irium
of destruction, great ladies tore priceless tapestries from their walls
and brocades from their furniture, in order to unravel those materials
and as the old stock did not suffice for the demand thousands were spent
on new brocades and velvets, which were instantly destroyed,
entertainments were given where unravelling was the only amusement
offered, the entire court thinking and talking of nothing else for
months.

What is the logical deduction to be drawn from all this? Simply that
people do not see with their eyes or judge with their understandings;
that an all-pervading hypnotism, an ambient suggestion, at times envelops
us taking from people all free will, and replacing it with the taste and
judgment of the moment.

The number of people is small in each generation, who are strong enough
to rise above their surroundings and think for themselves. The rest are
as dry leaves on a stream. They float along and turn gayly in the
eddies, convinced all the time (as perhaps are the leaves) that they act
entirely from their own volition and that their movements are having a
profound influence on the direction and force of the current.

No. 10--Bohemia

Lunching with a talented English comedian and his wife the other day, the
conversation turned on Bohemia, the evasive no-man's-land that Thackeray
referred to, in so many of his books, and to which he looked back
lovingly in his later years, when, as he said, he had forgotten the road
to Prague.

The lady remarked: "People have been more than kind to us here in New
York. We have dined and supped out constantly, and have met with
gracious kindness, such as we can never forget. But so far we have not
met a single painter, or author, or sculptor, or a man who has explored a
corner of the earth. Neither have we had the good luck to find ourselves
in the same room with Tesla or Rehan, Edison or Drew. We shall regret so
much when back in England and are asked about your people of talent,
being obliged to say, 'We never met any of them.' Why is it? We have
not been in any one circle, and have pitched our tents in many cities,
during our tours over here, but always with the same result. We read
your American authors as much as, if not more than, our own. The names
of dozens of your discoverers and painters are household words in
England. When my husband planned his first tour over here my one idea
was, 'How nice it will be! Now I shall meet those deligh