In fact, this and no other is the origin of snobbery. Snobbery is, I know, an obvious target for sarcasm at the present day. And it is easy to laugh at the _nouveau riche_ who is determined at all costs, even at the price of sacrifice and snubs, to frequent houses and circles which formerly were closed to him; who is glad to go for trips in a motor-car, even if they cause him suffering, or to go to the opera even if he falls asleep there, because he thinks that by doing so, he is living up to the standard of the highest elegance. But if he were not under this delusion, what would be the use of his wealth to him? What compensation would he have for the fatigues and perils he had incurred in its acquisition? Snobbery is simply an effort to translate quantity into quality to which man is impelled by the very increase of wealth. There never was so much snobbery as there is at the present time, because there never was so much wealth. Without a doubt, modern snobbery is full of grotesque deceptions. The world never contained so many _nouveaux riches_, unprepared to enjoy the real refinements of life, and destined to be the victims of every sort of fraud. How often and in how many instances do we not see the tragi-comedy of _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, Molière’s immortal comedy, acted over again at the present day? But one can also find, in America perhaps more abundantly than in Europe, families whose wealth dates back several generations, in which families the mania for the accumulation of riches has died down, and which have time, inclination, and culture enough to employ their wealth on behalf of the most lofty activities of the mind. These are the American families who ransack Europe for works of art, who found schools and museums, who give work to architects, painters, and sculptors, who directly or indirectly stimulate an ever-increasing number of the rising generation not to concentrate on the making of money, but to devote themselves to those intellectual labours of which, till a short while ago, Europe had the monopoly. And it is the existence of this portion of American society and its tendencies that entitle us to say that America is being Europeanised. Europe, then, wishing to live a larger life, after centuries of penury and stint, is becoming Americanised, and is sacrificing a part of her splendid traditions of lofty culture to her desire to learn from America the art of producing new wealth rapidly. America, on the other hand, having accumulated immense wealth by the intensive exploitation of her territory, is becoming Europeanised; she is turning, that is to say, to the arts, sciences, and most lofty forms of higher culture, to perfect which Europe has laboured for centuries. Yet at this point I think I hear the reader cry: