OUR HELP 165 



hold their own. Even here, in the i wild 

 and woolly West,' I endure with a far greater 

 show of equanimity the pretensions of the 

 type I am engaged in describing than do 

 some of my neighbours, citizens of a free 

 and equal country though they be ; and I 

 cannot, by any stretch of imagination, picture 

 my Eastern friends associating on anything 

 approaching to equal terms with a succession 

 of Impossible Persons. Theory may shout 

 in one's ear, but Fact slaps one in the 

 face. 



There is an infinitely larger and more 

 varied middle class than in England, within 

 whose radius lines of demarcation may be said 

 to be loosely drawn ; but as surely there is also 

 an aristocracy, definite and exclusive, and 

 which by no means rests its claims on wealth 

 only, or even on wealth at all. The mem- 

 bers of this extensive society recognize one 

 another as promptly as one Freemason 

 knows another ; and of all societies in the 

 civilized world there is none more attractive 

 none perhaps so entirely charming. 



Yet even in the great middle class, in its 

 endless branches, one trips up against barriers 



