The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

has his ears cropped. His father, Martin Farquhar Tupper, was sickly,

and died young, but he was the sweetest disposition.–His mother had

heart disease but was very gentle and resigned, and a wonderful ratter.”

–[** As impossible and exasperating as this conversation may sound to a

person who is not an idiot, it is scarcely in any respect an exaggeration

of one which one of us actually listened to in an American drawing room–

otherwise we could not venture to put such a chapter into a book which,

professes to deal with social possibilities.–THE AUTHORS.]

So carried away had the visitors become by their interest attaching to

this discussion of family matters, that their stay had been prolonged to

a very improper and unfashionable length; but they suddenly recollected

themselves now and took their departure.

Laura’s scorn was boundless. The more she thought of these people and

their extraordinary talk, the more offensive they seemed to her; and yet

she confessed that if one must choose between the two extreme

aristocracies it might be best, on the whole, looking at things from a

strictly business point of view, to herd with the Parvenus; she was in

Washington solely to compass a certain matter and to do it at any cost,

and these people might be useful to her, while it was plain that her

purposes and her schemes for pushing them would not find favor in the

eyes of the Antiques. If it came to choice–and it might come to that,

sooner or later–she believed she could come to a decision without much

difficulty or many pangs.

But the best aristocracy of the three Washington castes, and really the

most powerful, by far, was that of the Middle Ground: It was made up of

the families of public men from nearly every state in the Union–men who

held positions in both the executive and legislative branches of the

government, and whose characters had been for years blemishless, both at

home and at the capital. These gentlemen and their households were

unostentatious people; they were educated and refined; they troubled

themselves but little about the two other orders of nobility, but moved

serenely in their wide orbit, confident in their own strength and well

aware of the potency of their influence. They had no troublesome

appearances to keep up, no rivalries which they cared to distress

themselves about, no jealousies to fret over. They could afford to mind

their own affairs and leave other combinations to do the same or do

otherwise, just as they chose. They were people who were beyond

reproach, and that was sufficient.

Senator Dilworthy never came into collision with any of these factions.

He labored for them all and with them all. He said that all men were

brethren and all were entitled to the honest unselfish help and

countenance of a Christian laborer in the public vineyard.

Laura concluded, after reflection, to let circumstances determine the

course it might be best for her to pursue as regarded the several

aristocracies.

Now it might occur to the reader that perhaps Laura had been somewhat

rudely suggestive in her remarks to Mrs. Oreille when the subject of

corals was under discussion, but it did not occur to Laura herself.

She was not a person of exaggerated refinement; indeed, the society and

the influences that had formed her character had not been of a nature

calculated to make her so; she thought that “give and take was fair

play,” and that to parry an offensive thrust with a sarcasm was a neat

and legitimate thing to do. She some times talked to people in a way

which some ladies would consider, actually shocking; but Laura rather

prided herself upon some of her exploits of that character. We are sorry

we cannot make her a faultless heroine; but we cannot, for the reason

that she was human.

She considered herself a superior conversationist. Long ago, when the

possibility had first been brought before her mind that some day she

might move in Washington society, she had recognized the fact that

practiced conversational powers would be a necessary weapon in that

field; she had also recognized the fact that since her dealings there

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