In this last injunction lay, perhaps, the gist of the whole matter. To
hitch one's wagon to a star was to be, primarily, a plain person, to go
in for truth, patriotism, fineness of soul, long hours of labor, little
exercise and no vacations, pies and doughnuts, ugliness of physical
surroundings, and squeaky feminine voices. Public opinion justified
making all the money one could, provided it was not spent in rendering
life ornate or beautiful. So lived our fathers and mothers, our
up-right, vigorous, single-minded, ascetic predecessors; and in our day
their precepts were still held in reverence. Yet even then there were
indications of a change. The newly created species took it into her
head to look around her, especially in summer, first by itineraries
along the rock-bound coast of her native land, and later by amazon-like
pilgrimages abroad. She invented Bar Harbor, and while electrified
Europe held its breath perambulated Paris alone and climbed Mont Blanc
with a single man. She also made the pertinent discovery that her
popper's purse was pudgy with the proceeds of wheat, corn, dry goods,
and railway shares. Though she still urged the successive youths who
strolled and sat under her Japanese sunshade to hitch their wagons to
heavenly bodies, she gave it sweetly, and little by little to be
understood that chastity among women and high resolve among men need
not preclude more picturesque paraphernalia and a broader field of
investigation.
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