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 a. Level of development
b. High income
c. Women’s empowerment
d. The transition from agricultural to industrial society

8. What did Malthus believe regarding population growth?

a. Food production will stay higher than the needs of the population.
b. Population would outgrow food production.
c. Population and food resources grow at the same rate.
d. Population growth is related to economic development.

True/False
9. Carrying capacity is the maximum number of organisms that a system can sustain.
a. true b. false

10. The fertility rate is the average number of children born to a woman during her reproductive
years.
a. true b. false

11. The demographic transition model shows population growth as a function of resource scarcity.
a. true b. false

12. Women’s empowerment is associated with lower total fertility rates.

a. true b. false

Identification
People: Thomas Malthus, Paul Ehrlich, Esther Boserup, Barry Commoner
Keywords: birth rate, carrying capacity, death rate, demographic transition model, ecological footprint,
exponential growth, fertility rate, forest transition theory, Green Revolution, induced intensification,
(environmental) Kuznets curve, neo-Malthusians, shifting cultivation, zero population growth
Concepts: I=PAT, the Poor Laws, “cornucopian” population theory

Short Essay
1. What are the three population arguments posed by Thomas Malthus? How does the case of
Kerala, India call into question each of these arguments?
2. What are the assumptions behind the I=PAT equation? What are some challenges to these
assumptions?
3. How do cornucopians view population? Provide an example. How does a cornucopian
perspective differ from a neo-Malthusian perspective?
4. In what ways can development affect the environment? How does population growth figure in
to these processes?
Another random document with
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can enter, where those that do enter prove themselves to be of the
elect. Roast beef, roast goose, plum pudding and burgundy, bread
and butter and potatoes, apples and Yorkshire pudding are never
served; only the entrees, the thin red and white wines that warm
gently, but never intoxicate; champagne at rare intervals, and never,
Oh, never! in my lady’s slipper;—the most dainty and expensive
sweets, ice-creams of exceptional make, never common vanilla or
chocolate, and occasionally—I should have put it first—a ducky little
cutlet; birds, of course, caviare, and—Oh, I had forgotten, no pie.
Pie is a universal taste, therefore bourgeois, like roast beef. And
Bertie and I are so devoted to roast beef, and have formed almost a
passion for pie! Bertie says he will lie and count the leaves on the
trees before he will read another, and even Agatha says they are
unsatisfactory, and that she prefers sermons—occasionally she reads
one aloud to us! I never have taken kindly to this form of literature,
but I really think, with all their obsolete ideas, they have more
substance, more inside, than these lively, modern, educational,
elegant, but—timid novels. I wonder if that is the word and why? I’ll
ask Mr. Rogers.
Two or three of the newspapers, as I told you are stately and
conservative, and I notice that their review columns have the exact
tone of the literature. I was told in New York that their sales were
small but intensely aristocratic—so much so that a popular politician
could not afford to be seen with one—and that the sensational
papers had enormous circulations, and were by no means ignored by
“the very best people,” that they did good by exposing the “crooked”
methods of monopolists and all sorts of abuses, and that they
wielded an immense political influence—also that many of the
creators of the nation’s bloodless masterpieces wrote occasionally for
them—for a high consideration—and were not averse from reaching
the larger audience. It now comes back to me, I once heard that
there is an immense sale in the United States for the sort of
literature forbidden by our County Council. Yet there is no law to
suppress these plague-laden rats burrowing in the cellars of the
social structure. It seems to me that we are more advanced, after
all. We know the world and frankly admit it. No book frightens us if it
is written by a man whose gifts and whose experience fit him to
write for people who demand that good taste alone shall be the line
of cleavage between the real and the ideal of life, who knows that
we want truth and not polite fibs, but the truths that lie in red roast
beef and rich warm wine, not in some nasty mess washed down by
rum—nor yet diseased livers and absinthe. From these last, indeed,
we have the County Council to protect us, we have only to reject the
dull and the imported thin, and to encourage frankly those who add
to our knowledge of life and mature our minds. The exceptional man
and woman sees, comes into contact with phases of life that the
average mortal never brushes. It is, I hold, their duty to tell all they
know; their only lookout is to tell it for the sane not for the erotic
mind. The great writers of the Past all have proved that, given the
proper treatment, there is no subject yet evolved on earth that
cannot be discussed. But I should say that the great Writers of the
Past had never been imported to the United States. Perhaps they
were carefully edited and put into drawers first.
By the way, talking of the strange inconsistencies of this country, I
have noticed much the same quality in the many American women
who have visited England from time to time, some of whom I have
known rather well. When they have a lover—and they usually have
as far as I am able to judge—they appear to be so frightened that
people will find it out. They say and do the most absurd things to
throw you off the track. Such unnecessary little explanations and
subterfuges—as if any one cared! We are almost frank about our
immoralities, carrying things off with a high hand and
contemptuously daring any one to question us. I am not an upholder
of immorality, and, so far as I have seen, it carries little happiness
with it—neither does virtue, for that matter. What does? Living on a
mountain top and dreaming of ideals?—and I would advise women
generally to avoid the complications as long as they can, above all
the heartache for the man whom no legal tie is always bringing back
to them; but I think an insolent admission of it far preferable to
hypocrisy, and not nearly so demoralising. All the Americans I have
known seemed to me to be constantly striving for something they
had not, for a notch above. I believe that originally it was the ideal
the young republicans, in common with their republic, strove for, but
now I think they are all ashamed of being middle-class and trying to
be aristocratic, and they fancy that to be elegantly correct and
proper is a part of the game. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How little they
know.
26th
This morning we had a thunder-storm in the midst of a heavy fog—a
pure white one like those we call a mist in our country, and bearing
no resemblance to the London pea-soup. The lightning flashing
through it had an odd and beautiful effect. Later the fog rolled down
the mountain to the valleys of lower ranges, leaving only a light mist
on the mountains and peak opposite. Through this the sun shone
gently, and the dense low-looking forests on those distant heights
looked as if lightly powdered. I have been down into the forest
again. It is wet, but fresher and greener than ever, and full of sweet
smells. The balsam when wet, fills the woods with a fragrance that
seems to cry aloud of new vitality. Here and there a great tree has
fallen, carrying feebler ones with it. To-day I discovered that the
ground is covered in many places by a running shrub, that looks like
its name, “ground pine.” And in other places, on rocks, I found a stiff
dark-green moss that looked like a mass of tiny stars. There is so
much beauty in these woods one can make only so many discoveries
a day. This morning after the storm, I went out by the road instead
of the trail, and walked down for a mile or more on those dreadful
logs. But that wild magnificent avenue, dropping and turning
abruptly, lured me on. Suddenly I saw straight ahead for many
miles, and at the end of that lofty perspective was a great mountain,
powdered with mist; afterward as I stood watching it, entranced,
darkening to a deep rich blue. And between my avenue and that far
mountain, was only another lofty valley, high above the level, far
from the quick impatient sound of cities. I had not before so fully
understood—and revelled in—our isolation.
