184 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



objects of its worship have much in common 

 one with another. Its highest tide never 

 does more than break against the barriers 

 of the highest and most cultured society, and 

 its lowest strictly defines its own limitations. 

 Yet the wheels within wheels of its own 

 social arrangements are beyond measure 

 bewildering to the foreigner, who has had 

 it dinned into his ears that ' there are no 

 class distinctions in America.' It is in the 

 ranks of the bourgeoisie that the most ardent 

 worshippers of money are to be found. It is 

 for this huge army that certain manners and 

 customs continue to exist. Its beardless, 

 semi-educated youth must have its vanity 

 tickled with the title of Professor ; its schools 

 must continue to be institutes, academies, 

 female seminaries, and the like. A more 

 enlightened day in these and other respects 

 dawns but slowly. Its feminine contingent 

 see to it that a suit of sombre black continues 

 to be the ne plus ultra of decorum for its 

 masculine representatives. These are trifles 

 light as air, but they lend a sameness, and at 

 the same time a distinctive mark, to the other- 

 wise variegated social landscape. And this 



