continue to eat with entire unconcernthe dinners that have, as it were, been abstracted from the dinner-pailsof the poor. I cannot conduct an investigation into the business historyof every man who asks me to his house. And even if I know he has been acrook, I cannot afford to stir up an unpleasantness by attempting in myhumble way to make him feel sorrow for his misdeeds. If I did I mightfind myself alone--deserted by the rest of the aristocracy who areconcerned less with his morality than with the vintage of his wine andthe _dot_ he is going to give his daughter. 

The methods by which a newly rich American purchases a place among ournobility are simple and direct. He does not storm the inner citadel ofsociety but at the start ingratiates himself with its lazy andeasy-going outposts. He rents a house in a fashionable country suburb ofNew York and goes in and out of town on the "dude" train. He soon learnswhat professional people mingle in smart society and these he bribes toreceive him and his family. He buys land and retains a "smart" lawyer todraw his deeds and attend to the transfer of title. He engages afashionable architect to build his house, and a society young lady whohas gone into landscape gardening to lay out his grounds. He cannot workthe game through his dentist or plumber, but he establishes friendlyrelations with the swell local medical man and lets him treat animaginary illness or two. He has his wife's portrait painted by anartist who makes a living off similar aspirants, and in exchange gets aninvitation to drop in to tea at the studio. He buys broken-windedhunters from the hunting set, decrepit ponies from the polo players, andstone griffins for the garden from the social sculptress. 

A couple of hundred here, a couple of thousand there, and he and hiswife are dining out among the people who run things. Once he gets afoothold, the rest is by comparison easy. The bribes merely becomebigger and more direct. He gives a landing to the yacht club, a silvermug for the horse show, and an altar rail to the church. He entertainswisely--gracefully discarding the doctor, lawyer, architect and artistas soon as they are no longer necessary. He has, of course, alreadyopened an account with the fashionable broker who lives near him, andinsured his life with the well-known insurance man, his neighbor. Healso plays poker daily with them on the train. 

This is the period during which he becomes a willing, almost eager, markfor the decayed sport who purveys bad champagne and vends his own brandof noxious cigarettes. He achieves the Stock Exchange Crowd withoutdifficulty and moves on up into the Banking Set composed of trustcompany presidents, millionaires who have nothing but money, and theélite of the stockbrokers and bond men who handle their privatebusiness. 

The family are by this time "going almost everywhere"; and in a year ortwo, if the money holds out, they can buy themselves into the innercircles. It is only necessary to take a villa at Newport and spend aboutone hundred thousand dollars in the course of the season. The walls ofthe city will fall down flat if the golden trumpet blows but mildly. Andthen, there they are--right in the middle of the champagne, clambakesand everything else!--invited to sit with the choicest of America'snobility on golden chairs--supplied from New York at one dollar per--andto dance to the strains of the most expensive music amid the subduedpopping of distant corks. 

In this social Arabian Nights' dream, however, you will find no sailorsor soldiers, no great actors or writers, no real poets or artists, nogenuine statesmen. The nearest you will get to any of these is themillionaire senator, or the amateur decorators and portrait painterswho, by making capital of their acquaintance, get a living out ofsociety. You will find few real people among this crowd of intellectualchildren. 

The time has not yet come in America when a leader of smart societydares to invite to her table men and women whose only merit is thatthey have done something worth while. She is not sufficiently sure ofher own place. She must continue all her social life to be seen onlywith the "right people. " In England her position would be secure and shecould summon whom she would to dine with her; but in New York we have tobe careful lest, by asking to our houses some distinguished actor ornovelist, people might think we did not know we should select ourfriends--not for what they are, but for what they have. 

In a word, the viciousness of our social hierarchy lies in the fact thatit is based solely upon material success. We have no titles of nobility;but we have Coal Barons, Merchant Princes and Kings of Finance. The verycatchwords of our slang tell the story. The achievement of which weboast as the foundation of our aristocracy is indeed ignoble; but, sincethere is no other, we and our sons, and their sons after them, willdoubtless continue to struggle--and perhaps steal--to prove, to thesatisfaction of ourselves and the world at large, that we are entitledto be received into the nobility of America not by virtue of our gooddeeds, but of our so-called success. 

We would not have it otherwise. We should cry out against any seriousattempt, outside of the pulpit, to alter or readjust an order thatenables us to buy for money a position of which we would be otherwiseundeserving. It would be most discouraging to us to have substitutedfor the present arrangement a society in which the only qualificationsfor admittance were those of charm, wit, culture, good breeding and goodsportsmanship. 

CHAPTER III

MY CHILDREN

I pride myself on being a man of the world--in the better sense of thephrase. I feel no regret over the passing of those romantic days whenmaidens swooned at the sight of a drop of blood or took refuge in the"vapors" at the approach of a strange young man; in point of fact I donot believe they ever did. I imagine that our popular idea of thefragility and sensitiveness of the weaker sex, based on the accounts ofnovelists of the eighteenth century, is largely a literary convention. 

Heroines were endowed, as a matter of course, with the possession of allthe female virtues, intensified to such a degree that they were coveredwith burning blushes most of the time. Languor, hysteria and generaldebility were regarded as the outward indications of a sweet and gentlecharacter. Woman was a tendril clinging to the strong oak ofmasculinity. Modesty was her cardinal virtue. One is, of course, entitled to speculate on the probable contemporary causes for theseeming overemphasis placed on this admirable characteristic. Perhapsfeminine honesty was so rare as to be at a premium and modesty was asort of electric sign of virtue. 

I am not squeamish. I have always let my children read what they would. I have never made a mystery of the relations of the sexes, for I knowthe call of the unseen--the fascination lent by concealment, ofdiscovery. I believe frankness to be a good thing. A mind that isstartled or shocked by the exposure of an ankle or the sight of astocking must be essentially impure. Nor do I quarrel with woman'snatural desire to adorn herself for the allurement of man. That is asinevitable as springtime. 

But unquestionably the general tone of social intercourse in America, atleast in fashionable centers, has recently undergone a marked andstriking change. The athletic girl of the last twenty years, the girlwho invited tan and freckles, wielded the tennis bat in the morning andlay basking in a bathing suit on the sand at noon, is gradually givingway to an entirely different type--a type modeled, it would seem, atleast so far as dress and outward characteristics are concerned, on theFrench demimondaine. There are plenty of athletic girls to be found onthe golf links and tennis courts; but a growing and large minority ofmaidens at the present time are too chary of their complexions to bravethe sun. Big hats, cloudlike veils, high heels, paint and powder markthe passing of the vain hope that woman can attract the male sex byvirtue of her eugenic possibilities alone. 

It is but another and unpleasantly suggestive indication that thesimplicity of an older generation--the rugged virtue of a more frugaltime--has given place to the sophistication of the Continent. When I wasa lad, going abroad was a rare and costly privilege. A youth who hadbeen to Rome, London and Paris, and had the unusual opportunity ofstudying the treasures of the Vatican, the Louvre and the NationalGallery, was regarded with envy. Americans went abroad for culture; tostudy the glories of the past. 

Now the family that does not invade Europe at least every other summeris looked on as hopelessly old-fashioned. No clerk can find a job on theRue de Rivoli or the Rue de la Paix unless he speaks fluently thedialect of the customers on whose trade his employer chieflyrelies--those from Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois. The American nolonger goes abroad for improvement, but to amuse himself. The collegeFreshman knows, at least by name, the latest beauty who haunts theFolies Bergères, and his father probably has a refined and intimatefamiliarity with the special attractions of Ciro's and the Trocadero. 

I do not deny that we have learned valuable lessons from the Parisians. At any rate our cooking has vastly improved. Epicurus would havedifficulty in choosing between the delights of New York and Paris--for, after all, New York is Paris and Paris is New York. The chef ofyesterday at Voisin's rules the kitchen of the Ritz-Carlton or the Plazato-day; and he cannot have traveled much who does not find a dozenEuropean acquaintances among the head waiters of Broadway. Not to knowParis nowadays is felt to be as great a humiliation as it was fiftyyears ago not to know one's Bible. 

Beyond the larger number of Americans who visit Paris for legitimate orsemilegitimate purposes, there is a substantial fraction who go to dothings they either cannot or dare not do at home. And as those who havenot the time or the money to cross the Atlantic and who still itch forthe boulevards must be kept contented, Broadway is turned intoMontmartre. The result is that we cannot take our daughters to thetheater without risking familiarizing them with vice in one form oranother. I do not think I am overstating the situation when I say thatit would be reasonably inferred from most of our so-called musical showsand farces that the natural, customary and excusable amusement of themodern man after working hours--whether the father of a family or ayouth of twenty--is a promiscuous adventuring into sexual immorality. 

I do not regard as particularly dangerous the vulgar French farce wherepapa is caught in some extraordinary and buffoonlike situation with thewasherwoman. Safety lies in exaggeration. But it is a different matterwith the ordinary Broadway show, where virtue is made--at leastinferentially--the object of ridicule, and sexuality is the underlyingpurpose of the production. During the present New York theatrical seasonseveral plays have been already censored by the authorities, and eitherbeen taken off entirely or so altered as to be still within the boundsof legal pruriency. 

Whether I am right in attributing it to the influence of the Frenchmusic halls or not, it is the fact that the tone of our theatergoingpublic is essentially low. Boys and girls who are taken in theirChristmas holidays to see plays at which their parents applaudquestionable songs and suggestive dances, cannot be blamed for assumingthat there is not one set of morals for the stage and another forordinary social intercourse. 

Hence the college boy who has kept straight for eight months in the yearis apt to wonder: What is the use? And the débutante who is curious forall the experiences her new liberty makes possible takes it for grantedthat an amorous trifling is the ordinary incident to masculineattention. 

This is far from being mere theory. It is a matter of common knowledgethat recently the most prominent restaurateur in New York found itnecessary to lock up, or place a couple of uniformed maids in, everyunoccupied room in his establishment whenever a private dance was giventhere for young people. Boys and girls of eighteen would leave thesedances by dozens and, hiring taxicabs, go on slumming expeditions andexcursions to the remoter corners of Central Park. In several instancesparties of two or four went to the Tenderloin and had supper served inprivate rooms. 

This is the childish expression of a demoralization that is not confinedsimply to smart society, but is gradually permeating the community ingeneral. From the ordinary dinner-table conversation one hears at manyof the country houses on Long Island it would be inferred that marriagewas an institution of value only for legitimatizing concubinage; that anold-fashioned love affair was something to be rather ashamed of; andthat morality in the young was hardly to be expected. Of course a greatdeal of this is mere talk and bombast, but the maid-servants hear it. 

I believe, fortunately--and my belief is based on a fairly wide range ofobservation--that the Continental influence I have described hasproduced its ultimate effect chiefly among the rich; yet its operationis distinctly observable throughout American life. Nowhere is this morepatent than in much of our current magazine literature and lightfiction. These stories, under the guise of teaching some moral lesson, are frequently designed to stimulate all the emotions that could beexcited by the most vicious French novel. Some of them, of course, throwoff all pretense and openly ape the _petit histoire d'un amour_; butessentially all are alike. The heroine is a demimondaine in everythingbut her alleged virtue--the hero a young bounder whose better selfrestrains him just in time. A conventional marriage on the last pagelegalizes what would otherwise have been a liaison or a degenerateflirtation. 

The astonishingly unsophisticated and impossibly innocent shopgirlwho--in the story--just escapes the loss of her honor; the noble youngman who heroically "marries the girl"; the adventures of the debonaireactress, who turns out most surprisingly to be an angel of sweetness andlight; and the Johnny whose heart is really pure gold, and who, to thereader's utter bewilderment, proves himself to be a Saint George--theseare the leading characters in a great deal of our periodical literature. 

A friend of mine who edits one of the more successful magazines tells methere are at least half a dozen writers who are paid guaranteed salariesof from twelve thousand dollars to eighteen thousand dollars a year forturning out each month from five thousand to ten thousand words of whatis euphemistically termed "hot stuff. " An erotic writer can earn yearlyat the present time more than the salary of the president of the UnitedStates. What the physical result of all this is going to be does notseem to me to matter much. If the words of Jesus Christ have anysignificance we are already debased by our imaginations. 

 * * * * *

We are dangerously near an epoch of intellectual if not carnaldebauchery. The prevailing tendency on the part of the young girls ofto-day to imitate the dress and makeup of the Parisian cocotte isunconsciously due to this general lowering of the social moral tone. Young women in good society seem to feel that they must enter into opencompetition with their less fortunate sisters. And in this struggle forsurvival they are apparently determined to yield no advantage. Hereinlies the popularity of the hobble skirt, the transparent fabric thathides nothing and follows the move of every muscle, and the otherwisesenseless peculiarities and indecencies of the more extreme of thepresent fashions. 

And here, too, is to be found the reason for the popularity of thecurrent style of dancing, which offers no real attraction except theopportunity for a closeness of contact otherwise not permissible. 

"It's all in the way it is done, " says Mrs. Jones, making the customarydefense. "The tango and the turkey trot can be danced as unobjectionablyas the waltz. "

Exactly! Only the waltz is not danced that way; and if it were theoffending couple would probably be put off the floor. Moreover, theirorigin and history demonstrates their essentially vicious character. Isthere any sensible reason why one's daughter should be encouraged toimitate the dances of the Apache and the negro debauchee? Perhaps, afterall, the pendulum has merely swung just a little too far and is knockingagainst the case. The feet of modern progress cannot be hampered by toomuch of the dead underbrush of convention. 

The old-fashioned prudery that in former days practically preventedrational conversation between men and women is fortunately a thing ofthe past, and the fact that it is no longer regarded as unbecoming forwomen to take an interest in all the vital problems of theday--municipal, political and hygienic--provided they can assist intheir solution, marks several milestones on the highroad of advance. 

On the other hand the widespread familiarity with these problems, whichhas been engendered simply for pecuniary profit by magazine literaturein the form of essays, fiction and even verse, is by no means anundiluted blessing--particularly if the accentuation of the author is onthe roses lining the path of dalliance quite as much as on thedestruction to which it leads. The very warning against evil may turnout to be in effect only a hint that it is readily accessible. One doesnot leave the candy box open beside the baby even if the infant hasreceived the most explicit instructions as to the probable effect of toomuch sugar upon its tiny kidneys. Moreover, the knowledge of theprevalence of certain vices suggests to the youthful mind that what isso universal must also be rather excusable, or at least natural. 

It seems to me that, while there is at present a greater popularknowledge of the high cost of sinning, there is at the same time agreater tolerance for sin itself. Certainly this is true among thepeople who make up the circle of my friends. "Wild oats" are regarded asentirely a matter of course. No anecdote is too broad to be told openlyat the dinner table; in point of fact the stories that used to bewhispered only very discreetly in the smoking room are now told freelyas the natural relishes to polite conversation. In that respect thingsare pretty bad. 

One cannot help wondering what goes on inside the villa on Rhode IslandAvenue when the eighteen-year-old daughter of the house remarks to thecircle of young men and women about her at a dance: "Well, I'm going tobed--_seule_!" The listener furtively speculates about mama. He feelsquite sure about papa. Anyhow this particular mot attracted no comment. Doubtless the young lady was as far above suspicion as the wife ofCaesar; but she and her companions in this particular set have anappalling frankness of speech and a callousness in regard to discussingthe more personal facts of human existence that is startling to amiddle-aged man like myself. 

I happened recently to overhear a bit of casual dinner-tableconversation between two of the gilded ornaments of the junior set. Hewas a boy of twenty-five, well known for his dissipations, but, nevertheless, regarded by most mothers as a highly desirable _parti_. 

"Oh, yes!" he remarked easily. "They asked me if I wanted to go into abughouse, and I said I hadn't any particular objection. I was there amonth. Rum place! I should worry!"

"What ward?" she inquired with polite interest. 

"Inebriates', of course, " said he. 

I am inclined to attribute much of the questionable taste and conduct ofthe younger members of the fast set to neglect on the part of theirmothers. Women who are busy all day and every evening with socialengagements have little time to cultivate the friendship of theirdaughters. Hence the girl just coming out is left to shift for herself, and she soon discovers that a certain _risqué_ freedom in manner andconversation, and a disregard of convention, will win her a superficialpopularity which she is apt to mistake for success. 

Totally ignorant of what she is doing or the essential character of themeans she is employing, she runs wild and soon earns an unenviablereputation, which she either cannot live down or which she feels obligedto live up to in order to satisfy her craving for attention. Many a girlhas gone wrong simply because she felt that it was up to her to makegood her reputation for caring nothing for the proprieties. 

As against an increasing looseness in talk and conduct, it isinteresting to note that heavy drinking is clearly going out of fashionin smart society. There can be no question as to that. My champagnebills are not more than a third of what they were ten years ago. I donot attribute this particularly to the temperance movement. But, asagainst eight quarts of champagne for a dinner of twenty--which used tobe about my average when we first began entertaining in New York--threeare now frequently enough. I have watched the butler repeatedly at largedinner parties as he passed the wine and seen him fill only four or fiveglasses. 

Women rarely drink at all. About one man in three takes champagne. Ofcourse he is apt to drink whisky instead, but by no means the sameamount as formerly. If it were not for the convention requiring sherry, hock, champagne and liquors to be served the modern host could satisfypractically all the serious liquid requirements of his guests with aquart bottle of Scotch and a siphon of soda. Claret, Madeira, sparklingMoselles and Burgundies went out long ago. The fashion that has taughtwomen self-control in eating has shown their husbands the value ofabstinence. Unfortunately I do not see in this a betterment in morals, but mere self-interest--which may or may not be the same thing, according to one's philosophy. If a man drinks nowadays he drinksbecause he wants to and not to be a good fellow. A total abstainer findshimself perfectly at home anywhere. 

Of course the fashionables, if they are going to set the pace, have tohit it up in order to head the procession. The fastness of the smart setin England is notorious, and it is the same way in France, Russia, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia--the world over; and as society tends tobecome unified mere national boundaries have less significance. Thenumber of Americans who rent houses in London and Paris, and shootingboxes in Scotland, is large. 

Hence the moral tone of Continental society and of the Englisharistocracy is gradually becoming more and more our own. But with thisdifference--that, as the aristocracy in England and Continental Europeis a separate caste, a well-defined order, having set metes and bounds, which considers itself superior to the rest of the population and viewsit with indifference, so its morals are regarded as more or less its ownaffair, and they do not have a wide influence on the community at large. 

Even if he drinks champagne every night at dinner the Liverpool picklemerchant knows he cannot get into the king's set; but here the pickleman can not only break into the sacred circle, but he and his fat wifemay themselves become the king and queen. So that a knowledge of howsmart society conducts itself is an important matter to every man andwoman living in the United States, since each hopes eventually to make amillion dollars and move to New York. With us the fast crowd sets theexample for society at large; whereas in England looseness in morals isa recognized privilege of the aristocracy to which the commoner may notaspire. 

The worst feature of our situation is that the quasi-genteel workingclass, of whom our modern complex life supports hundreds ofthousands--telephone operators, stenographers, and the like--greedilydevour the newspaper accounts of the American aristocracy and modelthemselves, so far as possible, after it. It is almost unbelievable howintimate a knowledge these young women possess of the domestic life, manner of speech and dress of the conspicuous people in New Yorksociety. 

I once stepped into the Waldorf with a friend of mine who wished to senda telephone message. He is a quiet, unassuming man of fifty, whoinherited a large fortune and who is compelled, rather against his will, to do a large amount of entertaining by virtue of the position insociety which Fate has thrust on him. It was a long-distance call. 

"Who shall I say wants to talk?" asked the goddess with fillet-boundyellow hair in a patronizingly indifferent tone. 

"Mr. ----, " answered my companion. 

Instantly the girl's face was suffused with a smile of excited wonder. 

"Are you Mr. ----, the big swell who gives all the dinners and dances?"she inquired. 

"I suppose I'm the man, " he answered, rather amused than otherwise. 

"Gee!" she cried, "ain't this luck! Look here, Mame!" she whisperedhoarsely. "I've got Mr. ---- here on a long distance. What do you think ofthat!"

One cannot doubt that this telephone girl would unhesitatingly regard asabove criticism anything said or done by a woman who moved in Mr. ---- 'scircle. Unfortunately what this circle does is heralded in exaggeratedterms. The influence of these partially true and often totally falsereports is far-reaching and demoralizing. 

The other day the young governess of a friend of my wife gave up herposition, saying she was to be married. Her employer expressed aninterest in the matter and asked who was going to perform the ceremony. She was surprised to learn that the functionary was to be the localcountry justice of the peace. 

"But why aren't you going to have a clergyman marry you?" asked ourfriend. 

"Because I don't want it too binding!" answered the girl calmly. 

So far has the prevalence of divorce cast its enlightening beams. 

 * * * * *

I have had a shooting box in Scotland on several different occasions;and my wife has conducted successful social campaigns, as I have saidbefore, in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin. I did not go along, but Iread about it all in the papers and received weekly from the scene ofconflict a pound or so of mail matter, consisting of hundreds ofdiaphanous sheets of paper, each covered with my daughters' fashionablehumpbacked handwriting. Hastings, my stenographer, became very expert atdeciphering and transcribing it on the machine for my delectation. 

I was quite confused at the number and variety of the titles of nobilitywith which my family seemed constantly to be surrounded. They had awonderful time, met everybody, and returned home perfectedcosmopolitans. What their ethical standards are I confess I do not knowexactly, for the reason that I see so little of them. They lead totallyindependent lives. 

On rare occasions we are invited to the same houses at the same time, and on Christmas Eve we still make it a point always to stay at hometogether. Really I have no idea how they dispose of their time. They arealways away, making visits in other cities or taking trips. They chatterfluently about literature, the theater, music, art, and know a surprisingnumber of celebrities in this and other countries--particularly in London. They are good linguists and marvelous dancers. They are respectful, wellmannered, modest, and mildly affectionate; but somehow they do not seemto belong to me. They have no troubles of which I am the confidant. 

If they have any definite opinions or principles I am unaware of them;but they have the most exquisite taste. Perhaps with them this takes theplace of morals. I cannot imagine my girls doing or saying anythingvulgar, yet what they are like when away from home I have no means offinding out. I am quite sure that when they eventually select theirhusbands I shall not be consulted in the matter. My formal blessing willbe all that is asked, and if that blessing is not forthcoming no doubtthey will get along well enough without it. 

However, I am the constant recipient of congratulations on being theparent of such charming creatures. I have succeeded--apparently--in thisdirection as in others. Succeeded in what? I cannot imagine these girlsof mine being any particular solace to my old age. 

Recently, since writing these confessions of mine, I have often wonderedwhy my children were not more to me. I do not think they are much moreto my wife. I suppose it could just as well be put the other way. Whyare _we_ not more to _them_? It is because, I fancy, this modernexistence of ours, where every function and duty of maternity--exceptthe actual giving of birth--is performed vicariously for us, destroysany interdependence between parents and their offspring. "Smart"American mothers no longer, I am informed, nurse their babies. I knowthat my wife did not nurse hers. And thereafter each child had its ownparticular French _bonne_ and governess besides. 

Our nursery was a model of dainty comfort. All the superficialelegancies were provided for. It was a sunny, dustless apartment, withsnow-white muslins, white enamel, and a frieze of grotesque Noah's Arkanimals perambulating round the wall. There were huge dolls' houses, with electric lights; big closets of toys. From the earliest momentpossible these three infants began to have private lessons ineverything, including drawing, music and German. Their little days wereas crowded with engagements then as now. Every hour was provided for;but among these multifarious occupations there was no engagement withtheir parents. 

