" There is the thrifty Mercury of
New England, Pluto of the North, and Ceres of the West; and
there, too, is the half-forgotten Apollo of the South, under
whose aegis the maiden ran,--and as she ran she forgot him,
even as there in Boeotia Venus was forgot. She forgot the old
ideal of the Southern gentleman,--that new-world heir of the
grace and courtliness of patrician, knight, and noble; forgot
his honor with his foibles, his kindliness with his carelessness,
and stooped to apples of gold,--to men busier and sharper,
thriftier and more unscrupulous. Golden apples are beautiful--I
remember the lawless days of boyhood, when orchards in
crimson and gold tempted me over fence and field--and, too,
the merchant who has dethroned the planter is no despicable
parvenu. Work and wealth are the mighty levers to lift this
old new land; thrift and toil and saving are the highways to
new hopes and new possibilities; and yet the warning is
needed lest the wily Hippomenes tempt Atalanta to thinking
that golden apples are the goal of racing, and not mere
incidents by the way.
Atlanta must not lead the South to dream of material
prosperity as the touchstone of all success; already the fatal
might of this idea is beginning to spread; it is replacing the
finer type of Southerner with vulgar money-getters; it is
burying the sweeter beauties of Southern life beneath pretence
and ostentation.
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