pedigree, had
everything their own way. A New York drawing-room was, in those days,
parochial as a Boston or Philadelphia tea-party. There were modish
metropolitan details, it is true, but the petty reign of the immigrant
Hollanders' descendants would have put to shame the laborious freaks
and foibles of a tiny German principality. Now, having changed all
that, and having forced the Knickerbockers from their old places of
vantage, the plutocrats reign supreme. To a mind capable of being
saddened by human materialism, pretension, braggadocio, it is all very
much the same sort of affair. Our republic should be ashamed of an
aristocracy founded on either money or birth, and that thousands of
its citizens are not only unashamed of such systems, but really glory
in them, is merely another proof of how this country has broken almost
every democratic promise which she once made to the Old World.

It is easy to sneer away statements like these. It is easy to laugh
them off as "mere pessimism," and to talk of persons with "green
spectacles" and "disordered livers." We have learned to know the glad
ring of the optimist's patriotic voice. If we all believed this voice,
we should all believe that America is the ideal polity of the world.
And one never so keenly realizes that this is not true as when he
watches the creeds and character of society in New York. Of Londoners
we are apt to assert that they grovel obsequiously before their
prince, with his attendant throng of dukes, earls, and minor
gentlemen. This may be fact, but it is very far from being the whole
fact. In London there is a large class of ladies and gentlemen who
form a localized and centralized body, and whose assemblages are
haunts of intelligence, refinement, and good taste. In a certain sense
these are "mixed," but all noteworthy gatherings must be that, and the
"smart" and "swagger" sets of every great European city are nowadays
but a small, even a contemptible factor in its festivities.

Not long ago the present writer inquired of a well-known Englishman
whether people of literary and artistic note were not always bidden to
large and important London receptions. "In nearly all cases, yes," he
replied. "It has been the aim of my sister to invite, on such
occasions, authors, artists, and actors of talent and distinction.
They come, and are welcomed when they come." He did not mention the
name of his sister, knowing, doubtless, that I knew it. She was an
English