Does not the old nursery wisdom declare, "Great oaks from little acorns grow?" Invent an electrical cook, an electrical parlour-maid, an electrical housemaid, and an electrical boy for the boots. Think of the peace that will enter our homes; think of the just retribution that will overtake those awful offices that pocket our fees and supply worse than nothing! Think of the joy of millions of crushed housekeepers who, for the first time in the history of the world, will be able to look a cook squarely in the face and give her warning! Surely that is an aim which should satisfy the greatest intellect, because the greatest intellect (presumably a man, a brother, a father, or a husband) demands to be fed, not only often, but well.
Columbus was undoubtedly a great man, and the product of his time; was he not the first to do that little egg trick, and did he not afterwards discover the United States of America? But his fame, mighty and enduring though it is, will pale before his, the product of our time, the product of our dire necessity, who will give to the world what is greater even than a new continent--and that is Peace.
The greatest man of the future will be the Columbus of the Kitchen.
I once met an Englishman in America who quite unconsciously explained to me the vital difference between English and American society.
He was so quiet, so gentlemanly, and so bored, and I had tried my best to say things. At last I cried in despair, "You Englishmen are so hard to entertain!" To which he replied, in slow surprise, "But we don't want to be entertained!" and that is it! And as man moulds the woman, and the woman makes society--therefore the English woman makes the society of which her Englishman approves, just as the American makes a society suitable for her "men folks."
Society is an elusive expression, and the human beings who constitute it are spread out in layers like the chocolate cake of our childhood, and every layer aspires to be the top one with the sugar frosting. In a kingdom the only ones who ever reach that sugar-coated eminence are of course the august reigning family besides a very precious and select few, who must be horribly bored at having reached an altitude where there is no need of further aspiration. After all, it does add a zest to life to triumph over one's dearest friends and snub them. Of course a reigning family has the superlative privilege of snubbing, but they have to take it out in that, for to them is denied the joy of "climbing."