resources at their disposal for amusement or the passing of leisure
hours.

Abroad the military bands play constantly in the public parks; the
museums and palaces are always open wherein to pass rainy Sunday
afternoons; every village has its religious FETES and local fair,
attended with dancing and games. All these mental relaxations are
lacking in our newer civilization; life is stripped of everything
that is not distinctly practical; the dull round of weekly toil is
only broken by the duller idleness of an American Sunday.
Naturally, these people long for something outside of themselves
and their narrow sphere.

Suddenly there arises a class whose wealth permits them to break
through the iron circle of work and boredom, who do picturesque and
delightful things, which appeal directly to the imagination; they
build a summer residence complete, in six weeks, with furniture and
bric-a-brac, on the top of a roadless mountain; they sail in
fairylike yachts to summer seas, and marry their daughters to the
heirs of ducal houses; they float up the Nile in dahabeeyah, or
pass the "month of flowers" in far Japan.

It is but human nature to delight in reading of these things. Here
the great mass of the people find (and eagerly seize on), the
element of romance lacking in their lives, infinitely more
enthralling than the doings of any novel's heroine. It is real!
It is taking place! and - still deeper reason - in every ambitious
American heart lingers the secret hope that with luck and good
management they too may do those very things, or at least that
their children will enjoy the fortunes they have gained, in just