to the great
social problem which is formed of so many smaller problems. If we
think that the best we can do is to preserve what we have, America
will be but a series of disappointments. If, however, we believe that
man's sympathies for others will grow deeper, that his ingenuity will
ultimately be equal to at least a partial solution of the social
question, we shall watch the seething of the American crucible with
intensest interest. The solution of the social problem, speaking
broadly, must imply that each man must in some direction, simple or
complex, work for his own livelihood. Equality will always be a word
for fools and doctrinaires to conjure with, but those who believe in
man's sympathy for man must have faith that some day relative human
justice will be done, which will be as far beyond the justice of
to-day as light is from dark.[1] And it would be hard to say where we
are to look for this consummation if not in the United States of
America, which "has been the home of the poor and the eccentric from
all parts of the world, and has carried their poverty and passions on
its stalwart young shoulders." We may visit the United States, like M.
Bourget, _pour reprendre un peu de foi dans le lendemain de
civilisation_.

The paragraph on a previous page is not meant to imply that the United
States are destitute of scenic, artistic, picturesque, and historic
interest. The worst that can be said of American scenery is that its
best points are separated by long intervals; the best can hardly be
put too strongly. Places like the Yosemite Valley (of which Mr.
Emerson said that it was the only scenery he ever saw where "the
reality came up to the brag"), the Yellowstone Park, Niagara, and the
stupendous Canon of the Colorado River amply make good their worldwide
reputation; but there are innumerable other places less known in
Europe, such as the primeval woods and countless lakes of the
Adirondacks, the softer beauties of the Berkshire Hills, the Hudson
(that grander American Rhine), the Swiss-like White Mountains, the
Catskills, the mystic Ocklawaha of Florida, and the Black Mountains of
Carolina that would amply repay the easy trouble of an Atlantic
passage under modern conditions. The historic student, too, will find
much that is worthy of his attention, especially in the older Eastern
States; and will, perhaps, be surprised to realise how relative a term
antiquity is. In a short time he will find himself looking at an