William Dean Howells,
A Hazard of New Fortunes — Part Second…
(1890)
“ If we could have had time to perfect our system at the South, to eliminate what was evil and develop what was good in it, we should have had a perfect system. But the virus of commercialism was in us, too; it forbade us to make the best of a divine institution, and tempted us to make the worst. Now the curse is on the whole country; the dollar is the measure of every value, the stamp of every success. What does not sell is a failure; and what sells succeeds.""The hobby is oat, mah deah," said Miss Woodburn, in an audible aside to Alma. ”
