By-the-by, have
you seen any of those primitive social delights which Mrs. Makely regrets
so much?"
"I!" our hostess protested. But then she perceived that he was joking,
and she let me answer.
I said that I had seen them nearly all, during the past year, in New
England and in the West, but they appeared to me inalienable of the
simpler life of the country, and that I was not surprised they should not
have found an evolution in the more artificial society of the cities.
"I see," he returned, "that you reserve your _opinion_ of our more
artificial society; but you may be sure that our reporters will get it
out of you yet before you leave us."
"Those horrid reporters!" one of the ladies irrelevantly sighed.
The gentleman resumed: "In the mean time, I don't mind saying how it
strikes me. I think you are quite right about the indigenous American
things being adapted only to the simpler life of the country and the
smaller towns. It is so everywhere. As soon as people become at all
refined they look down upon what is their own as something vulgar.
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