“* Trupp Global

A Little Journey In The World

By Charles Dudley Warner A

Little Journey In The World I

We were talking about the want of diversity in American life, the

lack of salient characters. It was not at a club. It was a

spontaneous talk of people who happened to be together, and

who had fallen into an uncompelled habit of happening to be

together. There might have been a club for the study of the Want

of Diversity in American Life. The members would have been

obliged to set apart a stated time for it, to attend as a duty, and

to be in a mood to discuss this topic at a set hour in the future.

They would have mortgaged another precious portion of the

little time left us for individual life. It is a suggestive thought that

at a given hour all over the United States innumerable clubs

might be considering the Want of Diversity in American Life. Only

in this way, according to our present methods, could one expect

to accomplish anything in regard to this foreign-felt want. It

seems illogical that we could produce diversity by all doing the

same thing at the same time, but we know the value of

congregate effort. It seems to superficial observers that all

Americans are born busy. It is not so. They are born with a fear

of not being busy; and if they are intelligent and in circumstances

of leisure, they have such a sense of their responsibility that they

hasten to allot all their time into portions, and leave no hour

unprovided for. This is conscientiousness in women, and not

restlessness. There is a day for music, a day for painting, a day

for the display of teagowns, a day for Dante, a day for the Greek

drama, a day for the Dumb Animals' Aid Society, a day for the
Society for the Propagation of Indians, and so on. When the year

is over, the amount that has been accomplished by this incessant

activity can hardly be estimated. Individually it may not be much.

But consider where Chaucer would be but for the work of the

Chaucer clubs, and what an effect upon the universal progress of

things is produced by the associate concentration upon the poet

of so many minds. A cynic says that clubs and circles are for the

accumulation of superficial information and unloading it on

others, without much individual absorption in anybody. This, like

all cynicism, contains only a half-truth, and simply means that

the general diffusion of half-digested information does not raise

the general level of intelligence, which can only be raised to any

purpose by thorough self-culture, by assimilation, digestion,

meditation. The busy bee is a favorite simile with us, and we are

apt to overlook the fact that the least important part of his

example is buzzing around. If the hive simply got together and

buzzed, or even brought unrefined treacle from some

cyclopaedia, let us say, of treacle, there would be no honey

added to the general store. It occurred to some one in this talk

at last to deny that there was this tiresome monotony in

American life. And this put a new face on the discussion. Why

should there be, with every race under the heavens represented

here, and each one struggling to assert itself, and no

homogeneity as yet established even between the people of the

oldest States? The theory is that democracy levels, and that the
anxious pursuit of acommon object, money, tends to uniformity,

and that facility of communication spreads all over the land the

same fashion in dress; and repeats everywhere the same style of

house, and that the public schools give all the children in the

United States the same superficial smartness. And there is a

more serious notion, that in a society without classes there is a

sort of tyranny of public opinion which crushes out the play of

individual peculiarities, without which human intercourse is

uninteresting. It is true that a democracy is intolerant of

variations from the general level, and that a new society allows

less latitude in eccentricities to its members than an old society.

But with all these allowances, it is also admitted that the

difficulty the American novelist has is in hitting upon what is

universally accepted as characteristic of American life, so various

are the types in regions widely separated from each other, such

different points of view are had even in conventionalities, and

conscience operates so variously on moral problems in one

community and another. It is as impossible for one section to

impose upon another its rules of taste and propriety in conduct

and taste is often as strong to determine conduct as principle as

it is to make its literature acceptable to the other. If in the land

of the sun and the jasmine and the alligator and the fig, the

literature of New England seems passionless and timid in face of

the ruling emotions of life, ought we not to thank Heaven for the

diversity of temperament as well as of climate which will in the

long-run save us from that sameness into which we are supposed

to be drifting? When | think of this vast country with any

attention to local developments | am more impressed with the

unlikenesses than with the resemblances. And besides this, if

one had the ability to draw to the life a single individual in the

most homogeneous community, the product would be

sufficiently startling. We cannot flatter ourselves, therefore, that

under equal laws and opportunities we have rubbed out the

saliencies of human nature. At a distance the mass of the Russian

people seem as monotonous as their steppes and their

commune villages, but the Russian novelists find characters in

this mass perfectly individualized, and, indeed, give us the

impression that all Russians are irregular polygons. Perhaps if

our novelists looked at individuals as intently, they might give

the world the impression that social life here is as unpleasant as

it appears in the novels to be in Russia. This is partly the

substance of what was said one winter evening before the wood

fire in the library of a house in Brandon, one of the lesser New

England cities. Like hundreds of residences of its kind, it stood in

the suburbs, amid forest-trees, commanding a view of city spires

and towers on the one hand, and on the other of a broken

country of clustering trees and cottages, rising towards a range

of hills which showed purple and warm against the pale straw-

color of the winter sunsets. The charm of the situation was that

the house was one of many comfortable dwellings, each

isolated, and yet near enough together to form a neighborhood;

that is to say, a body of neighbors who respected each other's

privacy, and yet flowed together, on occasion, without the least

conventionality. And a real neighborhood, as our modern life is

arranged, is becoming more and more rare. | am not sure that

the talkers in this conversation expressed their real, final

sentiments, or that they should be held accountable for what

they said. Nothing so surely kills the freedom of talk as to have

some matter-of-fact person instantly bring you to book for some

impulsive remark flashed out on the instant, instead of playing

with it and tossing it about in a way that shall expose its absurdity

or show its value. Freedom is lost with too much responsibility

and seriousness, and the truth is more likely to be struck out in

a lively play of assertion and retort than when all the words and

sentiments are weighed. A person very likely cannot tell what he

does think till his thoughts are exposed to the air, and it is the

bright fallacies and impulsive, rash ventures in conversation that

are often most fruitful to talker and listeners. The talk is always

tame if no one dares anything. | have seen the most promising

paradox come to grief by a simple "Do you think so?" Nobody, |

sometimes think, should be held accountable for anything said

in private conversation, the vivacity of which is in a tentative play

about the subject. And this is a sufficient reason why one should

repudiate any private conversation reported in the newspapers.

