L

ONG ago, when I was a naughty little girl, and I was always a very naughty little girl, I used to make a persistent practice of running away from school, a fault for which I have since rather abundantly atoned. It may be that I was then, as now, a bit sceptical about the higher education of womankind; sometimes, as I face my lecture-room, full of upturned faces and upturned pompadours, I wish that I had the splendid courage of those early days. Then I should-however, I started out, not to suggest plans for the future, but to tell something that happened in the past. One day I was, as usual, playing truant, and had wandered far along a cool, green leafy wood with an enchanting forest on either side, when I was rudely overtaken On the Boys' and wakened from my happy dream. Side A grown cousin who was visiting us drove past, and, catching sight of me, surely a harmless fugitive, with the swift severity of unmellowed youth resolved on discipline. I remember that for years afterward I hated the very name of the city in which he lived. Springing to the ground, he lifted me bodily into the phaeton, held me fast as in a vice, drove to the old-fashioned country school which I perhaps I have not the right to say attended, but, rather, from which I had escaped-and, opening one of the doors, thrust me in, then departed without saying a word. His cruelty was greater than he intended, for he put me down on the boys' side. I can still hear the giggling of the little girls, from whose company I was thrust out, and see the questioning, scornful glances of the boys, who had no desire to count me among their number. There I stood, shamefaced and immovable; there I still stand.

The picture often comes back to me as a symbol of my later experience. Exiled from the one group, unrecognized by the other, I even yet, metaphorically, wait, hanging my head, uncertain where to go. Indefinable barriers keep me from my own side of the great school-room; intimations, half-heard challenges, call me irrevocably to the larger and freer life of the other. Many a taste and many a prejudice separate me from the little girls.

I dislike new clothes; what right have I among those pretty, fluttering, feminine creatures? Anything calling attention to the outer shell has always brought me distinct discomfort, from that early martyrdom of curly hair to this day. Many voices call me where I do not belong; the world of out-of-doors and the long open roads make an all-too-distinct appeal. Since that far-off time of lawlessness I have acquired something of decorum, have learned to dress and smile when it is necessary, and I no longer, literally, at least, carry stones in my pocket. I can pretend to be a lady, but I am, and always have been, a tomboy at heart.

Again, one of my deepest pleasures—I dare confess this as this article will be unsignedlies in having my mind work. Ideas move me profoundly, and few things in life have appealed to me more deeply than the intellectual quest. Note that I say few. My earliest and happiest memories are of hearing my father discuss, with his friends, literature, philosophy, politics, while I lurked half-concealed in some dusky corner; nor could I abide the feminine conversations that went on in another room. But those leisurely, genial discussions of the men, with their deep, rich voices, the warmth and comfort of the smouldering fire and the glow of the lamps, come back as the choicest moments of my early life, and those from which I date a knowledge of myself.

Again, the need of something to do is strong within me. I have a most unfeminine love of work, and I fear that, if I had been left as idle as many women are, I should be, by this time, a noted criminal. Speaking of work, mine is sadly hampered by a consciousness that my real place is among the giggling little girls. I might, perhaps one can never tell-have made some small success as a writer of fiction, save for the unwritten law that a woman must go through the world with her eyes cast down. The endless spectacle of life, the great tides that govern being, the very panorama of the streets-I have always had to move on and away, for fear of being misunderstood, and of understanding too much.

I know that it is all a blunder, and I am heartily ashamed of my fatal love of ideas, of

freedom and of work. For a woman, this is to have failed in life. Yet you who read will realize that it is not my fault, but my misfortune, a fatal blunder of Providence-or of Cousin Sam, who left me stranded on the boys' side. Surely I have been more sinned against than sinning! In the first place, I "took after" my father; could I help it that he was a man? Could I even wish to help it? My tastes, my ambitions, my problems and my way of working them out were his. He was a lover of books; could I be less, being his child? For that small portion of his mind that has come down to me I am more thankful than for any other bit of inheritance, and even now it is all astir with the inquiry: Inasmuch as in eight cases out of ten daughters seem to resemble their fathers, is it not possible that Dame Nature's ideals are different from those of Mrs. Grundy? I often think that she aims at a more even distribution of powers than society realizes.

