For myself, then, I cannot say that personally or socially the American or any other financier, as I have investigated him, is not as satisfactory as may be, all things considered. Artistically thus far he is not much to survey, but a giant or a Titan he certainly has been. As for the majority of them, they were by no means presentable or even acceptable socially, but what would you? They were, in the main, too ignorant, too insistent on their own views, too self-hypnotized by their own dreams of self-advancement and dominance. A leader of polite society anywhere, for instance, might not be willing to welcome a Russell Sage, a Jay Gould, or a John W. Gates or his wife, or indeed any other American financial type thus far known, and this solely on the ground of expediency or social or artistic fitness or unfitness for the lighter forms of living, but that in itself proves nothing. It could truthfully be said, on the other hand, that it would scarcely be possible to admit the average society man to the threatening precincts of radical energy or thought in any form. One thing is sure: the individual cannot wholly understand the mass, nor the mass the individual. Both have their significance, their place, but if one were to say of either that it or he alone had claim to significance as a helpful factor in life, or as dramatic or artistic material, or as a spectacle, one would be greatly mistaken. Both have. All have. THE TOIL OF THE LABORER A TRILOGY I. “The ears to hear! The beauty Of life is unceasingly calling. The eyes to see! Its glory Is ever unfolding anew!”