To-day the author’s position is similar to that of Helper, who wrote these words, save that it differs in one important particular. Helper, though a Southerner, was not a slave-holder. I am in every sense a member of the class to whom I write. I do not flatter myself that my words will have any more effect among mine own people than Helper’s had among the people of the South, but fortunately my voice is but one of a hundred that are raised to-day to warn the leisure class of the rocks toward which it is drifting. Hinton Rowan Helper died but a little time ago. Four years after the appearance of his book he saw the outbreak of the Civil War. In the end of that war he saw the states of his beloved South bent like reeds in a storm, its armies overthrown, its fields laid waste, its homes destroyed, its cherished institutions gone forever. I wonder, as I write, whether it be possible in this age of civilization and advancement that I, too, am but a voice crying in the wilderness. Will our capitalist class, like the old French monarchy, “learn nothing and forget nothing?” Many a time, while engaged in the manifold activities of social life, at a dinner or a ball, or amusing myself in the country, this question has come to me. I have wondered whether it is all really as it seems. Here are gay hearts, merry voices, lives all brimming with laughter, young men and maidens all untouched by the sterner things of life, boys with their fortunes to inherit and high positions in life secured, débutantes with every problem solved for them, a formulated education leading to a formulated social routine, stately matrons born to rule their little social world, fine men and women of more ripened years, whose careers have led to what seemed a purposeful goal. It all seems happy and light-hearted, and yet there _must_ be shadows, if these men and women are really men and women, and not mere thoughtless, heartless, brainless creatures. Is it, again, “after us the deluge?” Again, I remember very well an occasion this past winter, when the same thought came to me. I was dining in one of the city hotels. Music and laughter flooded the place as sunshine floods the fields. Outwardly, the scene had all the appearance of perfect ease and happiness. Looking around, I lighted by chance upon a table where a group of elderly people, all well known to me, were dining. They were people who live well, and who take a large part in the social world as well as in the world of business. I watched them as they talked. I noted an air of gravity, of seriousness, and I wondered what it was all about. A little later, as their table assumed the normal aspect, I went over and exchanged greetings with them. Incidentally, I asked them what had made them so very serious throughout the evening.