he babbling husband of that woman. Every life must have its
own privacy and its own place of retirement. The letter is of all things
the most personal and intimate thing. Its bloom is gone when another eye
sees it before the one for which it was intended. Its aroma all escapes
when it is first opened by another person. One might as well wear
second-hand clothing as get a second-hand letter. Here, then, is a sacred
right that ought to be respected, and can be respected without any injury
to domestic life. The habit in some families for the members of it to
show each other's letters is a most disenchanting one. It is just in the
family, between persons most intimate, that these delicacies of
consideration for the privacy of each ought to be most respected. No one
can estimate probably how much of the refinement, of the delicacy of
feeling, has been lost to the world by the introduction of the
postal-card. Anything written on a postal-card has no personality; it is
banal, and has as little power of charming any one who receives it as an
advertisement in the newspaper. It is not simply the cheapness of the
communication that is vulgar, but the publicity of it. One may have
perhaps only a cent's worth of affection to send, but it seems worth much
more when enclosed in an envelope. We have no doubt, then, that on
general principles the French decision is a mistake, and that it tends
rather to vulgarize than to retain the purity and delicacy of the
marriage relation. And the judges, so long even as men only occupy the
bench, will no doubt reverse it when the logical march of events forces
upon them the question whether the wife may open her husband's letters.

A LEISURE CLASS

Foreign critics have apologized for real or imagined social and literary
shortcomings in this country on the ground that the American people have
little leisure. It is supposed that when we have a leisure class we shall
not only make a better showing in these respects, but we shall be as
agreeable--having time to devote to the art of being agreeable--as the
English are. But we already have a considerable and increasing number of
people who can command their own time if we have not a leisure class, and
the sociologist might begin to study the effect of this leisureliness
upon society. Are the people who, by reason of a competence or other
accidents of good-fortune, have most leisure, becoming more agreeable?
and are they devoting themselves to the e