Even if their mother had not been overwhelmed with social duties herselfmy babies would, I am confident, have had no time for their parentexcept at serious inconvenience and a tremendous sacrifice of time. Tobe sure, I used occasionally to watch them decorously eating theirstrictly supervised suppers in the presence of the governess; but theperfect arrangements made possible by my financial success renderedparents a superfluity. They never bumped their heads, or soiled theirclothes, or dirtied their little faces--so far as I knew. They nevercried--at least I was never permitted to hear them. 

When the time came for them to go to bed each raised a rosy little cheekand said sweetly: "Good night, papa. " They had, I think, the usualchildren's diseases--exactly which ones I am not sure of; but they hadthem in the hospital room at the top of the house, from which I wasexcluded, and the diseases progressed with medical propriety in duecourse and under the efficient management of starchy trained nurses. 

Their outdoor life consisted in walking the asphalt pavements of CentralPark, varied with occasional visits to the roller-skating rink; buttheir social life began at the age of four or five. I remember thesefunctions vividly, because they were so different from those of my ownchildhood. The first of these was when my eldest daughter attained theage of six years. Similar events in my private history had beencharacterized by violent games of blind man's buff, hide and seek, huntthe slipper, going to Jerusalem, ring-round-a-rosy, and so on, followedby a dish of ice-cream and hairpulling. 

Not so with my offspring. Ten little ladies and gentlemen, accompaniedby their maids, having been rearranged in the dressing room downstairs, were received by my daughter with due form in the drawing room. Theywere all flounced, ruffled and beribboned. Two little boys of seven hadon Eton suits. Their behavior was impeccable. 

Almost immediately a professor of legerdemain made his appearance and, with the customary facility of his brotherhood, proceeded to remove tonsof débris from presumably empty hats, rabbits from handkerchiefs, andhard-boiled eggs from childish noses and ears. The assembled groupwatched him with polite tolerance. At intervals there was a squeal ofsurprise, but it soon developed that most of them had already seen thesame trickman half a dozen times. However, they kindly consented to beamused, and the professor gave way to a Punch and Judy show of asublimated variety, which the youthful audience viewed with mildapproval. 

The entertainment concluded with a stereopticon exhibition of supposedlyhumorous events, which obviously did not strike the children as funny atall. Supper was laid in the dining room, where the table had beenarranged as if for a banquet of diplomats. There were flowers inabundance and a life-size swan of icing at each end. Each child wasassisted by its own nurse, and our butler and a footman served, instolid dignity, a meal consisting of rice pudding, cereals, cocoa, breadand butter, and ice-cream. 

It was by all odds the most decorous affair ever held in our house. Atthe end the gifts were distributed--Parisian dolls, toy baby-carriagesand paint boxes for the girls; steam engines, magic lanterns andminiature circuses for the boys. My bill for these trifles came to onehundred and twelve dollars. At half-past six the carriages arrived andour guests were hurried away. 

I instance this affair because it struck the note of elegant proprietythat has always been the tone of our family and social life. Thechildren invited to the party were the little boys and girls whosefathers and mothers we thought most likely to advance their socialinterests later on. 

Of these children two of the girls have married members of the foreignnobility--one a jaded English lord, the other a worthless and dissipatedFrench count; another married--fifteen years later--one of these samelittle boys and divorced him within eighteen months; while two of thegirls--our own--have not married. 

Of the boys one wedded an actress; another lives in Paris and studies"art"; one has been already accounted for; and two have given theirlives to playing polo, the stock market, and elevating the chorus. 

 * * * * *

Beginning at this early period, my two daughters, and later on my son, met only the most select young people of their own age in New York andon Long Island. I remember being surprised at the amount of theatergoingthey did by the time the eldest was nine years old. My wife made apractice of giving a children's theater party every Saturday and takingher small guests to the matinée. As the theaters were more limited innumber then than now these comparative infants sooner or later sawpractically everything that was on the boards--good, bad andindifferent; and they displayed a precocity of criticism that quiteastounded me. 

Their real social career began with children's dinners and dancingparties by the time they were twelve, and their later coming out changedlittle the mode of life to which they had been accustomed for severalyears before it. The result of their mother's watchful care andself-sacrifice is that these two young ladies could not possibly behappy, or even comfortable, if they married men unable to furnish themwith French maids, motors, constant amusement, gay society, travel andParis clothes. 

Without these things they would wither away and die like flowersdeprived of the sun. They are physically unfit to be anything but thewives of millionaires--and they will be the wives of millionaires orassuredly die unmarried. But, as the circle of rich young men of theiracquaintance is more or less limited their chances of matrimony are byno means bright, albeit that they are the pivots of a furious whirl ofgaiety which never stops. 

No young man with an income of less than twenty thousand a year wouldhave the temerity to propose to either of them. Even on twenty thousandthey would have a hard struggle to get along; it would mean the mostrigid economy--and, if there were babies, almost poverty. 

Besides, when girls are living in the luxury to which mine areaccustomed they think twice before essaying matrimony at all. Theprospects of changing Newport, Palm Beach, Paris, Rome, Nice andBiarritz for the privilege of bearing children in a New York apartmenthouse does not allure, as in the case of less cosmopolitan young ladies. There must be love--plus all present advantages! Present advantageswithdrawn, love becomes cautious. 

Even though the rich girl herself is of finer clay than her parents and, in spite of her artificial environment and the false standards by whichshe is surrounded, would like to meet and perhaps eventually marry someyoung man who is more worth while than the "pet cats" of heracquaintance, she is practically powerless to do so. She is cut off bythe impenetrable artificial barrier of her own exclusiveness. She mayhear of such young men--young fellows of ambition, of adventurousspirit, of genius, who have already achieved something in the world, butthey are outside the wall of money and she is inside it, and there is noway for them to get in or for her to get out. She is permitted to knowonly the _jeunesse dorée_--the fops, the sports, the club-window men, whose antecedents are vouched for by the Social Register. 

She has no way of meeting others. She does not know what the others arelike. She is only aware of an instinctive distaste for most of the youngfellows among whom she is thrown. At best they are merely innocuous whenthey are not offensive. They do nothing; they intend never to doanything. If she is the American girl of our plays and novels she wantssomething better; and in the plays and novels she always gets him--thedashing young ranchman, the heroic naval lieutenant, the fearlessAlaskan explorer, the tireless prospector or daring civil engineer. Butin real life she does not get him--except by the merest fluke offortune. She does not know the real thing when she meets it, and she isjust as likely to marry a dissipated groom or chauffeur as the youngStanley of her dreams. 

The saddest class in our social life is that of the thoroughbredAmerican girl who is a thousand times too good for her de-luxesurroundings and the crew of vacuous la-de-da Willies hanging about her, yet who, absolutely cut off from contact with any others, eithergradually fades into a peripatetic old maid, wandering over Europe, ormarries an eligible, turkey-trotting nondescript--"a mimmini-pimmini, Francesca da Rimini, _je-ne-sais-quoi_ young man. "

The Atlantic seaboard swarms in summertime with broad-shouldered, well-bred, highly educated and charming boys, who have had everyadvantage except that of being waited on by liveried footmen. They campin the woods; tutor the feeble-minded sons of the rich; tramp andbicycle over Swiss mountain passes; sail their catboats through theisland-studded reaches and thoroughfares of the Maine coast, and growbrown and hard under the burning sun. They are the hope of America. Theycan carry a canoe or a hundred-pound pack over a forest trail; and inthe winter they set the pace in the scientific, law and medicalschools. Their heads are clear, their eyes are bright, and there is ahollow instead of a bow window beneath the buttons of their waistcoats. 

The feet of these young men carry them to strange places; they cope withmany and strange monsters. They are our Knights of the Round Table. Theyfind the Grail of Achievement in lives of hard work, simple pleasuresand high ideals--in college and factory towns; in law courts andhospitals; in the mountains of Colorado and the plains of the Dakotas. They are the best we have; but the poor rich girl rarely, if ever, meetsthem. The barrier of wealth completely hems her in. She must take one ofthose inside or nothing. 

When, in a desperate revolt against the artificiality of her existence, she breaks through the wall she is easy game for anybody--as likely tomarry a jockey or a professional forger as one of the young men of herdesire. One should not blame a rich girl too much for marrying a titledand perhaps attractive foreigner. The would-be critic has only to stepinto a Fifth Avenue ballroom and see what she is offered in his place tosympathize with and perhaps applaud her selection. Better a year ofEurope than a cycle of--shall we say, Narragansett? After all, why nottake the real thing, such as it is, instead of an imitation?

I believe that one of the most cruel results of modern social life isthe cutting off of young girls from acquaintanceship with youths of thesturdy, intelligent and hardworking type--and the unfitting of suchgirls for anything except the marriage mart of the millionaire. 

I would give half of all I possess to see my daughters happily married;but I now realize that their education renders such a marriage highlydifficult of satisfactory achievement. Their mother and I have honestlytried to bring them up in such a way that they can do their duty in thatstate of life to which it hath pleased God to call them. Butunfortunately, unless some man happens to call them also, they will haveto keep on going round and round as they are going now. 

We did not anticipate the possibility of their becoming old maids, andthey cannot become brides of the church. I should honestly be glad tohave either of them marry almost anybody, provided he is a decentfellow. I should not even object to their marrying foreigners, but thedifficulty is that it is almost impossible to find out whether aforeigner is really decent or not. It is true that the number of foreignnoblemen who marry American girls for love is negligible. There isundoubtedly a small and distinguished minority who do so; but thetransaction is usually a matter of bargain and sale, and the man regardshimself as having lived up to his contract by merely conferring histitle on the woman he thus deigns to honor. 

I should prefer to have them marry Americans, of course; but I no longerwish them to marry Americans of their own class. Yet, unfortunately, they would be unwilling to marry out of it. A curious situation! I havegiven up my life to buying a place for my children that is supposed togive them certain privileges, and I now am loath to have them takeadvantage of those privileges. 

The situation has its amusing as well as its pathetic side--for my son, now that I come to think of it, is one of the eligibles. He knowseverybody and is on the road to money. He is one of the opportunitiesthat society is offering to the daughters of other successful men. Should I wish my own girls to marry a youth like him? Far from it! Yethe is exactly the kind of fellow that my success has enabled them tomeet and know, and whom Fate decrees that they shall eventually marry ifthey marry at all. 

When I frankly face the question of how much happiness I get out of mychildren I am constrained to admit that it is very little. The sense ofproprietorship in three such finished products is something, to be sure;and, after all, I suppose they have--concealed somewhere--a realaffection for their old dad. At times they are facetious--almostplayful--as on my birthday; but I fancy that arises from a feeling ofembarrassment at not knowing how to be intimate with a parent whocrosses their path only twice a week, and then on the stairs. 

My son has attended to his own career now for some fourteen years; infact I lost him completely before he was out of knickerbockers. Up tothe time when he was sent away to boarding school he spent a ratherdisconsolate childhood, playing with mechanical toys, roller skating inthe Mall, going occasionally to the theater, and taking music lessons;but he showed so plainly the debilitating effect of life in the city foreight months in the year that at twelve he was bundled off to a countryschool. Since then he has grown to manhood without our assistance. Hewent away undersized, pale, with a meager little neck and a sort ofwistful Nicholas Nickelby expression. When he returned at the Christmasvacation he had gained ten pounds, was brown and freckled, and lookedlike a small giraffe in pantalets. 

Moreover, he had entirely lost the power of speech, owing to a fear ofmaking a fool of himself. During the vacation in question he wasreoutfitted and sent three times a week to the theater. On one or twooccasions I endeavored to ascertain how he liked school, but all I couldget out of him was the vague admission that it was "all right" and thathe liked it "well enough. " This process of outgrowing his clothes andbeing put through a course of theaters at each vacation--there wasnothing else to do with him--continued for seven years, during whichtime he grew to be six feet two inches in height and gradually filledout to man's size. He managed to hold a place in the lower third of hisclass, with the aid of constant and expensive tutoring in the summervacations, and he finally was graduated with the rest and went toHarvard. 

By this time he preferred to enjoy himself in his own way during hisleisure and we saw less of him than ever. But, whatever his intellectualachievements may be, there is no doubt as to his being a man of theworld, entirely at ease anywhere, with perfect manners and all thesocial graces. I do not think he was particularly dissipated at Harvard;on the other hand, I am assured by the dean that he was no student. He"made" a select club early in his course and from that time wasoccupied, I suspect, in playing poker and bridge, discussing deepphilosophical questions and acquiring the art of living. He never wentin for athletics; but by doing nothing in a highly artistic manner, andby dancing with the most startling agility, he became a prominent socialfigure and a headliner in college theatricals. 

From his sophomore year he has been in constant demand for cotillions, house parties and yachting trips. His intimate pals seem to bemiddle-aged millionaires who are known to me in only the most casualway; and he is a sort of gentleman-in-waiting--I believe the acceptedterm is "pet cat"--to several society women, for whom he devises newcotillion figures, arranges original after-dinner entertainments andmakes himself generally useful. 

Like my two daughters he has arrived--absolutely; but, though we aremembers of the same learned profession, he is almost a stranger to me. Ihad no difficulty in getting him a clerkship in a gilt-edged law firmimmediately after he was admitted to the bar and he is apparently doingmarvelously well, though what he can possibly know of law will alwaysremain a mystery to me. Yet he is already, at the age of twenty-eight, adirector in three important concerns whose securities are listed on thestock exchange, and he spends a great deal of money, which he mustgather somehow. I know that his allowance cannot do much more than meethis accounts at the smart clubs to which he belongs. 

He is a pleasant fellow and I enjoy the rare occasions when I catch aglimpse of him. I do not think he has any conspicuous vices--or virtues. He has simply had sense enough to take advantage of his socialopportunities and bids fair to be equally successful with myself. He hasreally never done a stroke of work in his life, but has managed to makehimself agreeable to those who could help him along. I have no doubtthose rich friends of his throw enough business in his way to net himten or fifteen thousand dollars a year, but I should hesitate to retainhim to defend me if I were arrested for speeding. 

Nevertheless at dinner I have seen him bullyrag and browbeat a judge ofour Supreme Court in a way that made me shudder, though I admit that thejudge in question owed his appointment entirely to the friend of my sonwho happened to be giving the dinner; and he will contradict in a loudtone men and women older than myself, no matter what happens to be thesubject under discussion. They seem to like it--why, I do not pretend tounderstand. They admire his assurance and good nature, and are ratherafraid of him!

I cannot imagine what he would find to do in my own law office; he woulddoubtless regard it as a dull place and too narrow a sphere for hissplendid capabilities. He is a clever chap, this son of mine; and thoughneither he nor his sisters seem to have any particular fondness for oneanother, he is astute at playing into their hands and they into his. Healso keeps a watchful eye on our dinner invitations, so they will notfall below the properly exclusive standard. 

"What are you asking old Washburn for?" he will ask. "He's been a deadone these five years!" Or: "I'd cut out the Becketts--at least if you'reasking the Thompsons. They don't go with the same crowd. " Or: "Why don'tyou ask the Peyton-Smiths? They're nothing to be afraid of if they docut a dash at Newport. The old girl is rather a pal of mine. "

So we drop old Washburn, cut out the Becketts, and take courage andinvite the hyphenated Smiths. A hint from him pays handsome dividends!and he is distinctly proud of the family and anxious to push it alongto still greater success. 

However, he has never asked my help or assistance--except in a financialway. He has never come to me for advice; never confided any of hisperplexities or troubles to me. Perhaps he has none. He seems quitesufficient unto himself. And he certainly is not my friend. It seemsstrange that these three children of mine, whose upbringing has been thesource of so much thought and planning on the part of my wife andmyself, and for whose ultimate benefit we have shaped our own lives, should be the merest, almost impersonal, acquaintances. 

The Italian fruit-vender on the corner, whose dirty offspring crawlamong the empty barrels behind the stand, knows far more of his childrenthan do we of ours, will have far more influence on the shaping of theirfuture lives. They do not need us now and they never have needed us. Atrust company could have performed all the offices of parenthood withwhich we have been burdened. We have paid others to be father and motherin our stead--or rather, as I now see, have had hired servants to gothrough the motions for us; and they have done it well, so far as themere physical side of the matter is concerned. We have been almostentirely relieved of care. 

We have never been annoyed by our children's presence at any time. Wehave never been bothered with them at meals. We have never had to sit upwith them when they could not go to sleep, or watch at their bedsidesduring the night when they were sick. Competent nurses--far morecompetent than we--washed their little dirty hands, mended the torndresses and kissed their wounds to make them well. And when five o'clockcame three dainty little Dresden figures in pink and blue ribbons werebrought down to the drawing room to be admired by our guests. Then, after being paraded, they were carried back to the nursery to resume theeven tenor of their independent existences. 

No one of us has ever needed the other members of the family. My wifehas never called on either of our daughters to perform any of thosetrifling intimate services that bring a mother and her childrentogether. There has always been a maid standing ready to hook up herdress, fetch her book or her hat, or a footman to spring upstairs afterthe forgotten gloves. And the girls have never needed their mother--thegoverness could read aloud ever so much better, and they always hadtheir own maid to look after their clothes. When they needed new gownsthey simply went downtown and bought them--and the bill was sent to myoffice. Neither of them was ever forced to stay at home that her sistermight have some pleasure instead. No; our wealth has made it possiblefor each of my children to enjoy every luxury without any sacrifice onanother's part. They owe nothing to each other, and they really owenothing to their mother or myself--except perhaps a monetary obligation. 

But there is one person, technically not one of our family, for whom mygirls have the deepest and most sincere affection--that is old Jane, their Irish nurse, who came to them just after they were weaned andstayed with us until the period of maids and governesses arrived. I paidher twenty-five dollars a month, and for nearly ten years she never letthem out of her sight--crooning over them at night; trudging after themduring the daytime; mending their clothes; brushing their teeth; cuttingtheir nails; and teaching them strange Irish legends of the banshee. When I called her into the library and told her the children were nowtoo old for her and that they must have a governess, the look that cameinto her face haunted me for days. 

"Ye'll be after taking my darlin's away from me?" she muttered in a deadtone. "'T will be hard for me!" She stood as if the heart had diedwithin her, and the hundred-dollar bill I shoved into her hand fell tothe floor. Then she turned quickly and hurried out of the room without asob. I heard afterward that she cried for a week. 

Now I always know when one of their birthdays has arrived by the queerpackage, addressed in old Jane's quaint half-printed writing, thatalways comes. She has cared for many dozens of children since then, butloves none like my girls, for she came to them in her young womanhoodand they were her first charges. 

And they are just as fond of her. Indeed it is their loyalty to this oldIrish nurse that gives me faith that they are not the cold propositionsthey sometimes seem to be. For once when, after much careless delay, afragmentary message came to us that she was ill and in a hospital my twodaughters, who were just starting for a ball, flew to her bedside, satwith her all through the night and never left her until she was out ofdanger. 

"They brought me back--my darlin's!" she whispered to us when later wecalled to see how she was getting on; and my wife looked at me acrossthe rumpled cot and her lips trembled. I knew what was in her mind. Would her daughters have rushed to her with the same forgetfulness ofself as to this prematurely gray and wrinkled woman whose shrunken formlay between us?

Poor old Jane! Alone in an alien land, giving your life and your love tothe children of others, only to have them torn from your arms just asthe tiny fingers have entwined themselves like tendrils round yourheart! We have tossed you the choicest blessings of our lives andshouldered you with the heavy responsibilities that should rightfullyhave been our load. Your cup has run over with both joy and sorrow butyou have drunk of the cup, while we are still thirsty! Our hearts aredry, while yours is green--nourished with the love that should belong tous. Poor old Jane? Lucky old Jane! Anyhow God bless you!

CHAPTER IV

MY MIND

I come of a family that prides itself on its culture andintellectuality. We have always been professional people, for mygrandfather was, as I have said, a clergyman; and among my uncles are alawyer, a physician and a professor. My sisters, also, have intermarriedwith professional men. I received a fairly good primary and secondaryeducation, and graduated from my university with honors--whatever thatmay have meant. I was distinctly of a literary turn of mind; and duringmy four years of study I imbibed some slight information concerning theEnglish classics, music, modern history and metaphysics. I could talkquite wisely about Chaucer, Beaumont and Fletcher, Thomas Love Peacockand Ann Radcliffe, or Kant, Fichte and Schopenhauer. 

I can see now that my smattering of culture was neither deep nor broad. I acquired no definite knowledge of underlying principles, of generalhistory, of economics, of languages, of mathematics, of physics or ofchemistry. To biology and its allies I paid scarcely any attention atall, except to take a few snap courses. I really secured only a surfaceacquaintance with polite English literature, mostly very modern. Themain part of my time I spent reading Stevenson and Kipling. I did wellin English composition and I pronounced my words neatly and in a refinedmanner. At the end of my course, when twenty-two years old, I was handedan imitation-parchment degree and proclaimed by the president of thecollege as belonging to the Brotherhood of Educated Men. 

I did not. I was an imitation educated man; but, though spurious, I wasa sufficiently good counterfeit to pass current for what I had beendeclared to be. Apart from a little Latin, a considerable training inwriting the English language, and a great deal of miscellaneous readingof an extremely light variety, I really had no culture at all. I couldnot speak an idiomatic sentence in French or German; I had the vaguestideas about applied mechanics and science; and no thorough knowledgeabout anything; but I was supposed to be an educated man, and on thisstock in trade I have done business ever since--with, to be sure, theadded capital of a degree of bachelor of laws. 

Now since my graduation, twenty-eight years ago, I have given no time tothe systematic study of any subject except law. I have read no seriousworks dealing with either history, sociology, economics, art orphilosophy. I am supposed to know enough about these subjects already. Ihave rarely read over again any of the masterpieces of Englishliterature with which I had at least a bowing acquaintance when atcollege. Even this last sentence I must qualify to the extent ofadmitting that I now see that this acquaintance was largely vicarious, and that I frequently read more criticism than literature. 

It is characteristic of modern education that it is satisfied with thesemblance and not the substance of learning. I was taught _about_Shakspere, but not Shakspere. I was instructed in the history ofliterature, but not in literature itself. I knew the names of the worksof numerous English authors and I knew what Taine and others thoughtabout them, but I knew comparatively little of what was between thecovers of the books themselves. I was, I find, a student of letters byproxy. As time went on I gradually forgot that I had not, in fact, actually perused these volumes; and to-day I am accustomed to referfamiliarly to works I never have read at all--not a difficult task inthese days of handbook knowledge and literary varnish. 

It is this patent superficiality that so bores me with the affectedculture of modern social intercourse. We all constantly attempt todiscuss abstruse subjects in philosophy and art, and pretend to afamiliarity with minor historical characters and events. Now why try totalk about Bergson's theories if you have not the most elementaryknowledge of philosophy or metaphysics? Or why attempt to analyze thesuccess or failure of a modern post-impressionist painter when you aretotally ignorant of the principles of perspective or of the complexproblems of light and shade? You might as properly presume to discuss amastoid operation with a surgeon or the doctrine of _cypres_ with alawyer. You are equally qualified. 

