"I don't suppose there is much use in trying to explain my trouble," she
said. "You will only think me stupid for my pains, but I'll try to make
you see what I mean. You ought to be able to clear up the matter if
anybody can. You have just been telling me about the shockingly unequal
conditions of the people, the contrasts of waste and want, the pride and
power of the rich, the abjectness and servitude of the poor, and all the
rest of the dreadful story."

"Yes."

"It appears that these contrasts were almost as great as at any previous
period of history."

"It is doubtful," I replied, "if there was ever a greater disparity
between the conditions of different classes than you would find in a half
hour's walk in Boston, New York, Chicago, or any other great city of
America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century."

"And yet," said Edith, "it appears from all the books that meanwhile the
Americans' great boast was that they differed from all other and former
nations in that they were free and equal. One is constantly coming upon
this phrase in the literature of the day. Now, you have made it clear
that they were neither free nor equal in any ordinary sense of the word,
but were divided as mankind had always been before into rich and poor,
masters and servants. Won't you please tell me, then, what they meant by
calling themselves free and equal?"

"It was meant, I suppose, that they were all equal before the law."

"That means in the courts. And were the rich and poor equal in the