Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/208

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
202
ABOUT PEOPLE.

four to six hundred persons. Society, though not existing per se, is deified as a goddess; its decrees are passports, or edicts, of social banishment and death; a knowledge of its laws is the preliminary, and obedience to them the final, requisite for admission. There is no New England, no New York, no Western society; there was Southern society, founded on inheritance of name, on ownership of land and slaves; but so long as there are annual governmental changes in the body politic, and constant reverses of private fortune through the money-markets and opportunities for Bonanza stock, and the advantages of high-school in the East and of college education in the West are offered free to all, there never can be a dominant force, — society.

Manner conquers society sooner than wealth or education; an individual is relegated to his proper social sphere, in the minds of all spectators, as soon as he enters a room. The depth of his bow, the tones of his voice, and the

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.