Makely, with the air of advancing a point
not to be put aside, "they had to drop _that_. It was a dead failure. They
found that they couldn't make it go at all among cultivated people, and
that, if Christianity was to advance, they would have to give up all that
crankish kind of idolatry of the mere letter. At any rate," she went on,
with the satisfaction we all feel in getting an opponent into close
quarters, "you must confess that there is a much greater play of
individuality here."
Before the Altrurian could reply, young Camp said: "If you want to see
American individuality, the real, simon-pure article, you ought to go down
to one of our big factory towns and look at the mill-hands coming home in
droves after a day's work, young girls and old women, boys and men, all
fluffed over with cotton, and so dead tired that they can hardly walk.
They come shambling along with all the individuality of a flock of sheep."
"Some," said Mrs. Makely, heroically, as if she were one of these, "must
be sacrificed. Of course, some are not so individual as others. A great
deal depends upon temperament."
"A great deal more depends upon capital," said Camp, with an offensive
laugh.
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