those
joyous homes by chance, or by mistaken invitation. They submit meekly
enough at first to be sub-neighbors ruled in all things by the genius of
the place; but once in, they begin to lay their golden eggs in some
humble cottage, and then they hatch out broods of palatial villas
equipped with men and maid servants, horses, carriages, motors, yachts;
and if the original settlers remain it is in a helpless inferiority, a
broken spirit, and an overridden ideal. This tragical history is the
same at Magnolia, and at York Harbor, and at Dublin, and at Bar Harbor;
even at Newport itself; the co-operative housing of New York is making a
like history. It is true that the Philistines do not come in and
dispossess the autochthonic groups; these will not sell to them; but
they have imagined doing on a sophisticated and expensive scale what the
aesthetics have done simply and cheaply. They are buying the pleasanter
sites, and are building co-operatively; though they have already
eliminated the studio and the central principle, and they build for the
sole occupancy of the owners. But the cost of their housing then is such
that it puts them out of the range of our inquiry as their riches has
already put them beyond the range of our sympathy. It still remains for
any impecunious group to buy the cheaper lots, and build simpler houses
on the old studio principle, with rents enough to pay the cost of
operation, and leave the owners merely the interest and taxes, with the
eventual payment of these also by the tenants. Some of the studio
apartments are equipped with restaurants, and the dwellers need only do
such light housekeeping as ladies may attempt without disgrace, or too
much fatigue."

"Or distraction from their duties to society," we suggested.

"It depends upon what you mean by society; it's a very general and
inexact term. If you mean formal dinners, dances, parties, receptions,
and all that, the lightest housekeeping would distract from the duties
to it; but if you mean congenial friends willing to come in for tea in
the afternoon, or to a simple lunch, or not impossibly a dinner, light
housekeeping is not incompatible with a conscientious recognition of
society's claims. I think of two ladies, sisters, one younger and one
older than the other, who keep house not lightly, but in its full weight
of all the meals, for their father and brother, and yet are most
gracefully and most acceptably in the sort of society which Jane