Worldly Ways and Byways | Page 7

afternoons; every village has its religious FETES and local fair,
attended with dancing and games. All these mental relaxations are
lacking in our newer civilization; life is stripped of everything that is
not distinctly practical; the dull round of weekly toil is only broken by
the duller idleness of an American Sunday. Naturally, these people long
for something outside of themselves and their narrow sphere.
Suddenly there arises a class whose wealth permits them to break
through the iron circle of 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" or a more comfortable
cottage, rarely feels envy towards the owners of opera-boxes or yachts.
Such heart-burnings (let us hope they are few) are among a class born
in the shadow of great wealth, and bred up with tastes that they can
neither relinquish nor satisfy. The large majority of people show only a
good-natured inclination to chaff, none of the "class feeling" which
certain papers and certain politicians try to excite. Outside of the large
cities with their foreign-bred, semi- anarchistic populations, the tone is
perfectly friendly; for the simple reason that it never entered into the
head of any American to imagine that there WAS any class difference.
To him his rich neighbors are simply his lucky neighbors, almost his
relations, who, starting from a common stock, have been able to "get
there" sooner than he has done. So he wishes them luck on the voyage
in which he expects to join them as soon as he has had time to make a
fortune.
So long as the world exists, or at least until we have reformed it and
adopted Mr. Bellamy's delightful scheme of existence as described in
"Looking Backward," great fortunes will be made, and painful contrasts
be seen, especially in cities, and it would seem to be the duty of the
press to soften - certainly not to sharpen - the edge of discontent. As
long as human nature is human nature, and the poor care to read of the
doings of the more fortunate, by all means give them the reading they
enjoy and demand, but let it be written in a kindly spirit so that it may
be a cultivation as well as a recreation. Treat this perfectly