It is bad enough to be held fast forever to what one writes and

prints, but to shackle a man with all his flashing utterances,

which may be put into his mouth by some imp in the air, is

intolerable slavery. A man had better be silent if he can only say

today what he will stand by tomorrow, or if he may not launch

into the general talk the whim and fancy of the moment. Racy,

entertaining talk is only exposed thought, and no one would hold

a man responsible for the thronging thoughts that contradict and

displace each other in his mind. Probably no one ever actually

makes up his mind until he either acts or puts out his conclusion

beyond his recall. Why should one be debarred the privilege of

pitching his crude ideas into a conversation where they may have

a chance of being precipitated? | remember that Morgan said in

this talk that there was too much diversity. "Almost every church

has trouble with it the different social conditions." An

Englishman who was present pricked-up his ears at this, as if he

expected to obtain a note on the character of Dissenters. "I

thought all the churches here were organized on social

affinities?" he inquired. "Oh, no; it is a good deal a matter of

vicinage. When there is a real-estate extension, a necessary part

of the plan is to build a church in the centre of it, in order to" "I

declare, Page,” said Mrs. Morgan, "you'll give Mr. Lyon a totally

erroneous notion. Of course there must be a church convenient

to the worshipers in every district." "That is just what | was

saying, my dear: As the settlement is not drawn together on

religious grounds, but perhaps by purely worldly motives, the

elements that meet in the church are apt to be socially

incongruous, such as cannot always be fused even by a church-

kitchen and a church-parlor." "Then it isn't the peculiarity of the

church that has attracted to it worshipers who would naturally

come together, but the church is aneighborhood necessity?" still

further inquired Mr. Lyon. "All is," | ventured to put in, "that

churches grow up like schoolhouses, where they are wanted." "I

beg your pardon," said Mr. Morgan; "I'm talking about the kind

of want that creates them. If it's the same that builds a music

hall, or a gymnasium, or a railway waiting-room, I've nothing

more to say." "Is it your American idea, then, that a church ought

to be formed only of people socially agreeable together?" asked

the Englishman. "| have no American idea. |am only commenting

on facts; but one of them is that it is the most difficult thing in

the world to reconcile religious association with the real or

artificial claims of social life." "| don't think you try much," said

Mrs. Morgan, who carried along her traditional religious

observance with grateful admiration of her husband. Mr. Page

Morgan had inherited money, and a certain advantageous

position for observing life and criticising it, humorously

sometimes, and without any serious intention of disturbing it. He

had added to his fair fortune by marrying the daintily reared

daughter of a cotton-spinner, and he had enough to do in

attending meetings of directors and looking out for his

investments to keep him from the operation of the State law

regarding vagrants, and give greater social weight to his opinions

than if he had been compelled to work for his maintenance. The

Page Morgans had been a good deal abroad, and were none the

worse Americans for having come in contact with the knowledge

that there are other peoples who are reasonably prosperous and

happy without any of our advantages. "It seems to me," said Mr.

Lyon, who was always in the conversational attitude of wanting

to know, "that you Americans are disturbed by the notion that

religion ought to produce social equality." Mr. Lyon had the air

of conveying the impression that this question was settled in

England, and that America was interesting on account of

numerous experiments of this sort. This state of mind was not

offensive to his interlocutors, because they were accustomed to

it in transatlantic visitors. Indeed, there was nothing whatever

offensive, and little defensive, in Mr. John Lyon. What we liked

in him, | think, was his simple acceptance of a position that

required neither explanation nor apology a social condition that

banished a sense of his own personality, and left him perfectly

free to be absolutely truthful. Though an eldest son and next in

succession to an earldom, he was still young. Fresh from Oxford

and South Africa and Australia and British Columbia he had come

to study the States with a view of perfecting himself for his duties

as a legislator for the world when he should be called to the

House of Peers. He did not treat himself like an earl, whatever

consciousness he may have had that his prospective rank made

it safe for him to flirt with the various forms of equality abroad

in this generation. "| don't know what Christianity is expected to

produce," Mr. Morgan replied, in a meditative way; "but | have

an idea that the early Christians in their assemblies all knew each

other, having met elsewhere in social intercourse, or, if they

were not acquainted, they lost sight of distinctions in one

paramount interest. But then | don't suppose they were exactly

civilized." "Were the Pilgrims and the Puritans?" asked Mrs.

Fletcher, who now joined the talk, in which she had been a most

animated and stimulating listener, her deep gray eyes dancing

with intellectual pleasure. "| should not like to answer 'no' to a

descendant of the Mayflower. Yes, they were highly civilized.

And if we had adhered to their methods, we should have avoided

a good deal of confusion. The meeting-house, you remember,

had a committee for seating people according to their quality.

They were very shrewd, but it had not occurred to them to give

the best pews to the sitters able to pay the most money for

them. They escaped the perplexity of reconciling the mercantile

and the religious ideas." "At any rate," said Mrs. Fletcher, "they

got all sorts of people inside the same meeting-house." "Yes, and

made them feel they were all sorts; but in those, days they were

not much disturbed by that feeling." "Do you mean to say,"

asked Mr. Lyon, "that in this country you have churches for the

rich and other churches for the poor?" "Not at all. We have in

the cities rich churches and poor churches, with prices of pews
according to the means of each sort, and the rich are always glad

to have the poor come, and if they do not give them the best

seats, they equalize it by taking up a collection for them." "Mr.

Lyon," Mrs. Morgan interrupted, "you are getting a travesty of

the whole thing. | don't believe there is elsewhere in the world

such a spirit of Christian charity as in our churches of all sects."

"There is no doubt about the charity; but that doesn't seem to

make the social machine run any more smoothly in the church

associations. I'm not sure but we shall have to go back to the old

idea of considering the churches places of worship, and not

opportunities for sewing-societies, and the cultivation of social

equality." "| found the idea in Rome," said Mr. Lyon, "that the

United States is now the most promising field for the spread and

permanence of the Roman Catholic faith." "How is that?" Mr.

