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Abracadabra. Presto! Behold the train. The gates are opened and the people press in. There will not be much trouble with the third-class passengers. See how they take their proper places of their own accord. Some of them deserve to ride second-class quite as much as many who will be affronted at not being allowed to go first-class. Do you see that man? He is a commercial traveller, or drummer, and, naturally, early on the ground. He doesn't hesitate or examine his ticket, but gets directly into a second-class smoking-car, settles himself, and puts on a silk cap. He knows that it is useless to ask for a first-class seat, and he is going to make the best of it (which is good philosophy). Very likely if you were sitting next to him he would utter some such cheery remark as, "It will be all the same a hundred years hence," and tell you a pat story to illustrate the situation. Did you happen to notice, though, the longing look he cast at the first-class coaches as he went by? I feel sure that down in his heart he is ready to admit that there are such things as ideals, after all, and he is making resolutions as to what he would do if he could live his life over again.

Did you notice that stout, fashionably dressed man who stopped and looked at me with a grin? He was trying it on, so to speak. He knew just as well as Tom Johnson, the drummer, that he had no right to travel first-class, but he thought I might admit him on the score of social prestige. He is one of the kindest-hearted of fellows – just the man to whom a friend would apply in a tight place, and I rather think he would be apt to help an enemy, unless it happened that something he had eaten for supper the night before had disagreed with him. He has the digestion of an ostrich, and he needs it, for his skin is full of oil, and whiskey, and tortured goose-liver, and canvas-back ducks, and pepper-sauce, and ripe Camembert cheese, and truffles, and Burgundy, and many other rich and kindred delicacies. He could tell four different vintages of champagne apart with his eyes shut, and he has honor at his club on account of it. His name is Howard Vincent. An illustrious-sounding name, isn't it? He inherits gout from both sides of the family. He does not know Tom Johnson, the drummer. They have moved in different social strata. But they belong to the same order of human beings. There! you notice, he asks Tom for a light, and they have begun to talk together. They are laughing now, and Tom is winking. I shouldn't wonder if they were making fun of the first-class passengers. Vincent has read more or less in his day, and he rather prides himself on what he calls keeping abreast of the times in the line of thought. See, they have opened the window, and are beckoning to me. Let us hear what they have to say.

Drummer. Ah, there, philosopher! You wouldn't let us in, and I guess you know your business. We've had a good time in life, anyhow. If the religious folk are right, we shall be in it up to our necks. If they're wrong, they've been wasting a lot of valuable time.

Howard Vincent. We've ridden straight, at all events. (Vincent is an authority on sporting matters.) We haven't pretended to be something we were not. We've never cheated anybody, and we've never lied to anybody, and each, according to his light (this last qualification was for Tom's benefit), has been a gentleman. We've been men of the world, and we have found the world a reasonably satisfactory place. We're in no haste to leave it.

The Philosopher. And may I add, gentlemen, that each of you has a kind and generous heart?

