First, at an early day I sought an interview with Belknap-Jackson and
Mrs. Effie and told them straight precisely why I had played them both
false in the matter of the wedding breakfast. With the honour granted
to either of them, I explained, I had foreseen another era of cliques,
divisions, and acrimony. Therefore I had done the thing myself, as a
measure of peace.
Flatly then I declared my intention of reconciling all those formerly
opposed elements and of creating a society in Red Gap that would be a
social union in the finest sense of the word. I said that contact with
their curious American life had taught me that their equality should
be more than a name, and that, especially in the younger settlements,
a certain relaxation from the rigid requirements of an older order is
not only unavoidable but vastly to be desired. I meant to say, if we
were going to be Americans it was silly rot trying to be English at
the same time.
I pointed out that their former social leaders had ever been inspired
by the idea of exclusion; the soul of their leadership had been to
cast others out; and that the campaign I planned was to be one of
inclusion--even to the extent of Bohemians and well-behaved
cattle-persons---which I believed to be in the finest harmony with
their North American theory of human association.
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