It sometimes appalls me to be so far from a doctor or a chemist
shop, but after all what the Adirondacks cannot do for Bertie no man
can, and Agatha has a trunk full of physic. And these friendly
mountains make disaster and heartbreak seem impossible. That
adjective is one of their spirit’s keynotes. The post came very late
last night and I spent the earlier morning hours reading the
newspapers to Bertie. I do not know why Americans should be
blamed for their extremes of wealth and poverty, their proneness,
indeed, to rush to extremes of all sorts, when they have such an
example in their climate. Imagine, Polly, people dying in New York
City of the heat, while up here, not three hundred miles away, and in
the same State, we were huddled in furs, a roaring fire in every
room. During the past nine days we have had the thermometer at
34° and at 86°, we have had sultry thunder-storms on one day and
cold rains on the next. To-day it has been heavy and sullen, but
yesterday was full of splendour, with an exhilaration in the air that
filled Bertie with life and youth once more. His very cheeks seemed
to fill out, and his eyes sparkled as they used to do when his legs
would not carry him to the cricket-field fast enough.
By the way, dear, Mr. Rogers came up yesterday with several other
men. (The families follow in about a week.) They have been fishing
since early morn, regardless of the thunder-storm, but have caught
little, as the fish in these lakes have much to eat, and grow cleverer
every year. Hunter, the lake-keeper, told me of their ill-luck, but
when I expressed sympathy he shrugged his shoulders.
“They like it,” he said; “and them as does’d set and fish all day in a
wash-tub.”
But Mr. Rogers arrived quite early yesterday morning, and spent
nearly all of the day and evening with us. Bertie, who improves
steadily in spite of all climatic vagaries, was delighted to see him,
and they exchanged sporting experiences for several hours.
I have not described Mr. Rogers to you, I think. He is what they call
in this country a “great publisher,” by which I infer is meant a rich
and successful one whose prestige is vastly added to by the fact that
he inherited the “great” business, and is not self-made. A young
man, an author, who sat at our table on the Oceanic, told me that
Mr. Rogers’ firm, and three or four others, set the standard for
American literature, and that any book with his hallmark on it would
be accepted as literature whether the public bought it or not. He has
encouraged, helped to create, as it were, the latter-day distinctive
American literature, which Bertie and I have so rebelled against
these rainy days, and was one of the first to make fashionable the
story of locality and dialect. (I think he ought to be hanged for that.)
If you don’t publish with one of these houses, my informant told me,
your struggle will be a long one. But all that is not very interesting,
not nearly so much so as the man himself He is about fifty-two, I
should think, with that tall thin American figure, which when ill-
carried is so ungainly and provincial, but very distinguished, if a little
stiff, when a man has received the proper training. His face is the
coldest I have ever seen; the eyes are grey, the hair and slight
moustache nondescript, the features and general outlines finely cut,
the whole effect, as I said, cold, and—well, aristocratic. I don’t think
I ever used the word before I came to this country, but it is always
popping off my pen here. It exactly describes Mr. Rogers. He would
put a prince of the blood to the blush; refinement (another great
American word), fastidiousness, correctness, the just not self-
conscious superiority over ordinary mortals, fairly radiate from him in
so many cold steady beams. And his voice is admirably modulated.
He is a walking protest against American provincialism, from its
various accents to that glorious principle that all men are free and
equal, which I once read in the Declaration of Independence. (Dad
thought so much of that, and used to say it was the highest
expression of the Ideal, put into the purest English that ever had
been contributed to the literature of Politics.)
Nevertheless, wherever the source of it may lie, Mr. Rogers is
charming. Perhaps it is because while he looks as if mortal woman
could not fascinate him, he has an air of troubling himself to
entertain her. Occasionally he lets her see that her wiles shake his
armour just a trifle and that he does not tighten it up again, but
permits her glance to penetrate in search of a heart. You don’t find a
heart—at least I speak for myself—but you find all sorts of pleasant
spots, and actually experience a sense of flattery when he laughs
heartily at one of your sallies, or keeps his cold eyes fixed steadily
on yours as you talk, the reflection of a smile in them. I know that
he can be sarcastic and sneering, for I overheard a bout between
him and my author acquaintance of the Oceanic; therefore, we who
are favoured should find a deep satisfaction in basking in the smiles
of this austere and fortunate person. And he certainly can say the
most charming things and make you want to please him in return.
As he went through the University of Yale and has alluded to a
great-grandfather I should know, even if I had not been told, that he
is not a “self-made American”—a variety I am still waiting and
wanting to meet. It would be so much like the real thing.
When I thought Bertie had talked enough I took Mr. Rogers for a
walk in the forest—and, by the way, it was he who called my
attention to the ground pine. He was delightfully solicitous lest I get
my feet wet, or catch cold; and when you have been watching over
some one else for two years, who is, also, quite the centre of all that
sort of thing, you find such solicitude rather fascinating. Mr. Rogers
is a widower, by the way, and I have heard that American women
train their husbands excellently.
We talked about ferns and trees and birds for a time, and I had the
good fortune to see two beautiful birds, one a bright corn-flower
blue from tip to tail, the other a deep orange with black wings. But
neither they nor their comrades lifted their voices for a moment. I
suppose they have sore throats, poor things. But I did not notice the
silence particularly, as we talked all the time. I asked him to tell me
something of the people who were coming, and he replied that they
were his intimate friends for the most part; that, indeed, forming a
club to buy the lake, that they might all be together for six or eight
weeks in summer, had been his suggestion. He and a number of
other men come for a fortnight in the early spring to fish, and some
of the families stay on into September for the deer, but not many,
and the lake has rather a bachelor appearance after the last of
August.
“I’d like you to define your set,” I said, rather bluntly. “I infer you
would not condescend to belong to the fashionable frivolous world,
and—well—you are not my idea of a Bohemian, nor yet exactly
middle-class—I mean what I imagine the American middle-class to
be.”
