One day, listening to a fine elderly Scotch Presbyterian minister who had in his congregation a large group of these stable, secure, best citizens, I was startled when he leaned over his pulpit and, shaking his fist at us, shouted, “You’re dyin’ of respectability.” Was that what was happening to me? I saw with increasing clearness that I could not go beyond a certain point on _The Chautauquan_, mentally, socially, spiritually. If I remained, it was to accept a variety of limitations, and my whole nature was against the acceptance of limitations. It was contrary to the nature of things as I saw them; to be happy, I must go on with fresh attempts, fresh adventuring. The thing that frightened me earlier in my youth came to the top now: that thing that made me determine I would never marry because it meant giving up freedom, was a trap. It was clear enough that I was trapped—comfortably, most pleasantly, most securely, but trapped. As time went on I realized that this security to which people so clung could not always be counted on. They might think so, but had I not seen beautiful homes sold under the hammer in Titusville, homes of those whom the town had looked on as impregnable financially? In my years on _The Chautauquan_ in Meadville I had been a shocked observer of one of the many dramatic political failures of the eighties, the defeat of the Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania at a critical moment—a Meadville banker, Wallace Delamater. I was too much of a mugwump to sympathize with the Republican platform, but I liked Wallace Delamater. I believed him, as I think the records show, to be a tool of a past master of machine politics—Matthew Quay. Taken up by Quay, the resources of the Delamater bank and of allied banks in Meadville at the call of his party, he made a campaign which was called brilliant. There was no doubt of the result in Meadville. I went to bed early, the night of the election, expecting to be aroused by the ringing of bells, the blowing of whistles, for there was to be a celebration. When I awakened with a start it was broad daylight. Had I slept through the celebration? A sense of doom hung over me; I dressed hurriedly, went down to get the paper. Wallace Delamater was defeated. Promptly the Delamater bank closed and, one after another, four banks of the town followed. There was a heavy run on the one remaining, the one where I had my little deposit. The panic in the town was desperate; everything was going. I don’t think I have ever been more ashamed of anything in my life connected with money than I was when I took my bank book and went to my bank to ask for my deposit. It was all the money I had in the world—times were bad. But I have always continued to be a little ashamed that I yielded to the panic, the more because my bank didn’t fail!