"
The New York of Newland Archer's day was a small
and slippery pyramid, in which, as yet, hardly a fissure
had been made or a foothold gained. At its base was a
firm foundation of what Mrs. Archer called "plain
people"; an honourable but obscure majority of
respectable families who (as in the case of the Spicers or
the Leffertses or the Jacksons) had been raised above
their level by marriage with one of the ruling clans.
People, Mrs. Archer always said, were not as particular
as they used to be; and with old Catherine Spicer ruling
one end of Fifth Avenue, and Julius Beaufort the other,
you couldn't expect the old traditions to last much
longer.
Firmly narrowing upward from this wealthy but
inconspicuous substratum was the compact and dominant
group which the Mingotts, Newlands, Chiverses
and Mansons so actively represented. Most people imagined
them to be the very apex of the pyramid; but they
themselves (at least those of Mrs. Archer's generation)
were aware that, in the eyes of the professional genealogist,
only a still smaller number of families could lay
claim to that eminence.
"Don't tell me," Mrs. Archer would say to her
children, "all this modern newspaper rubbish about a New
York aristocracy. If there is one, neither the Mingotts
nor the Mansons belong to it; no, nor the Newlands or
the Chiverses either. Our grandfathers and great-
grandfathers were just respectable English or Dutch
merchants, who came to the colonies to make their
fortune, and stayed here because they did so well.
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