“No,” he said, smiling, “we are not fashionable in the ‘400’ meaning
of the word, nor are we Bohemians, nor yet middle-class. The set to
which I belong, if you must have all the facts—and you have only to
command me for all the facts on any subject that I understand—
embraces what might vulgarly be called the successful brains of New
York—and those of other cities which have come to us to stay. Mind
you, I mean successful in the right way: editors, publishers and
authors, who aim only to give the world the most fastidious
expression of the American spirit, a few artists—although, as a rule,
they herd together; but there are several fine illustrators who class
themselves with us; also people who do not pretend to give to the
public, but who love literature, music, and art of all sorts and prefer
meeting people of brains and refinement to associating with a class
which thinks of nothing but spending money.”
“In short,” I exclaimed, “you are the true aristocracy of New York.”
“Yes,” he replied unsuspiciously. “I think we are. There was a time
when to be in the fashionable set of New York argued birth and
breeding; money was no passport in those days. But to-day there is
no other; the ‘400,’ as it is absurdly called, has so few family trees
that they could all be stored in one linen closet; it is money, money
—and—consequently—the sort of vulgarity one most wants to
avoid.”
“But many of your set must have money,” I said, determined to get
to the bottom of these puzzling distinctions; “all of these cottages
must have cost a great deal of money, particularly on top of a
mountain with corduroy roads; and the keeper has often let fall
remarks from which I have inferred that no economy is practised by
your friends.”
“Oh, yes,” he replied with that flicker of humour in his eyes and
voice which makes him transiently human, “there are several
respectable millions among us, but the point is, we none of us are
disgustingly rich. We are not known by our wealth, it is not
invariably mentioned coincidently with our names, and, indeed, we
stand on quite another basis. And many of these delightful people
you will meet in a few days are only comfortably off—although they
all have enough to entertain with in their own individual fashion.”
“You don’t mean that some are eccentric?” I demanded. “Surely you
would not countenance eccentricity.”
“Certainly not!” he exclaimed, quite as emphatically as I had
expected; “no cultivated person ever was eccentric and ‘Bohemians’
are welcome to the monopoly of it for their vulgar advertising. I
mean that each entertains according to his—or shall I say her?—
means, and manages so to stamp her affairs with her own
individuality that one never thinks of the amount expended.”
“It sounds very alluring, but a little alarming,” I said. “Do they all
come up here?”
“Oh, no, and many more men than women. Our women have their
delicious frivolities, I assure you, and are always running over to
Europe to replenish their really splendid wardrobes, while others
seem never to tire of travel. But those who do come are very
representative and I want you to like them better than those whose
highest ambition is to get into your own set in England.”
“I have met some charming Americans,” I replied, “and they always
seemed bright and full of talk. It was only when they tried to be
English that I didn’t like them. Bertie adores American women, but
whether he will like this superior intellectual variety——”
“Oh, do not form an erroneous impression,” he said, hastily. “I
assure you they do not in any way resemble the poor Bostonians
who have been so severely caricatured. They have accomplished the
happy combination of intellectual activity and appreciation, with a
light worldliness and a love of the best that their money and
opportunities can buy, which makes them unique in their country.”
“I infer that your set is quite exclusive, difficult to get into.”
“It is—much more so than the fashionable set, for money is far more
plentiful in this country than that peculiar combination of brains,
culture, and pecuniary success which I may say is the hallmark of
our set. I have a theory that the right sort of gifts always is
successful; by that I mean those gifts which are distinctively
American in the highest sense—Americanism in all its wonderful
distinctiveness, but polished, refined, cultivated, purified of dross.
The exponents of it naturally are successful with the large increasing
number throughout the country who possess the instinct to rise
higher and strive for the best; therefore, when these exponents are
gathered together anywhere, they form a fastidious circle which
excludes inharmonious spirits, and constitutes what is now the real
aristocracy of the country. But, I can assure you, we are perfectly
normal,” he added, with his rare delightful smile. “We dine and wine
each other, have many a game of poker, love sport, have our boxes
at the opera, and know the world pretty thoroughly.”
“It sounds profoundly interesting,” I said, but when I repeated the
conversation to Bertie he growled that it was “jolly rot.”
“I shall like the men if they are like Rogers,” he added; “for he’s a
jolly good sort inside that chain-mail armour of his; but I feel sure I
shall hate the women. I’ll be bound they are rotters, every one of
them—the personification of their self-conscious provincial literature.
If they are I’ll make a public scandal by flirting with Jemima.”
27th
Curiously enough I ended my last entry with Jemima’s name, and I
have just had another characteristic conversation with her. Last night
I awakened suddenly out of a sound sleep, my mind alert with the
idea that something had happened to Bertie. I sprang out of bed
and opened the door. At once I heard Parker moving about Bertie’s
room—his own adjoins it and he is devotion itself, the good soul. I
was not one minute, I can assure you, getting into a wrapper and
crossing the hall. Parker opened the door for me, and when I saw
his anxious face I pushed him aside and hastened to the bed. There
lay Bertie white and gasping; and Polly, when I saw that towel I
thought for a moment I should faint. He has not had a hemorrhage
now for so long that I had fallen indolently into the belief he never
would have another. I had put those dreadful towels—which for two
years were spread all over my imagination—quite out of my mind.
What brought on this attack I cannot imagine—but I am not going to
horrify you with details. I put my arm under his head and sat there
all night. He was not able to get up until this afternoon and I did not
leave his room. When, however, he was in his hammock on the
veranda, with Agatha reading the Times to him, I slipped away to
the woods, for I wanted to be alone.
I was too tired to walk far, but when I felt quite alone I sat down on
a rock in those friendly depths and cried bitterly. The future, after
this really radiant interval, seemed doubly dark and uncertain. How
again could I ever be sure that Bertie would get well? The doctor
said that the Adirondacks were the last hope, and if Bertie wears
them out——
Suddenly I became conscious that some one was staring at me. I
rose hastily, dabbing my eyes, and confronted Jemima. Her mouth
and eyes were wide open.
“You ain’t cryin’?” she gasped. “You! Land o’ livin’!” and then she
recovered herself and added apologetically, “I guess you didn’t hear
me comin’, these wood trails is so soft. Won’t you set down again? I
wouldn’t go back with my eyes red if I was you, because there are
two or three gentlemen to your camp and they think you’re so
beautiful I’d hate to have them see you when you ain’t.”