Fletcher asked, with a smile of Puritan incredulity. "A high

functionary at the Propaganda gave as a reason that the United

States is the most democratic country and the Roman Catholic is

the most democratic religion, having this one notion that all

men, high or low, are equally sinners and equally in need of one

thing only. And | must say that in this country | don't find the

question of social equality interfering much with the work in

their churches." "That is because they are not trying to make this

world any better, but only to prepare for another," said Mrs.

Fletcher. "Now, we think that the nearer we approach the

kingdom-of-heaven idea on earth, the better off we shall be

hereafter. Is that a modern idea?" "It is an idea that is giving us

a great deal of trouble. We've got into such a sophisticated state

that it seems easier to take care of the future than of the

present." "And it isn't a very bad doctrine that if you take care of

the present, the future will take care of itself," rejoined Mrs.

Fletcher. "Yes, | know," insisted Mr. Morgan; "it's the modern

notion of accumulation and compensation take care of the

pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves the gospel

of Benjamin Franklin." "Ah," | said, looking up at the entrance of

a newcomer, "you are just in time, Margaret, to give the coup de

grace, for it is evident by Mr. Morgan's reference, in his Bunker

Hill position, to Franklin, that he is getting out of powder." The

girl stood a moment, her slight figure framed in the doorway,

while the company rose to greet her, with a half-hesitating, half-

inquiring look in her bright face which | had seen in it a thousand

times. Il | remember that it came upon me with a sort of surprise

at the moment that we had never thought or spoken much of

Margaret Debree as beautiful. We were so accustomed to her;

we had known her so long, we had known her always. We had

never analyzed our admiration of her. She had so many qualities

that are better than beauty that we had not credited her with

the more obvious attraction. And perhaps she had just become

visibly beautiful. It may be that there is an instant in a girl's life

corresponding to what the Puritans called conversion in the soul,

when the physical qualities, long maturing, suddenly glow in an

effect which we call beauty. It cannot be that women do not

have a consciousness of it, perhaps of the instant of its advent. |

remember when | was a child that | used to think that a stick of

peppermint candy must burn with a consciousness of its own

deliciousness. Margaret was just turned twenty. As she paused

there in the doorway her physical perfection flashed upon me

for the first time. Of course | do not mean perfection, for

perfection has no promise in it, rather the sad note of limit, and

presently recession. In the rounded, exquisite lines of her figure

there was the promise of that ineffable fullness and delicacy of

womanhood which all the world raves about and destroys and

mourns. It is not fulfilled always in the most beautiful, and

perhaps never except to the woman who loves passionately, and

believes she is loved with a devotion that exalts her body and

soul above every other human being. It is certain that Margaret's

beauty was not classic. Her features were irregular even to

piquancy. The chin had strength; the mouth was sensitive and

not too small; the shapely nose with thin nostrils had an assertive

quality that contradicted the impression of humility in the eyes

when downcast; the large gray eyes were uncommonly soft and

clear, an appearance of alternate tenderness and brilliancy as

they were veiled or uncovered by the long lashes. They were

gently commanding eyes, and no doubt her most effective point.

Her abundant hair, brown with a touch of red in it in some lights,

fell over her broad forehead in the fashion of the time. She had
a way of carrying her head, of throwing it back at times, that was

not exactly imperious, and conveyed the impression of spirit

rather than of mere vivacity. These details seem to me all

inadequate and misleading, for the attraction of the face that

made it interesting is still undefined. | hesitate to say that there

was a dimple near the corner of her mouth that revealed itself

when she smiled lest this shall seem mere prettiness, but it may

have been the keynote of her face. | only knew there was

something about it that won the heart, as a too conscious or

assertive beauty never does. She may have been plain, and | may

have seen the loveliness of her nature, which | knew well, in

features that gave less sign of it to strangers. Yet | noticed that

Mr. Lyon gave her a quick second glance, and his manner was

instantly that of deference, or at least attention, which he had

shown to no other lady in the room. And the whimsical idea

came into my mind we are all so warped by international

possibilities to observe whether she did not walk like a countess

(that is, as a countess ought to walk) as she advanced to shake

hands with my wife. It is so easy to turn life into a comedy!

Margaret's great-grandmother no, it was her great-great-

grandmother, but we have kept the Revolutionary period so

warm lately that it seems near was a Newport belle, who married

an officer in the suite of Rochambeau what time the French

defenders of liberty conquered the women of Rhode Island.

After the war was over, our officer resigned his love of glory for
the heart of one of the loveliest women and the care of the best

plantation on the Island. | have seen a miniature of her, which

her lover wore at Yorktown, and which he always swore that

Washington coveted a miniature painted by a wandering artist

of the day, which entirely justifies the French officer in his

abandonment of the trade of a soldier. Such is man in his best

estate. A charming face can make him campaign and fight and

slay like a demon, can make a coward of him, can fill him with

ambition to win the world, and can tame him into the

domesticity of a drawing-room cat. There is this noble capacity

in man to respond to the divinest thing visible to him in this

world. Etienne Debree became, | believe, a very good citizen of

the republic, and in '93 used occasionally to shake his head with

satisfaction to find that it was still on his shoulders. |am not sure

that he ever visited Mount Vernon, but after Washington's death

Debree's intimacy with our first President became a more and

more important part of his life and conversation. There is a

pleasant tradition that Lafayette, when he was here in 1784,

embraced the young bride in the French manner, and that this

salute was valued as a sort of heirloom in the family. | always

thought that Margaret inherited her New England conscience

from her great-great-grandmother, and a certain esprit or gayety

that is, a sub-gayety which was never frivolity from her French

ancestor. Her father and mother had died when she was ten

years old, and she had been reared by a maiden aunt, with whom
she still lived. The combined fortunes of both required economy,

and after Margaret had passed her school course she added to

their resources by teaching in a public school. | remember that

she taught history, following, | suppose, the American notion

that any one can teach history who has a textbook, just as he or

she can teach literature with the same help. But it happened that

Margaret was a better teacher than many, because she had not

learned history in school, but in her father's well-selected library.

