rms of civilization meet.

One is the civilization of the F.F.V., converted into that peculiar form
of noblesse known the round world over as the Blue-Grass Aristocracy.
Blue-Grass Society represents leisure and luxury and the generous
hospitality of friendships generations old; it means broad acres, noble
mansions reached by roadways that stray under wide-spreading oaks and elms
where squirrels chatter and mild-eyed cows look at you curiously; it means
apple-orchards, gardens lined with boxwood, capacious stables and long
lines of whitewashed cottages, around which swarm a dark cloud of
dependents who dance and sing and laugh--and work when they have to.

Over against these there are to be seen trolley-cars, electric lights,
smart rows of new brick houses on lots thirty by one hundred, negro
policemen in uniforms patterned after those worn by the Broadway Squad,
streets torn up by sewers and conduits, steam-rollers with an unsavory
smell of tar and asphalt, push-buttons and a Hello-Exchange.

As to which form of civilization is the more desirable is a question that
is usually answered by taste and temperament. One thing sure, and that is,
that a pride which swings to t'other side and becomes vanity is often an
element in both. Each could learn something of the other. Lots that you
can jump across, rented to families of ten, with land a mile away that can
be bought for fifty dollars an acre, are not an ideal condition.

On the other hand, inside the city limits of Lexington are mansions
surrounded by an even hundred acres. But at some of these, gates are off
their hinges, pickets have been borrowed for kindling, creeping vines and
long grass o'ertop the walls of empty stables, and a forest of weeds
insolently invades the spot where once nestled milady's flower-garden.

Slowly but surely the Blue-Grass Aristocracy is giving way to purslane or
asphalt, moving into flats, and allowing the boomer to plat its fair
acres--running excursion-trains to attend auction-sales where all the lots
are corner lots and are to be bought on the installment plan, which plan
is said by a cynic to give the bicycle face.

Just across from Ashland is a beautiful estate, recently sold at a
sacrifice to a man from Massachusetts, by the name of Douglas, who I am
told is bald through lack of hair and makes three-dollar shoes. The
stately old mansion mourns its former masters--all are gone--and a thrifty
German is plowing up the lawn, that the