CHAPTER XVIII 
A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 
E in this chapter some impression may be 
conveyed of the tremendous strain under 
which this great work is done, a point will 
have been gained. If it shall serve in any 
measure to check the advance of the thou- 
sands of people who annually, and in steadily 
increasing numbers, visit Mr. Burbank out of 
a natural curiosity, the full end will have been 
reached. 
Far too often the day with Mr. Burbank 
begins in care, advances in anxiety, closes in 
exhaustion. Not the least but often the greatest 
cause for this lies in the visits of the thought- 
less, people with the best and kindest of inten- 
tions but with lamentable lack of foresight. 
No man ever lived with wider and richer hos- 
pitality, with stancher friends; no man ever 
enjoyed intercourse with personal friends more 
keenly. Surely, even a man who has made a 
great place in the world, who in a certain 
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