The Bostonians resented its satire upon their intellectual and humanitary aspirations. They resented the author's evident sympathy with his reactionary Southern hero – a sympathy perhaps partly picked up from the British, who admired the Southern gentleman more than the Yankee reformer. The Bostonians considered Miss Birdseye an insulting caricature of Miss Elizabeth Peabody, the sister-in-law of Hawthorne, associate of Alcott, and friend of Emerson, and therefore too sacrosanct a personage to be placed in a humorous light. But probably most offensive to Boston propriety were the unmistakable indications of Lesbianism in the portrait of Olive Chancellor, which made it a violation of Boston decency and reticence.