Page:The Genius of America (1923).pdf/202

 squalid, fly-infested, half-civilized town of the great Border; set up a clean, modern, scientific, attractive tea-room and cafeteria; and gradually teach the entire town what to eat, how to cook, how to serve meals, and how to behave at table. Or, let us say for the sake of those who savor their "idealism" more in the abstract than in the concrete: three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, they might bring something of grace, cleanliness, charm, and civility into the lives of an entire community. They might contribute permanently and substantially to the advance of civilization.

And they might actually have turned to this enterprise with imaginative gusto and practical effectiveness if work of this sort had ever been related in their minds to their "suppressed desire" for that enchanting will-o'-the-wisp, a beautiful and heroic life. The "service" as I state it here does not kindle the imagination like the thought of Florence Nightingale organizing her hospital in the Crimean War, nor like the thought of Jenny Lind contributing the glory of her voice to charity; but if there is one sound principle of human economy, it is this: To save a man from death or even to make him ecstatically happy once or twice, is a small service compared with making him comfortable