A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD


I

We were talking about the want of diversity in American life, the lack of
salient characters. It was not at a club. It was a spontaneous talk of
people who happened to be together, and who had fallen into an
uncompelled habit of happening to be together. There might have been a
club for the study of the Want of Diversity in American Life. The members
would have been obliged to set apart a stated time for it, to attend as a
duty, and to be in a mood to discuss this topic at a set hour in the
future. They would have mortgaged another precious portion of the little
time left us for individual life. It is a suggestive thought that at a
given hour all over the United States innumerable clubs might be
considering the Want of Diversity in American Life. Only in this way,
according to our present methods, could one expect to accomplish anything
in regard to this foreign-felt want. It seems illogical that we could
produce diversity by all doing the same thing at the same time, but we
know the value of congregate effort. It seems to superficial observers
that all Americans are born busy. It is not so. They are born with a fear
of not being busy; and if they are intelligent and in circumstances of
leisure, they have such a sense of their responsibility that they hasten
to allot all their time into portions, and leave no hour unprovided for.
This is conscientiousness in women, and not restlessness. There is a day
for music, a day for painting, a day for the display of tea-gowns, a day
for Dante, a day for the Greek drama, a day for the Dumb Animals' Aid
Society, a day for the Society for the Propagation of Indians, and so on.
When the year is over, the amount that has been accomplished by this
incessant activity can hardly be estimated. Individually it may not be