Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/111

 the individualistic instinct, and that the characteristic qualities and defects of her art and letters and morals and manners are consequences of the individualistic instinct. The book comes to its burning focus in the penultimate chapter on "Democracy" and in the final chapter on "New York after Paris," in which he deals with the defects of our civilization with a cutting candor which some of our young people imagine was unknown before 1920. Let us take, for example, this paragraph on our Babbittian activities: