222 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



time on horseback or geologizing. A healthier, saner life would be 

 hard to imagine, for we were so remote that there was no chance 

 for the social engagements that interfere so much with healthful 

 hours of sleep. Yet I know that I sometimes had a jaded feeling 

 which I almost never feel now although I am sixteen years older 

 and work harder and sleep less. 



My experience is like that of many others. I recall a letter from 

 a friend who had lived in Constantinople for some years. In other 

 letters he had spoken of the beauty of many a day on the banks of 

 the famous Bosphorus. He had also mentioned the depress- 

 ing effect of a month or so of steady cloud and gloom during the 

 winter, for the winters as well as the summers are relatively monot- 

 onous. Now he was writing from Copenhagen. This is essentially 

 what he said: "You don't know how good it is to get here. This 

 air is like wine. I don't know when I have felt so energetic. I just 

 want to skip about and do everything." That is it. The Turkish 

 climate may be most pleasant ; it is never very bad. Yet it lacks 

 stimulus. I have watched people who live there. I have seen how 

 on their return to New England they are at first very sensitive to 

 our extremes of heat and cold; how they declaim against it and 

 want to get back to Turkey. Later I have heard them speak of 

 how much better they feel here than there, and of how much more 

 they can accomplish. Again I have compared the American col- 

 leges in Turkey with similar institutions at home — the faculties, 

 I mean, not the students. It would be hard to find a finer set of 

 men, physically, mentally, and morally. They go out to Turkey 

 imbued with the highest ideals and filled with the greatest zeal. 

 What happens.'* At the end of twenty years their ideals are still 

 as high as ever, and their zeal as great. Yet they are not working 

 as their college classmates at home are working. They have 

 slackened their pace little by little. They do not attempt to keep 

 so many irons hot; they are much more likely to stop for after- 

 noon tea; they have more largely given up their ambition to do 

 something original, and are content with the faithful accomplish- 