I frankly confess that my own ignorance is abysmal. In the lasttwenty-eight years what information I have acquired has been picked upprincipally from newspapers and magazines; yet my library table islittered with books on modern art and philosophy, and with essays onliterary and historical subjects. I do not read them. They are myintellectual window dressings. I talk about them with others who, Isuspect, have not read them either; and we confine ourselves togeneralities, with a careful qualification of all expressed opinions, nomatter how vague and elusive. For example--a safe conversationalopening:

"Of course there is a great deal to be said in favor of Bergson'sgeneral point of view, but to me his reasoning is inconclusive. Don'tyou feel the same way--somehow?"

You can try this on almost anybody. It will work in ninety-nine casesout of a hundred; for, of course, there is a great deal to be said infavor of the views of anybody who is not an absolute fool, and mostreasoning is open to attack at least for being inconclusive. It is alsoinevitable that your cultured friend--or acquaintance--should feel thesame way--somehow. Most people do--in a way. 

The real truth of the matter is, all I know about Bergson is that he isa Frenchman--is he actually by birth a Frenchman or a Belgian?--who as aphilosopher has a great reputation on the Continent, and who recentlyvisited America to deliver some lectures. I have not the faintest ideawhat his theories are, and I should not if I heard him explain them. Moreover, I cannot discuss philosophy or metaphysics intelligently, because I have not to-day the rudimentary knowledge necessary tounderstand what it is all about. 

It is the same with art. On the one or two isolated varnishing days whenwe go to a gallery we criticize the pictures quite fiercely. "We knowwhat we like. " Yes, perhaps we do. I am not sure even of that. But ineighty-five cases out of a hundred none of us have any knowledge of thehistory of painting or any intelligent idea of why Velasquez is regardedas a master; yet we acquire a glib familiarity with the names of half adozen cubists or futurists, and bandy them about much as my office boydoes the names of his favorite pugilists or baseball players. 

It is even worse with history and biography. We cannot afford or havenot the decency to admit that we are uninformed. We speak casually of, say, Henry of Navarre, or Beatrice D'Este, or Charles the Fifth. Iselect my names intentionally from among the most celebrated inhistory; yet how many of us know within two hundred years of when anyone of them lived--or much about them? How much definite historicalinformation have we, even about matters of genuine importance?

 * * * * *

Let us take a shot at a few dates. I will make it childishly easy. Giveme, if you can, _even approximately_, the year of Caesar's Conquest ofGaul; the Invasion of Europe by the Huns; the Sack of Rome; the Battleof Châlons-sur-Marne; the Battle of Tours; the Crowning of Charlemagne;the Great Crusade; the Fall of Constantinople; Magna Charta; the Battleof Crécy; the Field of the Cloth of Gold; the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; the Spanish Armada; the Execution of King Charles I; theFall of the Bastile; the Inauguration of George Washington; the Battleof Waterloo; the Louisiana Purchase; the Indian Mutiny; the Siege ofParis. 

I will look out of the window while you go through the mental agony oftrying to remember. It looks easy, does it not? Almost an affront to askthe date of Waterloo! Well, I wanted to be fair and even things up; but, honestly, can you answer correctly five out of these twenty elementaryquestions? I doubt it. Yet you have, no doubt, lying on your table atthe present time, intimate studies of past happenings and persons thatpresuppose and demand a rough general knowledge of American, French orEnglish history. 

The dean of Radcliffe College, who happened to be sitting behind two ofher recent graduates while attending a performance of Parker'sdeservedly popular play "Disraeli" last winter, overheard one of themsay to the other: "You know, I couldn't remember whether Disraeli was inthe Old or the New Testament; and I looked in both and couldn't find himin either!"

I still pass socially as an exceptionally cultured man--one who is wellup on these things; yet I confess to knowing to-day absolutely nothingof history, either ancient, medieval or modern. It is not a matter ofmere dates, by any means, though I believe dates to be of some generalimportance. My ignorance is deeper than that. I do not remember theevents themselves or their significance. I do not now recall any of thefacts connected with the great epoch-making events of classic times; Icannot tell as I write, for example, who fought in the battle of theAllia; why Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or why Cicero delivered anoration against Catiline. 

As to what subsequently happened on the Italian peninsula my mind is ablank until the appearance of Garibaldi during the last century. Ireally never knew just who Garibaldi was until I read Trevelyan's threebooks on the Resorgimento last winter, and those I perused because I hadtaken a motor trip through Italy the summer before. I know practicallynothing of Spanish history, and my mind is a blank as to Russia, Poland, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Holland. 

Of course I know that the Dutch Republic rose--assisted by one Motley, of Boston--and that William of Orange was a Hollander--or at least Isuppose he was born there. But how Holland came to rise I know not--orwhether William was named after an orange or oranges were named afterhim. 

As for central Europe, it is a shocking fact that I never knew there wasnot some interdependency between Austria and Germany until last summer. I only found out the contrary when I started to motor through theAustrian Tyrol and was held up by the custom officers on the frontier. Iknew that an old emperor named William somehow founded the German Empireout of little states, with the aid of Bismarck and Von Moltke; but thatis all I know about it. I do not know when the war between Prussia andAustria took place or what battles were fought in it. 

The only battle in the Franco-Prussian War I am sure of is Sedan, whichI remember because I was once told that Phil Sheridan was present as aspectator. I know Gustavus Adolphus was a king of Sweden, but I do notknow when; and apart from their names I know nothing of Theodoric, Charles Martel, Peter the Hermit, Lodovico Moro, the Emperor Maximilian, Catherine of Aragon, Catherine de' Medici, Richelieu, FrederickBarbarossa, Cardinal Wolsey, Prince Rupert--I do not refer to AnthonyHope's hero, Rupert of Hentzau--Saint Louis, Admiral Coligny, or thethousands of other illustrious personages that crowd the pages ofhistory. 

I do not know when or why the Seven Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, the Hundred Years' War or the Massacre of St. Bartholomew took place, why the Edict of Nantes was revoked or what it was, or who fought atMalplaquet, Tours, Soissons, Marengo, Plassey, Oudenarde, Fontenoy orBorodino--or when they occurred. I probably did know most if not all ofthese things, but I have entirely forgotten them. Unfortunately I manageto act as if I had not. The result is that, having no foundation tobuild on, any information I do acquire is immediately swept away. Peopleare constantly giving me books on special topics, such as Horace Walpoleand his Friends, France in the Thirteenth Century, The Holland HouseCircle, or Memoires of Madame du Barry; but of what use can they be tome when I do not know, or at least have forgotten, even the salientfacts of French and English history?

We are undoubtedly the most superficial people in the world aboutmatters of this sort. Any bluff goes. I recall being at a dinner notlong ago when somebody mentioned Conrad II. One of the guests hazardedthe opinion that he had died in the year 1330. This would undoubtedlyhave passed muster but for a learned-looking person farther down thetable who deprecatingly remarked: "I do not like to correct you, but Ithink Conrad the Second died in 1337!" The impression created on theassembled company cannot be overstated. Later on in the smoking room Iventured to compliment the gentleman on his fund of information, saying:

"Why, I never even _heard_ of Conrad the Second!"

"Nor I either, " he answered shamelessly. 

It is the same with everything--music, poetry, politics. I go nightafter night to hear the best music in the world given at fabulous costin the Metropolitan Opera House and am content to murmur vague ecstasiesover Caruso, without being aware of who wrote the opera or what it isall about. Most of us know nothing of orchestration or even the names ofthe different instruments. We may not even be sure of what is meant bycounterpoint or the difference between a fugue and an arpeggio. 

A handbook would give us these minor details in an hour's reading; butwe prefer to sit vacuously making feeble jokes about the singers or theoccupants of the neighboring boxes, without a single intelligent thoughtas to why the composer attempted to write precisely this sort of anopera, when he did it, or how far he succeeded. We are content to takeour opinions and criticisms ready made, no matter from whose mouth theyfall; and one hears everywhere phrases that, once let loose from thePandora's Box of some foolish brain, never cease from troubling. 

In science I am in even a more parlous state. I know nothing of appliedelectricity in its simplest forms. I could not explain the theory of thegas engine, and plumbing is to me one of the great mysteries. 

Last, but even more lamentable, I really know nothing about politics, though I am rather a strong party man and my name always appears onimportant citizens' committees about election time. I do not knowanything about the city departments or its fiscal administration. Ishould not have the remotest idea where to direct a poor person whoapplied to me for relief. Neither have I ever taken the trouble tofamiliarize myself with even the more important city buildings. 

Of course I know the City Hall by sight, but I have never been insideit; I have never visited the Tombs or any one of our criminal courts; Ihave never been in a police station, a fire house, or inspected a singleone of our prisons or reformatory institutions. I do not know whetherpolice magistrates are elected or appointed and I could not tell you inwhat congressional district I reside. I do not know the name of myalderman, assemblyman, state senator or representative in Congress. 

I do not know who is at the head of the Fire Department, the StreetCleaning Department, the Health Department, the Park Department or theWater Department; and I could not tell, except for the PoliceDepartment, what other departments there are. Even so, I do not knowwhat police precinct I am living in, the name of the captain in command, or where the nearest fixed post is at which an officer is supposed to beon duty. 

As I write I can name only five members of the United States SupremeCourt, three members of the Cabinet, and only one of the congressmenfrom the state of New York. This in cold type seems almost preposterous, but it is, nevertheless, a fact--and I am an active practicing lawyerbesides. I am shocked to realize these things. Yet I am supposed to bean exceptionally intelligent member of the community and my opinion isfrequently sought on questions of municipal politics. 

Needless to say, the same indifference has prevented my studying--exceptin the most superficial manner--the single tax, free trade andprotection, the minimum wage, the recall, referendum, or any other ofthe present much-mooted questions. How is this possible? The only answerI can give is that I have confined my mental activities entirely tomaking my legal practice as lucrative as possible. I have taken thingsas I found them and put up with abuses rather than go to the trouble todo away with them. I have no leisure to try to reform the universe. Ileave that task to others whose time is less valuable than mine and whohave something to gain by getting into the public eye. 

The mere fact, however, that I am not interested in local politics wouldnot ordinarily, in a normal state of civilization, explain my ignoranceof these things. In most societies they would be the usual subjects ofconversation. People naturally discuss what interests them most. Uneducated people talk about the weather, their work, their ailments andtheir domestic affairs. With more enlightened folk the conversationturns on broader topics--the state of the country, politics, trade, orart. 

It is only among the so-called society people that the subjects selectedfor discussion do not interest anybody. Usually the talk that goes on atdinners or other entertainments relates only to what plays theconversationalists in question have seen or which of the best sellersthey have read. For the rest the conversation is dexterously devoted tothe avoidance of the disclosure of ignorance. Even among those who wouldlike to discuss the questions of the day intelligently and to ascertainother people's views pertaining to them, there is such a fundamentallack of elementary information that it is a hopeless undertaking. Theyare reduced to the commonplaces of vulgar and superficial comment. 

"'Tis plain, " cry they, "our mayor's a noddy; and as for thecorporation--shocking!"

The mayor may be and probably is a noddy, but his critics do not knowwhy. The average woman who dines out hardly knows what she is saying orwhat is being said to her. She will usually agree with any propositionthat is put to her--if she has heard it. Generally she does not listen. 

I know a minister's wife who never pays the slightest attention toanything that is being said to her, being engrossed in a torrent ofexplanation regarding her children's education and minor diseases. Oncea bored companion in a momentary pause fixed her sternly with his eyeand said distinctly: "But I don't give a --- about your children!" Atwhich the lady smiled brightly and replied: "Yes. Quite so. Exactly! AsI was saying, Johnny got a--"

But, apart from such hectic people, who run quite amuck whenever theyopen their mouths, there are large numbers of men and women of someintelligence who never make the effort to express conscientiously anyideas or opinions. They find it irksome to think. They are completelyindifferent as to whether a play is really good or bad or who is electedmayor of the city. In any event they will have their coffee, rolls andhoney served in bed the next morning; and they know that, come whatwill--flood, tempest, fire or famine--there will be forty-six quarts ofextra xxx milk left at their area door. They are secure. The stockmarket may rise and fall, presidents come and go, but they will remainsafe in the security of fifty thousand a year. And, since they really donot care about anything, they are as likely to praise as to blame, andto agree with everybody about everything. Their world is all cakes andale--why should they bother as to whether the pothouse beer is bad?

I confess, with something of a shock, that essentially I am like therest of these people. The reason I am not interested in my country andmy city is because, by reason of my financial and social independence, they have ceased to be my city and country. I should be just ascomfortable if our Government were a monarchy. It really is nothing tome whether my tax rate is six one-hundredths of one per cent higher orlower, or what mayor rules in City Hall. 

So long as Fifth Avenue is decently paved, so that my motor runssmoothly when I go to the opera, I do not care whether we have a Reform, Tammany or Republican administration in the city. So far as I amconcerned, my valet will still come into my bedroom at exactly nineo'clock every morning, turn on the heat and pull back the curtains. Hislow, modulated "Your bath is ready, sir, " will steal through my dreams, and he will assist me to rise and put on my embroidered dressing gown ofwadded silk in preparation for another day's hard labor in the serviceof my fellowmen. Times have changed since my father's frugal collegedays. Have they changed for better or for worse?

Of one thing I am certain--my father was a better-educated man than Iam. I admit that, under the circumstances, this does not imply verymuch; but my parent had, at least, some solid ground beneath hisintellectual feet on which he could stand. His mind was thoroughlydisciplined by rigid application to certain serious studies that werenot selected by himself. From the day he entered college he was inactive competition with his classmates in all his studies, and if he hadbeen a shirker they would all have known it. 

In my own case, after I had once matriculated, the elective system leftme free to choose my own subjects and to pursue them faithfully or not, so long as I could manage to squeak through my examinations. My friendswere not necessarily among those who elected the same courses, andwhether I did well or ill was nobody's business but my own and thedean's. It was all very pleasant and exceedingly lackadaisical, and bythe time I graduated I had lost whatever power of concentration I hadacquired in my preparatory schooling. At the law school I was at anobvious disadvantage with the men from the smaller colleges which stillfollowed the old-fashioned curriculum and insisted on the mentaldiscipline entailed by advanced Greek, Latin, the higher mathematics, science and biology. 

In point of fact I loafed delightfully for four years and let my mindrun absolutely to seed, while I smoked pipe after pipe under theelms, watching the squirrels and dreaming dreams. I selectedelementary--almost childlike--courses in a large variety of subjects;and as soon as I had progressed sufficiently to find them difficult Icast about for other snaps to take their places. My bookcase exhibited acollection of primers on botany, zoölogy and geology, the fine arts, music, elementary French and German, philosophy, ethics, methaphysics, architecture, English composition, Shakspere, the English poets andnovelists, oral debating and modern history. 

I took nothing that was not easy and about which I did not already knowa little something. I attended the minimum number of lectures required, did the smallest amount of reading possible and, by cramming vigorouslyfor three weeks at the end of the year, managed to pass all examinationscreditably. I averaged, I suppose, outside of the lecture room, about asingle hour's desultory work a day. I really need not have done that. 

When, for example, it came time to take the examination in Frenchcomposition I discovered that I had read but two out of the fifteenplays and novels required, the plots of any one of which I might beasked to give on my paper. Rather than read these various volumes, Iprepared a skeleton digest in French, sufficiently vague, which could byslight transpositions be made to do service in every case. I committedit to memory. It ran somewhat as follows:

"The play"--or novel--"entitled ---- is generally conceded to be one ofthe most carefully constructed and artistically developed ofall ----'s"--here insert name of author--"many masterly productions. Thegenius of the author has enabled him skilfully to portray the atmosphereand characters of the period. The scene is laid in ---- and the timeroughly is that of the --th century. The hero is ----; the heroine, ----;and after numerous obstacles and ingenious complications they eventuallymarry. The character of the old ----"--here insert father, mother, uncleor grandparent, gardener or family servant--"is delightfully whimsicaland humorous, and full of subtle touches. The tragic element is furnishedby ----, the ----. The author touches with keen satire on the follies andvices of the time, while the interest in the principal love affair issustained until the final dénouement. Altogether it would be difficultto imagine a more brilliant example of dramatic--or literary--art. "

I give this rather shocking example of sophomoric shiftlessness for thepurpose of illustrating my attitude toward my educational opportunitiesand what was possible in the way of dexterously avoiding them. All I hadto do was to learn the names of the chief characters in the variousplays and novels prescribed. If I could acquire a brief scenario of eachso much the better. Invariably they had heroes and heroines, good oldservants or grandparents, and merry jesters. At the examination Isuccessfully simulated familiarity with a book I had never read andreceived a commendatory mark. 

This happy-go-lucky frame of mind was by no means peculiar to myself. Indeed I believe it to have been shared by the great majority of myclassmates. The result was that we were sent forth into the worldwithout having mastered any subject whatsoever, or even followed it fora sufficient length of time to become sincerely interested in it. Theonly study I pursued more than one year was English composition, whichcame easily to me, and which in one form or another I followedthroughout my course. Had I adopted the same tactics with any other ofthe various branches open to me, such as history, chemistry orlanguages, I should not be what I am to-day--a hopelessly superficialman. 

Mind you, I do not mean to assert that I got nothing out of it at all. Undoubtedly I absorbed a smattering of a variety of subjects that mighton a pinch pass for education. I observed how men with greater socialadvantages than myself brushed their hair, wore their clothes and tookoff their hats to their women friends. Frankly that was about everythingI took away with me. I was a victim of that liberality of opportunitywhich may be a heavenly gift to a post-graduate in a university, butwhich is intellectual damnation to an undergraduate collegian. 

The chief fault that I have to find with my own education, however, isthat at no time was I encouraged to think for myself. No older man everinvited me to his study, there quietly and frankly to discuss theproblems of human existence. I was left entirely vague as to what it wasall about, and the relative values of things were never indicated. Thesame emphasis was placed on everything--whether it happened to be theDarwinian Theory, the Fall of Jerusalem or the character of Ophelia. 

I had no philosophy, no theory of morals, and no one ever even attemptedto explain to me what religion or the religious instinct was supposed tobe. I was like a child trying to build a house and gathering materialsof any substance, shape or color without regard to the character of theintended edifice. I was like a man trying to get somewhere and takingwhatever paths suited his fancy--first one and then another, irrespective of where they led. The Why and the Wherefore were unknownquestions to me, and I left the university without any idea as to how Icame to be in the world or what my duties toward my fellowmen might be. 

In a word the two chief factors in education passed me by entirely--(a)my mind received no discipline; (b) and the fundamental propositions ofnatural philosophy were neither brought to my attention nor explained tome. These deficiencies have never been made up. Indeed, as to thefirst, my mind, instead of being developed by my going to college, wasseriously injured. My memory has never been good since and my methods ofreading and thinking are hurried and slipshod, but this is a small thingcompared with the lack of any philosophy of life. I acquired none as ayouth and I have never had any since. For fifty years I have existedwithout any guiding purpose except blindly to get ahead--without anyreligion, either natural or dogmatic. I am one of a type--a pretty good, perfectly aimless man, without any principles at all. 

They tell me that things have changed at the universities since my dayand that the elective system is no longer in favor. Judging by my owncase, the sooner it is abolished entirely, the better for theundergraduate. I should, however, suggest one importantqualification--namely, that a boy be given the choice in his Freshmanyear of three or four general subjects, such as philosophy, art, history, music, science, languages or literature, and that he should becompelled to follow the subjects he elects throughout his course. 

In addition I believe the relation of every study to the whole realm ofknowledge should be carefully explained. Art cannot be taught apart fromhistory; history cannot be grasped independently of literature. Religion, ethics, science and philosophy are inextricably involved onewith another. 

But mere learning or culture, a knowledge of facts or of arts, isunimportant as compared with a realization of the significance of life. The one is superficial--the other is fundamental; the one istemporal--the other is spiritual. There is no more wretched human beingthan a highly trained but utterly purposeless man--which, after all, isonly saying that there is no use in having an education without areligion; that unless someone is going to live in the house there is notmuch use in elaborately furnishing it. 

I am not attempting to write a treatise on pedagogy; but, when all issaid, I am inclined to the belief that my unfortunate present condition, whatever my material success may have been, is due to lack ofeducation--in philosophy in its broadest sense; in mental discipline;and in actual acquirement. 

It is in this last field that my deficiencies and those of my class aresuperficially most apparent. A wide fund of information may be lessimportant than a knowledge of general principles, but it is none theless valuable; and all of us ought to be equipped with the kind ofeducation that will enable us to understand the world of men as well asthe world of nature. 

It is, of course, essential for us to realize that the physicalcharacteristics of a continent may have more influence on the history ofnations than mere wars or battles, however far-reaching the foreignpolicies of their rulers; but, in addition to an appreciation of thisand similar underlying propositions governing the development ofcivilization, the educated man who desires to study the problems of hisown time and country, to follow the progress of science and philosophy, and to enjoy music, literature and art, must have a certain elementaryequipment of mere facts. 

The Oriental attitude of mind that enabled the Shah of Persia calmly todecline the invitation of the Prince of Wales to attend the Derby, onthe ground that "he knew one horse could run faster than another, " isforeign to that of Western civilization. The Battle of Waterloo is aflyspeck in importance contrasted with the problem of future existence;but the man who never heard of Napoleon would make a dull companion inthis world or the next. 

We live in direct proportion to the keenness of our interest in life;and the wider and broader this interest is, the richer and happier weare. A man is as big as his sympathies, as small as his selfishness. Theyokel thinks only of his dinner and his snooze under the hedge, but theman of education rejoices in every new production of the human brain. 

Advantageous intercourse between civilized human beings requires aworking knowledge of the elementary facts of history, of theachievements in art, music and letters, as well as of the principles ofscience and philosophy. When people go to quarreling over the importanceof a particular phase of knowledge or education they are apt to forgetthat, after all, it is a purely relative matter, and that no one canreasonably belittle the value of any sort of information. But furiousarguments arise over the question as to how history should be taught, and "whether a boy's head should be crammed full of dates. " Nobody inhis senses would want a boy's head crammed full of dates any more thanhe would wish his stomach stuffed with bananas; but both the head andthe stomach need some nourishment--better dates than nothing. 

If a knowledge of a certain historical event is of any value whatsoever, the greater and more detailed our knowledge the better--includingperhaps, but not necessarily, its date. The question is not essentiallywhether the dates are of value, but how much emphasis should be placedon them to the exclusion of other facts of history. 

"There is no use trying to remember dates, " is a familiar cry. There isabout as much sense in such a statement as the announcement: "There isno use trying to remember who wrote Henry Esmond, composed the FifthSymphony, or painted the Last Supper. " There is a lot of use in tryingto remember anything. The people who argue to the contrary are too lazyto try. 

 * * * * *

I suppose it may be conceded, for the sake of argument, that everyAmerican, educated or not, should know the date of the Declaration ofIndependence, and have some sort of acquaintance with the character anddeeds of Washington. If we add to this the date of the discovery ofAmerica and the first English settlement; the inauguration of the firstpresident; the Louisiana Purchase; the Naval War with England; the Warwith Mexico; the Missouri Compromise, and the firing on Fort Sumter, wecannot be accused of pedantry. It certainly could not do any one of usharm to know these dates or a little about the events themselves. 

This is equally true, only in a lesser degree, in regard to the historyof foreign nations. Any accurate knowledge is worth while. It is harder, in the long run, to remember a date slightly wrong than with accuracy. The dateless man, who is as vague as I am about the League of Cambray orPhilip II, will loudly assert that the trouble incident to remembering adate in history is a pure waste of time. He will allege that "a generalidea"--a very favorite phrase--is all that is necessary. In the case ofsuch a person you can safely gamble that his so-called "general idea" isno idea at all. Pin him down and he will not be able to tell you within_five hundred years_ the dates of some of the cardinal events ofEuropean history--the invasion of Europe by the Huns, for instance. Wasit before or after Christ? He might just as well try to tell you that itwas quite enough to know that our Civil War occurred somewhere in thenineteenth century. 

