"That may be your opinion, my dear, but others may judge differently. You clearly think yourself too good to visit Mrs. Onion, the grocer's wife, who is a capital woman in her way; and how do we know that certain people may not fancy we are not quite refined enough for them? Refinement is a positive thing, Mrs. Jarvis, and one that has much more influence on the pleasures of association than money. We may want a hundred little perfections that escape our ignorance, and which those who are trained to such matters deem essentials."
"I never met with a man of so little social spirit, Mr. Jarvis! Really, you are quite unsuited to be a citizen of a republican country."
"Republican!--I do not really see what republican has to do with the question. In the first place, it is a droll word for you to use in this sense at least; for, taking your own meaning of the term, you are as anti-republican as any woman I know. But a republic does not necessarily infer equality of condition, or even equality of rights,--it meaning merely the substitution of the right of the commonwealth for the right of a prince. Had you said a democracy there would have been some plausibility in using the word, though even then its application would have been illogical. If I am a freeman and a democrat, I hope I have the justice to allow others to be just as free and democratic as I am myself."
"And who wishes the contrary?--all I ask is a claim to be considered a fit associate for anybody in this country--in these United States of America."
"I would quit these United States of America next week, if I thought there existed any necessity for such an intolerable state of things."
"Mr. Jarvis!--and you, too, one of the Committee of Tammany Hall!"
"Yes, Mrs. Jarvis, and I one of the Committee of Tammany Hall! What, do you think I want the three thousand six hundred and fifty carmen running in and out of my house, with their tobacco saliva and pipes, all day long?"
"Who is thinking of your carmen and grocers!--I speak now only of genteel people."
"In other words, my dear, you are thinking only of those whom you fancy to have the advantage of you, and keep those who think of you in the same way, quite out of sight This is not my democracy and freedom. I believe that it requires two people to make a bargain, and although I may consent to dine with A----, if A---- will not consent to dine with me, there is an end of the matter."
"Now, you have come to a case in point. You often dined with Mr. Effingham before he went abroad, and yet you would never allow me to ask Mr. Effingham to dine with us. That is what I call meanness."