There was a little stir at Margaret's entrance; Mr. Lyon was

introduced to her, and my wife, with that subtle feeling for effect

which women have, slightly changed the lights. Perhaps

Margaret's complexion or her black dress made this

readjustment necessary to the harmony of the room. Perhaps

she felt the presence of a different temperament in the little

circle. | never can tell exactly what it is that guides her in regard

to the influence of light and color upon the intercourse of

people, upon their conversation, making it take one cast or

another. Men are susceptible to these influences, but it is

women alone who understand how to produce them. And a

woman who has not this subtle feeling always lacks charm,

however intellectual she may be; | always think of her as sitting

in the glare of disenchanting sunlight as indifferent to the

exposure as a man would be. | know in a general way that a

sunset light induces one kind of talk and noonday light another,

and | have learned that talk always brightens up with the

addition of a fresh crackling stick to the fire. | shouldn't have

known how to change the lights for Margaret, although | think |

had as distinct an impression of her personality as had my wife.

There was nothing disturbing in it; indeed, | never saw her

otherwise than serene, even when her voice betrayed strong

emotion. The quality that impressed me most, however, was her

sincerity, coupled with intellectual courage and clearness that

had almost the effect of brilliancy, though | never thought of her

as a brilliant woman. "What mischief have you been attempting,

Mr. Morgan?" asked Margaret, as she took a chair near him.

"Were you trying to make Mr. Lyon comfortable by dragging in

Bunker Hill?" "No; that was Mr. Fairchild, in his capacity as host."

"Oh, I'm sure you needn't mind me," said Mr. Lyon, good-

humoredly. "I landed in Boston, and the first thing | went to see

was the Monument. It struck me as so odd, you know, that the

Americans should begin life by celebrating their first defeat."

"That is our way," replied Margaret, quickly. "We have started

on a new basis over here; we win by losing. He who loses his life

shall find it. If the red slayer thinks he slays he is mistaken. You

know the Southerners say that they surrendered at last simply

because they got tired of beating the North." "How odd!" "Miss

Debree simply means," | exclaimed, "that we have inherited

from the English an inability to know when we are whipped."

"But we were not fighting the battle of Bunker Hill, or fighting

about it, which is more serious, Miss Debree. What | wanted to

ask you was whether you think the domestication of religion will

affect its power in the regulation of conduct." "Domestication?

You are too deep for me, Mr. Morgan. | don't any more

understand you than | comprehend the writers who write about

the feminization of literature." "Well, taking the mystery out of

it, the predominant element of worship, making the churches

sort of good-will charitable associations for the spread of

sociability and good-feeling." "You mean making Christianity

practical?" "Partially that. It is a part of the general problem of

what women are going to make of the world, now they have got

hold of it, or are getting hold of it, and are discontented with

being women, or with being treated as women, and are bringing

their emotions into all the avocations of life." "They cannot make

it any worse than it has been." "I'm not sure of that. Robustness

is needed in churches as much as in government. | don't know

how much the cause of religion is advanced by these church

clubs of Christian Endeavor if that is the name, associations of

young boys and girls who go about visiting other like clubs in a

sufficiently hilarious manner. | suppose it's the spirit of the age.

I'm just wondering whether the world is getting to think more of

having a good time than it is of salvation." "And you think

woman's influence for you cannot mean anything else is

somehow taking the vigor out of affairs, making even the church

a soft, purring affair, reducing us all to what | suppose you would

call a mush of domesticity." "Or femininity." "Well, the world has

been brutal enough; it had better try a little femininity now.

hope it will not be more cruel to women." "That is not an

argument; that is a stab. | fancy you are altogether skeptical

about woman. Do you believe in her education?" "Up to acertain

point, or rather, | should say, after a certain point." "That's it,"

spoke up my wife, shading her eyes from the fire with a fan. "I

begin to have my doubts about education as a panacea. I've

noticed that girls with only a smattering and most of them in the

nature of things can go, no further are more liable to

temptations." "That is because ‘education’ is mistaken for the

giving of information without training, as we are finding out in

England," said Mr. Lyon. "Or that it is dangerous to awaken the

imagination without a heavy ballast of principle," said Mr.

Morgan. "That is a beautiful sentiment," Margaret exclaimed,

throwing back her head, with a flash from her eyes. "That ought

to shut out women entirely. Only | cannot see how teaching

women what men know is going to give them any less principle

than men have. It has seemed to me a long while that the time

has come for treating women like human beings, and giving

them the responsibility of their position." "And what do you

want, Margaret?" | asked. "| don't know exactly what | do want,"

she answered, sinking back in her chair, sincerity coming to

modify her enthusiasm. "I don't want to go to Congress, or be a

sheriff, or alawyer, or alocomotive engineer. | want the freedom

of my own being, to be interested in everything in the world, to

feel its life as men do. You don't know what it is to have an

inferior person condescend to you simply because he is a man."

"Yet you wish to be treated as a woman?" queried Mr. Morgan.

"Of course. Do you think | want to banish romance out of the

world?" "You are right, my dear," said my wife. "The only thing

that makes society any better than an industrial ant-hill is the

love between women and men, blind and destructive as it often

is." "Well," said Mrs. Morgan, rising to go, "having got back to

first principles " "You think it is best to take your husband home

before he denies even them," Mr. Morgan added. When the

others had gone, Margaret sat by the fire, musing, as if no one

else were in the room. The Englishman, still alert and eager for

information, regarded her with growing interest. It came into my

mind as odd that, being such an uninteresting people as we are,

the English should be so curious about us. After an interval, Mr.

Lyon said: "| beg your pardon, Miss Debree, but would you mind

telling me whether the movement of Women's Rights is gaining

in America?" "I'm sure | don't know, Mr. Lyon," Margaret replied,

after a pause, with a look of weariness. "I'm tired of all the talk

about it. | wish men and women, every soul of them, would try

to make the most of themselves, and see what would come of

that." "But in some places they vote about schools, and you have

conventions " "Did you ever attend any kind of convention

yourself, Mr. Lyon?" "Il? No. Why?" "Oh, nothing. Neither did I.

But you have a right to, you know. | should like to ask you one
question, Mr. Lyon," the girl, continued, rising. "Should be most

obliged." "Why is it that so few English women marry

Americans?" "I | never thought of that," he stammered,

reddening. "Perhaps perhaps it's because of American women."