I have personally no hesitation in advancing the claim that there are afew elementary principles and fundamental facts in all departments ofhuman knowledge which every person who expects to derive any advantagefrom intelligent society should not only once learn but should foreverremember. Not to know them is practically the same thing as beingwithout ordinary means of communication. One may not find it necessaryto remember the binomial theorem or the algebraic formula for thecontents of a circle, but he should at least have a formal acquaintancewith Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Charlemagne, Martin Luther, Francis I, Queen Elizabeth, Louis XIV, Napoleon I--and a dozen or so others. Aneducated man must speak the language of educated men. 

I do not think it too much to demand that in history he should have inmind, at least approximately, one important date in each century in thechronicles of France, England, Italy and Germany. That is not much, butit is a good start. And shall we say ten dates in American history? Heshould, in addition, have a rough working knowledge of the chiefpersonages who lived in these centuries and were famous in war, diplomacy, art, religion and literature. His one little date will atleast give him some notion of the relation the events in one countrybore to those in another. 

I boldly assert that in a half hour you can learn by heart all theessential dates in American history. I assume that you once knew, andperhaps still know, something about the events themselves with whichthey are connected. Ten minutes a day for the rest of the week and youwill have them at your fingers' ends. It is no trick at all. It is aseasy as learning the names of the more important parts of the mechanismof your motor. There is nothing impossible or difficult, or eventedious, about it; but it seems Herculean because you have never takenthe trouble to try to remember anything. It is the same attitude thatrenders it almost physically painful for one of us to read over thescenario of an opera or a column biography of its composer beforehearing a performance at the Metropolitan. Yet fifteen minutes or halfan hour invested in this way pays about five hundred per cent. 

And the main thing, after you have learned anything, is not to forgetit. Knowledge forgotten is no knowledge at all. That is the trouble withthe elective system as usually administered in our universities. At theend of the college year the student tosses aside his Elements of Geologyand forgets everything between its covers. What he has learned should bemade the basis for other and more detailed knowledge. The instructorshould go on building a superstructure on the foundation he has laid, and at the end of his course the aspirant for a diploma should berequired to pass an examination on his entire college work. Had I beencompelled to do that, I should probably be able to tell now--what I donot know--whether Melancthon was a painter, a warrior, a diplomat, atheologian or a dramatic poet. 

I have instanced the study of dates because they are apt to be the stormcenter of discussions concerning education. It is fashionable to scoffat them in a superior manner. We all of us loathe them; yet they are asindispensable--a certain number of them--as the bones of a body. Theymake up the skeleton of history. They are the orderly pegs on which wecan hang later acquired information. If the pegs are not there theinformation will fall to the ground. 

For example, our entire conception of the Reformation, or of anyintellectual or religious movement, might easily turn on whether itpreceded or followed the discovery of printing; and our mental pictureof any great battle, as well as our opinion of the strategy of theopposing armies, would depend on whether or not gunpowder had beeninvented at the time. Hence the importance of a knowledge of the datesof the invention of printing and of gunpowder in Europe. 

It is ridiculous to allege that there is no minimum of education, to saynothing of culture, which should be required of every intelligent humanbeing if he is to be but a journeyman in society. In an unconvincingdefense of our own ignorance we loudly insist that detailed knowledge ofany subject is mere pedagogy, a hindrance to clear thinking, asuperfluity. We do not say so, to be sure, with respect to knowledge ingeneral; but that is our attitude in regard to any particular subjectthat may be brought up. Yet to deny the value of special information istantamount to an assertion of the desirability of general ignorance. Itis only the politician who can afford to say: "Wide knowledge is a fatalhandicap to forcible expression. "

This is not true of the older countries. In Germany, for instance, aknowledge of natural philosophy, languages and history is insisted on. To the German schoolboy, George Washington is almost as familiar acharacter as Columbus; but how many American children know anything ofBismarck? The ordinary educated foreigner speaks at least two languagesand usually three, is fairly well grounded in science, and is perfectlyfamiliar with ancient and modern history. The American college graduateseems like a child beside him so far as these things are concerned. 

We are content to live a hand-to-mouth mental existence on a haphazarddiet of newspapers and the lightest novels. We are too lazy to take thetrouble either to discipline our minds or to acquire, as adults, theelementary knowledge necessary to enable us to read intelligently evenrather superficial books on important questions vitally affecting ourown social, physical intellectual or moral existences. 

If somebody refers to Huss or Wyclif ten to one we do not know of whomhe is talking; the same thing is apt to be true about the draft of thehot-water furnace or the ball and cock of the tank in the bathroom. Inertia and ignorance are the handmaidens of futility. Heaven forbidthat we should let anybody discover this aridity of our minds!

My wife admits privately that she has forgotten all the French she everknew--could not even order a meal from a _carte de jour_; yet she is anever-failing source of revenue to the counts and marquises who yearlyrush over to New York to replenish their bank accounts by giving parlorlectures in their native tongue on _Le XIIIme Siècle_ or Madame Lebrun. No one would ever guess that she understands no more than one word outof twenty and that she has no idea whether Talleyrand lived in thefifteenth or the eighteenth century, or whether Calvin was a Frenchmanor a Scotchman. 

Our clever people are content merely with being clever. They will talkTolstoi or Turgenieff with you, but they are quite vague about CatherineII or Peter the Great. They are up on D'Annunczio, but not on Garibaldior Cavour. Our ladies wear a false front of culture, but they are quitebald underneath. 

 * * * * *

Being educated, however, does not consist, by any means, in knowing whofought and won certain battles or who wrote the Novum Organum. It liesrather in a knowledge of life based on the experience of mankind. Henceour study of history. But a study of history in the abstract isvalueless. It must be concrete, real and living to have any significancefor us. The schoolboy who learns by rote imagines the Greeks as outlinefigures of one dimension, clad in helmets and tunics, and brandishinglittle swords. That is like thinking of Jeanne d'Arc as a suit of armoror of Theodore Roosevelt as a pair of spectacles. 

If the boy is to gain anything by his acquaintance with the Greeks hemust know what they ate and drank, how they amused themselves, what theytalked about, and what they believed as to the nature and origin of theuniverse and the probability of a future life. I hold that it is asimportant to know how the Romans told time as that Nero fiddled whilehis capital was burning. William the Silent was once just as much aliveas P. T. Barnum, and a great deal more worth while. It is fatal to regardhistorical personages as lay figures and not as human beings. 

We are equally vague with respect to the ordinary processes of our dailylives. I have not the remotest idea of how to make a cup of coffee ordisconnect the gas or water mains in my own house. If my sliding doorsticks I send for the carpenter, and if water trickles in the tank Itelephone for the plumber. I am a helpless infant in the stable and mymotor is the creation of a Frankenstein that has me at its mercy. Mywife may recall something of cookery--which she would not admit, ofcourse, before the butler--but my daughters have never been inside akitchen. None of my family knows anything about housekeeping or theprices of foodstuffs or house-furnishings. My coal and wood aredelivered and paid for without my inquiring as to the correctness of thebills, and I offer the same temptations to dishonest tradesmen that adrunken man does to pickpockets. Yet I complain of the high cost ofliving!

My family has never had the slightest training in practical affairs. Ifwe were cast away on a fertile tropical island we should be forced tosubsist on bananas and clams, and clothe ourselves withleaves, --provided the foliage was ready made and came in regulationsizes. 

These things are vastly more important from an educational point of viewthan a knowledge of the relationship of Mary Stuart to the Duke ofGuise, however interesting that may be to a reader of French history ofthe sixteenth century. A knowledge of the composition of gunpowder ismore valuable than of Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot. If we know nothingabout household economies we can hardly be expected to take an interestin the problems of the proletariat. If we are ignorant of thefundamental data of sociology and politics we can have no real opinionson questions affecting the welfare of the people. 

The classic phrase "The public be damned!" expresses our true feelingabout the matter. We cannot become excited about the wrongs andhardships of the working class when we do not know and do not care howthey live. One of my daughters--aged seven--once essayed a short story, of which the heroine was an orphan child in direst want. It began:"Corrine was starving. 'Alas! What shall we do for food?' she asked herFrench nurse as they entered the carriage for their afternoon drive inthe park. " I have no doubt that even to-day this same young ladysupposes that there are porcelain baths in every tenement house. 

I myself have no explanation as to why I pay eighty dollars for abusiness suit any my bookkeepers seems to be equally well turned out foreighteen dollars and fifty cents. That is essentially why the peoplehave an honest and well-founded distrust of those enthusiastic societyladies who rush into charity and frantically engage in the elevation ofthe masses. The poor working girl is apt to know a good deal more abouther own affairs than the Fifth Avenue matron with an annual income ofthree hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

If I were doing it all over again--and how I wish I could!--I shouldinsist on my girls being taught not only music and languages butcooking, sewing, household economy and stenography. They should at leastbe able to clothe and feed themselves and their children if somebodysupplied them with the materials, and to earn a living if the time camewhen they had to do it. They have now no conception of the relativevalues of even material things, what the things are made of or how theyare put together. For them hats, shoes, French novels and roast chickencan be picked off the trees. 

 * * * * *

This utter ignorance of actual life not only keeps us at a distance fromthe people of our own time but renders our ideas of history equallyvague, abstract and unprofitable. I believe it would be an excellentthing if, beginning with the age of about ten years, no child wereallowed to eat anything until he was able to tell where it was produced, what it cost and how it was prepared. If this were carried out in everydepartment of the child's existence he would have small need of thesuperficial education furnished by most of our institutions of learning. Our children are taught about the famines of history when they cannotrecognize a blade of wheat or tell the price of a loaf of bread, or howit is made. 

I would begin the education of my boy--him of the tango and balklinebilliards--with a study of himself, in the broad use of the term, beforeI allowed him to study about other people or the history of nations. Iwould seat him in a chair by the fire and begin with his feet. I wouldinquire what he knew about his shoes--what they were made of, where thesubstance came from, the cost of its production, the duty on leather, the process of manufacture, the method of transportation of goods, freight rates, retailing, wages, repairs, how shoes were polished--thiswould begin, if desired, a new line of inquiry as to the composition ofsaid polish, cost, and so on--comparative durability of hand and machinework, introduction of machines into England and its effect on industrialconditions. I say I would do all this; but, of course, I could not. Iwould have to be an educated man in the first place. Why, beginning withthat dusty little pair of shoes, my boy and I might soon be deep inInterstate Commerce and the Theory of Malthus--on familiar terms withThomas A. Edison and Henry George!

And the next time my son read about a Tammany politician giving away apair of shoes to each of his adherents it would mean something tohim--as much as any other master stroke of diplomacy. 

I would instruct every boy in a practical knowledge of the house inwhich he lives, give him a familiarity with simple tools and a knowledgeof how to make small repairs and to tinker with the water pipes. I wouldteach him all those things I now do not know myself--where the homelessman can find a night's lodging; how to get a disorderly person arrested;why bottled milk costs fifteen cents a quart; how one gets his name onthe ballot if he wants to run for alderman; where the Health Departmentis located, and how to get vaccinated for nothing. 

By the time we had finished we would be in a position to understand thevarious editorials in the morning papers which now we do not read. Farmore than that, my son would be brought to a realization that everythingin the world is full of interest for the man who has the knowledge toappreciate its significance. "A primrose by a river's brim" should be nomore suggestive, even to a lake-poet, than a Persian rug or a rubbershoe. Instead of the rug he will have a vision of the patient Afghan inhis mountain village working for years with unrequited industry; insteadof the shoe he will see King Leopold and hear the lamentations of theCongo. 

My ignorance of everything beyond my own private bank account andstomach is due to the fact that I have selfishly and foolishly regardedthese two departments as the most important features of my existence. Inow find that my financial and gastronomical satisfaction has beenpurchased at the cost of an infinite delight in other things. I ammentally out of condition. 

Apart from this brake on the wheel of my intelligence, however, I sufferan even greater impediment by reason of the fact that, never havingacquired a thorough groundwork of elementary knowledge, I find I cannotread with either pleasure or profit. Most adult essays or historiespresuppose some such foundation. 

Recently I have begun to buy primers--such as are used in theelementary schools--in order to acquire the information that should havebeen mine at twenty years of age. And I have resolved that in my dailyreading of the newspapers I will endeavor to look up on the map andremember the various places concerning which I read any news item ofimportance, and to assimilate the facts themselves. It is my intentionalso to study, at least half an hour each day, some simple treatise onscience, politics, art, letters or history. In this way I hope to regainsome of my interest in the activities of mankind. If I cannot do this Irealize now that it will go hard with me in the years that are drawingnigh. I shall, indeed, then lament that "I have no pleasure in them. "

 * * * * *

It is the common practice of business men to say that when they reach acertain age they are going to quit work and enjoy themselves. How thisenjoyment is proposed to be attained varies in the individual case. Oneman intends to travel or live abroad--usually, he believes, in Paris. Another is going into ranching or farming. Still another expects to givehimself up to art, music and books. We all have visions of the time whenwe shall no longer have to go downtown every day and can indulge inthose pleasures that are now beyond our reach. 

Unfortunately the experience of humanity demonstrates the inevitabilityof the law of Nature which prescribes that after a certain age it ispractically impossible to change our habits, either of work or of play, without physical and mental misery. 

Most of us take some form of exercise throughout our lives--riding, tennis, golf or walking. This we can continue to enjoy in moderationafter our more strenuous days are over; but the manufacturer, stockbroker or lawyer who thinks that after his sixtieth birthday he is goingto be able to find permanent happiness on a farm, loafing round Paris orreading in his library will be sadly disappointed. His habit of workwill drive him back, after a year or so of wretchedness, to the factory, the ticker or the law office; and his habit of play will send him asusual to the races, the club or the variety show. 

One cannot acquire an interest by mere volition. It is a matter oftraining and of years. The pleasures of to-day will eventually prove tobe the pleasures of our old age--provided they continue to be pleasuresat all, which is more than doubtful. 

As we lose the capacity for hard work we shall find that we needsomething to take its place--something more substantial and lessunsatisfactory than sitting in the club window or taking in the Broadwayshows. But, at least, the seeds of these interests must be sown now ifwe expect to gather a harvest this side of the grave. 

What is more natural than to believe that in our declining years weshall avail ourselves of the world's choicest literature and pass atleast a substantial portion of our days in the delightful companionshipof the wisest and wittiest of mankind? That would seem to be one of thehappiest uses to which good books could be put; but the hope is vain. The fellow who does not read at fifty will take no pleasure in books atseventy. 

My club is full of dozens of melancholy examples of men who haveforgotten how to read. They have spent their entire lives perfecting thepurely mechanical aspects of their existences. The mind has practicallyceased to exist, so far as they are concerned. They have built marvelousmansions, where every comfort is instantly furnished by contrivances ascomplicated and accurate as the machinery of a modern warship. The doorsand windows open and close, the lights are turned on and off, and theelevator stops--all automatically. If the temperature of a room risesabove a certain degree the heating apparatus shuts itself off; if itdrops too low something else happens to put it right again. The servantsare swift, silent and decorous. The food is perfection. Their motorsglide noiselessly to and fro. Their establishments run like finewatches. 

They have had to make money to achieve this mechanical perfection; theyhave had no time for anything else during their active years. And, nowthat those years are over, they have nothing to do. Their minds arealmost as undeveloped as those of professional pugilists. Dinners anddrinks, backgammon and billiards, the lightest opera, the trashiestnovels, the most sensational melodrama are the most elevating of theirleisure's activities. Read? Hunt? Farm? Not much! They sit behind theplate-glass windows and bet on whether more limousines will go norththan south in the next ten minutes. 

If you should ask one of them whether he had read some book that wasexciting discussion among educated people at the moment, he wouldprobably look at you blankly and, after remarking that he had nevercared for economics or history--as the case might be--inquire whetheryou preferred a "Blossom" or a "Tornado. " Poor vacuous old cocks! Theymight be having a green and hearty old age, surrounded by a group of thechoicest spirits of all time. 

Upstairs in the library there are easy-chairs within arm's reach of thebest fellows who ever lived--adventurers, story-tellers, novelists, explorers, historians, rhymers, fighters, essayists, vagabonds andgeneral liars--Immortals, all of them. 

You can take your pick and if he bores you send him packing without aword of apology. They are good friends to grow old with--friends who inhours of weariness, of depression or of gladness may be summoned at willby those of us who belong to the Brotherhood of Educated Men--of which, alas! I and my associates are no longer members. 

CHAPTER V

MY MORALS

The concrete evidence of my success as represented by my accumulatedcapital--outside of my uptown dwelling house--amounts, as I havepreviously said, to about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thisis invested principally in railroad and mining stocks, both of which aresubject to considerable fluctuation; and I have also substantialholdings in industrial corporations. Some of these companies I representprofessionally. As a whole, however, my investments may be regarded asfairly conservative. At any rate they cause me little uneasiness. 

My professional income is regular and comes with surprisingly littleeffort. I have as clients six manufacturing corporations that pay meretainers of twenty-five hundred dollars each, besides my regular feesfor services rendered. I also represent two banks and a trust company. 

All this is fixed business and most of it is attended to by younger men, whom I employ at moderate salaries. I do almost no detail work myself, and my junior partners relieve me of the drawing of even importantpapers; so that, though I am constantly at my office, my time is spentin advising and consulting. 

I dictate all my letters and rarely take a pen in my hand. Writing hasbecome laborious and irksome. I even sign my correspondence with aningenious rubber stamp that imitates my scrawling signature beyonddiscovery. If I wish to know the law on some given point I press abutton and tell my managing clerk what I want. In an hour or two hehands me the authorities covering the issue in question in typewrittenform. It is extraordinarily simple and easy. Yet only yesterday I heardof a middle-aged man, whom I knew to be a peculiarly well-equippedall-around lawyer, who was ready to give up his private practice andtake a place in any reputable office at a salary of thirty-five hundreddollars!

Most of my own time is spent in untangling mixed puzzles of law andfact, and my clients are comparatively few in number, though theirinterests are large. Thus I see the same faces over and over again. Ilunch daily at a most respectable eating club; and here, too, I meet thesame men over and over again. I rarely make a new acquaintance downtown;in fact I rarely leave my office during the day. If I need to conferwith any other attorney I telephone. There are dozens of lawyers in NewYork whose voices I know well--yet whose faces I have never seen. 

My office is on the nineteenth floor of a white marble building, and Ican look down the harbor to the south and up the Hudson to the north. Isit there in my window like a cliffdweller at the mouth of his cave. When I walk along Wall Street I can look up at many other hundreds ofthese caves, each with its human occupant. We leave our houses uptown, clamber down into a tunnel called the Subway, are shot five miles or sothrough the earth, and debouch into an elevator that rushes us up to ourcaves. Only between my house and the entrance to the Subway am I obligedto step into the open air at all. A curious life! And I sit in my chairand talk to people in multitudes of other caves near by, or caves in NewJersey, Washington or Chicago. 

Louis XI used to be called "the human spider" by reason of his industry, but we modern office men are far more like human spiders than he, as wesit in the center of our webs of invisible wires. We wait and wait, andour lines run out across the length and breadth of the land--sometimesgetting tangled, to be sure, so that it is frequently difficult todecide just which spider owns the web; but we sit patiently doingnothing save devising the throwing out of other lines. 

We weave, but we do not build; we manipulate, buy, sell and lend, quarrel over the proceeds, and cover the world with our nets, while theants and the bees of mankind labor, construct and manufacture, andstruggle to harness the forces of Nature. We plan and others execute. We dicker, arrange, consult, cajole, bribe, pull our wires and extort;but we do it all in one place--the center of our webs and the webs arewoven in our caves. 

I figure that I spend about six hours each day in my office; that Isleep nearly nine hours; that I am in transit on surface cars and insubways at least one hour and a half more; that I occupy another hourand a half in bathing, shaving and dressing, and an hour lunching atmidday. This leaves a margin of five hours a day for all otheractivities. 

Could even a small portion of this time be spent consecutively inreading in the evening, I could keep pace with current thought andliterature much better than I do; or if I spent it with my son anddaughters I should know considerably more about them than I do now, which is practically nothing. But the fact is that every evening fromthe first of November to the first of May the motor comes to the door atfive minutes to eight and my wife and I are whirled up or down town to adinner party--that is, save on those occasions when eighteen or twentypeople are whirled to us. 

 * * * * *

This short recital of my daily activities is sufficient to demonstratethat I lead an exceedingly narrow and limited existence. I do not knowany poor men, and even the charities in which I am nominally interestedare managed by little groups of rich ones. The truth is, I learnedthirty years ago that if one wants to make money one must go where moneyis and cultivate the people who have it. I have no petty legalbusiness--there is nothing in it. If I cannot have millionaires forclients I do not want any. The old idea that the young country lawyercould shove a pair of socks into his carpetbag, come to the great city, hang out his shingle and build up a practice has long since beencompletely exploded. The best he can do now is to find a clerkship attwelve hundred dollars a year. 

Big business gravitates to the big offices; and when the big firms lookround for junior partners they do not choose the struggling thoughbrilliant young attorney from the country, no matter how large hisgeneral practice may have become; but they go after the youth whosefather is a director in forty corporations or the president of a trust. 

In the same way what time I have at my disposal to cultivate newacquaintances I devote not to the merely rich and prosperous but to themulti-millionaire--if I can find him--who does not even know the size ofhis income. I have no time to waste on the man who is simply earningenough to live quietly and educate his family. He cannot throw anythingworth while in my direction; but a single crumb from the magnate's tablemay net me twenty or thirty thousand dollars. Thus, not only for socialbut for business reasons, successful men affiliate habitually only withrich people. I concede that is a rather sordid admission, but it isnone the truth. 

 * * * * *

Money is the symbol of success; it is what we are all striving to get, and we naturally select the ways and means best adapted for the purpose. One of the simplest is to get as near it as possible and stay there. IfI make a friend of a struggling doctor or professor he may invite me todraw his will, which I shall either have to do for nothing or elsecharge him fifty dollars for; but the railroad president with whom Ioften lunch, and who is just as agreeable personally, may perhaps ask meto reorganize a railroad. I submit that, selfish as it all seems when Iwrite it down, it would be hard to do otherwise. 

I do not deliberately examine each new candidate for my friendship andselect or reject him in accordance with a financial test; but what I dois to lead a social and business life that will constantly throw me onlywith rich and powerful men. I join only rich men's clubs; I go toresorts in the summer frequented only by rich people; and I play onlywith those who can, if they will, be of advantage to me. I do not dothis deliberately; I do it instinctively--now. I suppose at one time itwas deliberate enough, but to-day it comes as natural as using myautomobile instead of a street car. 

We have heard a great deal recently about a so-called Money Trust. Thetruth of the matter is that the Money Trust is something vastly greaterthan any mere aggregation of banks; it consists in our fundamental trustin money. It is based on our instinctive and ineradicable belief thatmoney rules the destinies of mankind. 

Everything is estimated by us in money. A man is worth so and somuch--in dollars. The millionaire takes precedence of everybody, exceptat the White House. The rich have things their own way--and every oneknows it. Ashamed of it? Not at all. We are the greatest snobs in thecivilized world, and frankly so. We worship wealth because at present wedesire only the things wealth can buy. 