I meekly resumed my seat and Jemima perched herself on a log
opposite. I was rather glad of the diversion, now that my grief had
spent itself, and Jemima always amuses me.
“You have not gone home?” I asked.
“No, ma’am. I’m not goin’. I’m goin’ to stay and help Mis’ Hunter.
There’s an awful lot of work here in summer, and her other hired
girl’s not very strong.”
“Well, I am glad you have found a place to suit you. I presume you
eat with Mrs. Hunter and her family?”
“Yes’m.” Then she added, with uncontrollable curiosity, “What were
you cryin’ for, anyway?”
“My brother was very ill again last night and I am terribly anxious
about him.”
“And do you high-toned English folks with titles love each other and
have troubles just like us plain folks?” she demanded.
I could not help laughing. “Why not?” I asked.
“Oh, ’cause you seem just like people in books, not like real live
folks. Seems as if you oughter just sail round with peeple waitin’ on
you and never have any every-day thoughts and feelin’s.”
“I assure you we are very human,” I said drily, “and perhaps we feel
both joy and sorrow more keenly than you do. There is every reason
why we should.”
“But I’ll bet you never called your parents mommer and popper.”
Of course I laughed again. “No, because those musical endearments
do not happen to be customary in my country. I do not remember
calling my mother anything, for she died when I was two years old.
But we both called my father Dad.”
She gasped, “Naw, you didn’t. You never called a dook Dad.”
“Oh, but we did,” I exclaimed, glowing as certain memories rose;
“and when he used to come home from long tiring sessions in the
Upper House, or Cabinet meetings—he was a very conscientious
legislator, and had held more than one position of great
responsibility—he loved to lie down on the floor, and let us run all
over him. It was my brother’s delight to polish Dad’s boots with his
toothbrush, and I used to barber him with my doll’s scissors. When
we got too big for all that he gave us even more of his time, every
hour he could spare; he even helped tutor us, and he never went to
the continent without us. While we were studying he never went at
all, and during our holidays—which were usually his own—he either
took us travelling or lived in the country with us. He adored us and
we adored him.”
“My! Well, I don’t know as I ever seen any farmer make such a fuss
over his kids as that, but farmers are terrible busy.”
“So was my father, but he knew the exact value of everything in life,
and that is the reason he made so much of love.”
This was beyond her, and she merely remarked: “I suppose you took
on terrible when he died.”
“I didn’t ‘take on,’ but no words ever can express my misery.”
“And do you have other kinds of trouble too? Do your fellers ever go
back on you? I don’t mean you; I guess you ain’t in any danger of
havin’ your heart broke; but I mean other grand ladies with titles?
Do they ever get left like us common folks.”
“I have known a good many to ‘get left,’” I replied, smiling at certain
reminiscences, “Human nature is pretty much the same in all
spheres—more so, perhaps in ours, where people have so much
flung at their feet that fickleness is a natural consequence.”
“I guess men is fickle everywhere. I know several that has gone
back on real nice girls just because they seen another girl they liked
better. I’d hate to get left! My!”
“You speak for your sex,” I said. “I have known many who looked
indifferent, but I never knew one who was.”
“I guess I’d try to look as if I didn’t care, but I guess the louder I
laughed the more people’d suspicion I was all water inside. You look
real nice now. Your nose ain’t red any more; but your eyes’s got
rings under them. I don’t see why you need to set up nights when
the Dook’s got that there gentleman, Mr. Parker, to wait on him.”
“Well, I am his sister, you know,” I said lightly, and then, as I was
tired, rather, of Jemima, I went back to the house. Bertie seems
much better to-night, and is now asleep. I have hung branches of
balsam all over his room. They look so brilliantly green against the
light-brown varnished wood which defines every spike. And their
fragrance! It ought to fill Bertie’s poor lungs with new life. I am
going for a row with Mr. Rogers to-morrow morning, and if he says
anything characteristic I’ll write it out for your benefit. He has
promised already to spend our first autumn in Yorkshire with us, so
you will be the more interested when you meet him.
28th.
Our conversation was political and I must relate it to you. But first
the morning row. It was so beautiful. It was like drifting through
crystal. My distant peak was a monstrous turquoise. The thick woods
about us showed every shade of green. The honeysuckle is gone,
but the moss is richer than ever, and now and again one glimpses a
purple lily. In little bays there are water-lilies, and on the miniature
islands a wildness, a tangle of fern and young trees, that is
indescribable. In some places there is a good deal of pollen on the
water, but the greater part of the lake’s surface is golden-brown and
bright. The only blot on the lovely picture is the too frequent dead
spruce. A blight attacked them a year or two ago, and they still look
like church spires, but crumbling and gray.
We did not talk politics on the lake—Heaven forbid!—we drifted from
nature to art, of which he has a delightful knowledge; but I won’t
repeat all that as he did not say anything particularly illuminating. It
was at luncheon that the subject of politics came up; I forget exactly
how, although as I discuss our own with Bertie and Agatha daily,
and have lived in a political atmosphere all my life, I suppose they
never are far from the surface of my mind. Daddy always took a
certain interest in American politics, so I knew something of them
before I came, and heaven knows their newspapers would not leave
one long in ignorance.
Oh, I remember how the conversation began. After expatiating upon
the beauty of the lake and the silence of these mountain-tops—
positively when we stopped talking there had not been a sound but
the gurgle of water against the boat—I repeated what I remember
writing to you about the climate of this country setting, a bad
example to the people in the matter of extremes. Mr. Rogers smiled
quickly, and looked at me with his steady, and—shall I write it?—
approving—gaze.
“There is some food for reflection in that,” he said. “But—how much
do you know of this country?” he added gently—I mean his voice
took all sting out of the words.
I told him what I have just written. I added that I was anxious to
learn more, and that I had been saturating myself in its press and
literature. Here Bertie grunted, and I said something hastily about
the delicious speckled trout Mr. Rogers had sent us which we were
then eating.
“And you found the same extremes there,” said Mr. Rogers, quite
ignoring my diversion, which I am positive he understood.
“Nevertheless, we have a very large middle-class, and there are
certain sections of the country where the climate is very temperate—
California, for instance.”
“I thought that State had perpetual snow in the north and perpetual
summer in the south, and eight months of dry weather and four
months of rain. A cousin of mine has ranched there for ten years.
Surely that bears out the national predilection for violent or sharply
drawn contrasts.”
“Well, you rather have me there,” he admitted gracefully. “One gets
so in the habit of saying certain things about a country just as one
goes on commenting upon a man’s cleverness after one ought to
appreciate the fact that a little frank analysis would prick the bubble.
