toward the maintenance and augmentation of that culture that has been
the topic of so many encomiums. At this point it should be recalled that
it is the pattern of Periclean Athens that is continually in mind in
these encomiums. Which brings up, in this immediate connection, the
dealings of Periclean Athens with the funds of the League, and the
source as well as the destination of these surplus funds. Out of it all
came the works on the Acropolis, together with much else of intellectual
and artistic life that converged upon and radiated from this Athenian
center of culture. The vista of _Denkmaeler_ that so opens to the vision
of a courageous fancy is in itself such a substance of things hoped for
as should stir the heart of all humane persons.[8] The cost of this
subvention of Culture would doubtless be appreciable, but those grave
men who have spent most thought on this prospective cultural gain to be
had from the projected Imperial rule appear to entertain no doubt as to
its being worth all that it would cost.

[Footnote 8: _Denk 'mall_]

Any one who is inclined to rate the prospective pecuniary costs and
losses high would doubtless be able to find various and sundry items of
minor importance to add to this short list of general categories on the
side of cost; but such additional items, not fairly to be included under
these general captions, would after all be of minor importance, in the
aggregate or in detail, and would not appreciably affect the grand
balance of pecuniary profit and loss to be taken account of in any
appraisal of the projected Imperial regime. There should evidently be
little ground to apprehend that its installation would entail a net loss
or a net increase of pecuniary burdens. There is, of course, the
ill-defined and scarcely definable item of expenditure under the general
head of Gentility, Dignity, Distinction, Magnificence, or whatever term
may seem suitable to designate that consumption of goods and services
that goes to maintain the high repute of the Court and to keep the
underlying gentlefolk in countenance. In its pecuniary incidence this
line of (necessary) expenditure belongs under the rubric of Conspicuous
Waste; and one will always have to face the disquieting flexibility of
this item of expenditure. The consumptive demand of this kind is in an
eminent degree "indefinitely extensible," as the phrasing of the
economists would have it, and as various historical instances of courtly
s