She had sought to be definite in analyzing the surface ugliness of the Gopher Prairies. She asserted that it is a matter of universal similarity; of flimsiness of construction, so that the towns resemble frontier camps; of neglect of natural advantages, so that the hills are covered with brush, the lakes shut off by railroads, and the creeks lined with dumping-grounds; of depressing sobriety of color; rectangularity of buildings; and excessive breadth and straightness of the gashed streets, so that there is no escape from gales and from sight of the grim sweep of land, nor any windings to coax the loiterer along, while the breadth which would be majestic in an avenue of palaces makes the low shabby shops creeping down the typical Main Street the more mean by comparison.

The universal similarity⁠—that is the physical expression of the philosophy of dull safety. Nine-tenths of the American towns are so alike that it is the completest boredom to wander from one to another. Always, west of Pittsburg, and often, east of it, there is the same lumber yard, the same railroad station, the same Ford garage, the same creamery, the same boxlike houses and two-story shops. The new, more conscious houses are alike in their very attempts at diversity: the same bungalows, the same square houses of stucco or tapestry brick. The shops show the same standardized, nationally advertised wares; the newspapers of sections three thousand miles apart have the same “syndicated features”; the boy in Arkansas displays just such a flamboyant ready-made suit as is found on just such a boy in Delaware, both of them iterate the same slang phrases from the same sporting-pages, and if one of them is in college and the other is a barber, no one may surmise which is which.

If Kennicott were snatched from Gopher Prairie and instantly conveyed to a town leagues away, he would not realize it. He would go down apparently the same Main Street (almost certainly it would be called Main Street); in the same drug store he would see the same young man serving the same ice-cream soda to the same young woman with the same magazines and phonograph records under her arm. Not till he had climbed to his office and found another sign on the door, another Dr. Kennicott inside, would he understand that something curious had presumably happened.

Finally, behind all her comments, Carol saw the fact that the prairie towns no more exist to serve the farmers who are their reason of existence than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten on the farmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment; and, unlike the capitals, they do not give to the district in return for usury a stately and permanent center, but only this ragged camp. It is a “parasitic Greek civilization”⁠—minus the civilization.

“There we are then,” said Carol. “The remedy? Is there any? Criticism, perhaps, for the beginning of the beginning. Oh, there’s nothing that attacks the Tribal God Mediocrity that doesn’t help a little⁠ ⁠… and probably there’s nothing that helps very much. Perhaps some day the farmers will build and own their market-towns. (Think of the club they could have!) But I’m afraid I haven’t any ‘reform program.’ Not any more! The trouble is spiritual, and no League or Party can enact a preference for gardens rather than dumping-grounds.⁠ ⁠… There’s my confession. Well?”

“In other words, all you want is perfection?”

“Yes! Why not?”

“How you hate this place! How can you expect to do anything with it if you haven’t any sympathy?”

“But I have! And affection. Or else I wouldn’t fume so. I’ve learned that Gopher Prairie isn’t just an eruption on the prairie, as I thought first, but as large as New York. In New York I wouldn’t know more than forty or fifty people, and I know that many here. Go on! Say what you’re thinking.”

“Well, my dear, if I did take all your notions seriously, it would be pretty discouraging. Imagine how a person would feel, after working hard for years and helping to build up a nice town, to have you airily flit in and simply say ‘Rotten!’ Think that’s fair?”

“Why not? It must be just as discouraging for the Gopher Prairieite to see Venice and make comparisons.”

“It would not! I imagine gondolas are kind of nice to ride in, but we’ve got better bathrooms! But⁠—My dear, you’re not the only person in this town who has done some thinking for herself, although (pardon my rudeness) I’m afraid you think so. I’ll admit we lack some things. Maybe our theater isn’t as good as shows in Paris. All right! I don’t want to see any foreign culture suddenly forced on us⁠—whether it’s street-planning or table-manners or crazy communistic ideas.”

Vida sketched what she termed “practical things that will make a happier and prettier town, but that do belong to our life, that actually are being done.” Of the Thanatopsis Club she spoke; of the restroom, the fight against mosquitos, the campaign for more gardens and shade-trees and sewers⁠—matters not fantastic and nebulous and distant, but immediate and sure.

Carol’s answer was fantastic and nebulous enough:

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… Yes.⁠ ⁠… I know. They’re good. But if I could put through all those reforms at once, I’d still want startling, exotic things. Life is comfortable and clean enough here already. And so secure. What it needs is to be less secure, more eager. The civic improvements which I’d like the Thanatopsis to advocate are Strindberg plays, and classic dancers⁠—exquisite legs beneath tulle⁠—and (I can see him so clearly!) a thick, black-bearded, cynical Frenchman who would sit about and drink and sing opera and tell bawdy stories and laugh at our proprieties and quote Rabelais and not be ashamed to kiss my hand!”

“Huh! Not sure about the rest of it but I guess that’s what you and all the other discontented young women really want: some stranger kissing your hand!” At Carol’s gasp, the old squirrel-like Vida darted out and cried, “Oh, my dear, don’t take that too seriously. I just meant⁠—”

“I know. You just meant it. Go on. Be good for my soul. Isn’t it funny: here we all are⁠—me trying to be good for Gopher Prairie’s soul, and Gopher Prairie trying to be good for my soul. What are my other sins?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of them. Possibly some day we shall have your fat cynical Frenchman (horrible, sneering, tobacco-stained object, ruining his brains and his digestion with vile liquor!) but, thank heaven, for a while we’ll manage to keep busy with our lawns and pavements! You see, these things really are coming! The Thanatopsis is getting somewhere. And you⁠—” Her tone italicized the words⁠—“to my great disappointment, are doing less, not more, than the people you laugh at! Sam Clark, on the school-board, is working for better school ventilation. Ella Stowbody (whose elocuting you always think is so absurd) has persuaded the railroad to share the expense of a parked space at the station, to do away with that vacant lot.

“You sneer so easily. I’m sorry, but I do think there’s something essentially cheap in your attitude. Especially about religion.

“If you must know, you’re not a sound reformer at all. You’re an impossibilist. And you give up too easily. You gave up on the new city hall, the anti-fly campaign, club papers, the library-board, the dramatic association⁠—just because we didn’t graduate into Ibsen the very first thing. You want perfection all at once. Do you know what the finest thing you’ve done is⁠—aside from bringing Hugh into the world? It was the help you gave Dr. Will during baby-welfare week. You didn’t demand that each baby be a philosopher and artist before you weighed him, as you do with the rest of us.

“And now I’m afraid perhaps I’ll hurt you. We’re going to have a new schoolbuilding in this town⁠—in just a few years⁠—and we’ll have it without one bit of help or interest from you!

“Professor Mott and I and some others have been dinging away at the moneyed men for years. We didn’t call on you because you would never stand the pound-pound-pounding year after year without one bit of encouragement. And we’ve won! I’ve got the promise of everybody who counts that just as soon as war-conditions permit, they’ll vote the bonds for the schoolhouse. And we’ll have a wonderful building⁠—lovely brown brick, with big windows, and agricultural and manual-training departments. When we get it, that’ll be my answer to all your theories!”

“I’m glad. And I’m ashamed I haven’t had any part in getting it. But⁠—Please don’t think I’m unsympathetic if I ask one question: Will the teachers in the hygienic new building go on informing the children that Persia is a yellow spot on the map, and ‘Caesar’ the title of a book of grammatical puzzles?”