The most distressing gift of all from the paternal store, that which has been at once my misery and my consolation, is a sense of humor. A woman handicapped by this never wins; she who has greatly sinned is sometimes forgiven, but never the woman with a persistent appreciation of the incongruous. The Young look at you with astonished and disapproving eyes; the Old marvel with lifted brows; you are branded by your sex as not being an Earnest Woman; men look askance, except the rare kind of man who understands, and he is the only kind worth knowing. To me it seems that one can hardly be a genuinely Earnest Woman without it; that in life, as in the greatest English dramas, the most poignant sense of tragedy and the deepest sense of irony go together; but I should not dare suggest this when I see the white plumes wave over the heads of embattled womankind. What is to be done with a creature born this way? I am only one of many, if the truth were known, and have all this time been confessing for scores of others besides myself. We make a distinct genus, and are wondering if there may not be for us some place in the chain of being, even if there is not in the social order. What should I have done in that early, unpleasant adventure? Should I have scrambled to the little girls' seats and have tucked up my feet and the corners of my mouth, instead of standing, dazed and uncertain, as I do now? I do not know, but I have one other word of confession:

I am in reality hopelessly feminine, more intensely so, I think, in some subtle fashion which I cannot explain, because of having been put down by fate On the Boys' Side.

HAVE published a book. Neither egoism nor shrewdness is the cause of my advertising the fact in this public way, but merely a humble desire to conciliate my reviewers. They have not hesitated to tell me plainly that I know nothing whatever about the art of composition; yet I earnestly desire that they should believe me willing to learn. With this purpose in view, I have bought me a copy of a little manual bearing the alluring title, "How to Write," and I am trying now to put all its precepts into practice.

A Modern Disenchantment

Rule 49 on page 10 tells me that it is well to begin a paragraph with a concise statement of some remarkable fact. This advice I have carefully followed, only to learn from Hint 12 that it is never wise to use the pronoun I as the first word of a statement. It will not do, however, to let a false desire for modesty discourage me. I hasten to fulfil one other injunction, for I read on page 16 that a repetition of the opening sentence always makes a forceful and elegant conclusion. I think I know what that means; at any rate, I shall take advantage of the suggestion: I have published a book.

The paragraph which I have just finished has no connection with what I really want to say: it is intended as a mere introduction; and an introduction (see Rule 32) may be upon any subject, provided there is an adroit narrowing to the real topic. Lest some misunderstanding might arise, I call attention to the subtle and tactful way in which I am approaching my grievous experiences with book reviewers. I have published a book. I repeat the statement, partly to get a fresh start and partly to preserve rhetorical unity. I don't know just what rhetorical unity is, but the manual says that it must be preserved, and I am determined not to let it spoil on my hands, if I can help it. Well, when my book came out, not a magazine, not even a newspaper took any notice of it for a long time. I was just at the point of deciding between one of two conclusions, either that I was too deep to be understood, or that I had subscribed to a dormant clipping agency, when

in five days the postman delivered at my address forty-nine reviews all exactly alike: every one of them was an accurate copy of the announcement with which my publisher informed the public that I had written a book. (Kindly observe how, in accordance with Rule 98, I have repeated the unifying thought, but varied the expression.) Of course, I couldn't find fault with what was said in this widely reprinted notice. It was unquestionably flattering: whoever wrote the thing had been moved by a singleness of purpose worthy of better things. It was his business to make that book sell, and from the way in which he revealed me to myself, I feel confident that I have created an epoch. Nevertheless, I must say that the announcement began at last to pall. I came to know it so well that I could say it backward as well as forward, and not trip once. When I closed my eyes I would see its lovely proportions blazing against the dark. If my friends looked at me pityingly, I knew that I was mumbling the magic formula to myself. Indeed, I am not sure but the time is near at hand when I shall be gibbering it in a madhouse cell. Still, there was one redeeming feature about the matter: having so many copies of the same review, I could send one to each of my relatives and enemies-two classes which with me are pretty nearly identical—and thus awaken their envy. As for my friends, I was not content to supply them with mere notices; instead, at Christmas time, I presented each with a copy of the book myself. You see my publishers had kindly sent me several of the volumes gratis: this thoughtfulness on their part solved the holiday problem for me in an unexpected and inexpensive way.

