fall a remark which renewed those doubts of mine when I read it:

"In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we find applied
to arts and luxury, and to debauchery, all the powers and all
the weaknesses of the French soul."

You see, it amounts to a trade with the French soul; a profession;
a science; the serious business of life, so to speak, in our high
Parisian existence. I do not quite like the look of it. I question if
it can be taught with profit in our country, except, of course, to those
pathetic, neglected minds that are waiting there so yearningly for the
education which M. Bourget is going to furnish them from the serene
summits of our high Parisian life.

I spoke a moment ago of the existence of some superstitions that have
been parading the world as facts this long time. For instance, consider
the Dollar. The world seems to think that the love of money is
"American"; and that the mad desire to get suddenly rich is "American."
I believe that both of these things are merely and broadly human, not
American monopolies at all. The love of money is natural to all nations,
for money is a good and strong friend. I think that this love has
existed everywhere, ever since the Bible called it the root of all evil.

I think that the reason why we Americans seem to be so addicted to trying
to get rich suddenly is merely because the opportunity to make promising
efforts in that direction has offered itself to us with a frequency out
of all proportion to the European experience. For eighty years this
opportunity has been offering itself in one new town or region after
another straight westward, step by step, all the way from the Atlantic
coast to the Pacific. When a mechanic could buy ten town lots on