“Pray tell me what are all these high edifices jammed together here?”
“They are Sane Asylums,” answered the Excelsior, “and the inmates are devotees of routine.”
At that moment, whistles shrieked and bells rang: and lo, behold! vast throngs of individuals swarmed in the hallways and issued out of doors.
“Look at them,” said the Excelsior, “they are now going to crawl to luncheon, no matter whether they are hungry or not. Yet you will find odd specimens in that mass. You will find presidents of companies who spend their lives poring over countless figures when they would much prefer to study along the inclinations of their temperaments. You will find lawyers and physicians who long to love and dream instead of listening to petty ills and complaints. You will find bankers who might have been philosophers. You will find clerks who conceal and are ashamed of poetic fancies. And yet they all slave on in their voluntary prisons, giving forth only mediocre efforts. And why? Because they do not love their work. They work only to procure buttons, instead of living for rational happiness. That is why this age of ours is unfortunately a Millennium of Minnows.”
My host thought he had said enough for a while and ceased to entertain me. He lolled back and stroked his magnificent whiskers. Again we were jaunting down hill when the oxen drew up to water at a curved trough which stood before a crooked building with dingy, little windows, all arow.
“What on earth is this; who lives in here?”
“My cowards,” answered the Excelsior, “did you not know that I own the rarest and most complete collection of cowards in the world?”
“I have never even heard of such a collection.”
“What a puny ignoramus you are!” exclaimed the Great Axilla, “where can you have lived and not have been taught the underlying principles of cowardice? And I, sir, have specimens to illustrate each of those principles. Do you not even know the three grand divisions of cowards: the Physical Coward, the Moral Coward and the Intellectual Coward?”