Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life

[180] risks which they would not attempt. They laugh at him openly, and imitate him on the sly. They profit by his failures, and they usually have to admit that his milk and butter bring higher prices than theirs, and are worth it. But in one respect the gentleman farmer is an insecure possession to a community; there is never any guarantee for his permanence. He who has to make a living off his farm is anchored to it, but he to whom it is an amusement may quit it next year, and leave his land untilled. Again, the presence of the summer visitor emphasizes social differences to a degree far beyond what before existed in the rural regions. The ladies of the summer families do not meet the villagers and the farmers' households on a basis quite so frank as that on which the men meet. They contribute unconsciously many suggestions as to new bonnets, and they may be wholly friendly and public-spirited; but, after all, the social difference is more emphasized. The very fact that it is intangible makes it more difficult to suspend it occasionally, as is done in England at certain harvest balls and the like, or as used to be done in our Southern States sometimes at the marriage of some privileged slave. The “summer families” are coming more and more