He wore his hair long, its coarse, reddish
masses showing conspicuously in a crowd, when he got to going about
among such people as hunt lions in Boston.
Mrs. Bodewin Ranger patronized him from afar, and could not be brought
to invite him to her house.
"Really, my dear," the beautiful old lady said to her husband; "it
seems to me that people are not wise in asking Mr. Stanton about so
much. It only unsettles him, and he should be left to associate with
persons in his own class."
"I quite agree with you," her husband replied, as he had replied to
every proposition she had advanced for the half century of their
married life.
Mrs. Frostwinch was less rigid. It is somewhat the fashion of the more
exclusive of the younger circles of Boston to make a more or less
marked display of a democracy which is far more apparent than real.
Partly from the genuine and affected respect for culture and talent
which is so characteristic of the town, and partly from some remnants
of the foolish superstition that the persons who produce interesting
works of art must themselves be interesting, the social leaders of the
town are, as a rule, not unwilling to receive into a sort of lay-
brotherhood those who are gifted with talent or genius. No fashion of
place or hour, however, can change the essential facts of life; and it
is perhaps quite as much the incompatibility of aim, of purpose in
life, as any instinctive arrogance on either side, that makes any
intimate union impossible.
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