railways from the North to
the South of Africa.

Not only this, but something of the same qualities of spaciousness, as
of trafficking between large horizons, attach to almost all lines of
business in the United States,--to many which in England are necessarily
humdrum and commonplace. Almost every Englishman has been surprised on
making the acquaintance of an accidental American (no "magnate" or
"captain of industry" but an ordinary business man) to learn that though
he is no more than the manufacturer of some matter-of-fact article, his
operations are on a confusing scale and that, with branch offices in
three or four towns and agents in a dozen more, his daily dealings are
transacted over an area reaching three thousand miles from his home
office, in which the interposition of prairies, mountain ranges, and
chains of lakes are but incidents. Business in the United States has
almost necessarily something of the romance of remote and adventurous
enterprises.

It has been said (and the point is worth insisting on) that the
Englishman cannot pretend that he goes into business with any other
object than to make money. His motives are on the face of them mercenary
if not sordid. The American is impelled primarily by quite other
ambitions. Similarly, when the Englishman thinks of business, the image
which he conjures up in his mind is of a dull commonplace like, on lines
so long established and well-defined that they can embrace little of
novelty or of enterprise; a sedentary life of narrow outlook from the
unexhilarating atmosphere of a London office or shop. To the American,
except in small or retail trade in the large cities, the conditions of
business are widely different. All around him, lies, both actually and
figuratively, new ground, wilderness almost, inviting him to turn
Argonaut. The mere vastness and newness of the country make it full of
allurement to adventure, the rewards of which are larger and more
immediate than can be hoped for in older and more straitened
communities.

It has been said that the American people was, by its long period of
isolation and self-communion, made to become, in its outlook on the
policies of the world, a provincial people; but that the very
provincialism had something of dignity in it from the mere fact that it
was continent-wide. So it is with American business. The exigencies of
their circumstances have made the American people a commercial people;
but whereas in England a c