ighboring city, where she could be saved by being
brought under special Christian influences. The transfer, even in a
serial, was impossible, and she by her own choice lived the life she had
entered upon.

And yet, if the reader will pardon the confidence, pity intervened to
shorten it. I do not know how it is with other writers, but the persons
that come about me in a little drama are as real as those I meet in
every-day life, and in this case I found it utterly impossible to go on
to what might have been the bitter, logical development of Margaret's
career. Perhaps it was as well. Perhaps the writer should have no
despotic power over his creations, however slight they are. He may
profitably recall the dictum of a recent essayist that "there is no
limit to the mercy of God."

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

Hartford, August 11, 1899.

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 tea-gowns, a day for Dante, a day for the Greek
drama, a day for the Dumb Animals' Aid S