spread materialism which is
charged up against modern life?"

"Not altogether. In the country, as you have suggested, we have lovers
of money and we have sordid poverty. But I do think that urban life
tends to emphasize money-getting and to keep it before the mind in a
way that is not natural in the small community. Because of this I regard
the cities as the natural strongholds of materialism and I see a danger
in the urbanizing movement of modern civilization. I think, therefore,
that men like yourself should do everything possible to keep in the
public consciousness the splendid idealism that is in the city. I mean
such kindly sacrifice as the settlement house. However, I have talked
enough. What is your vivid impression as a result of your visit to the
place of your boyhood?"

"Well, before I give you that, let me remind you that men like myself
get our power to help what you call idealism largely because of our
money. I suppose you hold, therefore, that even in our disinterested
service we advertise the power of money?"

"Yes, I must confess that your influence is never divorced from your
standing as one who has made good in the ways of trade. But what of
your country impression?"

"There is no place that still seems so beautiful to me as the place of
my childhood. I was born beside a splendid river; and not far from the
house, separated from it by stretches of meadowland, was a thick and
extensive forest. It seemed as if I had everything ideal for the play of
childhood.

"Upon my recent visit I felt as never before the value of what I like to
call the freedom of the spirit. It seems as if country environment
generously provides what the healthy-minded child most needs--an
opportunity for the free play of the fancy. I call it a spiritual
preparation for life, but I assume that the scientist would describe it
as an experience of the imagination. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, as far as you have gone. I covet, however, a clearer understanding
of what you mean."

"I mean what I used to find in Wordsworth's poetry and in the work of
our own Whittier. I never read them now, but years ago I did a little.
You were country-born yourself, as I remember. Don't you recall how your
imagination made rich with meaning the simple pleasures and sports of
your early life? I can well remember hours of fishing at a dark curve in
the river where the water was black even at noon-day because of the
overhanging trees. I think I