Did you observe how pleased they looked when I said that? It was a little weak of me to say it, but I could not help it. Somehow, it is very difficult to be sufficiently severe to such easy-going, pleasant-natured fellows, who are content to take the world as they find it, laugh and grow fat. Moreover, Tom Johnson has for twenty years supported his old mother and invalid sister, and remained single as a consequence; and Howard Vincent has a habit of giving away delightful sums on Christmas Day without advertising the fact. How often, on the occasion of death, do we hear the aphorism that everything counts for nothing save the kindly deeds of the deceased, until one is tempted to believe that a genial commercial traveller, like our friend, with a benignant soul is more admirable and inspiring than a highly sensitive gentleman and scholar. Indisputably this is so if the gentleman and scholar lacks the humanity for which the other is conspicuous; but, nevertheless, it behooves the soul in search of the ideal to beware of the slough of mere warm-heartedness. It is an attribute which, if relied on too exclusively as a leavening force, is readily made to subserve very ordinary purposes. The two Falstaffian men in the second-class car belong there, even though you might find their kindly ways and their stories attractive up to a certain point. They are of the class of men who, more signally perhaps than any other, bar the path of the world's progress toward the stars by means of the argument that what has been must be, and that what is is good enough. They are of the men who shrug their shoulders when the hope is expressed that the abuse of liquor may be lessened and finally controlled; who sneer at the efforts of the police authorities to shut up all the houses of ill-repute, on the ground that prostitution has always existed and must always exist. (That it will never become "unpopular," as the drummer would tell you in his breezy way.) Assuredly, you need to be on your guard against infatuation with those big, genial and (usually) pot-bellied personages whose large hearts and abundant charity and splendid appetites allow them to discard as unworthy of a sensible man's regard everything but honesty, reading, spelling and arithmetic (add, in the case of Howard Vincent, a dash of accomplishments and agnostic philosophy), Worcestershire sauce and jests of custom-made humor. Blessed be humor. The man or woman without it is like a loaf of stale bread or a cup of brackish water. But to be content with the mere workaday world and its ways is like travelling perpetually with a grip-sack. When we open the grip-sack, what do we find? The barest necessaries of life, without a trace of anything which inspires or refines. I have no desire to betray the private affairs of any commercial traveller, or to imply that the Bible and Shakespeare are not occasionally to be found both in the kit of the travelling man and the English leather trunk of the more elegant man of fashion. I am simply cautioning you, my male correspondents, to beware of accepting as final your world as you find it. Nothing is more sure to make you a second-class person. Mere good-natured common-sense ("horse-sense," as our drummer would call it) is a useful virtue, but it would keep civilization ordinary to the crack of doom.

Ah! now we are likely to have trouble. Notice, please, the lady coming this way. How graceful and elegant she is. A delicate, refined face and bearing. See how she sidles off from the third and second-class passengers with an expression of distaste for them which suggests pain. She cannot bear coarse people. She believes herself to be an intellectual woman with serious tastes. She aims to be a spiritual person and she reads many essays – by Emerson, Matthew Arnold, Pater, and others. She is fond of history and politics; not of this country, because she claims that it is vulgar and lacks picturesqueness. But she can tell you all about the governments of Europe, and who is prime minister of or in authority in each of them. Democracy does not interest her. It seems to her to concern the affairs of dirty or common people; and she cares nothing for the great social questions of the age. They appear to her to clash with personal spirituality and culture. She is very sensitive. She has made a study of music, especially Wagner. She is very particular as to what she has to eat, but the grossness of men, as she calls it, offends her seriously. She believes herself to be not very strong physically, and she is nervous on the subject of arsenic in wall-papers and germs in drinking-water. She has retained her maidenly instincts to the last.

What is that you ask, madam? A seat in a first-class carriage. Excuse me, you cannot go in there. You belong in the second-class section of the train. Mistake? There is no mistake. I understand perfectly. I'm ready to take your word for it that you have read Dante in the original, and I know that you are

(Doubtless you recall the quotation.) But you must stay out. Your ticket reads "Personal culture and individual salvation," and it entitles you to ride in any of those second-class cars. You don't like the passengers? I am very sorry, I'm sure, but my instructions are explicit. I was told to keep out all ladies of your kind, who think that the ideal is to be attained by hugging themselves to themselves (excuse the coarseness of the metaphor, madam) all their days in a hot-house atmosphere, and playing bo-peep with their own souls. You intend to write a letter about it to the Boston Evening– ? Oh, very well. You will have to ride second-class, all the same.

Enter a clergyman. This seems more promising.

Clergyman. Is this the first-class section? I think my seat must be in here.

Philosopher. First-class here, sir. Tickets, please. (Aside to correspondent.) A modest gentleman, forsooth.

Clergyman (stops fumbling in his pocket for his tickets and sniffs suspiciously). I smell tobacco. Is there a smoking-car on the first-class train?

