Page:Letters from America, Brooke, 1916.djvu/77

Rh pass a wall, some five hundred square feet of which a gentleman has taken to declare that he is 'out' to break the Undertakers' Trust. Half the advertisement is a coloured photograph of himself. The rest is, "See what I give you for 75 dols.!" and a list of what he does give. He gives everything that the most morbid taphologist could suggest, beginning with "splendidly carved full-size oak casket, with black ivory handles. Four draped Flambeaux..." and going on to funereal ingenuities that would have overwhelmed Mausolus, and make death impossible for a refined man.

But there are heights as well as depths. I have been privileged with some intimate glances into the greatest of those peculiarly American institutions, the big departmental stores. Materially it is an immense building, containing all things that any upper-middle-class person could conceivably want. Such a store includes even Art, with the same bland omnipotence. If you wander into the vast auditorium, it is equal chances whether you hear a work of Beethoven, Victor Herbert, Schonberg, or Mr Hirsch. If you are artistic, you may choose between a large coloured photograph of the Eiffel Tower, a carbon