There is intimation of this in a recent statement of a
western economist to the effect that there was as great cultural value in
developing the lines of a perfect milk cow as in studying a Venus de Milo,
and in growing a perfect ear of corn as in representing it by means of
color or expressing the rhythm of its growth in metered words. But, I
believe that there is as much beauty and poetry there as among the isles
of Greece, if only it were interpreted by the disinterested spirit and
skill of the artist, the scholar, and the poet.
If we turn for a moment to the precursors who have led the way to the
valley that lies beneath, the valley of the strata of coal and iron, with
its subterranean streams of precious metal, its currents of gold and
silver, and its lakes of oil and gas, and from these precursors to the
producers and transporters who have led these elements forth to the uses
of man, we shall find a like story--another chapter of democracy's
dreaming of kings.
The same author whom I have quoted liberally above has written what he
calls "The Romance of Steel" in that valley.
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