Philosopher. There is for those who smoke.

Clergyman. An outrage, sir. An unchristian outrage. I suppose next that you will tell me that intoxicating fluids are sold there.

Philosopher. Yes, sir, to those who use them. All the first-class passengers understand the use of such things in moderation. They are not injured by them.

Clergyman. A flimsy argument, sir. Think of the example. I repeat it, sir; think of the example. I protest against it, sir, as a crime against our highest civilization. I – I will have you removed from office. You are not fit to hold your position. I will see the governor about it immediately. I – I —

Philosopher (to correspondent). He fancies that he is arguing on the liquor question before a board of police commissioners. (To clergyman.) The gentleman will come to order.

Clergyman. I insist on having the smoking and drinking car detached, or I will not ride on the train.

Philosopher. You will not ride in the first-class portion of it, in any event. Your ticket reads "Well-intentioned but overbearing visionary enthusiast." Come, sir, pass on, or, in spite of your cloth, I shall be obliged to put you in charge of an officer for disturbing the peace.

I was interrupted here by my wife, Josephine. "Of course I understand," said she, "that he was very overbearing, and I have heard you say before that clergymen are more apt to lose their temper before committees than most other people. But the poor man was desperately in earnest. The whole thing means so much to him. He believes that the world will never be redeemed until liquor and tobacco are no longer used in it. Do you mean that you really think this will never come to pass?"

"Never is a long time, my dear," said I.

"But you were discussing the ideal."

"To be sure. Have you ever considered the matter from the moderate-drinker and smoker's point of view? Brain-weary, muscle-tired men have, from generation to generation, found a glass of wine or spirit and a cigar a refreshment and a comfort. Neither agrees with some, and many abuse the use of both. Drunkenness among the poor and tippling among the rich are, perhaps, the greatest enemies of civilization; and, consequently, there is a corps of many women and some men who cry out upon the use of alcohol as incompatible with the world's progress. This sentiment at the polls expresses itself chiefly in very small minorities, unless the voters are reasonably near to some large city or town. The failure of the movement to make important headway might be ascribed to the fact that the mass of people are still unenlightened, were there any signs that the intelligent workers of the world are disposed to side with the wearers of the white ribbon. The use of champagne, claret, brandy, and whiskey continues unabated over the civilized world, if one is to judge by economic statistics and trade circulars. They are quaffed on state and festal occasions, generally with moderation, by lords and ladies, statesmen, lawyers, doctors, bankers, soldiers, poets, artists, and often by bishops and clergymen. At ninety-nine out of every hundred formal dinner-parties in London, Paris, Berlin, or New York, alcohol is offered in some form to the guests as a stimulus to conversation, and, were it not so, there would be ninety-nine grumblers to every one man or woman who, at present, turns his or her glasses down with an ill-bred, virtuous air."

"And yet," said Josephine, "I have heard you say constantly that it would be no particular deprivation to you to give up wine."

"No more it would. In this country, with its stimulating climate, most nervous people are better for a very little if any alcohol, and many men are apt to find that it is simpler not to drink at all. But, remember, we are considering the question whether there is any reason why the man or woman in perfect health, and in search of the ideal, should be a teetotaler, and if there is any probability that the world will banish alcohol and cigars from the dignified occasions of the future. In other words, when the world has learned not to drink and smoke too much, will it cease to drink and smoke altogether? I know that the advocates of total-abstinence argue about the serenity and sane joy of a cold-water banquet, and it may be that we are a trifle hysterical in our declarations that conversation must lag until one has had a glass of champagne; but is not much of the light, masculine laughter of life associated with the fruit of the grape and the aroma of tobacco? Have you ever tried to picture to yourself a world as it would be if there were well-enforced, rigid prohibition everywhere, and the tobacco-plant were no more?"

