owers. And by degrees I made for myself
a new god, and its name was Efficiency.

Here at last was a god that I felt could stand! I had made so many in
years gone by, I had been making them all my life--from those first
fearful idols, the condors and the cannibals, to the kind old god of
goodness in my mother's church and the radiant goddess of beauty and art
over there in Paris. One by one I had raised them up, and one by one the
harbor had flowed in and dragged them down. But now in my full manhood
(for remember I was twenty-five!) I had found and taken to myself a god
that I felt sure of. No harbor could make it totter and fall. For it was
armed with Science, its feet stood firm on mechanical laws and in its
head were all the brains of all the strong men at the top.

And all the multitudes below seemed mere pigmies to me now. I remember
one late twilight, coming back from a talk with an engineer, I boarded a
ferry at the rush hour and watched the people herd on like sheep. How
small they seemed, how petty their thoughts compared to mine, how blind
their views of the harbor.

Here was a little Italian bride, just landed, by the looks of her. She
kept her face close to her lover's, smiling dazedly into his eyes. And
she saw no harbor. Here near by was a fat old gentleman with a highly
painted young lady who laughed and swore softly at him as I passed. I
sat down beside them a moment and listened. The old gentleman seemed
quite mad with desire. He was pleading eagerly, whining. And he saw no
harbor. Close by sat two tall serious men. One was deep in a socialist
book, the other in news of the Giants. Both seemed equally absorbed. And
they saw no harbor. I moved on to another spot, and sitting down by a
thin seedy-looking Irish girl I heard her talk to her husband about
having their baby's life insured according to a wonderful plan an agent
had described to her. As she spoke she was frowning anxiously--and she
saw no harbor. Not far away a plump flashy young creature was smiling
down on the bootblack who was busily shining her small patent leather
shoes. Her bright blue petticoat lifted high displayed the most enticing
charms, and as now she turned to look off toward the lights of the city
ahead, she smiled gaily to herself. And she saw no harbor. And alone up
at the windy bow I found a squat husky laborer with his dirty coat and
shirt thrown open wide, the wind on his bare hairy chest, hungrily
watching the dock ahead a