After a time the clerks of the clipping bureau seemed to find the monotony of continually sending the same review irksome; at least, that is the conclusion which I drew from the next thing that happened. Without any warning whatever, I began to receive newspaper notices of every man whose name is one with mine. (My diction here is modelled on a line from Tennyson, a device which, according to the manual, adds distinction, and subtly suggests wide erudition.) Now my name does not happen to be Smith, or Jones, or Brown; but I have recently become convinced that my relatives are more numerous, more widely scattered, and more diversely employed than all the members of those three families lumped in one grand

VOL. XLV.-68

total. I received notices of men who died before I was born, and of children who were born after my book was written; I learned that if Senators and Congressmen bore my name, so likewise did recipients of public charity and of penal justice; if I was interested in tracing my possible relationship to prominent clergymen and physicians, I was compelled to shudder at the probability of my connection with some misguided man whose "before and after" portraits adorned the advertisement columns of newspapers more or less obscure. Finally my mail became so heavy for a private citizen that the postman began to ask searching questions; and, had I not notified the bureau of its errors, I do not doubt that the government would have instituted an investigation with the purpose of discovering just what kind of swindling game I was trying to play.

The

Meanwhile the real reviewers had got hold of the book. "Then dawned the dark days." (Rule 7: Alliterative quotations may be used sparingly.) I learned from one magazine that my style was inflated, from another that it was flat; I read one morning that my reasoning was fallacious, the next that I attempted to prove the axiomatic; some critics thought me flippant, others commented on my lack of humor; I was accused on the same day of being pompous and puerile, on another of being half-hearted and grimly determined. In fact, if there was anything I was not in the mind of one critic, that thing I was in the opinion of some other. battle over my book may not have attracted world-wide attention, but I am sure that it has been vital to me: I have come out of the conflict convinced that all unconsciously to myself I have been leading a double life for years. With one reviewer at least, I am happy to say, I got right down to bed-rock. He casually remarked that a more stupendously useless piece of work had never before got into print, but so far as the index was concerned, it was well made. He might have added with truth that the book was well printed, and that the binding was carefully put on. Still, I was thankful for the mere shred which he did leave me, for another critic commented upon my work in the same paragraph in which he denounced a novel not now mentioned in polite society. Can fate have anything worse in store? I think not, although my recent experiences have totally unfitted me to have or to express an opinion. I may as well re

cord the fact, however, that to-day I received the announcement of a coming auction sale, in which one item includes my book with a volume of out-of-date sermons, and a forgotten "best seller" novel, all to be bid for as a lot. I look for the fall of the last straw tomorrow: I expect nothing better than to read in the morning paper that some department store, having bought from the publishers their superfluous stock of my book as a remainder, will place the copies on sale at their notion counter for nineteen cents.

WTM

HY not? If giving is a difficult art, and we are often so assured, why should not the difficulty of the art of being given to also be recognized? Certainly it is a matter equally involving the most delicate equations. Giving is of universal exaltation and magnification, its value everywhere emphasized—some might, indeed, say rather unnecessarily "rubbed in." But no one arises to submit that, after all, taking things properly when they are offered is one of the most useful graces in all this world. It does fully as much as giving toward keeping humanity

The Difficult Art of Receiving

sweet.

Giving is, by contrast, really a simple task. Once base it on a good working theory (as some of our multi-millionaires tell us they are seeking to do), and the thing runs of itself. At least, it runs of itself in the sense that it can be entirely dissociated from any close personal feelings or decisions. Once you have concluded on what lines you think you can give in order to do the least harm to everybody concerned, the system works automatically. But if you are one of those who are given to, there is no system that you can always follow. Sometimes you can afford to be given to, and sometimes you cannot. There are some obligations which to incur is a blessing, and others which to incur would be a pest. Such distinctions are complicated. And there are other complications. If you accept the hospitality of the Romans you must like their "ways," whatever they be. I have in mind a book written by a good lady in which much stress is laid on the duty of a hostess to see that her guest's room is provided with every little device and conceit to be had in the host

ess's own room. Somehow, I fear me this good lady saw the situation from the viewpoint of a bad guest; one of those unhappy persons for whom the house is always too hot or too cold, and whose Christmas gifts are never just what she wanted.

Of course, it is rather trying not to have one's preferences remembered. But, then, what a good school of abnegation the recipient's position is. So good, that one wonders if any one ever gave rightly, when his turn came, if he had not first done his duty manfully in that less prominent, and less comfortable, place to which it always pleases Providence, in some manner or other, to call every man at some time of his life.