Florida is perpetual summer with an occasional blizzard; but even
that bears out your theory.”
“As to your middle-class,” I asked, “don’t they all intend to be upper-
class some day? Are any of them contented to be middle-class,
generation in and generation out?”
“I don’t know much about them,” he said carelessly, “but the
American instinct certainly is to progress. You might indeed call
progress our watch-word. That is the reason this Bryan hue and cry
won’t wash. His democracy is merely a fancy word for plebeianism.
The sixteen to one nonsense has not received any more attention
from that faction of the press that booms Bryan than his everlasting
farmer poor man pose, and his plain homely wife, who sweeps off
the veranda as the newspaper correspondents approach the
unpretentious mansion. Do they suppose for a moment that any
typical American wants an unbarbered shirt-sleeved episode in the
White House, with a follower of Dolly Madison, Miss Harriet Lane, or
their own popular and irreproachable Mrs. Cleveland, bustling about
at six in the morning dusting the White House furniture or making
gingerbread in the kitchen? Not for a moment. It would mean
retrogression, and they know it. They have no desire to be the
laughing-stock of other countries, to have the President of the
United States ill at ease and vulgar in the presence of Ambassadors.
Just as every American is animated by the desire to better himself,
to get ahead of his neighbours, so is he equally ambitious for his
country. I should be willing to wager my last dollar that if Bryan did
reach the White House, with his malodorous tribe elbowing all
decent people out of it, every self-respecting man who had voted for
him would read the press reports with a snort of disgust. Backsliding
will never work, for we have not reached the summit of our
civilisation yet.”
“I don’t think much of the man you’ve got in now,” said Bertie. “He
takes an imposing photograph, but I infer that he is a sort of human
mask for Mr. Hanna.”
“McKinley is, as yet, the great historical puzzle without a key,” said
Mr. Rogers, evasively; “but we do want, now and always, a
gentleman in the White House, and with the many men in the
country of birth and breeding, education and distinguished ability, it
argues a terrible disease in our body politic that we cannot put the
right man in the right place and keep him there.”
“Have you ever made the effort?” I asked pointedly, for I had heard
things. “You, and all those who think as you do?”
As I had expected, he shook his head. “No. I cannot face the filth of
American politics. I touched them once during a great reform spurt
in New York, several years ago, and I feel as if my hands are not
clean yet. I shall not offend your ears by a description of the people
by whom we were jostled at the polls, nor what we had to handle in
attempting to push any reform measure through.”
“Good gad!” exclaimed Bertie, “where would England be if we had
funked the business of reform fifty years ago? My father took off his
coat and waded into the filth—which was a long sight worse than
yours—up to his neck. He and others like him made the country
what it is to-day. Upon my word, Rogers, you make me sick.”
Mr. Rogers, who is used to Bertie’s plain speech, smiled and replied
politely.
“Would that we had a great force like your father, to push us into the
right path. But I am afraid the great majority of would-be reformers
feel as I do.”
“It’s your roast beef,” growled Bertie, scowling at his. “It’s only about
half the weight of ours and only gives a chap half the blood he
needs.”
“It is more delicate and easier to digest than yours.”
“For American stomachs—that’s the point.”
“Are there no gentlemen in politics?” I asked, hurriedly, for Bertie
can be rude in a way that Americans cannot understand.
“Unquestionably. There are quite a few in the Senate, but in them
the political passion is stronger than their fastidiousness. Even the
honours and the fame they may win cannot compensate for the dirt
they are obliged to come into contact with every week in the year.”
“Well, all I can say is, that you haven’t the true sporting instinct in
this country,” said Bertie. “Men of the same sort ought to stand by
each other. If a certain number of gentlemen are willing to hold their
noses and plunge in for the good of the country it’s your duty to
close up the ranks behind them and keep the stink as far in the
background as possible.”
Poor Mr. Rogers blushed and looked most distressed, for that word is
tabooed in this country, dear, and I doubt if the poor man ever heard
it before. He saw my eyes dance, and gave me a look of such pained
surprise that it was my turn to be distressed, for it is so cruel to
shatter a man’s ideals! Bertie pursued all unconsciously:
“Can’t you see it from my point of view, Rogers? Ain’t you in the
habit of standing by your friends in this country?”
“Certainly, Duke,” replied Mr. Rogers, suavely; he had quite
recovered himself. “I think you will find Americans as loyal as any
men on earth.”
“Not unless they go the whole length and stand by their own class
when there is such a crying need for help as there is here. I suppose
there’s a respectable number of gentlemen in the country, ain’t
there?”
“A very large number. A highly respectable proportion of the seventy
millions. I am constrained to make that admission, even though I
hand you another weapon.”
“It is a weapon, by gad. And I’d like jolly well to understand your
supineness. Perhaps you’ll wake up all in a moment and fling off
your coats and go to work.”
“I wish I could think so. What we lack most, I fancy, is a leader, for
unquestionably we have caste loyalty. But when all is said the upper-
class in this country is small—compared to the vast sub-stratum—
and the country is so huge that homogeneity is almost impossible.
So far, every man has made his fight alone; and there is something
pathetic in it—come to think of it.”
“I think those who have made the fight must be ripping fine men,
and I’d like to meet some of them. Will any of them come up here
this summer?”
Mr. Rogers shook his head. “I am sorry, but we do not happen to
have any politicians in the club. I thought it over carefully and
concluded that it was better not, for they cannot avoid knowing
objectionable people who might manage to get themselves invited
here, too.”
Again, I interposed before Bertie could answer. “What becomes of
your law of progress? If it is as inborn and inevitable—unhinderable
—as you say, why does it not sweep your class in its current? Surely
that class is increased from year to year by ambitious recruits whose
offspring will be as cultivated as you are to-day—that is part of your
law of progress. It seems to me that a natural instinct should force
you and your sort to labour to keep yourselves high above the
masses and fill the great public offices of the country.”
As he turned to me the light in his eyes was almost warm and I felt
as if I had said something really clever. That is his little way.
“That was very well reasoned,” he said, “and your theory has certain
facts to substantiate it, inasmuch as public life does receive recruits
from the upper-class from year to year. Perhaps, some day, under
the stress of a great menace, the entire class will throw in its weight.