"Thank you," said Margaret, with a little courtesy. "It's very nice

of you to say that. | can begin to see now why so many American

women marry Englishmen." The Englishman blushed still more,

and Margaret said good-night. It was quite evident the next day

that Margaret had made an impression on our visitor, and that

he was struggling with some new idea. "Did you say, Mrs.

Fairchild," he asked my wife, "that Miss Debree is a teacher? It

seems very odd." "No; | said she taught in one of our schools. |

don't think she is exactly a teacher." "Not intending always to

teach?" "| don't suppose she has any definite intentions, but |

never think of her as a teacher." "She's so bright, and and

interesting, don't you think? So American?" "Yes; Miss Debree is

one of the exceptions." "Oh, | didn't mean that all American

women were as clever as Miss Debree." "Thank you," said my

wife. And Mr. Lyon looked as if he couldn't see why she should

thank him. The cottage in which Margaret lived with her aunt,

Miss Forsythe, was not far from our house. In summer it was very

pretty, with its vine-shaded veranda across the front; and even

in winter, with the inevitable raggedness of deciduous vines, it

had an air of refinement, a promise which the cheerful interior

more than fulfilled. Margaret's parting word to my wife the night

before had been that she thought her aunt would like to see the

"chrysalis earl," and as Mr. Lyon had expressed a desire to see

something more of what he called the "gentry" of New England,

my wife ended their afternoon walk at Miss Forsythe's. It was

one of the winter days which are rare in New England, but of

which there had been a succession all through the Christmas

holidays. Snow had not yet come, all the earth was brown and

frozen, whichever way you looked the interlacing branches and

twigs of the trees made a delicate lace-work, the sky was gray-

blue, and the low-sailing sun had just enough heat to evoke

moisture from the frosty ground and suffuse the atmosphere

into softness, in which all the landscape became poetic. The

phenomenon known as "red sunsets" was faintly repeated in the

greenish crimson glow along the violet hills, in which Venus

burned like a jewel. There was a fire smoldering on the hearth in

the room they entered, which seemed to be sitting-room,

library, parlor, all in one; the old table of oak, too substantial for

ornament, was strewn with late periodicals and pamphlets

English, American, and French and with books which lay

unarranged as they were thrown down from recent reading. In

the centre was a bunch of red roses in a pale-blue Granada jug.

Miss Forsythe rose from a seat in the western window, with a

book in her hand, to greet her callers. She was slender, like

Margaret, but taller, with soft brown eyes and hair streaked with

gray, which, sweeping plainly aside from her forehead in a

fashion then antiquated, contrasted finely with the flush of pink

in her cheeks. This flush did not suggest youth, but rather

ripeness, the tone that comes with the lines made in the face by

gentle acceptance of the inevitable in life. In her quiet and

selfpossessed manner there was a little note of graceful timidity,

not perhaps noticeable in itself, but in contrast with that

unmistakable air of confidence which a woman married always

has, and which in the unrefined becomes assertive, an

exaggerated notion of her importance, of the value added to her

opinions by the act of marriage. You can see it in her air the

moment she walks away from the altar, keeping step to

Mendelssohn's tune. Jack Sharpley says that she always seems

to be saying, "Well, I've done it once for all." This assumption of

the married must be one of the hardest things for single women

to bear in their self-congratulating sisters. | have no doubt that

Georgiana Forsythe was a charming girl, spirited and handsome;

for the beauty of her years, almost pathetic in its dignity and

selfrenunciation, could not have followed mere prettiness or a

commonplace experience. What that had been | never inquired,

but it had not soured her. She was not communicative nor

confidential, | fancy, with any one, but she was always friendly

and sympathetic to the trouble of others, and helpful in an

undemonstrative way. If she herself had a secret feeling that her

life was a failure, it never impressed her friends so, it was so

even, and full of good offices and quiet enjoyment. Heaven only
knows, however, the pathos of this apparently undisturbed life.

For did a woman ever live who would not give all the years of

tasteless serenity, for one year, for one month, for one hour, of

the uncalculating delirium of love poured out upon a man who

returned it? It may be better for the world that there are these

women to whom life has still some mysteries, who are capable

of illusions and the sweet sentimentality that grows out of a

romance unrealized. Although the recent books were on Miss

Forsythe's table, her tastes and culture were of the past age. She

admired Emerson and Tennyson. One may keep current with the

news of the world without changing his principles. | imagine that

Miss Forsythe read without injury to herself the passionate and

the pantheistic novels of the young women who have come

forward in these days of emancipation to teach their

grandmothers a new basis of morality, and to render

meaningless all the consoling epitaphs on the mossy New

England gravestones. She read Emerson for his sweet spirit, for

his belief in love and friendship, her simple Congregationalist

faith remaining undisturbed by his philosophy, from which she

took only a habit of toleration. "Miss Debree has gone to

church," she said, in answer to Mr. Lyon's glance around the

room. "To vespers?" "I believe they call it that. Our evening

meetings, you know, only begin at early candlelight." "And you

do not belong to the Church?" "Oh, yes, to the ancient

aristocratic church of colonial times," she replied, with a little

smile of amusement. "My niece has stepped off Plymouth Rock."

"And was your religion founded on Plymouth Rock?" "My niece

says so when | rally her deserting the faith of her fathers," replied

Miss Forsythe, laughing at the working of the Episcopalian mind.

"| should like to understand about that; | mean about the

position of Dissenters in America." "I'm afraid | could not help

you, Mr. Lyon. | fancy an Englishman would have to be born

again, as the phrase used to be, to comprehend that." While Mr.

Lyon was still unsatisfied on this point, he found the

conversation shifted to the other side. Perhaps it was a new

experience to him that women should lead and not follow in

conversation. At any rate, it was an experience that put him at

his ease. Miss Forsythe was a great admirer of Gladstone and of

General Gordon, and she expressed her admiration with a

knowledge that showed she had read the English newspapers.

"Yet | confess | don't comprehend Gladstone's conduct with

regard to Egypt and Gordon's relief," she said. "Perhaps,"

interposed my wife, "it would have been better for Gordon if he

had trusted Providence more and Gladstone less." "I suppose it

was Gladstone's humanity that made him hesitate." "To

bombard Alexandria?" asked Mr. Lyon, with a look of asperity.

