But imitation does not
stop at frontiers. The powerful, socially superior, successful, rich,
urban social set is fundamentally international throughout the western
hemisphere, and in many ways London is its center. It counts among its
membership the most influential people in the world, containing as it
does the diplomatic set, high finance, the upper circles of the army
and the navy, some princes of the church, a few great newspaper
proprietors, their wives and mothers and daughters who wield the
scepter of invitation. It is at once a great circle of talk and a real
social set. But its importance comes from the fact that here at last
the distinction between public and private affairs practically
disappears. The private affairs of this set are public matters, and
public matters are its private, often its family affairs. The
confinements of Margot Asquith like the confinements of royalty are,
as the philosophers say, in much the same universe of discourse as a
tariff bill or a parliamentary debate.
There are large areas of governments in which this social set is not
interested, and in America, at least, it has exercised only a
fluctuating control over the national government. But its power in
foreign affairs is always very great, and in war time its prestige is
enormously enhanced. That is natural enough because these
cosmopolitans have a contact with the outer world that most people do
not possess.
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