in the drum and the trumpet, and so willing is he to add to what is spectacular and pleasing in life that he would spend half his time in parading.  His capacity for a holiday is practically unlimited.  He has not yet the means to indulge his taste, and perhaps his taste is not yet equal to his means, but there is no question of his adaptability to the sort of display which is so pleasing to the greater part of the human race, and which contributes so much to the brightness and cheerfulness of this world.  We cannot all have decorations, and cannot all wear uniforms, or even regalia, and some of us have little time for going about in military or civic processions, but we all like to have our streets put on a holiday appearance; and we cannot express in words our gratitude to those who so cheerfully spend their time and money in glittering apparel and in parades for our entertainment.

VALUE OF THE COMMONPLACE

The vitality of a fallacy is incalculable.  Although the Drawer has been going many years, there are still remaining people who believe that “things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.”  This mathematical axiom, which is well enough in its place, has been extended into the field of morals and social life, confused the perception of human relations, and raised “hob,” as the saying is, in political economy.  We theorize and legislate as if people were things.  Most of the schemes of social reorganization are based on this fallacy.  It always breaks down in experience.  A has two friends, B and C—­to state it mathematically.  A is equal to B, and A is equal to C. A has for B and also for C the most cordial admiration and affection, and B and C have reciprocally the same feeling for A. Such is the harmony that A cannot tell which he is more fond of, B or C. And B and C are sure that A is the best friend of each.  This harmony, however, is not triangular.  A makes the mistake of supposing that it is—­having a notion that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other—­and he brings B and C together.  The result is disastrous.  B and C cannot get on with each other.  Regard for A restrains their animosity, and they hypocritically pretend to like each other, but both wonder what A finds so congenial in the other.  The truth is that this personal equation, as we call it, in each cannot be made the subject of mathematical calculation.  Human relations will not bend to it.  And yet we keep blundering along as if they would.  We are always sure, in our letter of introduction, that this friend will be congenial to the other, because we are fond of both.  Sometimes this happens, but half the time we should be more successful in bringing people into accord if we gave a letter of introduction to a person we do not know, to be delivered to one we have never seen.  On the face of it this is as absurd as it is for a politician to indorse the application of a person he does not know for an office the duties of which he is unacquainted with; but it is scarcely less absurd than the expectation that men and women can be treated like mathematical units and equivalents.  Upon the theory that they can, rest the present grotesque schemes of Nationalism.