The sea, the sky, the mountains, the clear air of autumn, the simplesports and amusements of our youth and of the comparatively poor, pleasures in books, in birds, in trees and flowers, are disregarded forthe fierce joys of acquisition, of the ownership in stocks and bonds, orfor the no less keen delight in the display of our own financialsuperiority over our fellows. 

We know that money is the key to the door of society. Without it oursons will not get into the polo-playing set or our daughters figure inthe Sunday supplements. We want money to buy ourselves a position and tomaintain it after we have bought it. 

We want house on the sunny side of the street, with façades of gravenmarble; we want servants in livery and in buttons--or in powder andbreeches if possible; we want French chefs and the best wine andtobacco, twenty people to dinner on an hour's notice, supper parties anda little dance afterward at Sherry's or Delmonico's, a box at the operaand for first nights at the theaters, two men in livery for our motors, yachts and thirty-footers, shooting boxes in South Carolina, salmonwater in New Brunswick, and regular vacations, besides, at Hot Springs, Aiken and Palm Beach; we want money to throw away freely and likegentlemen at Canfield's, Bradley's and Monte Carlo; we want clubs, country houses, saddle-horses, fine clothes and gorgeously dressedwomen; we want leisure and laughter, and a trip or so to Europe everyyear, our names at the top of the society column, a smile from the granddame in the tiara and a seat at her dinner table--these are the thingswe want, and since we cannot have them without money we go after themoney first, as the _sine qua non_. 

We want these things for ourselves and we want them for our children. Wehope our grandchildren will have them also, though about that we do notcare so much. We want ease and security and the relief of not thinkingwhether we can afford to do things. We want to be lords of creation andto pass creation on to our descendants, exactly as did the nobility ofthe _Ancien Régime_. 

At the present time money will buy anything, from a place in the vestryof a swell church to a seat in the United States Senate--an election toCongress, a judgeship or a post in the diplomatic service. It will buythe favor of the old families or a decision in the courts. Money is thecontrolling factor in municipal politics in New York. The moneyed groupof Wall Street wants an amenable mayor--a Tammany mayor preferred--sothat it can put through its contracts. You always know where to find aregular politician. One always knew where to find Dick Croker. So theTraction people pour the contents of their coffers into the campaignbags. 

Until very recently the Supreme Court judges of New York bought theirpositions by making substantial contributions to the Tammany treasury. The inferior judgeships went considerably cheaper. A man who stood inwith the Big Boss might get a bargain. I have done business withpoliticians all my life and I have never found it necessary to mince mywords. If I wanted a favor I always asked exactly what it was going tocost--and I always got the favor. 

No one needs to hunt very far for cases where the power of money hasinfluenced the bench in recent times. The rich man can buy his son aplace in any corporation or manufacturing company. The young man may goin at the bottom, but he will shoot up to the top in a year or two, withsurprising agility, over the heads of a couple of thousand other andbetter men. The rich man can defy the law and scoff at justice; whilethe poor man, who cannot pay lawyers for delay, goes to prison. Theseare the veriest platitudes of demagogy, but they are true--absolutelyand undeniably true. 

We know all this and we act accordingly, and our children imbibe a likeknowledge with their mother's or whatever other properly sterilized milkwe give them as a substitute. We, they and everybody else know that ifenough money can be accumulated the possessor will be on Easy Street forthe rest of his life--not merely the Easy Street of luxury and comfort, but of security, privilege and power; and because we like Easy Streetrather than the Narrow Path we devote ourselves to getting there in thequickest possible way. 

We take no chances on getting our reward in the next world. We want ithere and now, while we are sure of it--on Broadway, at Newport or inParis. We do not fool ourselves any longer into thinking that byself-sacrifice here we shall win happiness in the hereafter. That is allright for the poor, wretched and disgruntled. Even the clergy are proneto find heaven and hell in this world rather than in the life afterdeath; and the decay of faith leads us to feel that a purse of gold inthe hand is better than a crown of the same metal in the by-and-by. Weare after happiness, and to most of us money spells it. 

The man of wealth is protected on every side from the dangers that besetthe poor. He can buy health and immunity from anxiety, and he caninstall his children in the same impregnable position. The dust of hismotor chokes the citizen trudging home from work. He soars through lifeon a cushioned seat, with shock absorbers to alleviate all the bumps. Nowonder we trust in money! We worship the golden calf far more than everdid the Israelites beneath the crags of Sinai. The real Money Trust isthe tacit conspiracy by which those who have the money endeavor to hangon to it and keep it among themselves. Neither at the present time dogreat fortunes tend to dissolve as inevitably as formerly. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes somewhere analyzes the rapid disintegration of thesubstantial fortunes of his day and shows how it is, in fact, but "threegenerations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves. " A fortune of two hundredthousand dollars divided among four children, each of whose share isdivided among four grandchildren, becomes practically nothing at all--inonly two. But could the good doctor have observed the tendencies ofto-day he would have commented on a new phenomenon, which almostcounteracts the other. 

It may be, and probably is, the fact that comparatively small fortunesstill tend to disintegrate. This was certainly the rule during the firsthalf of the nineteenth century in New England, when there was no suchthing as a distinctly moneyed class, and when the millionaire was acreature only of romance. But when, as to-day, fortunes are so largethat it is impossible to spend or even successfully give away the incomefrom them, a new element is introduced that did not exist when DoctorHolmes used to meditate in his study on the Back Bay overlooking theplacid Charles. 

At the present time big fortunes are apt to gain by mere accretion whatthey lose by division; and the owner of great wealth has opportunitiesfor investment undreamed of by the ordinary citizen who must be contentwith interest at four per cent and no unearned increment on his capital. This fact might of itself negative the tendency of which he speaks; butthere is a much more potent force working against it as well. That isthe absolute necessity, induced by the demands of modern metropolitanlife, of keeping a big fortune together--or, if it must be divided, ofrehabilitating it by marriage. 

There was a time not very long ago when one rarely heard of a young manor young woman of great wealth marrying anybody with an equal fortune. To do so was regarded with disapproval, and still is in somecommunities. To-day it is the rule instead of the exception. Now wehabitually speak in America of the "alliances of great families. " Thereare two reasons for this--first, that being a multi-millionaire isbecoming, as it were, a sort of recognized profession, having its ownsports, its own methods of business and its own interests; second, thatthe luxury of to-day is so enervating and insidious that a girl oryouth reared in what is called society cannot be comfortable, much lesshappy, on the income of less than a couple of million dollars. 

As seems to be demonstrated by the table of my own modest expenditure ina preceding article, the income of but a million dollars will notsupport any ordinary New York family in anything like the luxury towhich the majority of our young people--even the sons and daughters ofmen in moderate circumstances--are accustomed. 

Our young girls are reared on the choicest varieties of food, servedwith piquant sauces to tempt their appetites; they are permitted to pickand choose, and to refuse what they think they do not like; they arecarried to and from their schools, music and dancing lessons in motors, and are taught to regard public conveyances as unhealthful andinconvenient; they never walk; they are given clothes only a trifle lessfantastic and bizarre than those of their mothers, and command theservices of maids from their earliest years; they are taken to thetheater and the hippodrome, and for the natural pleasures of childhoodare given the excitement of the footlights and the arena. 

As they grow older they are allowed to attend late dances thatnecessitate remaining in bed the next morning until eleven or twelveo'clock; they are told that their future happiness depends on theirability to attract the right kind of man; they are instructed in everyart save that of being useful members of society; and in the ease, luxury and vacuity with which they are surrounded their lives parallelthose of demi-mondaines. Indeed, save for the marriage ceremony, thereis small difference between them. The social butterfly flutters to themillionaire as naturally as the night moth of the Tenderloin. Hence thetendency to marry money is greater than ever before in the history ofcivilization. 

Frugal, thrifty lives are entirely out of fashion. The solid, self-respecting class, which wishes to associate with people of equalmeans, is becoming smaller and smaller. If an ambitious mother cannotafford to rent a cottage at Newport or Bar Harbor she takes her daughterto a hotel or boarding house there, in the hope that she will be thrownin contact with young men of wealth. The young girl in question, whosefather is perhaps a hardworking doctor or business man, at home livessimply enough; but sacrifices are made to send her to a fashionableschool, where her companions fill her ears with stories of their motors, trips to Europe, and the balls they attend during the vacations. Shebecomes inoculated with the poison of social ambition before she comesout. 

Unable by reason of the paucity of the family resources to buy luxuriesfor herself, she becomes a parasite and hanger-on of rich girls. If sheis attractive and vivacious so much the better. Like the shopgirlblinded by the glare of Broadway, she flutters round the drawing roomsand country houses of the ultra-rich seeking to make a match that willput luxury within her grasp; but her chances are not so good asformerly. 

To-day the number of large fortunes has increased so rapidly that thewealthy young man has no difficulty in choosing an equally wealthy matewhose mental and physical attractions appear, and doubtless are, quiteas desirable as those of the daughter of poorer parents. The sameinstinct to which I have confessed myself, as a professional man, is atwork among our daughters and sons. They may not actually judgeindividuals by the sordid test of their ability to purchase ease andluxury, but they take care to meet and associate with only those who cando so. 

In this their parents are their ofttimes unconscious accomplices. Theworthy young man of chance acquaintance is not invited to call--or, ifhe is, is not pressed to stay to dinner. "Oh, he does not know ourcrowd!" explains the girl to herself. The crowd, on analysis, willprobably be found to contain only the sons and daughters of fathers andmothers who can entertain lavishly and settle a million or so on theiroffspring at marriage. 

There is a constant attraction of wealth for wealth. Poverty neverattracted anything. If our children have money of their own that is agood reason to us why they should marry more money. We snarl angrily atthe penniless youth, no matter how capable and intelligent, who darescast his eyes on our daughter. We make it quite unambiguous that we haveother plans for her--plans that usually include a steam yacht and ashooting box north of Inverness. 

There is nothing more vicious than the commonly expressed desire ofparents in merely moderate circumstances to give their children what areordinarily spoken of as "opportunities. " "We wish our daughters to haveevery opportunity--the best opportunities, " they say, meaning an equalchance with richer girls of qualifying themselves for attracting wealthymen and of placing themselves in their way. In reality opportunities forwhat?--of being utterly miserable for the rest of their lives unlessthey marry out of their own class. 

The desire to get ahead that is transmitted from the American businessman to his daughter is the source of untold bitterness--for, though hehimself may fail in his own struggle, he has nevertheless had theinterest of the game; but she, an old maid, may linger miserably on, unwilling to share the domestic life of some young man more than herequal in every respect. 

There is a subtle freemasonry among those who have to do with money. Young men of family are given sinecures in banks and trust companies, and paid many times the salaries their services are worth. Theinconspicuous lad who graduates from college the same year as one whocomes from a socially prominent family will slave in a downtown officeeight hours a day for a thousand dollars a year, while his classmate isbowing in the ladies at the Fifth Avenue Branch--from ten to threeo'clock--at a salary of five thousand dollars. Why? Because he knowspeople who have money and in one way or another may be useful sometimeto the president in a social way. 

The remuneration of those of the privileged class who do any work at allis on an entirely different basis from that of those who need it. Thepoor boy is kept on as a clerk, while the rich one is taken into thefirm. The old adage says that "Kissing goes by favor"; and favors, financial and otherwise, are given only to those who can offer somethingin return. The tendency to concentrate power and wealth extends even tothe outer rim of the circle. It is an intangible conspiracy to cornerthe good things and send the poor away empty. As I see it going on roundme, it is a heartless business. 

Society is like an immense swarm of black bees settled on a honey-pot. The leaders, who flew there first, are at the top, gorged and distended. Round, beneath and on them crawl thousands of others thirsting to feedon the sweet, liquid gold. The pot is covered with them, layer onlayer--buzzing hungrily; eager to get as near as possible to the honey, even if they may not taste it. A drop falls on one and a hundred fly onhim and lick it off. The air is alive with those who are circling aboutwaiting for an advantageous chance to wedge in between their comrades. They will, with one accord, sting to death any hapless creature whodraws near. 

 * * * * *

Frankly I should not be enough of a man to say these things if myidentity were disclosed, however much they ought to be said. Neithershould I make the confessions concerning my own career that are tofollow; for, though they may evidence a certain shrewdness on my ownpart, I do not altogether feel that they are to my credit. 

When my wife and I first came to New York our aims and ideals weresimple enough. I had letters to the head of a rather well-known firm onWall Street and soon found myself its managing clerk at one hundreddollars a month. The business transacted in the office was bigbusiness--corporation work, the handling of large estates, and so on. During three years I was practically in charge of and responsible forthe details of their litigations; the net profit divided by the twoactual members of the firm was about one hundred and fifty thousanddollars. The gross was about one hundred and eighty thousand, of whichtwenty thousand went to defray the regular office expenses--includingrent, stenographers and ordinary law clerks--while ten thousand wasdivided among the three men who actually did most of the work. 

The first of these was a highly trained lawyer about forty-five years ofage, who could handle anything from a dog-license matter before a policejustice to the argument of a rebate case in the United States SupremeCourt. He was paid forty-five hundred dollars a year and was glad to getit. He was the active man of the office. The second man receivedthirty-five hundred dollars, and for that sum furnished all the specialknowledge needed in drafting railroad mortgages and intricate legaldocuments of all sorts. The third was a chap of about thirty who triedthe smaller cases and ran the less important corporations. 

The two heads of the firm devoted most of their time to mixing withbankers, railroad officials and politicians, and spent comparativelylittle of it at the office; but they got the business--somehow. Isuppose they found it because they went out after it. It was doubtlessquite legitimate. Somebody must track down the game before the huntercan do the shooting. At any rate they managed to find plenty of it andfurnished the work for the other lawyers to do. 

I soon made up my mind that in New York brains were a pretty cheapcommodity. I was anxious to get ahead; but there was no opening in thefirm and there were others ready to take my place the moment it shouldbecome vacant. I was a pretty fair lawyer and had laid by in the banknearly a thousand dollars; so I went to the head of the firm and madethe proposition that I should work at the office each day until oneo'clock and be paid half of what I was then getting--that is, fiftydollars a month. In the afternoons an understudy should sit at my desk, while I should be free. 

I then suggested that the firm might divide with me the proceeds of anybusiness I should bring in. My offer was accepted; and the sameafternoon I went to the office of a young stockbroker I knew and stayedthere until three o'clock. The next day I did the same thing, and theday after. I did not buy any stocks, but I made myself agreeable to thegroup about the ticker and formed the acquaintance of an elderly German, who was in the chewing-gum business and who amused himself playing themarket. 

It was not long before he invited me to lunch with him and I took everyopportunity to impress him with my legal acumen. He had a lawyer of hisown already, but I soon saw that the impression I was making would havethe effect I desired; and presently, as I had confidently expected, hegave me a small legal matter to attend to. Needless to say it wasaccomplished with care, celerity and success. He gave me another. Forsix months I dogged that old German's steps every day from one o'clockin the afternoon until twelve at night. I walked, talked, drank beerand played pinochle with him, sat in his library in the evenings, andtook him and his wife to the theater. 

At the end of that period he discharged his former attorney and retainedme. The business was easily worth thirty-five hundred dollars a year, and within a short time the Chicle Trust bought out his interests and Ibecame a director in it and one of its attorneys. 

I had already severed my connection with the firm and had opened anoffice of my own. Among the directors in the trust with whom I wasthrown were a couple of rich young men whose fathers had put them on theboard merely for purposes of representation. These I cultivated with thesame assiduity as I had used with the German. I spent my entire timegunning for big game. I went after the elephants and let the sparrowsgo. It was only a month or so before my acquaintance with these twoboys--for they were little else--had ripened into friendship. My wifeand I were invited to visit at their houses and I was placed in contactwith their fathers. From these I soon began to get business. I have keptit--kept it to myself. I have no real partners to steal it away from me. 

I am now the same kind of lawyer as the two men who composed the firmfor which I slaved at a hundred dollars a month. I find the work for myemployees to do. I am now an exploiter of labor. It is hardly necessaryfor me to detail the steps by which I gradually acquired what is knownas a gilt-edged practice; but it was not by virtue of my legalabilities, though they are as good as the average. I got it by puttingmyself in the eye of rich people in every way open to me. I even joineda fashionable church--it pains me to write this--for the sole purpose ofbecoming a member of the vestry and thus meeting on an intimate footingthe half-dozen millionaire merchants who composed it. One of them gaveme his business, made me his trustee and executor; and then I resignedfrom the vestry. 

I always made myself _persona grata_ to those who could help me along, wore the best clothes I could buy, never associated with shabby people, and appeared as much as possible in the company of my financial betters. It was the easier for me to do this because my name was not Irish, German or Hebraic. I had a good appearance, manners and an agreeablegloss of culture and refinement. I was tactful, considerate, and triedto strike a personal note in my intercourse with people who were worthwhile; in fact I made it a practice--and still do so--to send littlemementos to my newer acquaintances--a book or some such trifle--with aline expressing my pleasure at having met them. 

I know a considerable number of doctors, as well as lawyers, who havebuilt up lucrative practices by making love to their female clients andpatients. That I never did; but I always made it a point to flatter anywomen I took in to dinner, and I am now the trustee or business adviserfor at least half a dozen wealthy widows as a direct consequence. 

One reason for my success is, I discovered very early in the game thatno woman believes she really needs a lawyer. She consults an attorneynot for the purpose of getting his advice, but for sympathy and hisapproval of some course she has already decided on and perhaps alreadyfollowed. A lawyer who tells a woman the truth thereby loses a client. He has only to agree with her and compliment her on her astuteness andsagacity to intrench himself forever in her confidence. 

A woman will do what she wants to do--every time. She goes to a lawyerto explain why she intends to do it. She wants to have a man about onwhom she can put the blame if necessary, and is willing topay--moderately--for the privilege. She talks to a lawyer when no oneelse is willing to listen to her, and thoroughly enjoys herself. He isthe one man who--unless he is a fool--cannot talk back. 

Another fact to which I attribute a good deal of my professional éclatis, that I never let any of my social friends forget that I was a lawyeras well as a good fellow; and I always threw a hearty bluff at beingprosperous, even when a thousand or two was needed to cover theoverdraft in my bank account. It took me about ten years to land myselffirmly among the class to which I aspired, and ten years more to makethat place impregnable. 

To-day we are regarded as one of the older if not one of the oldfamilies in New York. I no longer have to lick anybody's boots, anduntil I began to pen these memoirs I had really forgotten that I everhad. Things come my way now almost of themselves. All I have to do is tobe on hand in my office--cheerful, hospitable, with a good story or soalways on tap. My junior force does the law work. Yet I challengeanybody to point out anything dishonorable in those tactics by which Ifirst got my feet on the lower rungs of the ladder of success. 

It may perhaps be that I should prefer to write down here the story ofhow, simply by my assiduity and learning, I acquired such a reputationfor a knowledge of the law that I was eagerly sought out by a horde ofclamoring clients who forced important litigations on me. Things do nothappen that way in New York to-day. 

Should a young man be blamed for getting on by the easiest way he can?Life is too complex; the population too big. People have no accuratemeans of finding out who the really good lawyers or doctors are. If youtell them you are at the head of your profession they are apt to believeyou, particularly if you wear a beard and are surrounded by anatmosphere of solemnity. Only a man's intimate circle knows where he isor what he is doing at any particular time. 

I remember a friend of mine who was an exceedingly popular member of oneof the exclusive Fifth Avenue clubs, and who, after going to Europe fora short vacation, decided to remain abroad for a couple of years. At theend of that time he returned to New York hungry for his old life andalmost crazy with delight at seeing his former friends. Entering theclub about five o'clock he happened to observe one of them sitting bythe window. He approached him enthusiastically, slapped him on theshoulder, extended his hand and cried:

"Hello, old man! It's good to see you again!"

The other man looked at him in a puzzled sort of way without moving. 

"Hello, yourself!" he remarked languidly. "It's good to see you, allright--but why make so much damned fuss about it?"

The next sentence interchanged between the two developed the fact thathe was totally ignorant that his friend had been away at all. This is byno means a fantastic illustration. It happens every day. That is one ofthe joys of living in New York. You can get drunk, steal a million orso, or run off with another man's wife--and no one will hear about ituntil you are ready for something else. In such a community it is notextraordinary that most people are taken at their face value. Lifemoves at too rapid a pace to allow us to find out much aboutanybody--even our friends. One asks other people to dinner simplybecause one has seen them at somebody's else house. 

I found it at first very difficult--in fact almost impossible--to spurmy wife on to a satisfactory cooperation with my efforts to make thehand of friendship feed the mouth of business. She rather indignantlyrefused to meet my chewing-gum client or call on his wife. She said shepreferred to keep her self-respect and stay in the boarding-house wherewe had resided since we moved to the city; but I demonstrated to her bymuch argument that it was worse than snobbish not to be decently politeto one's business friends. It was not their fault if they were vulgar. One might even help them to enlarge their lives. Gradually she cameround; and as soon as the old German had given me his business she wasthe first to suggest moving to an apartment hotel uptown. 

For a long time, however, she declined to make any genuine socialeffort. She knew two or three women from our neighborhood who wereliving in the city, and she used to go and sit with them in theafternoons and sew and help take care of the children. She said they andtheir husbands were good enough for her and that she had no aspirationstoward society. An evening at the theater--in the balcony--every twoweeks or so, and a rubber of whist on Saturday night, with achafing-dish supper afterward, was all the excitement she needed. Thatwas twenty-five years ago. To-day it is I who would put on the brakes, while she insists on shoveling soft coal into the social furnace. 

Her metamorphosis was gradual but complete. I imagine that her firstreluctance to essay an acquaintance with society arose out ofembarrassment and bashfulness. At any rate she no sooner discovered howsmall a bluff was necessary for success than she easily outdid me in theingenuity and finesse of her social strategy. It seemed to beinstinctive with her. She was always revising her calling lists andcutting out people who were no longer socially useful; and having gotwhat she could out of a new acquaintance, she would forget her ascompletely as if she had never made her the confidante of her inmostthoughts about other and less socially desirable people. 

It seems a bit cold-blooded--this criticism of one's wife; but I knowthat, however much of a sycophant I may have been in my younger days, mywife has outdone me since then. Presently we were both in the swim, swept off our feet by the current and carried down the river of success, willy-nilly, toward its mouth--to a safe haven, I wonder, or the delugeof a devouring cataract?

 * * * * *

The methods I adopted are those in general use, either consciously orunconsciously, among people striving for success in business, politicsor society in New York. It is a struggle for existence, precisely likethat which goes on in the animal world. Only those who have strength orcunning survive to achieve success. Might makes right to an extentlittle dreamed of by most of us. Nobody dares to censure or even mildlycriticize one who has influence enough to do him harm. We are interestedonly in safeguarding or adding to the possessions we have alreadysecured. We are wise enough to "play safe. " To antagonize one who mightassist in depriving us of some of them is contrary to the laws ofNature. 

Our thoughts are for ourselves and our children alone. The devil takeeverybody else! We are safe, warm and comfortable ourselves; we existwithout actual labor; and we desire our offspring to enjoy the same easeand safety. The rest of mankind is nothing to us, except a few people itis worth our while to be kind to--personal servants and employees. Weshould not hesitate to break all ten of the Commandments rather thanthat we and our children should lose a few material comforts. Anything, save that we should have really to work for a living!

