nd of lumber! I once knew a
fellow who took a journey of eight days merely to eat _sauer-kraut_. And
when once a poor devil has squatted in an unhealthy district, and lived
there a few years, he has spun such a web of sentimentalism about it
that you can not stir him, even though he, his wife and children, should
die there of fever. Commend me to what you call the insensibility of the
Yankee. He works like two Germans, but he is not in love with his
cottage or his gear. What he has is worth its equivalent in dollars, and
no more. 'How low! how material!' you will say. Now, I like this. It has
created a free and powerful state. If America had been peopled by
Germans, they would be still drinking chicory instead of coffee, at
whatever rate of duty the paternal governments of Europe liked to
impose."

"And you would require a woman to be thus minded?" asked Sabine.

"In the main, yes," rejoined Fink. "Not a German housewife, wrapped up
in her table-linen. The larger her stock, the happier she. I believe
that they silently rate each other as we do men on 'Change--worth five
hundred, worth eight hundred napkins. The American makes as good a wife
as the German, but she would laugh at such notions. She has what she
wants for present use, and buys more when the old set is worn out. Why
should she fix her heart on what is so easily replaced?"

"Oh, how dreary you make life!" rejoined Sabine. "Our possessions lose
thus their dearest value. If you kill the imagination which lends its
varied hues to lifeless things, what remains? Nothing but an egotism to
which every thing is sacrificed! He who can thus coldly think may do
great deeds perhaps, but his life will never be beautiful nor happy, nor
a blessing to others;" and unconsciously she folded her hands and looked
sadly at Fink, whose face wore a hard and disdainful expression.

The silence was broken by Anton's cheerfully observing, "At all events,
Fink's own practice is a striking refutation of his theory."

"How so, sir?" asked Fink, looking round.

"I shall soon prove my case; but first a few words in our own praise. We
who are sitting and standing around are working members of a business
that does not belong to us, and each of us looks upon his occupation
from the German point of view which Fink has been denouncing. None of us
reasons, 'The firm pays me so many dollars, consequently the firm is
worth so many dollars to me.' No; when the house prospers we are all
please