"That was a mistake to be expected of a Tory, but not of Mr.

Gladstone, who seems always seeking the broadest principles of

justice in his statesmanship." "Yes, we regard Mr. Gladstone asa

very great man, Miss Forsythe. He is broad enough. You know

we consider him a rhetorical phenomenon. Unfortunately he

always ‘muffs’ anything he touches." "Il suspected," Miss

Forsythe replied, after a moment, "that party spirit ran as high in

England as it does with us, and is as personal." Mr. Lyon

disclaimed any personal feeling, and the talk drifted into a

comparison of English and American politics, mainly with

reference to the social factor in English politics, which is so little

an element here. In the midst of the talk Margaret came in. The

brisk walk in the rosy twilight had heightened her color, and

given her a glowing expression which her face had not the night

before, and a tenderness and softness, an unworldliness,

brought from the quiet hour in the church. "My lady comes at

last, Timid and stepping fast, And hastening hither, Her modest

eyes downcast." She greeted the stranger with a Puritan

undemonstrativeness, and as if not exactly aware of his

presence. "| should like to have gone to vespers if | had known,"

said Mr. Lyon, after an embarrassing pause. "Yes?" asked the girl,

still abstractedly. "The world seems in a vesper mood," she

added, looking out the west windows at the red sky and the

evening star. In truth Nature herself at the moment suggested

that talk was an impertinence. The callers rose to go, with an

exchange of neighborhood friendliness and invitations. "| had no

idea," said Mr. Lyon, as they walked homeward, "what the New

World was like." IIl Mr. Lyon's invitation was for a week. Before

the end of the week | was called to New York to consult Mr.
Henderson in regard to a railway investment in the West, which

was turning out more permanent than profitable. Rodney

Henderson the name later became very familiar to the public in

connection with a certain Congressional investigation was a

graduate of my own college, a New Hampshire boy, a lawyer by

profession, who practiced, as so many American lawyers do, in

Wall Street, in political combinations, in Washington, in railways.

He was already known as a rising man. When | returned Mr. Lyon

was still at our house. | understood that my wife had persuaded

him to extend his visit a proposal he was little reluctant to fall in

with, so interested had he become in studying social life in

America. | could well comprehend this, for we are all making a

"study" of something in this age, simple enjoyment being

considered an unworthy motive. | was glad to see that the young

Englishman was improving himself, broadening his knowledge of

life, and not wasting the golden hours of youth. Experience is

what we all need, and though love or love-making cannot be

called a novelty, there is something quite fresh about the study

of it in the modern spirit. Mr. Lyon had made himself very

agreeable to the little circle, not less by his inquiring spirit than

by his unaffected manners, by a kind of simplicity which women

recognize as unconscious, the result of an inherited habit of not

thinking about one's position. In excess it may be very

disagreeable, but when it is combined with genuine good-nature

and no self-assertion, it is attractive. And although American

women like a man who is aggressive towards the world and

combative, there is the delight of novelty in one who has leisure

to be agreeable, leisure for them, and who seems to their

imagination to have a larger range in life than those who are

driven by business one able to offer the peace and security of

something attained. There had been several little neighborhood

entertainments, dinners at the Morgans’ and at Mrs. Fletcher's,

and an evening cup of tea at Miss Forsythe's. In fact Margaret

and Mr. Lyon had been thrown much together. He had

accompanied her to vespers, and they had taken a wintry walk

or two together before the snow came. My wife had not

managed it she assured me of that; but she had not felt

authorized to interfere; and she had visited the public library and

looked into the British Peerage. Men were so suspicious.

Margaret was quite able to take care of herself. | admitted that,

but | suggested that the Englishman was a stranger in a strange

land, that he was far from home, and had perhaps a weakened

sense of those powerful social influences which must, after all,

control him in the end. The only response to this was, "I think,

dear, you'd better wrap him up in cotton and send him back to

his family." Among her other activities Margaret was interested

in a mission school in the city, to which she devoted an

occasional evening and Sunday afternoons. This was a new

surprise for Mr. Lyon. Was this also a part of the restlessness of

American life? At Mrs. Howe's german the other evening the girl
had seemed wholly absorbed in dress, and the gayety of the

serious formality of the occasion, feeling the responsibility of it

scarcely less than the "leader." Yet her mind was evidently much

occupied with the "condition of women," and she taught in a

public school. He could not at all make it out. Was she any more

serious about the german than about the mission school? It

seemed odd at her age to take life so seriously. And was she

serious in all her various occupations, or only experimenting?

There was a certain mocking humor in the girl that puzzled the

Englishman still more. "| have not seen much of your life," he said

one night to Mr. Morgan; "but aren't most American women a

little restless, seeking an occupation?" "Perhaps they have that

appearance; but about the same number find it, as formerly, in

marriage." "But | mean, you know, do they look to marriage as

an end so much?" "| don't know that they ever did look to

marriage as anything but a means." "I can tell you, Mr. Lyon," my

wife interrupted, "you will get no information out of Mr.

Morgan; he is a scoffer." "Not at all, | do assure you," Morgan

replied. "| am just a humble observer. | see that there is a change

going on, but | cannot comprehend it. When | was young, girls

used to go in for society; they danced their feet off from

seventeen to twenty-one. | never heard anything about any

occupation; they had their swing and their fling, and their

flirtations; they appeared to be skimming off of those

impressionable, joyous years the cream of life." "And you think

that fitted them for the seriousness of life?" asked his wife.

"Well, | am under the impression that very good women came

out of that society. | got one out of that dancing crowd who has

been serious enough for me." "And little enough you have

profited by it," said Mrs. Morgan. "I'm content. But probably I'm

old-fashioned. There is quite another spirit now. Girls out of

pinafores must begin seriously to consider some calling. All their

flirtation from seventeen to twenty-one is with some

occupation. All their dancing days they must go to college, or in

some way lay the foundation for a useful life. | suppose it's all

right. No doubt we shall have a much higher style of women in

the future than we ever had in the past." "You allow nothing,"

said Mrs. Fletcher, "for the necessity of earning a living in these

days of competition. Women never will come to their proper

position in the world, even as companions of men, which you

regard as their highest office, until they have the ability to be

self-supporting." "Oh, | admitted the fact of the independence of

women a long time ago. Every one does that before he comes to

middle life. About the shifting all round of this burden of earning

a living, | am not so sure. It does not appear yet to make

competition any less; perhaps competition would disappear if

everybody did earn his own living and no more. | wonder, by-the-

way, if the girls, the young women, of the class we seem to be

discussing ever do earn as much as would pay the wages of the

servants who are hired to do the housework in their places?"