But just now—merely to give the country a stiffer man than McKinley
—I am afraid they will not. We are such optimists, our luck has had
such few facers, and just now we are so prosperous. It is only a
dream to imagine the best in both parties suddenly deserting and
uniting; for the best men seem to avoid leadership and notoriety; it
is only by doing so that they can find a comparatively clean path
through the political muck.”
Bertie shrugged his shoulders and pushed back his chair. “You look
well in that tweed outfit and those leggings, Rogers,” he said, “but
you’d look a jolly sight better in your shirt sleeves and with mud on
your boots. You and the rest of your dilettante class are living in a
Fool’s Paradise, and when you’re choking over your first nasty mess
of Bryanism you’ll wish you’d taken off your coat while you had a
valet to assist you. For my part I’m rather keen on Bryan getting in. I
want to see a real democracy. What you’ve got now is neither one
thing nor the other. Say what you like you have an enormously large
aristocratic class, a class which is always looking round for
somebody to snub and which holds itself immeasurably above the
masses. You’ll be a monarchy yet with every title that ever was
heard of, and American inventions to boot. The result of your Trust
system will be two classes—the wealthy and the helpless poor. The
hour the wealthy class feels that it is strong enough it will make for
a court and a nobility. And a nice mess you’ll make of it.”
“Well,” said Mr. Rogers, laughing, “it will be infinitely preferable to
Populism, and it certainly will be all in the law of progress. Every
American, even the Populist, wants to be rich, and as soon as he is
rich he wants to be cultivated beyond his original condition. After
that stage democracy is a retrogression and there is nothing to do
but go on and become an aristocrat. As you say, when there are
enough of them, monarchy is only a step further.”
And there the conversation ended.
I think this letter is thick enough to go—don’t you?
Ever yours,

Helen.
P. S. The evening post came just after I had finished, and brought
me a welcome letter from you. I open this for a few lines of answer.
Freddy must be mad. I hope to God, V. R. will keep his head. Can’t
you persuade him to go to South Africa? As long as you have made
up your mind not to see him till all is over, I should think it would be
a positive relief to have him where you can’t see him. And if there is
danger—do pack him off. Who do you suppose can be putting
Freddy up to such devilment?—that creature? She may see revenge
in it. Do be careful. If you came a cropper now—I read your letter to
Bertie and he says he wishes you would chuck the whole thing and
come over here to us, and wait patiently for Freddy’s several
diseases to finish him. But I told him he never had been deeply in
love—and he said he was jolly glad he hadn’t. Well, I’ll say a prayer
for you, out in the forest—although I don’t believe it does a bit of
good to pray for any one but yourself. My theory is that by the
intense absorption, concentration, and faith of prayer, you put
yourself into magnetic communication with the great Divine Force
pervading the Universe and draw some of its strength into yourself.
Sometimes the strength is physical, or rather is directed to physical
ends, as when one prays a pain out; and at others one draws
strength enough to endure and overcome anything—but not without
that intense concentration. The mere babbling of a petition does no
good. There you have the result of my inner observations. Try it for
yourself.
Letter IV
From the Lady Helen Pole to the Countess of Edge and Ross.
Boulder Lake,
July 2d
THE people have been here several days now, and the lake looks
very gay. When the men are not fishing the boats are filled with the
children, ducky little things in white pinnys and bright ribbons. I am
going to have them all over by themselves for luncheon some day,
for, so far, I like them better than their “mommers.” The men are a
well turned-out lot, but look tired, and—anæmic. So far, I have seen
little of them, as Mr. Rogers has delayed bringing them over to call—
possibly until the mountain air has made them feel a little more fit.
New York is said to be unbearably hot, and, you know, the rich men
in this country work as hard as the poor ones. Did I tell you that
they all dine at the Club House? This cottage would have been
impracticable for us did not Mr. Rogers have an invalid mother who
could not leave the house—which is quite apart from the others—for
days at a time. Therefore, we have here a complete kitchen, pantry,
etc., and are quite independent of what would be to us all a
detestable arrangement, even if Bertie were well. He is quite fit
again, by the way, and has several times been fishing with Mr.
Rogers. He has met a number of the men and says he likes most of
them, but has taken a violent dislike to an author that this admiring
circle has made a fool of, and longs to be well enough to kick him.
He likes the women as little as I do.
They have all called on us. They came singly and in battalions. I
have a general impression of thin carefully modulated voices, fluffy
well-groomed hair, delicate features, light eyes, a discontented
expression—which is reflected in their voices—an unbounded self-
confidence, an annoying and persistent self-consciousness, and the
most perfect gowns imaginable. In the morning they wear the
triggest serge or tweed costumes, on hot days linen of various
colours, in the afternoon they flit about in pretty lawns, and in the
evening they are very smart indeed—several of them called after
dinner.
As they will doubtless flit in and out of my letters very often I will do
my poor best to introduce several of them to you that you may see
some sort of object behind the names.
The four that have impressed me most so far are Mrs. Chenoweth,
the wife of a “great” editor; Mrs. Hammond, the wife of a “great” art
publisher; Mrs. Laurence, a “wonderfully successful” authoress, and
Miss Simpson, the editor of a “great” woman’s magazine; her name
is Margaret E. Simpson. She left a card!
Mrs. Chenoweth is the least objectionable of the four, because in
spite of her sleepy self-content and air of gentle superiority, there is
something sweet and domestic about her, and occasionally her eyes
seem to fill up with sympathy; and there is a placid note in her
voice, unique in her “set.” She talked about her husband most of the
time, and left me wondering how the universe had room for two
magazines. But if she did not show so plainly that she was used to
flattery and adulation I’d like her rather.
Mrs. Hammond sits forward on the edge of the chair and talks all the
time. Her small expensively dressed figure looks as if her eager soul
might burst through it at any moment, every nerve seems to be on
the jump at once; and as for her face I followed its play of
expression bewildered. She is what is vulgarly and aptly called a
“gusher.” She gushed steadily for three quarters of an hour about
literature and art. Art is her passion; she almost faints before a great
painting, and etching gives her thrills which she can express in
French only, so inadequate is our commonplace language. She told
me with great pride that foreigners always took her for a French
woman, so perfect was her mastery of the language; and when I
told her it was a relief to meet an American who was not proud of
being one, she looked embarrassed and said of course she wouldn’t
really be anything else. She then leaped into the midst of literature,
but somewhat to my surprise had little to say about American. I was
given to understand how deeply read the ambitious active little lady
was in English, French, Russian, German, Norwegian, Danish,
Italian, and even Spanish classics, old and new, but her only
reference to those of her own country was at the end of the homily,
when she gushed out eulogies of Mrs. Laurence, and Mr. Henry
Walker Rolfs.
