held intercourse with your soul.

The chief features in the expression of the men were incredulity,
unbelief, cunning, observation, heartlessness. I did not see a good
face in the whole room: powerful faces there were, I grant you; high
noses, resolute mouths, fine brows; all the marks of shrewdness and
energy; a forcible and capable race; but that was all. I did not see
one, my dear brother of whom I could say, "That man would sacrifice
himself for another; that man loves his fellow man."

I could not but think how universal and irresistible must have been
the influences of the age that could mold all these Men and women
into the same soulless likeness. I pitied them. I pitied mankind,
caught in the grip of such wide-spreading tendencies. I said to
myself: "Where is it all to end? What are we to expect of a race
without heart or honor? What may we look for when the powers of the
highest civilization supplement the instincts of tigers and wolves?
Can the brain of man flourish when the heart is dead?"

I rose and left the room.

I had observed that the air of the hotel was sweeter, purer and
cooler than that of the streets outside. I asked one of the
attendants for an explanation. He took me out to where we could
command a view of the whole building, and showed me that a great
canvas pipe rose high above the hotel, and, tracing it upwards, far
as the eye could reach, he pointed out a balloon, anchored by cables,
so high up as to be dwarfed to a mere speck against the face of the
blue sky. He told me that the great pipe was double; that through one
division rose the hot, exhausted air of the hotel, and that the