"That is a most ignoble suggestion," | could not help saying,

“when you know that the object in modern life is the cultivation

of the mind, the elevation of women, and men also, in

intellectual life." "| suppose so. | should like to have asked Abigail

Adams's opinion on the way to do it." "One would think," | said,

"that you didn't know that the spinning-jenny and the stocking-

knitter had been invented. Given these, the women's college was

a matter of course." "Oh, I'm a believer in all kinds of machinery

anything to save labor. Only, | have faith that neither the jenny

nor the college will change human nature, nor take the romance

out of life." "So have |," said my wife. "I've heard two things

affirmed: that women who receive a scientific or professional

education lose their faith, become usually agnostics, having lost

sensitiveness to the mysteries of life." "And you think, therefore,

that they should not have a scientific education?" "No, unless all

scientific prying into things is a mistake. Women may be more

likely at first to be upset than men, but they will recover their

balance when the novelty is worn off. No amount of science will

entirely change their emotional nature; and besides, with all our

science, | don't see that the supernatural has any less hold on

this generation than on the former." "Yes, and you might say the

world was never before so credulous as it is now. But what was

the other thing?" "Why, that co-education is likely to diminish

marriages among the coeducated. Daily familiarity in the

classroom at the most impressionable age, revelation of all the

intellectual weaknesses and petulances, absorption of mental

routine on an equality, tend to destroy the sense of romance and

mystery that are the most powerful attractions between the

sexes. It is a sort of disenchanting familiarity that rubs off the

bloom." "Have you any statistics on the subject?" "No. | fancy it

is only a notion of some old fogy who thinks education in any

form is dangerous for women." "Yes, and | fancy that co-

education will have about as much effect on life generally as that

solemn meeting of a society of intelligent and fashionable

women recently in one of our great cities, who met to discuss

the advisability of limiting population." "Great Scott!" |

exclaimed, "this is an interesting age." | was less anxious about

the vagaries of it when | saw the very old-fashioned way in which

the international drama was going on in our neighborhood. Mr.

Lyon was increasingly interested in Margaret's mission work. Nor

was there much affectation in this. Philanthropy, anxiety about

the working-classes, is nowhere more serious or in the fashion

than it is in London. Mr. Lyon, wherever he had been, had made

a special study of the various aid and relief societies, especially

of the work for young waifs and strays. One Sunday afternoon

they were returning from the Bloom Street Mission. Snow

covered the ground, the sky was leaden, and the air had a

penetrating chill in it far more disagreeable than extreme cold.

"We also," Mr. Lyon was saying, in continuation of a

conversation, "are
making a great effort for the common people." "But we haven't

any common people here," replied Margaret, quickly. "That

bright boy you noticed in my class, who was a terror six months

ago, will no doubt be in the City Council in a few years, and likely

enough mayor." "Oh, | know your theory. It practically comes to

the same thing, whatever you call it. | couldn't see that the work

in New York differed much from that in London. We who have

leisure ought to do something for the working-classes." "I

sometimes doubt if it is not all a mistake most of our charitable

work. The thing is to get people to do something for

themselves." "But you cannot do away with distinctions?" "I

suppose not, so long as so many people are born vicious, or

incompetent, or lazy. But, Mr. Lyon, how much good do you

suppose condescending charity does?" asked Margaret, firing up

in a way the girl had at times. "| mean the sort that makes the

distinctions more evident. The very fact that you have leisure to

meddle in their affairs may be an annoyance to the folks you try

to help by the little palliatives of charity. What effect upon a

wretched city neighborhood do you suppose is produced by the

advent in it of a stylish carriage and a lady in silk, or even the

coming of a well-dressed, prosperous woman in a horse-car,

however gentle and unassuming she may be in this distribution

of sympathy and bounty? Isn't the feeling of inequality

intensified? And the degrading part of it may be that so many are

willing to accept this sort of bounty. And your men of leisure,

your club men, sitting in the windows and seeing the world go by

as a spectacle-men who never did an hour's necessary work in

their lives what effect do you suppose the sight of them has upon

men out of work, perhaps by their own fault, owing to the same

disposition to be idle that the men in the club windows have?"

"And do you think it would be any better if all were poor alike?"

"| think it would be better if there were no idle people. I'm half

ashamed that | have leisure to go every time | go to that mission.

And I'm almost sorry, Mr. Lyon, that | took you there. The boys

knew you were English. One of them asked me if you were a

'‘lord' or a ‘juke’ or something. | cannot tell how they will take it.

They may resent the spying into their world of an ‘English juke,'

and they may take it in the light of a show." Mr. Lyon laughed.
And then, perhaps after a little reflection upon the possibility

that the nobility was becoming a show in this world, he said: "I

begin to think I'm very unfortunate, Miss Debree. You seem to

remind me that | am in a position in which | can do very little to

help the world along." "Not at all. You can do very much." "But

how, when whatever | attempt is considered a condescension?