Josephine gave a little laugh. "You say the masculine laughter of the world. I assure you that much of the masculine laughter which you associate with the fruit of the grape is associated in the feminine mind with conjugal or maternal tears. I quite understand your appeal to the imagination from the masculine point of view. That is, I suppose the words wine and tobacco bring in their train for man many pleasing and even inspiriting images; that under their influence the soldier believes himself more brave and wins battles in anticipation; that the artist gets a glimpse of his great picture, and that the tired husband and father sees evolve from the bottom of his beer-mug a transfigured reflection of his wife and children. But we women, who, as a sex, have always done without wine and tobacco, know from experience that, however lofty and delightful your visions at such times, there is always a reaction after alcohol, and that we generally get the full benefit of the reaction. If, now, inspiring visions never came to us and other total-abstainers, there would seem to be some reason why we should be willing to bear the brunt of man's inebrieties a little longer; but really, my dear philosopher, is there any reason to believe that we do not entertain visions quite as inspiring and delightful as yours? We drink only tea – too much of it for our nerves, I dare say – but we will gladly give that up if you will abjure alcohol and cigars. There certainly is no poetry in the aroma of tobacco in the curtains, next day, and we pass the morning with it when you have gone down-town. Don't you think there is a great deal of humbug in the notion that in order to laugh lightly and remember gladly men need to be titillated either by wine or tobacco? I'm glad you wouldn't allow that bumptious clergyman to ride in a first-class car, but I don't see why the world should not be just as gay, and many women twice as happy, if there were no wine or tobacco. Only think how light-hearted woman would be if the incubus of man's drunkenness, under which she has staggered for hundreds of years, should be lifted off forever! She would be so bubbling over with happiness that, even though as a consequence man were in the dumps and without visions, she would make him merry in spite of himself."

"Very likely, Josephine. I am disposed to agree with you that the jest and merriment of masculine youth would not be entirely and hopelessly repressed. But you do not take sufficiently into consideration – and in this you imitate the bumptious clergyman who was going to have me removed – the world's cravings and necessities as a world. If, pardon me, men were all women in their appetites, and life were one grand pastoral à la Puvis de Chavannes – if, in short, the world were not the bustling, feverish, perplexing, exhausting, crushing, cruel world, men would not crave stimulants to help them to do their work or to forget it. If there were no alcohol or cigars, would not those who now use either to excess have recourse to some other form of stimulant or fatigue and pain disguiser instead? Why should those who have learned the great lesson of life, self-control, renounce the enjoyment of being artificially strengthened or cheered because others let their appetites run away with them and make beasts of them? I have, indeed, already suggested that it is a dangerous argument to instance an existing state of affairs as a reason against change; but I beg to call your attention to the fact that the world seems to pay very little heed to the lamentations of the teetotalers, so far as total-abstinence is concerned. There has been a change of temper among all classes in the direction of moderation in the use of liquor and wine, and legislation regulating and restricting licenses is becoming popular. But if the wearers of the white ribbon were to make inquiries of the dealers in glass-ware, they would find that no fewer newly married couples, among the educated and well-to-do in every country, buy wine-glasses as a necessary table article, in order to provide wine or beer for those whom they expect to entertain. There are certainly no signs that society, in the best sense, has any intention of adopting prohibition as a cardinal virtue, but many signs that it is seriously determined to make warfare on inebriety, and no longer to proffer it the cloak of social protection when the offenders happen to be what the world used to call gentlemen. One's ideal should not be too remote from probable human conclusions, and it does not seem likely, from present indications, that man, unless he be persuaded that the moderate use of stimulants is seriously injurious to his health, will ever be willing to banish them from the markets of the world because a certain portion of the community has not the necessary intelligence or self-control to use them with discretion. As for tobacco, it is a long cry from now to the millennium, but a philosopher cannot afford, at this stage of the itinerary, to cut off the smoking-car from the first-class portion of the train, for by so doing he might confound even archbishops and other exemplary personages."