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 have thrown a cloak of invisibility, which is much like the cloak of charity, over that dress of hers, which would otherwise remind us that she made it herself and none too well.

But a culture which goes deep as the heart has a certain "levelling" and democratical tendency. Therefore Mrs. Gerould declares with a bang that "culture is not a democratic achievement, because culture is inherently snobbish." She believes in the thing—it becomes a thing by her definitions—but she also believes that there is not enough of the thing to go around. Accordingly, she trusts that the numbers of those who aspire to it will be kept down. She says that she pins her hope of effective restriction on the older Eastern universities and the choice minority. Apparently they are to coöperate with her in reducing the wages of the skilled workman, who is now beginning to be able to send his son to one of the accursed State universities and to provide for his family some of the external means of grace the lack of which made the Alcotts so "underbred." Since the majority will not value a minority engaged in closing the door in its face, she insists that the minority must unite to value itself. Clearly such a minority as she contemplates can have