There are essentially two sorts of work: first--genuine labor, whichrequires all a man's concentrated physical or mental effort; andsecond--that work which takes the laborer to his office at ten o'clockand, after an easy-going administrative morning, sets him at liberty atthree or four. 

The officer of an uptown trust company or bank is apt to belong to thelatter class. Or perhaps one is in real estate and does business at thedinner tables of his friends. He makes love and money at the same time. His salary and commissions correspond somewhat to the unearned incrementon the freeholds in which he deals. These are minor illustrations, but amajority of the administrative positions in our big corporations carrysalaries out of all proportion to the services rendered. 

These are the places my friends are all looking for--for themselves ortheir children. The small stockholder would not vote the president ofhis company a salary of one hundred thousand dollars a year, or thevice-president fifty thousand dollars; but the rich man who controls thestock is willing to give his brother or his nephew a soft snap. Fromwhat I know of corporate enterprise in these United States, God save theminority stockholder! But we and our brothers and sons and nephews mustlive--on Easy Street. We must be able to give expensive dinners and goto the theater and opera, and take our families to Europe--and we can'tdo it without money. 

We must be able to keep up our end without working too hard, to be safeand warm, well fed and smartly turned out, and able to call in aspecialist and a couple of trained nurses if one of the children fallsill; we want thirty-five feet of southerly exposure instead ofseventeen, menservants instead of maid-servants, and a new motor everytwo years. 

We do not object to working--that is to say, we pride ourselves onhaving a job. We like to be moderately busy. We would not have enough toamuse us all day if we did not go to the office in the morning; but whatwe do is not _work_! It is occupation perhaps--but there is no laborabout it, either of mind or body. It is a sinecure--a "cinch. " We couldstay at home and most of us would not be missed. It is not theseventy-five-hundred-dollar-a-year vice-president but theeight-hundred-and-fifty-dollar clerk for want of whom the machine wouldstop if he were sick. Our labor is a kind of masculine light housework. 

We probably have private incomes, thanks to our fathers or greatuncles--not large enough to enable us to cut much of a dash, to be sure, but sufficient to give us confidence--and the proceeds of our dailytoil, such as it is, go toward the purchase of luxuries merely. Becausewe are in business we are able to give bigger and more elegant dinnerparties, go to Palm Beach in February, and keep saddle-horses; but weshould be perfectly secure without working at all. 

Hence we have a sense of independence about it. We feel as if it wererather a favor on our part to be willing to go into an office; and weexpect to be paid vastly more proportionately than the fellow who needsthe place in order to live: so we cut him out of it at a salary threetimes what he would have been paid had he got the job, while he keeps ongrinding at the books as a subordinate. We come down late and go homeearly, drop in at the club and go out to dinner, take in the opera, wearfurs, ride in automobiles, and generally boss the show--for the solereason that we belong to the crowd who have the money. Very likely if wehad not been born with it we should die from malnutrition, or go toWard's Island suffering from some variety of melancholia brought on byworry over our inability to make a living. 

I read the other day the true story of a little East Side tailor whocould not earn enough to support himself and his wife. He becamehalf-crazed from lack of food and together they resolved to commitsuicide. Somehow he secured a small 22-caliber rook rifle and a coupleof cartridges. The wife knelt down on the bed in her nightgown, with herface to the wall, and repeated a prayer while he shot her in the back. When he saw her sink to the floor dead he became so unnerved that, instead of turning the rifle on himself, he ran out into the street, with chattering teeth, calling for help. 

This tragedy was absolutely the result of economic conditions, for theman was a hardworking and intelligent fellow, who could not findemployment and who went off his head from lack of nourishment. 

Now "I put it to you, " as they say in the English law courts, how muchof a personal sacrifice would you have made to prevent this tragedy?What would that little East Side Jewess' life have been worth to you?She is dead. Her soul may or may not be with God. As a suicide theChurch would say it must be in hell. Well, how much would you have doneto preserve her life or keep her soul out of hell?

Frankly, would you have parted with five hundred dollars to save thatwoman's life? Five hundred dollars? Let me tell you that you would notvoluntarily have given up smoking cigars for one year to avoid thattragedy! Of course you would have if challenged to do so. If the factthat the killing could be avoided in some such way or at a certainprice, and the discrepancy between the cost and the value of the lifewere squarely brought to your particular attention, you might andprobably would do something. How much is problematical. 

Let us do you the credit of saying that you would give five hundreddollars--and take it out of some other charity. But what if you weregiven _another_ chance to save a life for five hundred dollars? Allright; you will save that too. Now a third! You hesitate. That will bespending fifteen hundred dollars--a good deal. Still you decide to doit. Yet how embarrassing! You find an opportunity to save a fourth, afifth--a hundred lives at the same price! What are you going to do?

We all of us have such a chance in one way or another. The answer isthat, in spite of the admonition of Christ to sell our all and give tothe poor, and others of His teachings as contained in the Sermon on theMount, you probably, in order to save the lives of persons unknown toyou, would not sacrifice a single substantial material comfort for oneyear; and that your impulse to save the lives of persons actuallybrought to your knowledge would diminish, fade away and die in directproportion to the necessity involved of changing your present luxuriousmode of life. 

Do you know any rich woman who would sacrifice her automobile in orderto send convalescents to the country? She may be a very charitableperson and in the habit of sending such people to places where they arelikely to recover health; but, no matter how many she actually sends, there would always be eight or ten more who could share in that blessedprivilege if she gave up her motor and used the money for the purpose. Yet she does not do so and you do not do so; and, to be quite honest, you would think her a fool if she did. 

What an interesting thing it would be if we could see the mentalprocesses of some one of our friends who, unaware of our knowledge ofhis thoughts, was confronted with the opportunity of saving a life oraccomplishing a vast good at a great sacrifice of his worldlypossessions!

Suppose, for instance, he could save his own child by spending fiftythousand dollars in doctors, hospitals and nurses. Of course he would doso without a moment's hesitation, even if that was his entire fortune. But suppose the child were a nephew? We see him waver a little. Acousin--there is a distinct pause. Shall he pauperize himself just for acousin? How about a mere social acquaintance? Not much! He might in amoment of excitement jump overboard to save somebody from drowning; butit would have to be a dear friend or close relative to induce him to goto the bank and draw out all the money he had in the world to save thatsame life. 

The cities are full of lives that can be saved simply by spending alittle money; but we close our eyes and, with our pocket-books claspedtight in our hands, pass by on the other side. Why? Not because we donot wish to deprive ourselves of the necessaries of life or even of itssolid comforts, but because we are not willing to surrender our_amusements_. We want to play and not to work. That is what we aredoing, what we intend to keep on doing, and what we plan to have ourchildren do after us. 

Brotherly love? How can there be such a thing when there is a singlesick baby dying for lack of nutrition--a single convalescent suffocatingfor want of country air--a single family without fire or blankets?Suggest to your wife that she give up a dinner gown and use the money tosend a tubercular office boy to the Adirondacks--and listen to herexcuses! Is there not some charitable organization that does suchthings? Has not his family the money? How do you know he really hasconsumption? Is he a _good_ boy? And finally: "Well, one can't sendevery sick boy to the country; if one did there would be no money leftto bring up one's own children. " She hesitates--and the boy diesperhaps! So long as we do not see them dying, we do not really care howmany people die. 

Our altruism, such as it is, has nothing abstract about it. Thesuccessful man does not bother himself about things he cannot see. Donot talk about foreign missions to _him_. Try his less successfulbrother--the man who is _not_ successful because you can talk over withhim foreign missions or even more idealistic matters; who is a failurebecause he will make sacrifices for a principle. 

It is all a part of our materialism. Real sympathy costs too much money;so we try not to see the miserable creatures who might be restored tohealth for a couple of hundred dollars. A couple of hundred dollars?Why, you could take your wife to the theater forty times--once a weekduring the entire season--for that sum!

Poor people make sacrifices; rich ones do not. There is very little realcharity among successful people. A man who wasted his time helpingothers would never get on himself. 

 * * * * *

It will, of course, be said in reply that the world is full ofcharitable institutions supported entirely by the prosperous andsuccessful. That is quite true; but it must be remembered that they aresmall proof in themselves of the amount of real self-sacrifice andgenuine charity existing among us. 

Philanthropy is largely the occupation of otherwise ineffective people, or persons who have nothing else to do, or of retired capitalists wholike the notoriety and laudation they can get in no other way. But, evenwith philanthropy to amuse him, an idle multi-millionaire in theseUnited States has a pretty hard time of it. He is generally too old toenjoy society and is not qualified to make himself a particularlyagreeable companion, even if his manners would pass muster at Newport. Politics is too strenuous. Desirable diplomatic posts are few and thechoicer ones still require some dignity or educational qualification inthe holders. There is almost nothing left but to haunt the picturesales or buy a city block and order the construction of a Frenchchâteau in the middle of it. 

I know one of these men intimately; in fact I am his attorney and helpedhim make a part of his money. At sixty-four he retired--that is, heceased endeavoring to increase his fortune by putting up the price offoodstuffs and other commodities, or by driving competitors out ofbusiness. Since then he has been utterly wretched. He would like to bein society and dispense a lavish hospitality, but he cannot speak thelanguage of the drawing room. His opera box stands stark and empty. Hishouse, filled with priceless treasures fit for the Metropolitan Museum, is closed nine months in the year. 

His own wants are few. His wife is a plain woman, who used to do her owncooking and, in her heart, would like to do it still. He knows nothingof the esthetic side of life and is too old to learn. Once a month, inthe season, we dine at his house, with a mixed company, in a desert ofdining room at a vast table loaded with masses of gold plate. Thepeaches are from South Africa; the strawberries from the Riviera. Hischef ransacks the markets for pheasants, snipe, woodcock, Egyptian quailand canvasbacks. And at enormous distances from each other--so that thetable may be decently full--sit, with their wives, his family doctor, his clergyman, his broker, his secretary, his lawyer, and a few of themore presentable relatives--a merry party! And that is what he hasstriven, fought and lied for for fifty years. 

Often he has told me of the early days, when he worked from seven untilsix, and then studied in night school until eleven; and of the laterones when he and his wife lived, like ourselves, in a Fourteenth Streetlodging house and saved up to go to the theater once a month. As a youngman he swore he would have a million before he died. Sunday afternoonshe would go up to the Vanderbilt house on Fifth Avenue and, shaking hisfist before the ornamental iron railing, whisper savagely that he wouldown just such a house himself some day. When he got his million he wasgoing to retire. But he got his million at the age of forty-five, and itlooked too small and mean; he would have ten--then he would stop!

By fifty-five he had his ten millions. It was comparatively easy, Ibelieve, for him to get it. But still he was not satisfied. Now he hastwenty. But apart from his millions, his house and his pictures, whichare bought for him by an agent on a salary of ten thousand dollars ayear, he has nothing! I dine with him out of charity. 

Well, recently Johnson has gone into charity himself. I am told he hasgiven away two millions! That is an exact tenth of his fortune. He is areligious man--in this respect he has outdone most of his brothermillionaires. However, he still has an income of over a million ayear--enough to satisfy most of his modest needs. Yet the frugality of alifetime is hard to overcome, and I have seen Johnson walk home--sevenblocks--in the rain from his club rather than take a cab, when the sameevening he was giving his dinner guests peaches that cost--inDecember--two dollars and seventy-five cents apiece. 

The question is: How far have Johnson's two millions made him acharitable man? I confess that, so far as I can see, giving them up didnot cost him the slightest inconvenience. He merely bought a few hundreddollars' worth of reputation--as a charitable millionaire--at a cost oftwo thousand thousand dollars. It was--commercially--a miserablebargain. Only a comparatively few people of the five million inhabitantsof the city of New York ever heard of Johnson or his hospital. Now thatit has been built, he is no longer interested. I do not believe heactually got as much satisfaction out of his two-million-dollarinvestment as he would get out of an evening at the Hippodrome; but whocan say that he is not charitable?

 * * * * *

I lay stress on this matter of charity because essentially thecharitable man is the good man. And by good we mean one who is of valueto others as contrasted with one who is working, as most of us are, onlyfor his own pocket all the time. He is the man who is such an egoistthat he looks on himself as a part of the whole world and a brother tothe rest of mankind. He has really got an exaggerated ego and everybodyelse profits by it in consequence. 

He believes in abstract principles of virtue and would die for them; herecognizes duties and will struggle along, until he is a worn-out, penniless old man, to perform them. He goes out searching for those whoneed help and takes a chance on their not being deserving. Many a poorchap has died miserably because some rich man has judged that he was notdeserving of help. I forget what Lazarus did about the thirsty gentlemanin Hades--probably he did not regard him as deserving either. 

With most of us a charitable impulse is like the wave made by a stonethrown into a pool--it gets fainter and fainter the farther it has togo. Generally it does not go the length of a city block. It is notenough that there is a starving cripple across the way--he must be onyour own doorstep to rouse any interest. When we invest any of our moneyin charity we want twenty per cent interest, and we want it quarterly. We also wish to have a list of the stockholders made public. A man whohabitually smokes two thirty-cent cigars after dinner will drop aquarter into the plate on Sunday and think he is a good Samaritan. 

The truth of the matter is that whatever instinct leads us to contributetoward the alleviation of the obvious miseries of the poor shouldcompel us to go further and prevent those miseries--or as many of themas we can--from ever arising at all. 

So far as I am concerned, the division of goodness into seven or morespecific virtues is purely arbitrary. Virtue is generic. A man is eithergenerous or mean--unselfish or selfish. The unselfish man is the one whois willing to inconvenience or embarrass himself, or to deprive himselfof some pleasure or profit for the benefit of others, either now orhereafter. 

By the same token, now that I have given thought to the matter, Iconfess that I am a selfish man--at bottom. Whatever generosity Ipossess is surface generosity. It would not stand the acid test ofself-interest for a moment. I am generous where it is worth mywhile--that is all; but, like everybody else in my class, I have nogenerosity so far as my social and business life is concerned. I amwilling to inconvenience myself somewhat in my intimate relations withmy family or friends, because they are really a part of _me_--and, anyway, not to do so would result, one way or another, in even greaterinconvenience to me. 

Once outside my own house, however, I am out for myself and nobody else, however much I may protest that I have all the civic virtues and deceivethe public into thinking I have. What would become of me if I did notlook out for my own interests in the same way my associates look outfor theirs? I should be lost in the shuffle. The Christian virtues maybe proclaimed from every pulpit and the Banner of the Cross fly fromevery housetop; but in business it is the law of evolution and not theSermon on the Mount that controls. 

The rules of the big game are the same as those of the Romanamphitheater. There is not even a pretense that the same code of moralscan obtain among corporations and nations as among private individuals. Then why blame the individuals? It is just a question of dog eat dog. Weare all after the bone. 

No corporation would shorten the working day except by reason ofself-interest or legal compulsion. No business man would attack an abusethat would take money out of his own pocket. And no one of us, exceptout of revenge or pique, would publicly criticize or condemn a maninfluential enough to do us harm. The political Saint George usuallyhopes to jump from the back of the dead dragon of municipal corruptioninto the governor's chair. 

We have two standards of conduct--the ostensible and the actual. Thefirst is a convention--largely literary. It is essentially merely amatter of manners--to lubricate the wheels of life. The genuine sphereof its influence extends only to those with whom we have actual contact;so that a breach of it would be embarrassing to us. Within thisqualified circle we do business as "Christians & Company, Limited. "Outside this circle we make a bluff at idealistic standards, but areguided only by the dictates of self-interest, judged almost entirely bypecuniary tests. 

I admit, however, that, though I usually act from selfish motives, Iwould prefer to act generously if I could do so without financial loss. That is about the extent of my altruism, though I concede an omnipresentconsciousness of what is abstractly right and what is wrong. Occasionally, but very rarely, I even blindly follow this instinctirrespective of consequences. 

There have been times when I have been genuinely self-sacrificing. Indeed I should unhesitatingly die for my son, my daughters--andprobably for my wife. I have frequently suffered financial loss ratherthan commit perjury or violate my sense of what is right. I have calledthis sense an instinct, but I do not pretend to know what it is. Neithercan I explain its origin. If it is anything it is probably utilitarian;but it does not go very far. I have manners rather than morals. 

Fundamentally I am honest, because to be honest is one of the rules ofthe game I play. If I were caught cheating I should not be allowed toparticipate. Honesty from this point of view is so obviously the bestpolicy that I have never yet met a big man in business who was crooked. Mind you, they were most of them pirates--frankly flying the black flagand each trying to scuttle the other's ships; but their word was as goodas their bond and they played the game squarely, according to the rules. Men of my class would no more stoop to petty dishonesties than theywould wear soiled linen. The word lie is not in their mutual language. They may lie to the outside public--I do not deny that they do--but theydo not lie to each other. 

There has got to be some basis on which they can do business with oneanother--some stability. The spoils must be divided evenly. Good morals, like good manners, are a necessity in our social relations. They are theuncodified rules of conduct among gentlemen. Being uncodified, they areexceedingly vague; and the court of Public Opinion that administers themis apt to be not altogether impartial. It is a "respecter of persons. "

One man can get away with things that another man will hang for. A JeanValjean will steal a banana and go to the Island, while some rich fellowwill put a bank in his pocket and everybody will treat it as a joke. Apopular man may get drunk and not be criticized for it; but the sourchap who does the same thing is flung out of the club. There is littlejustice in the arbitrary decisions of society at large. 

In a word we exact a degree of morality from our fellowmen precisely inproportion to its apparent importance to ourselves. It is a purelypractical and even a rather shortsighted matter with us. Our friend'sprivate conduct, so far as it does not concern us, is an affair of smallmoment. He can be as much of a roue as he chooses, so long as herespects our wives and daughters. He can put through a giganticcommercial robbery and we will acclaim his nerve and audacity, providedhe is on the level with ourselves. That is the reason why cheating one'sclub members at cards is regarded as worse than stealing the fundsbelonging to widows and orphans. 

So long as a man conducts himself agreeably in his daily intercoursewith his fellows they are not going to put themselves out very greatlyto punish him for wrongdoing that does not touch their own bank accountsor which merely violates their private ethical standards. Society iscrowded with people who have been guilty of one detestable act, have gotthereby on Easy Street and are living happily ever after. 

I meet constantly fifteen or twenty men who have deliberately marriedwomen for their money--of course without telling them so. According toour professed principles this is--to say the least--obtaining moneyunder false pretenses--a crime under the statutes. These men are nowmillionaires. They are crooks and swindlers of the meanest sort. Hadthey not married in this fashion they could not have earned fifteenhundred dollars a year; but everybody goes to their houses and eatstheir dinners. 

There are others, equally numerous, who acquired fortunes byblackmailing corporations or by some deal that at the time of itsaccomplishment was known to be crooked. To-day they are received on thesame terms as men who have been honest all their lives. Society is notparticular as to the origin of its food supply. Though we might refuseto steal money ourselves we are not unwilling to let the thief spend iton us. We are too busy and too selfish to bother about trying to punishthose who deserve punishment. 

On the contrary we are likely to discover surprising virtues in the mostunpromising people. There are always extenuating circumstances. Indeed, in those rare instances where, in the case of a rich man, the socialchickens come home to roost, the reason his fault is not overlooked isusually so arbitrary or fortuitous that it almost seems an injusticethat he should suffer when so many others go scot-free for theirmisdeeds. 

Society has no conscience, and whatever it has as a substitute isusually stimulated only by motives of personal vengeance. It is easierto gloss over an offense than to make ourselves disagreeable and perhapsunpopular. 

We have not even the public spirit to have a thief arrested and appearagainst him in court if he has taken from us only a small amount ofmoney. It is too much trouble. Only when our pride is hurt do we callloudly on justice and honor. 

Even revenge is out of fashion. It requires too much effort. Few of ushave enough principle to make ourselves uncomfortable in attempting toshow disapproval toward wrongdoers. Were this not so, the wicked wouldnot be still flourishing like green bay trees. So long as one stealsenough he can easily buy our forgiveness. Honesty is not the bestpolicy--except in trifles. 

CHAPTER VI

MY FUTURE

When I began to pen these wandering confessions--or whatever they mayproperly be called--it was with the rather hazy purpose of endeavoringto ascertain why it was that I, universally conceded to be a successfulman, was not happy. As I reread what I have written I realize that, instead of being a successful man in any way, I am an abject failure. 

The preceding pages need no comment. The facts speak for themselves. Ihad everything in my favor at the start. I had youth, health, naturalability, a good wife, friends and opportunity; but I blindly acceptedthe standards of the men I saw about me and devoted my energies to theachievement of the single object that was theirs--the getting of money. 

Thirty years have gone by. I have been a leader in the race and I havesecured a prize. But at what cost? I am old--a bundle of undesirablehabits; my health is impaired; my wife has become a frivolous andextravagant woman; I have no real friends: my children are strangers tome, and I have no home. I have no interest in my family, my socialacquaintances, or in the affairs of the city or nation. I take nosincere pleasure in art or books or outdoor life. The only genuinesatisfaction that is mine is in the first fifteen-minutes' flush aftermy afternoon cocktail and the preliminary course or two of my dinner. Ihave nothing to look forward to. No matter how much money I make, thereis no use to which I can put it that will increase my happiness. 

From a material standpoint I have achieved everything I can possiblydesire. No king or emperor ever approximated the actual luxury of mydaily life. No one ever accomplished more apparent work with less actualpersonal effort. I am a master at the exploitation of intellectuallabor. 

I have motors, saddle-horses, and a beautiful summer cottage at a cooland fashionable resort. I travel abroad when the spirit moves me; Ientertain lavishly and am entertained in return; I smoke the costliestcigars; I have a reputation at the bar, and I have an established incomelarge enough to sustain at least sixty intelligent people and theirfamilies in moderate comfort. This must be true, for on the one hundredand twenty-five dollars a month I pay my chauffeur he supports a wifeand two children, sends them to school and on a three-months' vacationinto the country during the summer. And, instead of all these thingsgiving me any satisfaction, I am miserable and discontented. 

The fact that I now realize the selfishness of my life led me to-day toresolve to do something for others--and this resolve had an unexpectedand surprising consequence. 

Heretofore I had been engaged in an introspective study of my ownattitude toward my fellows. I had not sought the evidence of outsideparties. What has just occurred has opened my eyes to the fact thatothers have not been nearly so blind as I have been myself. 

James Hastings, my private secretary, is a man of about forty-five yearsof age. He has been in my employ fifteen years. He is a fine type of manand deserves the greatest credit for what he has accomplished. Beginninglife as an office boy at three dollars a week, he educated himself byattending school at night, learned stenography and typewriting, and hasbecome one of the most expert law stenographers in Wall Street. Ibelieve that, without being a lawyer, he knows almost as much law as Ido. 

Gradually I have raised his wages until he is now getting fifty dollarsa week. In addition to this he does night-work at the Bar Association atdouble rates, acts as stenographer at legal references, and does, Iunderstand, some trifling literary work besides. I suppose he earns fromthirty-five hundred to five thousand dollars a year. About thirteenyears ago he married one of the woman stenographers in the office--anice girl she was too--and now they have a couple of children. He livessomewhere in the country and spends an unconscionable time on the traindaily, yet he is always on hand at an early hour. 

What happened to-day was this: A peculiarly careful piece of work hadbeen done in the way of looking up a point of corporation law, and Iinquired who was responsible for briefing it. Hastings smiled and saidhe had done so. As I looked at him it suddenly dawned on me that thisman might make real money if he studied for the bar and started inpractice for himself. He had brains and an enormous capacity for work. Ishould dislike losing so capable a secretary, but it would be doing hima good turn to let him know what I thought; and it was time that I didsomebody a good turn from an unselfish motive. 

"Hastings, " I said, "you're too good to be merely a stenographer. Whydon't you study law and make some money? I'll keep you here in myoffice, throw things in your way and push you along. What do you say?"

He flushed with gratification, but, after a moment's respectfulhesitation, shook his head. 

"Thank you very much, sir, " he replied, "but I wouldn't care to do it. Ireally wouldn't!"

Though I am fond of the man, his obstinacy nettled me. 

"Look here!" I cried. "I'm offering you an unusual chance. You hadbetter think twice before you decline such an opportunity to makesomething of yourself. If you don't take it you'll probably remain whatyou are as long as you live. Seize it and you may do as well as I have. "

Hastings smiled faintly. 

"I'm very sorry, sir, " he repeated. "I'm grateful to you for yourinterest; but--I hope you'll excuse me--I wouldn't change places withyou for a million dollars! No--not for ten million!"

He blurted out the last two sentences like a schoolboy, standing andtwisting his notebook between his fingers. 

There was something in his tone that dashed my spirits like a bucket ofcold water. He had not meant to be impertinent. He was the most truthfulman alive. What did he mean? Not willing to change places with me! Itwas my turn to flush. 

"Oh, very well!" I answered in as indifferent a manner as I couldassume. "It's up to you. I merely meant to do you a good turn. We'llthink no more about it. "

I continued to think about it, however. Would not change places withme--a fifty-dollar-a-week clerk!

Hastings' pointblank refusal of my good offices, coming as it did hardon the heels of my own realization of failure, left me sick at heart. What sort of an opinion could this honest fellow, my mereemployee--dependent on my favor for his very bread--have of me, hismaster? Clearly not a very high one! I was stung to thequick--chagrined; ashamed. 

 * * * * *

It was Saturday morning. The week's work was practically over. All of myclients were out of town--golfing, motoring, or playing poker atCedarhurst. There was nothing for me to do at the office but to indorsehalf a dozen checks for deposit. I lit a cigar and looked out the windowof my cave down on the hurrying throng below. A resolute, never-pausingstream of men plodded in each direction. Now and then others dashed outof the doors of marble buildings and joined the crowd. 

On the river ferryboats were darting here and there from shore to shore. There was a bedlam of whistles, the thunder of steam winches, the clangof surface cars, the rattle of typewriters. To what end? Down at thecurb my motor car was in waiting. I picked up my hat and passed into theouter office. 

"By the way, Hastings, " I said casually as I went by his desk, "whereare you living now?"

He looked up smilingly. 

"Pleasantdale--up Kensico way, " he answered. 

I shifted my feet and pulled once or twice on my cigar. I had taken astrange resolve. 

"Er--going to be in this afternoon?" I asked. "I'm off for a run and Imight drop in for a cup of tea about five o'clock. "

"Oh, will you, sir!" he exclaimed with pleasure. "We shall be delighted. Mine is the house at the crossroads--with the red roof. "

"Well, " said I, "you may see me--but don't keep your tea waiting. "

As I shot uptown in my car I had almost the feeling of a comingadventure. Hastings was a good sort! I respected him for his bluntnessof speech. At the cigar counter in the club I replenished my case. 

Then I went into the reception room, where I found a bunch ofacquaintances sitting round the window. They hailed me boisterously. What would I have to drink? I ordered a "Hannah Elias" and sank into achair. One of them was telling about the newest scandal in the divorceline: The president of one of our largest trust companies had beendiscovered to have been leading a double life--running an apartment onthe West Side for a haggard and _passée_ showgirl. 

"You just tell me--I'd like to know--why a fellow like that makes such adamned fool of himself! Salary of fifty thousand dollars a year! Bighouse; high-class wife and family; yacht--everything anybody wants. Nota drinking man either. It defeats me!" he said. 

None of the group seemed able to suggest an answer. I had just tossedoff my "Hannah Elias. "

"I think I know, " I hazarded meditatively. They turned with one accordand stared at me. "There was nothing else for him to do, " I continued, "except to blow his brains out. "

The raconteur grunted. 

"I don't just know the meaning of that!" he remarked. "I thought he wasa friend of yours!"

"Oh, I like him well enough, " I answered, getting up. "Thanks for thedrink. I've got to be getting home. My wife is giving a little luncheonto thirty valuable members of society. "

I was delayed on Fifth Avenue and when the butler opened the front doorthe luncheon party was already seated at the table. A confused dinemanated from behind the portières of the dining room, punctuated byshouts of female laughter. The idea of going in and overloading mystomach for an hour, while strenuously attempting to produce lightconversation, sickened me. I shook my head. 

"Just tell your mistress that I've been suddenly called away onbusiness, " I directed the butler and climbed back into my motor. 

"Up the river!" I said to my chauffeur. 

We spun up the Riverside Drive, past rows of rococo apartment houses, along the Lafayette Boulevard and through Yonkers. It was a gloriousautumn day. The Palisades shone red and yellow with turning foliage. There was a fresh breeze down the river and a thousand whitecaps gleamedin the sunlight. Overhead great white clouds moved majestically athwartthe blue. But I took no pleasure in it all. I was suffering from anacute mental and physical depression. Like Hamlet I had lost all mymirth--whatever I ever had--and the clouds seemed but a "pestilentcongregation of vapors. " I sat in a sort of trance as I was whirledfarther and farther away from the city. 

At last I noticed that my silver motor clock was pointing to half-pasttwo, and I realized that neither the chauffeur nor myself had hadanything to eat since breakfast. We were entering a tiny village. Justbeyond the main square a sign swinging above the sidewalk invitedwayfarers to a "quick lunch. " I pressed the button and we pulled to thegravel walk. 

"Lunch!" I said, and opened the wire-netted door. Inside there were halfa dozen oilcloth-covered tables and a red-cheeked young woman was sewingin a corner. 

"What have you got?" I asked, inspecting the layout. 

"Tea, coffee, milk--eggs any style you want, " she answered cheerily. Then she laughed in a good-natured way. "There's a real hotel atPoughkeepsie--five miles along, " she added. 

"I don't want a real hotel, " I replied. "What are you laughing at?"

Then I realized that I must look rather civilized for a motorist. 

"You don't look as you'd care for eggs, " she said. 

"That's where you're wrong, " I retorted. "I want three of the biggest, yellowest, roundest poached eggs your fattest hen ever laid--and aschooner of milk. "

The girl vanished into the back of the shop and presently I could smelltoast. I discovered I was extremely hungry. In about eight minutes shecame back with a tray on which was a large glass of creamy milk and thetriple eggs for which I had prayed. They were spherical, white andwabbly. 

"You're a prize poacher, " I remarked, my spirits reviving. 

She smiled appreciatively. 

"Going far?" she inquired, sitting down quite at ease at one of theneighboring tables. 

I looked pensively at her pleasant face across the eggs. 

"That's a question, " I answered. "I can't make out whether I've beenmoving on or just going round and round in a circle. "

She looked puzzled for an instant. Then she said shrewdly:

"Perhaps you've really been _going back_. "

"Perhaps, " I admitted. 

I have never tasted anything quite so good as those eggs and that milk. From where I sat I could look far up the Hudson; the wind from the riverswayed the red maples round the door of the quick lunch; and from thekitchen came the homely smells of my lost youth. I had a fleeting visionof the party at my house, now playing bridge for ten cents a point; andmy soul lifted its head for the first time in weeks. 

"How far is it to Pleasantdale?"

"A long way, " answered the girl; "but you can make a connection bytrolley that will get you there in about two hours. "

"Suits me!" I said and stepped to the door. "You can go, James; I'll getmyself home. "

He cast on me a scandalized look. 

"Very good, sir!" he answered and touched his cap. 

He must have thought me either a raving lunatic or an unabashedadventurer. A moment more and the car disappeared in the direction ofthe city. I was free! The girl made no attempt to conceal her amusement. 

Behind the door was a gray felt hat. I took it down and looked at thesize. It was within a quarter of my own. 

"Look here, " I suggested, holding out a five-dollar bill, "I want aWishing Cap. Let me take this, will you?"

"The house is yours!" she laughed. 

Over on the candy counter was a tray of corncob pipes. I helped myselfto one, to a package of tobacco and a box of matches. I hung my derby onthe vacant peg behind the door. Then I turned to my hostess. 

"You're a good girl, " I said. "Good luck to you. "

For a moment something softer came into her eyes. 

"And good luck to you, sir!" she replied. As I passed down the steps shethrew after me: "I hope you'll find--what you're looking for!"

 * * * * *

In my old felt hat and smoking my corncob I trudged along the road inthe mellow sunlight, almost happy. By and by I reached the trolley line;and for five cents, in company with a heterogeneous lot of countryfolks, Italian laborers and others, was transported an absurdly longdistance across the state of New York to a wayside station. 

There I sat on a truck on the platform and chatted with a husky, broad-shouldered youth, who said he was the "baggage smasher, " untilfinally a little smoky train appeared and bore me southward. It was thebest holiday I had had in years--and I was sorry when we pulled intoPleasantdale and I took to my legs again. 

In the fading afternoon light it indeed seemed a pleasant, restfulplace. Comfortable cottages, each in its own yard, stood in neighborlyrows along the shaded street. Small boys were playing football in afield adjoining a schoolhouse. 

Presently the buildings became more scattered and I found myselffollowing a real country road, though still less than half a mile fromthe station. Ahead it divided and in the resulting triangle, behind awell-clipped hedge, stood a pretty cottage with a red roof--Hastings', Iwas sure. 

I tossed away my pipe and opened the gate. A rather pretty woman ofabout thirty-five was reading in a red hammock; there were half a dozenstraw easy chairs and near by a teatable, with the kettle steaming. Mrs. Hastings looked up at my step on the gravel path and smiled a welcome. 

"Jim has been playing golf over at the club--he didn't expect you untilfive, " she said, coming to meet me. 

"I don't care whether he comes or not, " I returned gallantly. "I want tosee you. Besides, I'm as hungry as a bear. " She raised her eyebrows. "Ihad only an egg or so and a glass of milk for luncheon, and I havewalked--miles!"

"Oh!" she exclaimed. I could see she had had quite a different idea ofher erstwhile employer; but my statement seemed to put us on a morefriendly footing from the start. 

"I love walking too, " she hastened to say. "Isn't it wonderful to-day?We get weeks of such weather as this every autumn. " She busied herselfover the teacups and then, stepping inside the door for a moment, returned with a plate piled high with buttered toast, and another withsandwiches of grape jelly. 

"Carmen is out, " she remarked; "otherwise you should be served ingreater style. "

"Carmen?"

"Carmen is our maid, butler and valet, " she explained. "It's such arelief to get her out of the way once in a while and have the house allto oneself. That's one of the reasons I enjoy our two-weeks' campingtrip so much every summer. "

"You like the woods?"

"Better than anything, I think--except just being at home here. And thechildren have the time of their lives--fishing and climbing trees, andwatching for deer in the boguns. "

The gate clicked at that moment and Hastings, golf bag on shoulders, came up the path. He looked lean, brown, hard and happy. 

"Just like me to be late!" he apologized. "I had no idea it would takeme so long to beat Colonel Bogey. "

"Your excuses are quite unnecessary. Mrs. Hastings and I have discoveredthat we are natural affinities, " said I. 

My stenographer, quite at ease, leaned his sticks in a corner and helpedhimself to a cup of tea and a couple of sandwiches, which in my opinionrivaled my eggs and milk of the early afternoon. My walk had made mecomfortably tired; my lungs were distended with cool country air; myhead was clear, and this domestic scene warmed the cockles of my heart. 

"How is the Chicopee & Shamrock reorganization coming on?" askedHastings, striving to be polite by suggesting a congenial subject forconversation. 

"I don't know, " I retorted. "I've forgotten all about it until Mondaymorning. On the other hand, how are your children coming on?"

"Sylvia is out gathering chestnuts, " answered Mrs. Hastings, "and Tom isplaying football. They'll be home directly. I wonder if you wouldn'tlike Jim to show you round our place?"

"Just the thing, " I answered, for I guessed she had household duties toperform. 

"Of course you'll stay to supper?" she pressed me. 

I hesitated, though I knew I should stay, all the time. 

"Well--if it really won't put you out, " I replied. "I suppose there areevening trains?"

"One every hour. We'll get you home by ten o'clock. "

"I'll have to telephone, " I said, remembering my wife's regularSaturday-night bridge party. 

"That's easily managed, " said Hastings. "You can speak to your own houseright from my library. "

Again I barefacedly excused myself to my butler on the ground ofimportant business. As we strolled through the gateway we were met by asturdy little boy with tousled hair. He had on an enormous gray sweaterand was hugging a pigskin. 

"We beat 'em!" he shouted, unabashed by my obviously friendly presence. "Eighteen to nothing!"

"Tom is twelve, " said Hastings with a shade of pride in his voice. "Yes, the schools here are good. I expect to have him ready for college infive years more. "

"What are you going to make of him?" I asked. 

"A civil engineer, I think, " he answered. "You see, I'm a crank on freshair and building things--and he seems to be like me. This cooped-up citylife is pretty narrowing, don't you think?"

"It's fierce!" I returned heartily, with more warmth than elegance. "Sometimes I wish I could chuck the whole business and go to farming. "

"Why not?" he asked as we climbed a small rise behind the house. "Here'smy farm--fifteen acres. We raise most of our own truck. "

Below the hill a cornfield, now yellow with pumpkins, stretched to thefarther road. Nearer the house was a kitchen garden, with an appleorchard beyond. A man in shirtsleeves was milking a cow behind a tinybarn. 

"I bought this place three years ago for thirty-nine hundred dollars, "said my stenographer. "They say it is worth nearer six thousand now. Anyhow it is worth a hundred thousand to me!"

A little girl, with bulging apron, appeared at the edge of the orchardand came running toward us. 

"What have you got there?" called her father. 

"Oh, daddy! Such lovely chestnuts!" cried the child. "And there aremillions more of them!"

"We'll roast 'em after supper, " said her father. "Toddle along now andwash up. "

She put up a rosy, beaming face to be kissed and dashed away toward thehouse. I tried to remember what either of my two girls had been like ather age, but for some strange reason I could not. 

Across the road the fertile countryside sloped away into a distantvalley, hemmed in by dim blue hills, below which the sun had alreadysunk, leaving only a gilded edge behind. The air was filled with a soft, smoky haze. A church bell in the village struck six o'clock. 

 "_The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way_, "

I murmured. 

"For 'plowman' read 'golfer, '" smiled my host. "By George, though--it ispretty good to be alive!" The air had turned crisp and we bothinstinctively took a couple of deep breaths. "Makes the city look likethirty cents!" he ejaculated. "Of course it isn't like New York orSouthampton. "

"No, thank God! It isn't!" I muttered as we wandered toward the house. 

"I hope you don't mind an early supper, " apologized Mrs. Hastings as weentered; "but Jim gets absolutely ravenous. You see, on weekdays hislunch is at best a movable feast. "

Our promptly served meal consisted of soup, scrambled eggs and bacon, broiled chops, fried potatoes, peas, salad, apple pie, cheese, grapesplucked fresh from the garden wall, and black coffee, distilled from ashining coffee machine. Mrs. Hastings brought the things hot from thekitchen and dished them herself. Tom and Sylvia, carefully spruced up, ate prodigiously and then helped clear away the dishes, while I producedmy cigar case. 

Then Hastings led me across the hall to a room about twelve feet square, the walls of which were lined with books, where a wood fire was alreadycrackling cozily. Motioning me to an old leather armchair, he pulled upa wooden rocker before the mantel and, leaning over, laid a regiment ofchestnuts before the blazing logs. 

I stretched out my legs and took a long pull on one of myCarona-Caronas. It all seemed too good to be true. Only six hours beforein my marble entrance hall I had listened disgustedly to the cackle ofmy wife's luncheon party behind the tapestry of my own dining room. 

After all, how easy it was to be happy! Here was Hastings, jolly as aclam and living like a prince on--what? I wondered. 

"Hastings, " I said, "do you mind telling me how much it costs you tolive like this?"

"Not at all, " he replied--"though I never figured it out exactly. Let'ssee. Five per cent on the cost of the place--say, two hundred dollars. Repairs and insurance a hundred. That's three hundred, isn't it? We paythe hired man thirty-five dollars and Carmen eighteen dollars a month, and give 'em their board--about six hundred and fifty more. So far ninehundred and fifty. Our vegetables and milk cost us practicallynothing--meat and groceries about seventy-five a month--nine hundred ayear. 

"We have one horse; but in good weather I use my bicycle to go to thestation. We cut our own ice in the pond back of the orchard. The schoolsare free. I cut quite a lot of wood myself, but my coal comes high--mustcost me at least a hundred and fifty a year. I don't have many doctors'bills, living out here; but the dentist hits us for about twenty-fivedollars every six months--that's fifty more. My wife spends about threehundred and the children as much more. Of course that's fairly liberal. One doesn't need ballgowns in our village. 

"My own expenses are, railroad fare, lunches, tobacco--I smoke a pipemostly--and clothes--probably about five hundred in all. We go on a bigbat once a month and dine at a table-d'hôte restaurant, and take in theopera or the play. That costs some--about ten dollars a clip--say, eighty for the season; and, of course, I blow the kids to a camping tripevery summer, which sets me back a good hundred and fifty. How does thatcome out?"

I had jotted the items down, as he went along, on the back of anenvelope. 

"Thirty-three hundred and eighty dollars, " I said, adding them up. 

"It seems a good deal, " he commented, turning and gazing into the fire;"but I have usually managed to lay up about fifteen hundred everyyear--besides, of course, the little I give away. "

I sat stunned. Thirty-three hundred dollars!--I spent seventy-twothousand!--and the man lived as well as I did! What did I have that hehad not? But Hastings was saying something, still with his back towardme. 

"I suppose you thought I must be an ungrateful dog not to jump at theoffer you made me this morning, " he remarked in an embarrassed manner. "It's worried me a lot all day. I'm really tremendously gratified atyour kindness. I couldn't very well explain myself, and I don't knowwhat possessed me to say what I did about my not being willing toexchange places with you. But, you see, I'm over forty. That makes aheap of difference. I'm as good a stenographer as you can find, and solong as my health holds out I can be sure of at least fifty dollars aweek, besides what I earn outside. 

"I've never had any kink for the law. I don't think I'd be a success atit; and frankly, saving your presence, I don't like it. A lot of it iseasy money and a lot of it is money earned in the meanest way thereis--playing dirty tricks; putting in the wrong a fellow that's reallyright; aggravating misunderstandings and profiting by the quarrelspeople get into. You're a high-class, honorable man, and you don't seethe things I see. " I winced. If he only knew, I had seen a good deal!"But I go round among the other law offices, and I tell you it's ademoralizing profession. 

"It's all right to reorganize a railroad; but in general litigation itseems to me as if the lawyers spend most of their time trying to makethe judge and jury believe the witnesses are all criminals. Everything aman says on the stand or has ever done in his life is made the subjectof a false inference--an innuendo. The law isn't constructive--it'sdestructive; and that's why I want my boy to be a civil engineer. "

He paused, abashed at his own heat. 

"Well, " I interjected, "it's a harsh arraignment; but there's a greatdeal of truth in what you say. Wouldn't you like to make big money?"

"Big money! I do make big money--for a man of my class, " he replied witha gentle smile. "I wouldn't know what to do with much more. I've gothealth and a comfortable home, the affection of an honest woman and twofine children. I work hard, sleep like a log, and get a couple of setsof tennis or a round of golf on Saturdays and Sundays. I have thesatisfaction of knowing I give you your money's worth for the salary youpay me. My kids have as good teachers as there are anywhere. We seeplenty of people and I belong to a club or two. I bear a good reputationin the town and try to keep things going in the right direction. We haveall the books and magazines we want to read. What's more, I don't worryabout trying to be something I'm not. "

"How do you mean?" I asked, feeling that his talk was money in my moralpocket. 

"Oh, I've seen a heap of misery in New York due to just wanting to getahead--I don't know where; fellows that are just crazy to make 'bigmoney' as you call it, in order to ride in motors and get into some sortof society. All the clerks, office boys and stenographers seem to wantto become stockbrokers. Personally I don't see what there is in it forthem. I don't figure out that my boy would be any happier with twomillion dollars than without. If he had it he would be worrying all thetime for fear he wasn't getting enough fun for his money. And as for mygirl I want her to learn to do something! I want her to have thediscipline that comes from knowing how to earn her own living. Of coursethat's one of the greatest satisfactions there is in life anyway--doingsome one thing as well as it can be done. "

"Wouldn't you like your daughter to marry?" I demanded. 

"Certainly--if she can find a clean man who wants her. Why, it goeswithout saying, that is life's greatest happiness--that and havingchildren. "

"Certainly!" I echoed with an inward qualm. 

"Suppose she doesn't marry though? That's the point. She doesn't want tohang round a boarding house all her life when everybody is busy doinginteresting things. I've got a theory that the reason richpeople--especially rich women--get bored is because they don't knowanything about real life. Put one of 'em in a law office, hitting atypewriter at fifteen dollars a week, and in a month she'd wake up towhat was really going on--she'd be _alive_!"

 "'_The world is so full of a number of things I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings_!'"

said I. "What's Sylvia going to do?"

"Oh, she's quite a clever little artist. " He handed me some charmingsketches in pencil that were lying on the table. "I think she may makean illustrator. Heaven knows we need 'em! I'll give her a course atPratt Institute and then at the Academy of Design; and after that, ifthey think she is good enough, I'll send her to Paris. "

"I wish I'd done the same thing with my girls!" I sighed. "But thetrouble is--the trouble is--You see, if I had they wouldn't have beendoing what their friends were doing. They'd have been out of it. "

"No; they wouldn't like that, of course, " agreed Hastings respectfully. "They would want to be 'in it'"

I looked at him quickly to see whether his remark had a double entendre. 

"I don't see very much of my daughters, " I continued. "They've got awayfrom me somehow. "

"That's the tough part of it, " he said thoughtfully. "I suppose richpeople are so busy with all the things they have to do that they haven'tmuch time for fooling round with their children. I have a good time withmine though. They're too young to get away anyhow. We read Frenchhistory aloud every evening after supper. Sylvia is almost an expert onthe Duke of Guise and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. "

We smoked silently for some moments. Hastings' ideas interested me, butI felt that he could give me something more personal--of more value tomyself. The fellow was really a philosopher in his quiet way. 

"After all, you haven't told me what you meant by saying you wouldn'tchange places with me, " I said abruptly. "What did you mean by that? Iwant to know. "

"I wish you would forget I ever said it, sir, " he murmured. 

"No, " I retorted, "I can't forget it. You needn't spare me. This talk isnot _ex cathedra_--it's just between ourselves. When you've told me why, then I will forget it. This is man to man. "

"Well, " he answered slowly, "it would take me a long time to put it injust the right way. There was nothing personal in what I said thismorning. I was thinking about conditions in general--the whole thing. Itcan't go on!"

"What can't go on?"

"The terrible burden of money, " he said. 

"Terrible burden of money!" I repeated. What did he mean?

