You will find the bar, the stage, and the
pulpit represented there, a "happy family" over which the "Prince"
often presides, smoking cigar after cigar, until the tardy London
daylight appears to break up the entertainment.
For both are centres where the gifted and the travelled meet the
great of the social world, on a footing of perfect equality, and
where, if any prestige is accorded, it is that of brains. When you
have seen these places and a dozen others like them, you will
realize what the actor's wife had in her mind.
Now, let me whisper to you why I think such circles do not exist in
this country. In the first place, we are still too provincial in
this big city of ours. New York always reminds me of a definition
I once heard of California fruit: "Very large, with no particular
flavor." We are like a boy, who has had the misfortune to grow too
quickly and look like a man, but whose mind has not kept pace with
his body. What he knows is undigested and chaotic, while his
appearance makes you expect more of him than he can give - hence
disappointment.
Our society is yet in knickerbockers, and has retained all sorts of
littlenesses and prejudices which older civilizations have long
since relegated to the mental lumber room. An equivalent to this
point of view you will find in England or France only in the
smaller "cathedral" cities, and even there the old aristocrats have
the courage of their opinions.
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