my
spirits, by the humor of it, or they would have been crushed with the
weight of the great majority.

I remember the editor of a large Western paper, who enclosed a clipping
from his last review for my perusal. It treated, not of "The Gates Ajar"
just then, but of a magazine story in "Harper's," the "Century," or
wherever. The story was told in the first person fictitious, and began
after this fashion:

"I am an old maid of fifty-six, and have spent most of my life in
boarding-houses." (The writer was, be it said, at that time, scarcely
twenty-two.)

"Miss Phelps says of herself," observed this oracle, "that she is
fifty-six years old; and we think she is old enough to know better than
to write such a story as this."

At a summer place where I was in the early fervors of the art of making
a home, a citizen was once introduced to me at his own request. I have
forgotten his name, but remember having been told that he was
"prominent." He was big, red, and loud, and he planted himself with the
air of a man about to demolish his deadliest foe.

"So you are Miss Phelps. Well, I've wanted to meet you. I read a piece
you wrote in a magazine. It was about Our Town. It did not please Me."

I bowed with the interrogatory air which seemed to be expected of me.
Being just then very much in love with that very lovable place, I was
puzzled with this accusation, and quite unable to recall, out of the
warm flattery which I had heaped upon the town in cool print, any
visible cause of offence.

"You said," pursued my accuser, angrily, "that we had odors here. You
said Our Town smelled of fish. Now, you know, _we_ get so used to
these smells _we like 'em!_ It gave great offence to the community,
madam. And I really thought at one time--feelin' ran so high--I thought
it would kill the sale of your book!"

From that day to this I do not believe the idea has visited the brain of
this estimable person that a book could circulate in any other spot upon
the map than within his native town. This delicious bit of provincialism
served to make life worth living for many a long day.

There was fun enough in this sort of thing to "keep one up," so that one
could return bravely to the chief end of existence; for this seemed for
many years to be nothing less, and little else, than the exercise of
those faculties called forth by the wails of the bereaved. From every
corner of the civilized globe, and in its differing languages, they came
to