man tired of
life, and who desired to get out of it without the reputation of a
suicide, was very simple. He only had to take chicken salad regularly at
midnight, in large quantities, and to wash it down with bumpers of wine,
reaching his pillow about 2 a.m. If the third winter of this did not
bring his obituary, it would be because that man was proof against that
which had slain a host larger than any other that fell on any
battle-field of the ages. The Scandinavian warriors believed that in the
next world they would sit in the Hall of Odin, and drink wine from the
skulls of their enemies. But society, by its requirements of late hours
and conviviality, demanded that a man should drink out of his own skull,
having rendered it brainless first. I had great admiration for the
suavities and graces of life, but it is beyond any human capacity to
endure what society imposes upon many in America. Drinking other
people's health to the disadvantage of one's own health is a poor
courtesy at best. Our entertainments grew more and more extravagant,
more and more demoralising. I wondered if our society was not swinging
around to become akin to the worst days of Roman society. The princely
banquet-rooms of the Romans had revolving ceilings representing the
firmament; fictitious clouds rained perfumed essences upon the guests,
who were seated on gold benches, at tables made of ivory and
tortoise-shell. Each course of food, as it was brought into the banquet
room, was preceded by flutes and trumpets. There was no wise man or
woman to stand up from the elaborate banquet tables of American society
at this time and cry "Halt!" It might have been done in Washington, or
in New York, or in Brooklyn, but it was not.

The way American society was moving in 1886 was the way to death. The
great majority, the major key in the weird symphony of American life,
was not of society.

We had no masses really, although we borrowed the term from Europe and
used it busily to describe our working people, who were massive enough
as a body of men, but they were not the masses. Neither were they the
mob, which was a term some were fond of using in describing the
destruction of property on railroads in the spring of 1886. The
labouring men had nothing to do with these injuries. They were done by
the desperadoes who lurked in all big cities. I made a Western trip
during this strike, and I found the labouring men quiet, peaceful, but
idle. The depots were fil