“Mrs. Laurence is quite the most brilliant woman in America,” she
assured me. “Of course you know her novels—they sell immensely—
so full of style and brilliant pictures and illusiveness and delicate
satire and purity of thought; but she is even more fascinating
herself. I don’t believe there is a woman living who can say so many
clever things in the course of an hour, and she is quite a beauty, and
dresses deliciously—superlatively—even for New York. And Mr. Rolfs!
Of course you love his work—he has the immense sales he deserves
to have—such style, such word-painting, such spiritual insight—real
interpretation of God. He is so great I involuntarily lower my voice to
speak to him, and I think the two most wonderful sights I ever have
witnessed are Henry Walker Rolfs fishing and eating. It seems
incredible that he can do anything just like other men. But indeed he
spends most of his time in the woods alone—thinking, thinking,
interpreting Nature and God. Oh, I know, dear Lady Helen, you will
be perfectly delighted with all our friends, and find us very different
from those exaggerated Americans who are constantly bombarding
London Society with their vulgar millions.”
“You are different,” I thought. “I never dreamed of anything in
Heaven or on Earth like you.”
Now, as it happens, Mrs. Laurence’s and Mr. Rolfs’ books are Bertie’s
and my pet abominations. We think the former trivial, thin, and
insincere to a degree that her pretty manner in no way compensates
for, and Mr. Rolfs equally insincere and anæmic, and laboured and
dull in the bargain. His style certainly is polished to an unusual
degree, even for an American, and he engraves—never paints—quite
wonderful pictures. But his characters never come to life for a
moment and there is no atmosphere or perspective in his work—it is
flat against the canvas—like the paintings of the Chinese. Read ——
—— ——[A] and —— ——[A] and see if you do not agree with me. By
the way, he is the man Bertie wants to kick.
I will describe Miss Simpson next, for as Mrs. Laurence is always the
last to arrive or to call on a new-comer, I will reserve for her the
éclat she covets. Miss Simpson is extremely handsome, tall, massive,
with brown strong-looking hair, grey eyes with an expression of
haughty surprise—as if lesser mortals were in the habit of taking
liberties with her—a goodish complexion, a rather thick round
profile, and a small hard mouth with a downward bend. Success is
emblazoned upon her, as well as gratified power and ambition. She
began life, I am informed by one of her enthusiastic admirers, as a
clerk in a bank “out West,” but soon—feeling that her education and
gifts fitted her for the higher life—“came East” and engaged in
journalism. I cannot express the pride with which—Mrs. Chenoweth,
I think it was—told me that Miss Simpson had never brushed her
skirts against yellow journalism; although she came here quite
unknown and from that hybrid region known as the “West,” it
appears that her instincts were aristocratic from the first. She made
herself invaluable on one of the “very best papers,” gradually
wedged her way—I fear that expression is my own—into
conservative circles, dropping such acquaintances as were
detrimental, and finally graduated as a full-fledged editor of a
woman’s magazine, capitalised by an eccentric but appreciative
millionairess. It was only a year or so ago, however, that she
“arrived” in this upper and rarefied stratum, and is here not as a
member, but as the guest of Mrs. Chenoweth. It must be a jolly
sensation to have striven for something so high above your reach
and finally achieved it. What contempt for those left below, what
constant self-gratulation. Miss Simpson quite chilled me with the
silent hauteur of her manner, the level dissecting rays of her fine
eyes. She holds herself aloft, as it were, with the rigid spine of the
traditional queen; but let me confide to you, Polly dear, she looks like
a successful business woman, tout même, not at all like what I fancy
she wishes to resemble. And if she is a success as a business person
I will venture to say she is a failure as a woman. Her ambition has
been so positive, so undeviating, so remorseless (I have listened to
six biographies of her), that the human attributes have withered up
just as unused muscles do. I asked Bertie what he thought of her,
and he said he had more respect for a harlot, as women had been
created for two offices only—mothers and strumpets. “If a woman
fills neither of these offices she is a failure and had better be dead.”
That is a nice primitive view and I’d enjoy hearing it exploded in the
midst of this select camp. They exult in Miss Simpson’s virtue—it is
monumental—and has flourished like a green bay tree in spite of
New York and its mysterious temptations. Personally, I should say
her virtue was purely a negative quality due to absence of
temptation, within and without. So far, she is rather in this well-
uniformed set than of it; she speaks with a slight twang and
expresses herself in rather shoppy language. But she is ambitious
and determined, and no doubt will adapt herself in time.
Mrs. Laurence! She was of those who called after dinner. She was in
full evening dress—black—and came into the room with a rustling of
skirts I never have known equalled. I should say that her train had
at least six inner silk flounces and it switched about on the bare floor
like an angry tiger’s tail. I think she changed her seat seven times
and always with that portentous rustling. I noticed that this occurred
whenever some one else had spoken consecutively for five minutes.
She is a pretty woman, and the old word “elegant” exactly expresses
her; our grandmothers would have called her “most genteel.” She
has a cloud of cendré hair, softly curled, and the pretty contrast of
baby blue eyes, although they, as well as her red thin lips, are
petulant in expression. Her features are delicate to the vanishing
point and her figure very graceful. She is, undoubtedly, an old hand
at aristocracy, for her voice, in spite of its fretful note, is exquisitely
trained, her language polished in the extreme, with every comma
and semicolon in its proper place; and her manner quite that of the
grande dame of the American novel. She mentioned eighteen people
of title she had met in England—among them Milly Seton—and
alluded, with a fretful sigh, to her many visits in England’s
“enchanting homes.”
“I wish I could marry an Englishman,” she said, with her little pout,
“I have had so many offers from my own countrymen but not one
from an Englishman—I think it is too bad! Of course I shall marry
again, I’m so feminine and I hate work—I always am so amused
when the critics rave over my quick brilliant style and verbal
felicities; I grind out every sentence and hate the very sight of the
paper. I want to marry a rich man who will pet me and leave me
nothing to do but to be charming and to dress exquisitely. That is all
a woman ever was made for, not to write tiresome books that other
people think clever. Of course, I am glad I am such a success; but
I’m sure I’d a great deal rather be you. You look the real thing, and
we are all just creditable imitations. I am sure I was English once—in
a former state—I feel so at home when I am in one of your old
castles, surrounded by people who are all that I should like to be,
and I am such a success with them; I could not be more so if I were
to the manor born; I am sure I cannot understand why some flower
of nobility has not fairly flung himself and his hereditary acres at my
feet.”
