separate houses in New York."

She was instantly pacified. "Why, I should be delighted. I only wish my
friend Mrs. Bellington Strange was back from Europe; then I could show
you a model house. I mean to take you there, as soon as she gets home.
She's a kind of Altrurian herself, you know. She was my dearest friend at
school, and it almost broke my heart when she married Mr. Strange, so
much older, and her inferior in every way. But she's got his money now,
and oh, the good she does do with it! I know you'll like each other, Mr.
Homos. I do wish Eva was at home!"

I said that I should be very glad to meet an American Altrurian, but that
now I wished she would tell me about the normal New York house, and what
was its animating principle, beginning with the basement door.

She laughed and said, "Why, it's just like any other house!"




VII


I can never insist enough, my dear Cyril, upon the illogicality of
American life. You know what the plutocratic principle is, and what the
plutocratic civilization should logically be. But the plutocratic
civilization is much better than it should logically be, bad as it is;
for the personal equation constantly modifies it, and renders it far less
dreadful than you would reasonably expect. That is, the potentialities of
goodness implanted in the human heart by the Creator forbid the