“To be bartered for mere canvas,” retorted the visitor calmly, waving his hand in the direction of some paintings.
This ready wit and tone of cool depreciation had the effect of putting the erratic artist in a good humor at once. He changed his manner immediately, and not long after his visitor departed, having bought several fine paintings, and leaving the comfortable sum of five thousand pounds behind him.
(860)
See [Odd Behavior].
ECHOES
The explanations provided by the method of fairy tales are based upon the evidence of things that can not be perceived and upon assumptions that can not be tested. Take, for instance, the explanation of an echo; to the primitive mind, hearing the repetition of its shout, and conscious of only speaking once, is it not inevitable one should suppose that the shout came from another person? A futile search in the wood or under the cliff would lead to the thought that the person was hiding, and the more naturally, as on coming to the cliff whence the shout seemed to come one’s call would receive no answer. As at other times such mocking answers would always come from the same place, what more natural than to think that some person or spirit dwelt there? Hence such a story as Lander tells of his voyage down the Niger: “As they came to a creek the captain shouted, and where an echo was returned half a glass of rum and a piece of yam and fish were thrown into the water. On asking the reason why he was throwing away the provisions thus, he was answered: ‘Did you not hear the fetish?’ And so, in South Pacific myth, echo is the first and parent fairy to whom divine honors are paid as the giver of food, and as she ‘who speaks to the worshipers out of the rocks.’”—William Schooling, Westminster Review.
(861)
Economic Injustice—See [Injustice].
ECONOMIC MOTIVES
We know that an extremely severe medical examination is imposed upon immigrants to the United States, and that entrance into this country is pitilessly denied to those who seem even merely puny and sickly. The result of this examination is that the ocean transportation companies must return to their countries, at their own cost, rejected immigrants. To avoid this expense, the companies of the various countries have decided to take all the precautions necessary for protecting the health of their passengers. Thus, at Hamburg a company has had great halls built to shelter emigrants during their stay in the port before their embarkation; and, the results having been favorably recognized, they are going to build booths, capable of containing each 120 beds, arranged in accordance with the rules of up-to-date hygiene, each group of four booths to be provided with a special booth fitted up as a laundry, with vapor-baths, etc. We know, on the other hand, that the establishment of sanatoriums for consumptives had its origin in Germany in similar anxieties on the part of the insurance companies. Thus it is that the care of the pocketbook is still the surest motive power of social progress. (Text.)