Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/474

 would be left of an American city after ages of such misfortune. I wondered if you could find even what we call its 'Yawp'? The 'Yawp'"

"I know very well," Dr. Medjila interrupted, and he laughed. "It is the brag. You think perhaps the Romans didn't have it? Heavens! What braggarts! You find the imperial Roman Yawp in thousands of inscriptions everywhere—everywhere! America has so much that is the same as these dead people: the great Yawp, the love of health, the love of plumbing, the love of power, of wealth, and, above all, the worship of bigness—that old, old passion for giantism. What is strange, you find at the same time a great deal of common sense. In all the different times I have been here I have seen just one tourist who understood Timgad instantly, and that was because he was really a Roman himself. He was here only the other day."

"An Italian?" Ogle asked.

"No, no! One of your own people, of course. You have been to the Forum and the Arch of Triumph this morning?"

"Yes; before I came here."

"Then you can understand," Dr. Medjila said, and he chuckled. "This fellow, he had a guide;