All this before Bertie, and it reads like the most engaging candour;
but as she fairly breathes insincerity and self-consciousness one
does not believe anything she says, and I think she knows it. When
she left, I asked Bertie if she was feminine enough to suit him, and
he said that she was a cat, whose proper place was in a fancy
basket in the drawing-room; no English Tom, at least, would ever
invite her on to the roof. Bertie is coarse at times, but nobody can
deny that he is expressive.
Polly, are these people merely snobs? What do you make of them?
You write me, you dear thing, that my letters are profoundly
interesting to you and that I pop the people I meet right into your
imagination. I am so glad, for they certainly interest me. It is like
living in a novel—an American one, it is true, but fresh and new, and
full of unsolved problems to the mere outsider. They certainly are
not snobs in the old meaning of the word, not in the least like those
of their country who work so hard to be taken up by us, and imitate
our manners and pronunciation. No, they are either snobs and
something more, or not snobs at all, but a different manifestation of
the struggle for the Ideal. That sounds better, at all events; let them
go at that.
Mr. Rogers told me that they all admired me very much, but found
me rather “cold and haughty.” I could not help laughing aloud, and
of course Mr. Rogers understands. You know how shy and frightened
of strangers I am, a failing I never shall get over. I suppose that
makes me sit cold and rigid when, in reality, I would give a good
deal to talk as fast as they do—and as I can when I know and like
people well enough. I did feel myself growing stiffer and stiffer as
Mrs. Hammond gushed, but that was quite natural, it seems to me.
Agatha was rather bewildered at first by their facile and unrestrained
speech, but she likes them all, dear soul. She takes them on their
face value, and they each gave her material to admire without
looking for it.
July 4th.
Yesterday I went to the Club House to dinner; Mr. Rogers rowed me
over and back. The dining-room is rather pretty, with three long
tables. Mr. Rogers sits at the head of the middle table and I sat on
his right. Mrs. Laurence was very “brilliant.” Every time she began to
speak, and that was usually, everybody stopped talking and leaned
forward. “I would not miss a word,” whispered my neighbour. “Her
wit lives on the tip of her tongue and never sleeps.” I cannot
transcribe her brilliancy, Polly dear, because it is of the quality known
as elusive, not the old-fashioned kind that you repeat and hand
down to your grand-children. She delivered her witticisms, too, at
the rate of one every three minutes, and I should like to know who
could keep track of them. I wondered if her fascinating, fretful,
spoilt-darling voice has not something to do with the belief that she
is witty and unique. For, Polly, I must admit it, she bored me to
death, and at times I felt like protesting. But I scarcely opened my
mouth; and I don’t doubt they think I am stupid and have a typical
English lack of the sense of humour. But I do not blame Mrs.
Laurence, and do not dislike her as much as I did, for she is merely
a hot-house product, forced into an abnormal artificial growth by
these foolish people, who must have their lion, or the times would
be out of joint.
The great Mr. Rolfs sat opposite me, but he does not go in for
brilliancy; to amuse, he doubtless holds, is beneath the dignity of a
great mind. He ate his excellent dinner in a ponderous and solemn
manner, oblivious of the admiring eyes riveted upon him when Mrs.
Laurence was not speaking; his vision introspective, as if he still
pondered the last of the Almighty’s confidences, and, when spoken
to, responding with a sweet but absent graciousness. I wanted to
throw my ice-cream at him—only it was very good ice-cream, made
of crushed strawberries, and would have been wasted on such a
muff.
In the fine large cosy living-room afterward they played intellectual
games. My dear, I thought I should die. I could not leave in common
decency before ten o’clock, and for a mortal hour I listened to the
brilliant Mrs. Laurence exhibit the most wonderful fertility, ingenuity,
and resource, switching her noisy tail round the polished floor till it
hissed like a harassed snake. She was in white embroidered
mousseline de soie and silk—Oh, much and noisy silk—and she wore
turquoises, and altogether looked like an advertisement for the
calling of letters. Her rival, Mr. Rolfs, had retreated from the field—
probably to the roof—and I don’t exaggerate when I say that the
others never took their eyes off her, with the exception of some of
the men, who went to sleep. Finally, I could stand it no longer, and I
went over and sat down by Miss Simpson, who seemed to be as
much out of it as I was, and who, since she had failed to catch the
spirit of the thing, was endeavouring to look superior to
contemptible frivolities.
“A very brilliant woman,” I said, beginning with the obvious.
“I guess there’s not much use disputing that fact,” she answered
with an expression which conveyed to me that this remark was
intended as grim humour. “And if she were not, she’s clever enough
to make people think so.”
“Do you admire that particular form of brilliancy?” I asked, longing
to hear her say what I thought; but she answered emphatically:
“I admire success. When you strive for that and get it you’re entitled
to all the applause there is, whether it is the brand some one else
would strike out for or not. I have succeeded in my way and she
acknowledges it and me; therefore, I take off my hat to her. I have
aimed for something more solid; but because I prefer to spend my
money on oil paintings there is no law against my patting the dainty
water-colourist on the back. And I do—every time. So long as a
person does not get in my way he can have a whole road to himself
and welcome.”
Here was genuine frankness, no doubt of that. She prided herself
upon it and was quite aware that she was impressing me, but it was
the sort of insolent frankness that compels belief. I asked her if she
was not the author of ——[A] which I had read recently, and she
thawed perceptibly and even gave me a very charming smile. To
draw her on I praised the novel highly—it was clever but sketchy and
betrayed no knowledge of the world whatever—and she thanked me
very pleasantly and admitted that she hoped to make an even
greater success with her second one.
“I have had some very fortunate experiences since I wrote that,” she
said. “I have watched a love affair progress right under my nose,
and I was visiting a friend of mine when her husband was
accidentally killed. She was a wonderful psychological study in her
grief!” and she set her mouth, as if overcome by the responsibility of
her own brain.
“Good God!” I exclaimed.
She turned slowly and gave me a look of such haughty inquiry that I
almost wilted.
“I beg your pardon,” I said meekly, “but it seemed to me rather a
shocking advantage to take. Really—how could you?”
“Of course, as you don’t write you don’t know that a true artist sees
copy in everything, that human nature was made to be studied, and
that when a palpitating leaf is torn out and flung into an author’s lap
he would be seven different kinds of fool if he didn’t read it.”