But they are
quite subtle souls with all their child-like peculiarities; there is,
in their acceptance of ridicule, a shrewd undercurrent suggestive of
the "Virginian's" now classic warning: "When you call me that,
_smile_!" Hence a novel written not long ago and purporting to be a
mirror of the Village--Village life and Village ideals, or lack of
them--had a peculiar result on the real Village. They knew it to be
untrue--those few who read it, that is--but they scorned to notice it.
They resented it, but to an astonishing extent they ignored it. The
title of it got to mean very little to them save a general term of
cheap and unmerited opprobrium, like some insulting epithet in a
foreign language which one knows one would dislike if one could
understand it. It is necessary to grasp these first simple facts to
appreciate the following episode:
A certain young Villager--I shall not give his name, but he is an
artist of growing and striking reputation, dark-eyed and rather
attractive looking--burst into a friend's studio pale with anger:
"See here, have you a copy of 'The Trufflers'?"
"Not guilty," swore the surprised friend.
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