“And do you not wish to go?”
“Very much. All Americans want to go to Washington. It is the great social opportunity; everybody there is in society. You will be able to see there, Mr. Lyon, how a republican democracy manages social life.
“Do you mean to say there are no distinctions?”
“Oh, no; there are plenty of official distinctions, and a code that is very curious and complicated, I believe. But still society is open.”
“It must be—pardon me—a good deal like a mob.”
“Well, our mobs of that sort are said to be very well behaved. Mr. Morgan says that Washington is the only capital in the world where the principle of natural selection applies to society; that it is there shown for the first time that society is able to take care of itself in the free play of democratic opportunities.”
“It must be very interesting to see that.”
“I hope you will find it so. The resident diplomats, I have heard, say that they find society there more agreeable than at any other capital—at least those who have the qualities to make themselves agreeable independent of their rank.”
“Is there nothing like a court? I cannot see who sets the mode.”
“Officially there may be something like a court, but it can be only temporary, for the personnel of it is dissolved every four years. And society, always forming and reforming, as the voters of the republic dictate, is almost independent of the Government, and has nothing of the social caste of Berlin or London.”