What can | do?" "Pardon me," and Margaret turned her eyes

frankly upon him. "You can be a good earl when your time

comes." Their way lay through the little city park. It is a pretty

place in summer a varied surface, well planted with forest and

ornamental trees, intersected by a winding stream. The little

river was full now, and ice had formed on it, with small openings

here and there, where the dark water, hurrying along as if in fear

of arrest, had a more chilling aspect than the icy cover. The

ground was white with snow, and all the trees were bare except

for a few frozen oak-leaves here and there, which shivered in the

wind and somehow added to the desolation. Leaden clouds

covered the sky, and only in the west was there a gleam of the

departing winter day. Upon the elevated bank of the stream,

opposite to the road by which they approached, they saw a

group of people perhaps twenty-drawn closely together, either

in the sympathy of segregation from an unfeeling world, or for

protection from the keen wind. On the hither bank, and leaning

on the rails of the drive, had collected a motley crowd of

spectators, men, women, and boys, who exhibited some

impatience and much curiosity, decorous for the most part, but

emphasized by occasional jocose remarks in an undertone. A

serious ceremony was evidently in progress. The separate group

had not a prosperous air. The women were thinly clad for sucha

day. Conspicuous in the little assembly was a tall, elderly man in

a shabby long coat and a broad felt hat, from under which his

white hair fell upon his shoulders. He might be a prophet in Israel

come out to testify to an unbelieving world, and the little group

around him, shaken like reeds in the wind, had the appearance

of martyrs to a cause. The light of another world shone in their

thin, patient faces. Come, they seemed to say to the worldlings

on the opposite bank come and see what happiness it is to serve

the Lord. As they waited, a faint tune was started, a quavering

hymn, whose feeble notes the wind blew away of first, but which

grew stronger. Before the first stanza was finished a carriage

appeared in the rear of the group. From it descended a middle-

aged man and a stout woman, and they together helped a young

girl to alight. She was clad all in white. For a moment her thin,

delicate figure shrank from the cutting wind. Timid, nervous, she

glanced an instant at the crowd and the dark icy stream; but it

was only a protest of the poor body; the face had the rapt,

exultant look of joyous sacrifice. The tall man advanced to meet

her, and led her into the midst of the group. For a few moments

there was prayer, inaudible at a distance. Then the tall man,

taking the girl by the hand, advanced down the slope to the

stream. His hat was laid aside, his venerable locks streamed in

the breeze, his eyes were turned to heaven; the girl walked as in

a vision, without a tremor, her wideopened eyes fixed upon

invisible things. As they moved on, the group behind set up a

joyful hymn in a kind of mournful chant, in which the tall man

joined with a strident voice. Fitfully the words came on the wind,

in an almost heartbreaking wail: "Beyond the smiling and the

weeping | shall be soon; Beyond the waking and the sleeping,

Beyond the sowing and the reaping, | shall be soon." They were

near the water now, and the tall man's voice sounded out loud

and clear: "Lord, tarry not, but come!" They were entering the

stream where there was an opening clear of ice; the footing was

not very secure, and the tall man ceased singing, but the little

band sang on: "Beyond the blooming and the fading | shall be

soon." The girl grew paler and shuddered. The tall man sustained

her with an attitude of infinite sympathy, and seemed to speak

words of encouragement. They were in the mid-stream; the cold

flood surged about their waists. The group sang on: "Beyond the

shining and the shading, Beyond the hoping and the dreading, |

shall be soon." The strong, tender arms of the tall man gently

lowered the white form under the cruel water; he staggered a

moment in the swift stream, recovered himself, raised her, white

as death, and the voices of the wailing tune came: "Love, rest,

and home Sweet hope! Lord, tarry not, but come!" And the tall

man, as he struggled to the shore with his almost insensible

burden, could be heard above the other voices and the wind and
the rush of the waters: "Lord, tarry not, but come!" The girl was

hurried into the carriage, and the group quickly dispersed. "Well,

I'll be " The tender-hearted little wife of the rough man in the

crowd who began that sentence did not permit him to finish it.

"That'll be a case for a doctor right away," remarked a well-

known practitioner who had been looking on. Margaret and Mr.

Lyon walked home in silence. "| can't talk about it," she said. "It's

such a pitiful world." IV In the evening, at our house, Margaret

described the scene in the park. "It's dreadful," was the

comment of Miss Forsythe. "The authorities ought not to permit

such a thing." "It seemed to me as heroic as pitiful, aunt. | fear |

should be incapable of making such a testimony." "But it was so

unnecessary." "How do we know what is necessary to any poor

soul? What impressed me most strongly was that there is in the

world still this longing to suffer physically and endure public

scorn for a belief." "It may have been a disappointment to the

little band," said Mr. Morgan, "that there was no demonstration

from the spectators, that there was no loud jeering, that no

snowballs were thrown by the boys." "They could hardly expect

that," said |; "the world has become so tolerant that it doesn't

care." "| rather think," Margaret replied, "that the spectators for

a moment came under the spell of the hour, and were awed by

something supernatural in the endurance of that frail girl." "No

doubt," said my wife, after a little pause. "| believe that there is

as much sense of mystery in the world as ever, and as much of

what we call faith, only it shows itself eccentrically. Breaking

away from traditions and not going to church have not destroyed

the need in the minds of the mass of people for something

outside themselves." "Did | tell you," interposed Morgan "it is

almost in the line of your thought of a girl | met the other day on

the train? | happened to be her seat-mate in the car-thin face,

slight little figure a commonplace girl, whom | took at first to be

not more than twenty, but from the lines about her large eyes

she was probably nearer forty. She had in her lap a book, which

she conned from time to time, and seemed to be committing

verses to memory as she looked out the window. At last |

ventured to ask what literature it was that interested her so

much, when she turned and frankly entered into conversation. It

was a little Advent song-book. She liked to read it on the train,

and hum over the tunes. Yes, she was a good deal on the cars;

early every morning she rode thirty miles to her work, and thirty

miles back every evening. Her work was that of clerk and copyist

in a freight office, and she earned nine dollars a week, on which

she supported herself and her mother. It was hard work, but she

did not mind it much. Her mother was quite feeble. She was an

Adventist. ‘And you?' | asked. 'Oh, yes; | am. I've been an

Adventist twenty years, and I've been perfectly happy ever since

| joined perfectly,’ she added, turning her plain face, now

radiant, towards me. ‘Are you one?’ she asked, presently. 'Not

an immediate Adventist,’ | was obliged to confess. 'l thought you

might be, there are so many now, more and more.'| learned that

in our little city there were two Advent societies; there had been

a split on account of some difference in the meaning of original

sin. ‘And you are not discouraged by the repeated failure of the

predictions of the end of the world?’ | asked. 'No. Why should

we be? We don't fix any certain day now, but all the signs show

that it is very near. We are all free to think as we like.