Let me be honest in the matter. I own some masterpieces of great value.
At the time of their purchase I thought I had a keen admiration for
them. I begin to suspect that I acquired them less because I really
cared for such things than because I wished to be considered a
connoisseur. There they hang--my Corots, my Romneys, my Teniers, my
Daubignys. But they might as well be the merest chromos. I never look at
them. I have forgotten that they exist. So have the rest of my family.

It is the same way with my porcelains and tapestries. Of course they go
to make up the _tout ensemble_ of a harmonious and luxurious home, but
individually they mean nothing to me. I should not miss them if they
were all swept out of existence tomorrow by a fire. I am no happier in
my own house than in a hotel. My pictures are nothing but so much
furniture requiring heavy insurance.

It is somewhat the same with our cuisine. My food supply costs me forty
dollars a day. We use the choicest teas, the costliest caviar and
relishes, the richest sterilized milk and cream, the freshest eggs, the
choicest cuts of meat. We have course after course at lunch and dinner;
yet I go to the table without an appetite and my food gives me little
pleasure. But this style of living is the concrete expression of my
success. Because I have risen above my fellows I must be surrounded by
these tangible evidences of prosperity.

I get up about nine o'clock in the morning unless I have been out very
late the night before, in which case I rest until ten or later. I step
into a porcelain tub in which my servant has drawn a warm bath of water
filtered by an expensive process which makes it as clear and blue as
crystal. When I leave my bath my valet hands me one by one the garments