though in Newport, where the aristocratic tradition is said to have been
successfully transplanted to our plutocratic soil, something analogous
might at least be dramatized. Elsewhere that tradition does not come to
flower in the open American air; it is potted and grown under glass; and
can be carried out-doors only under special conditions. The American
must still come to England for the realization of certain social ideals
towards which we may be now straining, but which do not yet enjoy
general acceptance. The reader who knows New York has but to try and
fancy its best, or even its better, society dispersing itself on certain
grassy limits of Central Park on a Sunday noon or afternoon; or, on some
week-day evening, leaving its equipages along the drives and strolling
out over the herbage; or receiving in its carriages the greetings of
acquaintance who make their way in and out among the wheels. Police and
populace would join forces in their several sorts to spoil a spectacle
which in Hyde Park appeals, in high degree, to the aesthetic sense, and
which might stimulate the historic imagination to feats of agreeable
invention if one had that sort of imagination.

The spectacle is a condition of that old, secure society which we have
not yet lived long enough to have known, and which we very probably
never shall know. Such civilization as we have will continue to be
public and impersonal, like our politics, and our society in its
specific events will remain within walls. It could not manifest itself
outside without being questioned, challenged, denied; and upon
reflection there might appear reasons why it is well so.




III