what class did Hilmer place himself? Above or below?... But the answer
came almost before it was framed--Hilmer looked _down_ upon him. That
almost told the story, but not quite. Had Hilmer climbed personally to
upper circles or had the strata in which he found himself embedded
been pushed up by the slow process of time? Had the term "middle
class" become a misnomer? Was it really on the lowest level now?
Perhaps it was ... perhaps it always had been... But so was the
foundation of any structure. Foundation?... The thought intrigued him,
but only momentarily. Who wanted to bear the crushing weight of
arrogant and far-flung battlements?

He retraced his steps, his thoughts still busy with Hilmer. Here was a
typical case of what America could yield to the nature that had the
insolence to ravish her. America was still the tawny, primitive,
elemental jade who gave herself more readily to a rough embrace than a
soft caress. She reserved her favors for those who wrested them from
her...she had no patience with the soft delights of persuasion. It was
strange how much rough-hewn vitality had poured into her embrace from
the moth-eaten civilization of the Old World. Starratt was only a
generation removed from a people who had subdued a wilderness ... he
was not many generations removed from a people who wrestled naked with
God for a whole continent--that is, they had begun to wrestle; the
years that had succeeded found them still eager and shut-lipped for
the conflict. They had abandoned the struggle only when they had found
their victory complete. Naturally, soft days had followed. Was eternal
conflict the price of strength? Starratt found himself wondering. And
was he a product of these soft days, the rushing whirlwinds of Heaven
stilled, the land drowsy with the humid heat of a slothful noonday? He
had never thought of these things before. Even when he had thrilled to
the vision of line upon line of his comrades marching away to the