“O, yes, she does,” he said. “She thinks that their principles and their lives are all right for themselves, but would not be for her—or for us; and our adoption of them would be simply apish. She is genuine, and she detests imitation. She accepts herself—as she puts it—as she found herself. God, who made all things, created her upon a certain plane of life, and with certain tastes, faculties, passions and propensities, and that it is not her office to disturb or distort the order of His economy.”
“She does not argue thus in earnest,” I deprecated.
“It is difficult to tell when Elodia is in earnest,” he replied. “She thinks my sanctuary in the top story of the house here, is a kind of weakness, because I brought the idea from Lunismar.”
“O, then, it is not common here in Thursia for people to have things of that sort in their homes!” I said in surprise.
“Yes, it has gotten to be rather common,” he replied.
“Since you put in yours?”
He admitted that to be the case.
“You must think that you have done your country a great good,” I began enthusiastically, “in introducing so beautiful an innovation, and—”
“You are mistaken,” he interrupted, “I think the contrary; because our rich people, and some who are not rich but only ambitious, took it up as a fad, and I believe it has really worked evil. It is considered aristocratic to have one’s own private shrine, and not to go to church at all except in condescension, to patronize the masses. Elodia saw clearly just how it would be, before I began to carry out my plan. She has a logical mind, and her thought travels from one sequence to the next with unfailing accuracy. I recall her saying that one cannot superinduce the customs and habits of one society upon another of a different order, without affectation; and that you cannot put on a new religion, like a new garment, and feel yourself free in it.”
“Does she not believe, then, in progress, development?”