was that it did accumulate, without changing or improving the
quality of its owners. To spend it in charity and public works was
doubtless praiseworthy, but was it wise? Mrs. Lee had read enough
political economy and pauper reports to be nearly convinced that
public work should be public duty, and that great benefactions do
harm as well as good.

And even supposing it spent on these objects, how could it do
more than increase and perpetuate that same kind of human nature
which was her great grievance? Her New York friends could not
meet this question except by falling back upon their native
commonplaces, which she recklessly trampled upon, averring that,
much as she admired the genius of the famous traveller, Mr.
Gulliver, she never had been able, since she became a widow, to
accept the Brobdingnagian doctrine that he who made two blades
of grass grow where only one grew before deserved better of
mankind than the whole race of politicians. She would not find
fault with the philosopher had he required that the grass should be
of an improved quality; "but," said she, "I cannot honestly pretend
that I should be pleased to see two New York men where I now see
one; the idea is too ridiculous; more than one and a half would be
fatal to me."

Then came her Boston friends, who suggested that higher
education was precisely what she wanted; she should throw herself
into a crusade for universities and art-schools. Mrs. Lee turned
upon them with a sweet smile; "Do you know," said she, "that we
have in New York already the richest university in America, and
that its only trouble has always been that it can get no scholars
even by paying for them? Do you want me to go out into the streets