He had gone to his work with an energy that, for the start, at least, was bitter, and there was no song left in him.
He began to know his active fellow-citizens.

Here and there among them he found a leisurely, kind soul, a relic of the old period of neighborliness, "pioneer stock," usually; and there were men--particularly among the merchants and manufacturers--"so honest they leaned backward"; reputations sometimes attested by stories of heroic sacrifices to honor; nor were there lacking some instances of generosity even nobler.

Here and there, too, were book-men, in their little leisure; and, among the Germans, music-men.

And these, with the others, worshiped Bigness and the growth, each man serving for his own sake and for what he could get out of it, but all united in their faith in the beneficence and glory of their god.
To almost all alike that service stood as the most important thing in life, except on occasion of some such vital, brief interregnum as the dangerous illness of a wife or child.

In the way of "relaxation" some of the servers took golf; some took fishing; some took "shows"-- a mixture of infantile and negroid humor, stockings, and tin music; some took an occasional debauch; some took trips; some took cards; and some took nothing.