ife is feverish and unnatural.
We have no time to develop charm of manner, or elegance of diction.
"We are too intense for epigram or repartee. We lack time."

Nervous impatience is a conspicuous characteristic of the American
people. Everything bores us which does not bring us more business, or
more money, or which does not help us to attain the position for which
we are striving. Instead of enjoying our friends, we are inclined to
look upon them as so many rungs in a ladder, and to value them in
proportion as they furnish readers for our books, send us patients,
clients, customers or show their ability to give us a boost for
political position.

Before these days of hurry and drive, before this age of excitement, it
was considered one of the greatest luxuries possible to be a listener
in a group surrounding an intelligent talker. It was better than most
modern lectures, than anything one could find in a book; for there was
a touch of personality, a charm of style, a magnetism which held, a
superb personality which fascinated. For the hungry soul, yearning for
an education, to drink in knowledge from those wise lips was to be fed
with a royal feast indeed.

But to-day everything is "touch and go." We have no time to stop on
the street and give a decent salutation. It is: "How do?" or
"Morning," accompanied by a sharp nod of the head, instead of by a
graceful bow. We have no time for the graces and the charms.
Everything must give way to the material.

We have no time for the development of a fine manner; the charm of the
days of chivalry and leisure has almost vanished from our civilization.
A new type of individual has sprung up. We work like Trojans during
the day, and then rush to a theater or other place of amusement in the
evening. We have no time to make our own amusement or to develop the
faculty of humor and fun-making as people used to do. We pay people
for doing that while we sit and laugh. We are like some college boys,
who depend upon tutors to carry them through their examinations--they
expect to buy their education ready-made.

Life is becoming so artificial, so forced, so diverse from naturalness,
we drive our human engines at such a fearful speed, that our finer life
is crushed out. Spontaneity and humor, and the possibility of a fine
culture and a superb charm of personality in us are almost impossible
and extremely rare.

One cause for our conversational decline is a lack of sympat