that every era, each generation, seems to have its peculiar work to do;
it is to subdue the intractable earth, to repel or to civilize the
barbarians, to settle society in order, to build cities, to amass wealth
in centres, to make deserts bloom, to construct edifices such as were
never made before, to bring all men within speaking distance of each
other--lucky if they have anything to say when that is accomplished--to
extend the information of the few among the many, or to multiply the
means of easy and luxurious living. Age after age the world labors for
these things with the busy absorption of a colony of ants in its castle
of sand. And we must confess that the process, such, for instance, as
that now going on here--this onset of many peoples, which is transforming
the continent of America--is a spectacle to excite the imagination in the
highest degree. If there were any poet capable of putting into an epic
the spirit of this achievement, what an epic would be his! Can it be that
there is anything of more consequence in life than the great business in
hand, which absorbs the vitality and genius of this age? Surely, we say,
it is better to go by steam than to go afoot, because we reach our
destination sooner--getting there quickly being a supreme object. It is
well to force the soil to yield a hundred-fold, to congregate men in
masses so that all their energies shall be taxed to bring food to
themselves, to stimulate industries, drag coal and metal from the bowels
of the earth, cover its surface with rails for swift-running carriages,
to build ever larger palaces, warehouses, ships. This gigantic
achievement strikes the imagination.

If the world in which you live happens to be the world of books, if your
pursuit is to know what has been done and said in the world, to the end
that your own conception of the value of life may be enlarged, and that
better things may be done and said hereafter, this world and this pursuit
assume supreme importance in your mind. But you can in a moment place