Human intercourse, also, suffers from the lack of leisure, and detachment, and delight in the interchange of ideas. The average American is not silent. He talks freely and sometimes well, but he usually does it with a practical purpose. Political debate and business discussion are much more in his line than general conversation. Thus he too often misses what Montaigne and Samuel Johnson both called one of the chief joys of life,--"a good talk." I remember one morning, after a certain dinner in New York, an acquaintance who was one of the company met me, and said, "Do you know that we dined last night with thirty millions of dollars?" "Yes," I said, "and we had conversation to the amount of about thirty cents." Popular recreations and amusements, pleasures of the simpler kind such as are shared by masses of people on public holidays, do not seem to afford as much relaxation and refreshment in America as they do in Germany or France. Children do not take as much part in them. There is an air of effort about them, as if the minds of the people were not quite free from care. The Englishman is said to take his pleasure sadly. The American is apt to take his strenuously. Understand, in all this I am speaking in the most general way, and of impressions which can hardly be defined, and which certainly cannot be mathematically verified. I know very well that there are many exceptions to what I have been saying. There are plenty of quiet rooms in America, club-rooms, college-rooms, book-rooms, parlours, where you will find the best kind of talk. There are houses full of children who are both well-bred and happy. There are people who know how to play, with a free heart, not for the sake of winning, but for the pleasure of the game. Yet I think it true that a strong will-power directed chiefly to industrial success has had a hardening effect upon the general tone of life. Unless you really love work for its own sake, you will not be very happy in America. The idea of a leisure class is not fully acclimatized there. Men take it for granted that there must be something useful for them to do in the world, even though they may not have to earn a living. This brings me to the last point of which I wish to speak: the result of will-power and work in the production of wealth, and the real status of the Almighty Dollar in the United States. The enormous increase of wealth has been accompanied by an extraordinary concentration of it in forms which make it more powerful and impressive. Moody's _Manual of Corporation Statistics_ says that there are four hundred and forty large industrial, franchise, and transportation trusts, of an important and active character, with a floating capital of over twenty billion dollars. When we remember that each of these corporations is in the eye of the law a person, and is able to act as a person in financial, industrial, and political affairs, we begin to see the tremendous significance of the figures.