Conversation is distinctly a social art, and it can flourish only where society itself has come to be something of a practised art. It cannot succeed, any more than an orchestra can, with one or two competent players amid a lot of others[Pg 236] with no ear for music. One has got to be able to count upon all the members of the group having a certain background and attitude, even when the major interests and occupations of every member of the group are different. For various reasons, the old type of society, in which, from a social point of view, such counting upon could be made with certainty, is breaking down everywhere, but in America the social mixture has always been more heterogeneous than in Europe. I am not speaking in a snobbish sense, any more than it would be snobbish to object to a saxophone and a bass drum taking part in a piece prepared solely for strings. The mental backgrounds, even when there are any that deserve the name, of any ordinarily gathered group of men in America are so different that within their circumscribed spheres they offer but narrow range for talk to wander in. It is continually being brought up against this wall and that. When the right group gets together in America there can be as good talk as anywhere; but it rarely happens, and for the most part even those capable of it have learned to hold their tongues and play safe. Coming back to what seems to me to be the main point the question mark is likely to continue to be the symbol of the United States so long as its men remain frontiersmen, so long as they continue to devote all their time and strength to subduing a wilderness instead of living in it, whether the wilderness is one of woods and Red Indians or of the stony fields of ever increasing economic wants. If the new land of the High Standard proves to be illimitable, with a frontier retreating further and further ahead of each succeeding generation, the question mark, sign of hungry and empty frontier minds, is not soon to be replaced by civilized conversation.[Pg 237] The discussion of an endless succession of things, motors, radios, aeroplanes, or of facts, is not conversation. A full mind, a philosophic outlook, a disinterested interest so to speak, a broad and varied background, are not frontier products. Here and there in America a settler has decided that he will move no further, that he will content himself with the patch he has already cleared, and begin really to live instead of always getting ready to. He has ceased to be a frontiersman and begun to build the next stage of civilization. His talk is apt to be good. Conversation will begin when we cease to expand and begin to concentrate. I read today in a European newspaper that “what Denmark thinks today, Europe thinks tomorrow.” Look for little Denmark on the map, and think that over. But, you say, “May I ask...?” Go to! [Pg 239] CHAPTER XI IS AMERICA YOUNG? [Pg 241] IS AMERICA YOUNG? I