Crucial Instances by Edith Wharton — Read

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To the visiting stranger Hillbridge's first question was, "Have you seen Keniston's things? " Keniston took precedence of the colonial State House, the Gilbert Stuart Washington and the Ethnological Museum; nay, he ran neck and neck with the President of the University, a prehistoric relic who had known Emerson, and who was still sent about the country in cotton-wool to open educational institutions with a toothless oration on Brook Farm.