It is inevitable that members of any
exclusive circle shall regard others concerning whose admission there
has been question with some shade of more or less conscious patronage,
and sensitive men of genius are very likely as conscious of "the pale
spectrum of the salt" as was Mrs. Browning's poet Bertram, invited into
company where he did not belong, because it was socially too high and
intellectually and humanely too low. The members of what is awkwardly
called fashionable society are too thoroughly trained in the knowledge
of the principles of birth, wealth, and mutual recognition upon which
their order is founded, to be likely to lose sight of the fact that
artists and authors and actors, not possessing, however great their
cleverness in other directions, these especial qualifications, can only
be received into the charmed ring on sufferance; and nothing could be
more absurd or illogical than to blame them for recognizing this fact.
Mrs. Frostwinch, at least, was in no danger of forgetting where she
stood in relation to such lions as she invited to her house. She
understood accurately how to be gracious and yet to keep them in their
place. Indeed, she did this instinctively, so thoroughly was she imbued
with the spirit of her class. She did not open her doors to many people
on the score of their talent, and least of all did she encourage lions
of appearance so coarse and uncouth as Orin Stanton.
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