"The weight of it--that's bowing people down and choking them up. It'slike a ball and chain. I meant I wouldn't change places with any man inthe millionaire class--I couldn't stand the complexities andresponsibilities. I believe the time is coming when no citizen will bepermitted to receive an income from his inherited or accumulatedpossessions greater than is good for him. You may say that's the wildestsort of socialism. Perhaps it is. But it's socialism looked at from adifferent angle from the platform orators--the angle of the individual. 

"I don't believe a man's money should be taken away from him anddistributed round for the sake of other people--but for the protectionof the man himself. There's got to be a pecuniary safety valve. Everydollar over a certain amount, just like every extra pound of steam in aboiler, is a thing of danger. We want health in the individual and inthe state--not disease. 

"Let the amount of a man's income be five, ten, fifteen or twentythousand dollars--the exact figure doesn't matter; but there is a limitat which wealth becomes a drag and a detriment instead of a benefit! I'dbase the legality of a confiscatory income tax on the constitutionalityof any health regulation or police ordinance. People shouldn't bepermitted to injure themselves--or have poison lying round. Certainlyit's a lesson that history teaches on every page. 

"Besides everybody needs something to work for--to keep him fit--atleast that's the way it looks to me. Nations--let alone mereindividuals--have simply gone to seed, died of dry rot because they nolonger had any stimulus. A fellow has got to have some idea in the backof his head as to what he's after--and the harder it is for him to getit, the better, as a rule, it is for him. Good luck is the worst enemy aheap of people have. Misfortune spurs a man on, tries him out anddevelops him--makes him more human. "

"Ever played in hard luck?" I queried. 

"I? Sure, I have, " answered Hastings cheerfully. "And I wouldn't worrymuch if it came my way again. I could manage to get along prettycomfortably on less than half I've got. I like my home; but we could behappy anywhere so long as we had ourselves and our health and a fewbooks. However, I wasn't thinking of myself. I've got a friend in thebrokering business who says it's the millionaires that do most of theworrying anyhow. Naturally a man with a pile of money has to look afterit; but what puzzles me is why anybody should want it in the firstplace. "

He searched along a well-filled and disordered shelf of shabby books. 

"Here's what William James says about it:

"'We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one whoelects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. We havelost the power of even imagining what the ancient idealization ofpoverty could have meant--the liberation from material attachments; theunbribed soul; the manlier indifference; the paying our way by what weare or do, and not by what we have; the right to fling away our life atany moment irresponsibly--the more athletic trim, in short the moralfighting shape. .. . It is certain that the prevalent fear of povertyamong the educated class is the worst moral disease from which ourcivilization suffers. '"

"I guess he's about right, " I agreed. 

"That's my idea exactly, " answered Hastings. "As I look at it the curseof most of the people living on Fifth Avenue is that they're perfectlysafe. You could take away nine-tenths of what they've got and they'dstill have about a hundred times more money than they needed to becomfortable. They're like a whole lot of fat animals in aninclosure--they're fed three or four times a day, but the wire fencethat protects them from harm deprives them of any real liberty. Orthey're like goldfish swimming round and round in a big bowl. They canlook through sort of dimly; but they can't get out! If they really knew, they'd trade their security for their freedom any time. 

"Perfect safety isn't an unmixed blessing by any means. Look at thephotographs of the wild Indians--the ones that carried their lives intheir hands every minute--and there's something stern and noble abouttheir faces. Put an Indian on a reservation and he takes to drinkingwhisky. It was the same way with the chaps that lived in the Middle Agesand had to wear shirts of chainmail. It kept 'em guessing. That's merelyone phase of it. 

"The real thing to put the bite into life is having a Cause. Peopleforget how to make sacrifices--or become afraid to. After all, evendying isn't such a tremendous trick. Plenty of people have done it justfor an idea--wanted to pray in their own way. But this modern way ofliving takes all the sap out of folks. They get an entirely falseimpression of the relative values of things. It takes a failure or adeath in the family to wake them up to the comparative triviality of theworth of money as compared, for instance, to human affection--any of thereal things of life. 

"I don't object to inequality of mere wealth in itself, because Iwouldn't dignify money to that extent. Of course I do object to asituation where the rich man can buy life and health for his sick childand the poor man can't. Too many sick babies! That'll be attended to, all right, in time. I wouldn't take away one man's money for the sake ofgiving it to others--not a bit of it. But what I would do would be toput it out of a man's power to poison himself with money. 

"Suicide is made a crime under the law. How about moral and intellectualsuicide? It ought to be prevented for the sake of the state. No citizenshould be allowed to stultify himself with luxury any more than heshould be permitted to cut off his right hand. Excuse me for beingdidactic--but you said you'd like to get my point of view and I've triedto give it to you in a disjointed sort of way. I'd sooner my son wouldhave to work for his living than not, and I'd rather he'd spend his lifecontending with the forces of nature and developing the country than inquarreling over the division of profits that other men had earned. "

I had listened attentively to what Hastings had to say; and, though Idid not agree with all of it, I was forced to admit the truth of a largepart. He certainly seemed to have come nearer to solving the problemthan I had even been able to. Yet it appeared to my conservative mindshockingly socialistic and chimerical. 

"So you really think, " I retorted, "that the state ought to pass lawswhich should prevent the accumulation--or at least the retention--oflarge fortunes?"

Hastings smiled apologetically. 

"Well, " he answered, "I don't know just how far I should advocate activegovernmental interference, though it's a serious question. You're athousand times better qualified to express an opinion on that than I am. 

"When I spoke about health and police regulations I was talkingmetaphorically. I suppose my real idea is that the moral force of thecommunity--public opinion--ought to be strong enough to compel a man tolive so that such laws would be unnecessary. His own public spirit, hisconscience, or whatever you call it, should influence him to usewhatever he has above a certain amount for the common good--to turn itback where he got it, or somebody else got it, instead of demoralizingthe whole country and setting an example of waste and extravagance. Thatkind of thing does an awful lot of harm. I see it all round me. But, ofcourse, the worst sufferer is the man himself, and his own good senseought to jack him up. 

"Still you can't force people to keep healthy. If a man is bound tosacrifice everything for money and make himself sick with it, perhaps heought to be prevented. "

"Jim!" cried Mrs. Hastings, coming in with a pitcher of cider and someglasses. "I could hear you talking all the way out in the kitchen. I'msure you've bored our guest to death. Why, the chestnuts are burned to acrisp!"

"He hasn't bored me a bit, " I answered; "in fact we are agreed on agreat many things. However, after I've had a glass of that cider I muststart back to town. "

"We'd love to have you spend the night, " she urged. "We've a nice littleguestroom over the library. "

The invitation was tempting, but I wanted to get away and think. Also itwas my duty to look in on the bridge party before it became too sleepyto recognize my presence. I drank my cider, bade my hostess good nightand walked to the station with Hastings. As we crossed the square to thetrain he said:

"It was mighty good of you to come out here to see us and we bothappreciate it. Hope you'll forgive my bluntness this morning and forshooting off my mouth so much this evening. "

"My dear fellow, " I returned, "that was what I came out for. You'vegiven me something to think about. I'm thinking already. You're quiteright. You'd be a fool to change places with anybody--let alone amiserable millionaire. "

 * * * * *

In the smoker of the accommodation, to which I retired, I sat obliviousof my surroundings until we entered the tunnel. So far as I could see, Hastings had it on me at every turn--at thirty-three hundred ayear--considerably less than half of what I paid out annually inservants' wages. And the exasperating part of it all was that, though Ispent seventy-two thousand a year, I did not begin to be as happy as hewas! Not by a jugful. Face to face with the simple comfort of thecottage I had just left, its sincerity and affection, its thriftyself-respect, its wide interests, I confessed that I had not been myselfgenuinely contented since I left my mother's house for college, thirtyodd years before. I had become the willing victim of a materialisticsociety. 

I had squandered my life in a vain effort to purchase happiness withmoney--an utter impossibility, as I now only too plainly saw. I waspoisoned with it, as Hastings had said--sick _with_ it and _sick of_ it. I was one of Hastings' chaingangs of prosperous prisoners--millionairesshackled together and walking in lockstep; one of his school of goldfishbumping their noses against the glass of the bowl in which they wereconfined by virtue of their inability to live outside the medium towhich they were accustomed. 

I was through with it! From that moment I resolved to become a freeman; living my own life; finding happiness in things that were worthwhile. I would chuck the whole nauseating business of valets and scentedbaths; of cocktails, clubs and cards; of an unwieldy and tiresomehousehold of lazy servants; of the ennui of heavy dinners; and of afamily the members of which were strangers to each other. I could andwould easily cut down my expenditures to not more than thirty thousand ayear; and with the balance of my income I would look after some of thosesick babies Hastings had mentioned. 

I would begin by taking a much smaller house and letting half theservants go, including my French cook. I had for a long time realizedthat we all ate too much. I would give up one of my motors and entertainmore simply. We would omit the spring dash to Paris, and I would insiston a certain number of evenings each week which the family should spendtogether, reading aloud or talking over their various plans andinterests. It did not seem by any means impossible in the prospect and Igot a considerable amount of satisfaction from planning it all out. Mylife was to be that of a sort of glorified Hastings. After my healthy, peaceful day in the quiet country I felt quite light-hearted--as nearlyhappy as I could remember having been for years. 

It was raining when I got out at the Grand Central Station, and as Ihurried along the platform to get a taxi I overtook an acquaintance ofmine--a social climber. He gave me a queer look in response to mygreeting and I remembered that I had on the old gray hat I had takenfrom the quick lunch. 

"I've been off for a tramp in the country, " I explained, resenting myown instinctive embarrassment. 

"Ah! Don't say! Didn't know you went in for that sort of thing! Well, good night!"

He sprang into the only remaining taxi without asking me to share it andvanished in a cloud of gasoline smoke. I was in no mood for waiting;besides I was going to be democratic. I took a surface car up LexingtonAvenue and stood between the distended knees of a fat and somnolentItalian gentleman for thirty blocks. The car was intolerably stuffy andsmelled strongly of wet umbrellas and garlic. By the time I reached thecross-street on which I lived it had begun to pour. I turned up my coatcollar and ran to my house. 

Somehow I felt like a small boy as I threw myself panting inside my ownmarble portal. My butler expressed great sympathy for my condition andsmuggled me quickly upstairs. I fancy he suspected there was somethingdiscreditable about my absence. A pungent aroma floated up from thedrawing room, where the bridge players were steadily at work. I confessto feeling rather dirty, wet and disreputable. 

"I'm sorry, sir, " said my butler as he turned on the electric switch inmy bedroom, "but I didn't expect you back this evening, and so I toldMartin he might go out. "

A wave of irritation, almost of anger, swept over me. Martin was myperfect valet. 

"What the devil did you do that for!" I snapped. 

Then, realizing my inconsistency, I was ashamed, utterly humiliated anddisgusted with myself. This, then, was all that my resolution amountedto after all!

"I am very sorry, sir, " repeated my butler. "Very sorry, sir, indeed. Shall I help you off with your things?"

"Oh, that's all right!" I exclaimed, somewhat to his surprise. "Don'tbother about me. I'll take care of myself. "

"Can't I bring you something?" he asked solicitously. 

"No, thanks!" said I. "I don't need anything that you can give me!"

"Very good, sir, " he replied. "Good night, sir. "

"Good night, " I answered, and he closed the door noiselessly. 

I lit a cigarette and, tossing off my coat, sank into a chair. My merereturn to that ordered elegance seemed to have benumbed myindividuality. Downstairs thirty of our most intimate friends wereamusing themselves at the cardtables, confident that at eleven-thirtythey would be served with supper consisting of salads, ice-cream andchampagne. They would not hope in vain. If they did not get it--speakingbroadly--they would not come again. They wanted us as we were--house, food, trappings--the whole layout. They meant well enough. They simplyhad to have certain things. If we changed our scale of living we shouldlose the acquaintance of these people, and we should have nobody intheir place. 

We had grown into a highly complicated system, in which we had a settledorbit. This orbit was not susceptible of change unless we were willingto turn everything topsy-turvy. Everybody would suppose we had lost ourmoney. And, not being brilliant or clever people, who paid their way asthey went by making themselves lively and attractive, it would beassumed that we could not keep up our end; so we should be graduallyleft out. 

I said to myself that I ought not to care--that being left out was whatI wanted; but, all the same, I knew I did care. You cannot tear yourselfup by the roots at fifty unless you are prepared to go to a far country. I was not prepared to do that at a moment's notice. I, too, was used toa whole lot of things--was solidly imbedded in them. 

My very house was an overwhelming incubus. I was like a miserable snail, forever lugging my house round on my back--unable to shake it off. Achange in our mode of life would not necessarily in itself bring mychildren any nearer to me; it would, on the contrary, probablyantagonize them. I had sowed the seed and I was reaping the harvest. Myprofessional life I could not alter. I had my private clients--myregular business. Besides there was no reason for altering it. Iconducted it honorably and well enough. 

Yet the calm consideration of those very difficulties in the end onlydemonstrated the clearer to me the perilous state in which I was. Thedeeper the bog, the more my spirit writhed to be free. Better, Ithought, to die struggling than gradually to sink down and be suffocatedbeneath the mire of apathy and self-indulgence. 

Hastings' little home--or something--had wrought a change in me. I hadgone through some sort of genuine emotional experience. It seemedimpossible to reform my mode of life and thought, but it was equallyincredible that I should fall back into my old indifference. Sittingthere alone in my chamber I felt like a man in a nightmare, who wouldgive his all to be able to rise, yet whose limbs were immovable, held bysome subtle and cruel power. I had read in novels about men agonized byremorse and indecision. I now experienced those sensations myself. Idiscovered they were not imaginary states. 

My meditations were interrupted by the entrance of my wife, who, with ananxious look on her face, inquired what was the matter. The butler hadsaid I seemed indisposed; so she had slipped away from our guests andcome up to see for herself. She was in full regalia--elaborate gown, pearls, aigret. 

"There's nothing the matter with me, " I answered, though I know fullwell I lied--I was poisoned. 

"Well, that's a comfort, at any rate!" she replied, amiably enough. 

"Where's Tom?" I asked wearily. 

"I haven't any idea, " she said frankly. "You know he almost never comeshome. "

"And the girls?"

"Visiting the Devereuxs at Staatsburg, " she answered. "Aren't you comingdown for some bridge?"

"No, " I said. "To tell you the truth I never want to see a pack of cardsagain. I want to cut the game. I'm sick of our life and the uselessextravagance. I want a change. Let's get rid of the whole thing--take asmaller house--have fewer servants. Think of the relief!"

"What's the matter?" she cried sharply. "Have you lost money?"

Money! Money!

"No, " I said, "I haven't lost money--I've lost heart!"

She eyed me distrustfully. 

"Are you crazy?" she demanded. 

"No, " I answered. "I don't think I am. "

"You act that way, " she retorted. "It's a funny time to talk aboutchanging your mode of life--right in the middle of a bridge party! Whathave you been working for all these years? And where do I come in? Youcan go to your clubs and your office--anywhere; but all I've got is thelife you have taught me to enjoy! Tom is grown up and never comes nearme. And the girls--why, what do you think would happen to them if yousuddenly gave up your place in society? They'd never get married so longas they lived. People would think you'd gone bankrupt! Really"--her eyesfilled and she dabbed at them with a Valenciennes handkerchief--"I thinkit too heartless of you to come in this way--like a skeleton at thefeast--and spoil my evening!"

I felt a slight touch of remorse. I had broached the matter ratherroughly. I laid my hand on her shoulder--now so round and matronly, onceso slender. 

"Anna, " I said as tenderly as I could, "suppose I _did_ give it all up?"

She rose indignantly to her feet and shook off my hand. 

"You'd have to get along without me!" she retorted; then, seeing theanguish on my face, she added less harshly: "Take a brandy-and-soda andgo to bed. I'm sure you're not quite yourself. "

I was struck by the chance significance of her phrase--"Not quiteyourself. " No; ever since I had left the house that morning I had notbeen quite myself. I had had a momentary glimpse--had for an instantcaught the glint of an angel's wing--but it was gone. I was almostmyself--my old self; yet not quite. 

"I didn't mean to be unkind, " I muttered. "Don't worry about me. I'vemerely had a vision of what might have been, and it's disgusted me. Goon down to the bridge fiends. I'll be along shortly--if you'll excuse myclothes. "

"Poor boy!" she sighed. "You're tired out! No; don't come down--in thoseclothes!"

 * * * * *

I laughed a hollow laugh when she had gone. Really there was somethinghumorous about it all. What was the use even of trying? I did not seemeven to belong in my own house unless my clothes matched the wall paper!I lit cigarette after cigarette, staring blankly at my silk pajamas laidout on the bed. 

I could not change things! It was too late. I had brought up my son anddaughters to live in a certain kind of way, had taught them thatluxuries were necessities, had neglected them--had ruined them perhaps;but I had no moral right now to annihilate that life--and theirmother's--without their consent. They might be poor things; but, afterall, they were my own. They were free, white and twenty-one. And I knewthey would simply think me mad!

I had a fixed place in a complicated system, with responsibilities andduties I was morally bound to recognize. I could not chuck the wholebusiness without doing a great deal of harm. My life was not so simpleas all that. Any change--if it could be accomplished at all--would haveto be a gradual one and be brought about largely by persuasion. Could itbe accomplished?

It now seemed insuperably difficult. I was bound to the wheel--and thehabits of a lifetime, the moral pressure of my wife and children, theexample of society, and the force of superficial public opinion andexpectation were spinning it round and round in the direction of leastresistance. As well attempt to alter my course as to steer a locomotiveoff the track! I could not ditch the locomotive, for I had a trainloadof passengers! And yet--

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. I--successful? Yes, successhad been mine; but success was failure--naught else--failure, absoluteand unmitigated! I had lost my wife and family, and my home had becomethe resort of a crew of empty-headed coxcombs. 

I wondered whether they were gone. I looked at the clock. It washalf-past twelve--Sunday morning. I opened my bedroom door and creptdownstairs. No; they were not gone--they had merely moved on to supper. 

My library was in the front of the house, across the hall from thedrawing room, and I went in there and sank into an armchair by the fire. The bridge party was making a great to-do and its strident laughterfloated up from below. By contrast the quiet library seemed a haven ofrefuge. Here were the books I might have read--which might have been myfriends. Poor fool that I was!

I put out my hand and took down the first it encountered--John Bunyan'sPilgrim's Progress. It was a funny old volume--a priceless early editiongiven me by a grateful client whom I had extricated from someembarrassment. I had never read it, but I knew its general trend. It wasabout some imaginary miserable who, like myself, wanted to do thingsdifferently. I took a cigar out of my pocket, lit it and, opening thebook haphazard, glanced over the pages in a desultory fashion. 

"_That is that which I seek for, even to be rid of this heavy Burden;but get it off myself, I cannot; nor is there any man in our countrythat can take it off my shoulders_--"

So the Pilgrim had a burden too! I turned back to the beginning and readhow Christian, the hero, had been made aware of his perilous condition. 

"_In this plight therefore he went home, and refrained himself as longas he could, that his Wife and Children should not perceive hisdistress, but he could not be silent long, because that his troubleincreased: Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his Wife andChildren; and thus he began to talk to them: 'Oh, my dear Wife, ' saidhe, 'and you the Children of my bowels, I, your dear Friend, am inmyself undone by reason of a Burden that lieth hard upon me. ' . .. Atthis his_ _Relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed thatwhat he had said to them was true, but because they thought that somefrenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing towardnight, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with allhaste they got him to bed: But the night was as troublesome to him asthe day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs andtears_. "

Surely this Pilgrim was strangely like myself! And, though sorely beset, he had struggled on his way. 

"_Hast thou a Wife and Children_?

"_Yes, but I am so laden with this Burden that I cannot take thatpleasure in them as formerly; methinks I am as if I had none_. "

Tears filled my eyes and I laid down the book. The bridge party wasgoing home. I could hear them shouting good-bys in the front hall and mywife's shrill voice answering Good night! From outside came the toot ofhorns and the whir of the motors as they drew up at the curb. One by onethe doors slammed, the glass rattled and they thundered off. The noisegot on my nerves and, taking my book, I crossed to the deserted drawingroom, the scene of the night's social carnage. The sight was enough tosicken any man! Eight tables covered with half-filled glasses; cardseverywhere--the floor littered with them; chairs pushed helter-skelterand one overturned; and from a dozen ash-receivers the slowly ascendingcolumns of incense to the great God of Chance. On the middle table laya score card and pencil, a roll of bills, a pile of silver, and mywife's vanity box, with its chain of pearls and diamonds. 

Fiercely I resolved again to end it all--at any cost. I threw open oneof the windows, sat myself down by a lamp in a corner, and found theplace where I had been reading. Christian had just encountered Charity. In the midst of their discussion I heard my wife's footsteps in thehall; the portières rustled and she entered. 

"Well!" she exclaimed. "I thought you had gone to bed long ago. I hadgood luck to-night. I won eight hundred dollars! How are you feeling?"

"Anna, " I answered, "sit down a minute. I want to read you something. "

"Go ahead!" she said, lighting a cigarette, and throwing herself intoone of the vacant chairs. 

"_Then said Charity to Christian: Have you a family? Are you a marriedman_?"

"CHRISTIAN: _I have a Wife and_ . .. _Children_. "

"CHARITY: _And why did you not bring them along with you_?"

"_Then Christian wept and said: Oh, how willingly would I have done it, but they were all of them utterly averse to my going on Pilgrimage_. "

"CHARITY: _But you should have talked to them, and_ _have endeavored tohave shown them the danger of being behind_. 

"CHRISTIAN: _So I did, and told them also what God had shewed to me ofthe destruction of our City; but I seemed to them as one that mocked, and they believed me not_. 

"CHARITY: _And did you pray to God that He would bless your counsel tothem_?

"CHRISTIAN: _Yes, and that with much affection; for you must think thatmy Wife and poor Children were very dear unto me_. 

"CHARITY: _But did you tell them of your own sorrow and fear ofdestruction?--for I suppose that destruction was visible enough to you_. 

"CHRISTIAN: _Yes, over and over, and over. They might also see my fearsin my countenance, in my tears, and also in my trembling under theapprehension of the Judgment that did hang over our heads; but all wasnot sufficient to prevail with them to come with me_. 

"CHARITY: _But what could they say for themselves, why they come not_?

"CHRISTIAN: _Why, my Wife was afraid of losing this World, and myChildren were given to the foolish Delights of youth; so, what by onething and what by another, they left me to wander in this manneralone_. "

An unusual sound made me look up. My wife was weeping, her head on herarms among the money and débris of the card-table. 

"I--I didn't know, " she said in a choked, half-stifled voice, "that youreally meant what you said upstairs. "

"I mean it as I never have meant anything since I told you that I lovedyou, dear, " I answered gently. 

She raised her face, wet with tears. 

"That was such a long time ago!" she sobbed. "And I thought that allthis was what you wanted. " She glanced round the room. 

"I did--once, " I replied; "but I don't want it any longer. We can't liveour lives over again; but"--and I went over to her--"we can try to do alittle better from now on. "

She laid her head on my arm and took my hand in hers. 

"What shall we do?" she asked. 

"We must free ourselves from our Burden, " said I; "break down the wallof money that shuts us in from other people, and try to pay our way inthe world by what we are and do rather than by what we have. It may behard at first; but it's worth while--for all of us. "

She disengaged one hand and wiped her eyes. 

"I'll help all I can, " she whispered. 

"That's what I want!" cried I, and my heart leaped. 

Again I saw the glint of the angel's wing!