planned that electrified nations. Here have been generated vast armies
and navies as messengers of Desire. Here have been voted vast treasures
in execution of the desires of men for territorial extension and
national aggrandizement. These halls have resounded with the eloquence
of men who were striving to inoculate other men with the virus of their
desires; and the whole world has stood on tiptoe awaiting the issue of
this eloquence. Momentous scenes have been enacted here, all emanating
from the desires of men, and these scenes have touched the lives of
untold millions of people.

=Commerce.=--We see the Thames near by, teeming with ships from the
uttermost corners of the earth, and we think of commerce. We use the
word glibly, but no mind is able to comprehend its full import. We know
that these ships ply the seas, bearing food and clothing to the peoples
who live far away, but when we attempt to estimate the magnitude of
commerce, the mind confesses to itself that the problem is too great. We
may multiply the number of ships by their tonnage, but we get, in
consequence, an array of figures so great that they cease to have any
meaning for the finite mind. The best and most that they can do for us
is to make us newly aware that the people who dwell in the jungles of
Africa, who roam the pampas of South America, who climb the Alps, the
Rockies, the Andes, and the Himalayas, all have desires that these ships
are striving to gratify.

=Social intercourse.=--Going up the river to Hampton Court we see people
out for a holiday. There are house-boats with elaborate and artistic
fittings and furnishings, and other craft of every sort that luxury can
suggest. One could imagine that none but fairies could stage such a
scene. The blending of colors, the easy dalliance, the rippling
laughter, the graceful feasting, and the eddying wavelets all conspire