the possibilities of the future; the attitude of the inspired
Thinker as well as Poet was his, and a crust of bread and cheese
served him as sufficiently on his journeyings among the then
unspoilt valleys and mountains of Switzerland as the warm, greasy,
indigestible fare of the elaborate table-d'hotes at Lucerne and
Interlaken serve us now. But we, in our "superior" condition,
pooh-pooh the Byronic spirit of indifference to events and scorn
of trifles,--we say it is "melodramatic," completely forgetting
that our attitude towards ourselves and things in general is one
of most pitiable bathos. We cannot write Childe Harold, but we can
grumble at both bed and board in every hotel under the sun; we can
discover teasing midges in the air and questionable insects in the
rooms; and we can discuss each bill presented to us with an
industrious persistence which nearly drives landlords frantic and
ourselves as well. In these kind of important matters we are
indeed "superior" to Byron and other ranting dreamers of his type,
but we produce no Childe Harolds, and we have come to the strange
pass of pretending that Don Juan is improper, while we pore over
Zola with avidity! To such a pitch has our culture brought us!
And, like the Pharisee in the Testament, we thank God we are not
as others are. We are glad we are not as the Arab, as the African,
as the Hindoo; we are proud of our elephant-legs and our dividing
coat-line; these things show we are civilized, and that God
approves of us more than any other type of creature ever created.
We take possession of nations, not by thunder of war, but by
clatter of dinner-plates. We do not raise armies, we build hotels;
and we settle ourselves in Egypt as we do at Homburg, to dress and
dine and sleep and sniff contempt on all things but ourselves, to
such an extent that we have actually got into the habit of calling
the natives of the places we usurp "foreigners." WE are the