“Is not this all to the good? Does it not establish a marvellous balance between the two worlds? Does it not prove that our civilisation is the richest, most powerful, best balanced, and most perfect which has ever existed? Ought Europe to have gone on living for ever in misery, intent only on the perfecting of culture, and America to have had never a thought for anything but the multiplication of wealth?” To be sure, if this exchange of wealth and culture between the two continents could be effected as well and easily as it can be described, our epoch would be in very truth an epoch of fabulous felicity. We might claim to be, in comparison with preceding generations, a generation of supermen. Unfortunately, the difficulties are greater than they seem at first sight to be. What they are will be seen in the next chapter; we shall then see that it has become much easier to produce new wealth than to employ it in the creation of a lofty and refined civilisation; and that this is the secret torment which afflicts Europe and America. IV THE LOST PARADISE OF BEAUTY The bewildering growth in the wealth of America has affected in many different ways the whole world. Economists are studying its effects with much zeal. One, and not the least curious, of them, is the rise in the value of antiques. From Etruscan ceramics to French furniture of the eighteenth century, from Greek statues to Italian pictures of every epoch, from Tanagra statuettes to the lace, embroideries, tapestries, manuscripts, glass, and filigree from every part of the world, all the artistic furniture of Europe, Asia, and Africa which has survived the ravages of time has trebled and quadrupled its value. Few financial speculations proved more successful in Europe than the collection about fifty years ago of antiques.