I have always had a sympathy for the newly rich. It is possible that they are often misunderstood. Some of them may be the vulgar creatures of popular fancy, but others are probably good souls embittered by the malice of former companions. Is the "climber" who drops his erstwhile friend always the ignoble being, or may it not be the friend to whom the term applies? Between the ravings of the "predatory poor," on the one hand, and, on the other, the thinly-cloaked fury of old associates who can't forgive him his good fortune, what, one asks, is the poor, rich parvenu to do? Those in the circles above him who do not yet want his society probably wonder why he does not keep to his own "class." Alas, the reason may often be that he cannot because his own "class" has come to make it so disagreeable for him.

If it is praiseworthy for man to be loyal to his poorer brethren, it would seem to be equally praiseworthy to be loyal to the friends who have run ahead in the race; and often it is very much harder. If it requires wisdom and humanity, a good head and a good heart, to stick by those who have lost, and to be a generous giver, one contends that it requires as much of a quick, sound brain, and as much of a sane, merry heart, to swing up-at least in the matter of interest and sympathybeside the friend who now sails in wider waters, amid a more benignant ether, and to take without fear, as without loss of self-respect, the dispensations of his easier bounties. As between the churl who does not know how to give and the churl who does not know how to receive there really is nothing to choose.

I

T is a pity that the word "dilettante" has fallen into such disparaging connotations. Because, in truth, it "was a marvellous good word before it was illsorted." But, in its primary meaning of a "delighting" man, of an "enjoyer" it became suspect to the Puritans, to whom every pleasure was, if not a sin, at least a "snare." "A most sinful feast," wrote John Adams of his entertainment in Philadelphia in 1774. "Everything that could delight the eye, or allure the taste." And its secondary etymological meaning of a "diligent” man, an accurate man, has been so perverted as to be reversed into a man not diligent and not accurate. Instead of an enjoyer who feels a responsibility for his pleasures, and takes pains to be in the right about them, it has sunk to denote a man of moral and intellectual frivolity.

One feels particularly the need of the uncorrupted word in attempting a verbal sketch of Russell Sturgis, who died in New York, February 11, in his seventy-third year. He was such a dilettante, in the elder and better sense, such an enjoyer who felt bound to render an account of his enjoyments. Nothing human was foreign to him, nothing that made its appeal to the natural or to the spiritual man. He was curious in viands and vintages as well as in buildings and statues, as well as in carvings and bookbindings. He could perfectly have said, with Burke, "I trust that few things which have a tendency to bless or to adorn life have wholly escaped my observation in my passage through it." And can you find a better definition than that of the spirit of culture? "We live by admiration, hope, and love," says Wordsworth. And a certain number of us feel responsibility for our admirations and our hopes and our loves, and hold ourselves

bound to render, at least to ourselves, an accounting for them. If the account be rendered only to himself, such a steward and student of his emotions remains a dilettante, a "connoisseur"; if also it be rendered to others, to "the public," he becomes a critic. And Russell Sturgis, having the nature of a connoisseur, acquired the art of a critic.

With his tendencies and his environment, at the time of his adolescence, it was quite inevitable that he should succumb to the spell of Ruskin's eloquence. Nothing less than that eloquence could, at that period, have inclined so large a proportion of the population of England, still less of New England, towards the fine arts. Nothing else would have availed so much as the contention, in modern language, that "Art was the handmaid of Religion," that æsthetics were, in fact, a subdivision of ethics, to reconcile the sensitive descendants of the Puritans to following their bents. "As an appeal to moral order always must"-remarked the complacent Emerson. Determining, in his youthful enthusiasm, to devote himself to architecture, it was a foregone conclusion that Mr. Sturgis would devote himself to the revived, or, in its British phase, to the "Victorian" Gothic. And he naturally sought the office of the most austerely logical of the practitioners of the school, in whose own work the much that there was of beauty might have seemed to him the consequence of the logic, though in truth it was very largely a "by-product." And he associated himself in the direction of an evanescaent and evangelical architectural journal entitled, almost necessarily, the "New Path." The establishment of the "Nation" as a more stable organ of a wider culture gave him a more available medium for his verbal discoursings, and in the early volume of