lectures is posted publicly and printed in the daily paper.  Every evening an entertainment of some sort is given in the Amphitheatre, and this is eagerly attended by swarming thousands.  The Institution owns all the land within the bounding palisades.  Private cottages may be erected by individual builders on lots leased for ninety-nine years; but the Institution owns and operates the only hotel, and exercises an absolute empery over the issuance of franchises to necessary tradesmen.  The revenue of the corporation is therefore rich; but all of it is expended in importing the best lecturers that may be obtained, and in furthering the general good of the general assembly.  The entire system suggests the theoretic observation that an absolute democracy can be instituted and maintained only by an absolute monarchy.  If all the people are to be free and equal, the government must have absolute control of all the revenue.  Here is, perhaps, a principle for our presidential candidates to think about.

But I do not wish to terminate this summer conversation on a serious note; and I must revert, in closing, to some of the recreations at Chautauqua.  The first of these is tea.  Every afternoon, from four to five o’clock, the visitor lightly flits from tea to tea,—­making his excuses to one hostess in order to dash onward to another.  This is rather hard upon the health, because it requires the deglutition of innumerable potions.  I have always maintained that tea is an admirable entity if it be considered merely as a time of day, but that it is insidious if it be considered as a beverage.  At Chautauqua, tea is not only an hour but a drink; and (though I am a sympathetic soul) I can only say that those who like it like it.  For my part, I preferred the concoction sold at rustic soda-fountains, which is known locally as a “Chautauqua highball,”—­a ribald term devised by college men who make up the by-no-means-despicable ball-team.  This beverage is compounded out of unfermented grape-juice and foaming fizz-water; and, if it be taken absent-mindedly, seems to taste like something.

But the standard recreation at Chautauqua is the habit of impromptu eating in the open air.  Every one invites you to go upon a picnic.  You take a steamer to some point upon the lake, or take a trolley to a wild and deep ravine known by the somewhat unpoetic name of the Hog’s Back; and then everybody sits around and eats sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, and considers the occasion a debauch.  This formality resembles great good fun,—­especially as there are girls who laugh, and play, and threaten to disconcert you on the morrow when you solemnly arise to lecture on the Religion of Emerson.  But picnic-baskets out of doors are rather hard on the digestion.