edge as much to the creators of it. You remember that not far back
in history such a transformation as this could not have been wrought in a
hundred years. This is really life, this is doing something in the world,
and in the presence of it you can see why the creators of it regard your
world, which seemed to you so important, the world whose business is the
evolution and expression of thought and emotion, as insignificant. Here
is a material addition to the business and wealth of the race, here
employment for men who need it, here is industry replacing stagnation,
here is the pleasure of overcoming difficulties and conquering obstacles.
Why encounter these difficulties? In order that more coal may be procured
to operate more railway trains at higher speed, to supply more factories,
to add to the industrial stir of modern life. The men who projected and
are pushing on this enterprise, with an executive ability that would
maintain and manoeuvre an army in a campaign, are not, however,
consciously philanthropists, moved by the charitable purpose of giving
employment to men, or finding satisfaction in making two blades of grass
grow where one grew before. They enjoy no doubt the sense of power in
bringing things to pass, the feeling of leadership and the consequence
derived from its recognition; but they embark in this enterprise in order
that they may have the position and the luxury that increased wealth will
bring, the object being, in most cases, simply material
advantages--sumptuous houses, furnished with all the luxuries which are
the signs of wealth, including, of course, libraries and pictures and
statuary and curiosities, the most showy equipages and troops of
servants; the object being that their wives shall dress magnificently,
glitter in diamonds and velvets, and never need to put their feet to the
ground; that they may command the best stalls in the church, the best
pews in the theatre, the choicest rooms in the inn, and--a consideration
that Plato does not mention, because his world was not our world--that
they may impress and reduce to obsequious deference the hotel clerk.

This life--for this enterprise and its objects are types of a
considerable portion of life--is not without its ideal, its hero, its
highest expression, its consummate flower. It is expressed in a word
which I use without any sense of its personality, as the French use the
word Barnum--for our crude young nation has the distinction of adding