Worlds Within Worlds.

Thus there are millions of worlds within worlds on this world among worlds. Every man's world is his own, in which he lives as segregated from his fellows as a sausage struck from its string. The sole privilege left him in this sorry scheme if “isms,” “schisms” and “whizzims,” is this right to retire into his own world, slip the bar across the door, hang up the notice “no admittance without permission,” and “get together” with himself.

If he so desires he can stay there for the term of his unnatural life. But only rare souls, such as “hoboes,” confirmed dyspeptics, and philosophers have the nerve to do it; and, of the three, the philosophers are usually the first to emerge, being philosophical enough to know that it is impossible to maintain a full mind on an empty stomach; so, by emptying their minds, they fill their stomachs and become “practical philosophers,” which is equivalent to giving a gymnastic display over the wireless. Hoboes can hang out longer because a hobo lives by the sweat of other people's brows. Dyspeptics, of course, can exist without any visible means of disport.

But each man's private world should be a retreat rather than a dug-out, and, as Aristotle said, “a little chin-wag now and then is tonic for the wisest men.”