gramophone, hundreds of tons of the same sewing-machine and
lawn-mower--I felt as if I had been made free of the secrets of every
village in every State of the Union, and as if I had lived in every
little house and cottage thereof all my life! Almost no sense of beauty
in those tremendous supplies of merchandise, but a lot of honesty,
self-respect, and ambition fulfilled. I tell you I could hear the
engaged couples discussing ardently over the pages of the catalogue what
manner of bedroom suite they would buy, and what design of sideboard....

Finally, I arrived at the firm's private railway station, where a score
or more trucks were being laden with the multifarious boxes, bales, and
parcels, all to leave that evening for romantic destinations such as
Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming. Yes, the package of the woman of Wyoming's
desire would ultimately be placed somewhere in one of those trucks! It
was going to start off toward her that very night!

* * * * *

Impressive as this establishment was, finely as it illustrated the
national genius for organization, it yet lacked necessarily, on account
of the nature of its activity, those outward phenomena of splendor which
charm the stranger's eye in the great central houses of New York, and
which seem designed to sum up all that is most characteristic and most
dazzling in the business methods of the United States. These central
houses are not soiled by the touch of actual merchandise. Nothing more
squalid than ink ever enters their gates. They traffic with symbols
only, and the symbols, no matter what they stand for, are never in
themselves sordid. The men who have created these houses seem to have
realized that, from their situation and their importance, a special
effort toward representative magnificence was their pleasing duty, and