_To
CORNELIA_
_FOREWORD_
My right to speak for the man in the street, the average American,
is, I am aware, open to serious question. Possibly there are amiable
persons who, if urged to pass judgment, would appraise me a trifle
higher than the average; others, I am painfully aware, would rate
me much lower. The point is, of course, one about which I am not
entitled to an opinion. I offer no apology for the apparent unrelated
character of the subjects herein discussed, for to my mind the volume
has a certain cohesion. In that part of America with which I am most
familiar, literature, politics, religion, and the changing social scene
are all of a piece. We disport ourselves in one field as blithely as in
another. Within a few blocks of this room, on the fifteenth floor of
an office-building in the centre of my home town, I can find men and
women quite competent to answer questions pertaining to any branch of
philosophy or the arts. I called a lawyer friend on the telephone only
yesterday and hummed a few bars of music that he might aid me with the
correct designation of one of Beethoven’s symphonies. In perplexity
over an elusive quotation I can, with all confidence, plant myself on
the post-office steps and some one will come along with the answer. I
do not mention these matters boastfully, but merely to illustrate the
happy conditions of life in the delectable province in which I was born.
The papers here collected first appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
except “Let Main Street Alone!” which was published in the New York
_Evening Post_, “The Cheerful Breakfast Table,” which is reprinted
from the _Yale Review_, and “The Poor Old English Language,” which
is reproduced from _Scribner’s Magazine_. The political articles are
sufficiently explained by their dates. They are reprinted without
alteration in the hope that some later student of the periods
scrutinized may find them of interest.