work and boredom, who do picturesque and delightful
things, which appeal directly to the imagination; they build a summer
residence complete, in six weeks, with furniture and bric-a-brac, on the
top of a roadless mountain; they sail in fairylike yachts to summer seas,
and marry their daughters to the heirs of ducal houses; they float up the
Nile in dahabeeyah, or pass the "month of flowers" in far Japan.

It is but human nature to delight in reading of these things. Here the
great mass of the people find (and eagerly seize on), the element of
romance lacking in their lives, infinitely more enthralling than the
doings of any novel's heroine. It is real! It is taking place!
and--still deeper reason--in every ambitious American heart lingers the
secret hope that with luck and good management they too may do those very
things, or at least that their children will enjoy the fortunes they have
gained, in just those ways. The gloom of the monotonous present is
brightened, the patient toiler returns to his desk with something
definite before him--an objective point--towards which he can struggle;
he knows that this is no impossible dream. Dozens have succeeded and
prove to him what energy and enterprise can accomplish.

Do not laugh at this suggestion; it is far truer than you imagine. Many
a weary woman has turned from such reading to her narrow duties, feeling
that life is not all work, and with renewed hope in the possibilities of
the future.

Doubtless a certain amount of purely idle curiosity is mingled with the
other feelings. I remember quite well showing our city sights to a bored
party of Western friends, and failing entirely to amuse them, when,
happening to mention as we drove up town, "there goes Mr. Blank," (naming
a prominent leader of cotillions), my guests nearly fell over each other
and out of the carriage in their eagerness to see the gentleman of whom
they had read so much, and who was, in those days, a power in his way,
and several times after they expressed the greatest satisfaction at
having seen him.

I have found, with rare exceptions, and the experience has been rather
widely gathered all over the country, that this interest--or call it what
you will--has been entirely without spite or bitterness, rather the
delight of a child in a fairy story. For people are rarely envious of
things far removed from their grasp. You will find that a woman who is
bitter because her neighbor has a girl "help