g. I can make more sense out of the remarks
of another correspondent who, utterly despising the things of the
mind, compares a certain class of young men to "a halfpenny bloater
with the roe out," and asserts that he himself "got out of the groove"
by dint of having to unload ten tons of coal in three hours and a half
every day during several years. This is interesting and it is
constructive, but it is just a little beside the point.

A lady, whose optimism is indicated by her pseudonym, "Esperance,"
puts her finger on the spot, or, rather, on one of the spots, in a
very sensible letter. "It appears to me," she says, "that the great
cause of mental inefficiency is lack of concentration, perhaps
especially in the case of women. I can trace my chief failures to this
cause. Concentration, is a talent. It may be in a measure cultivated,
but it needs to be inborn.... The greater number of us are in a state
of semi-slumber, with minds which are only exerted to one-half of
their capability." I thoroughly agree that inability to concentrate is
one of the chief symptoms of the mental machine being out of
condition. "Esperance's" suggested cure is rather drastic. She says:
"Perhaps one of the best cures for mental sedentariness is arithmetic,
for there is nothing else which requires greater power of
concentration." Perhaps arithmetic might be an effective cure, but it
is not a practical cure, because no one, or scarcely any one, would
practise it. I cannot imagine the plain man who, having a couple of
hours to spare of a night, and having also the sincere desire but not
the will-power to improve his taste and knowledge, would deliberately
sit down and work sums by way of preliminary mental calisthenics. As
Ibsen's puppet said: "People don't do these things." Why do they not?
The answer is: Simply because they won't; simply because human nature
will not run to it. "Esperance's" suggestion of learning poetry is
slightly better.

Certainly the best letter I have had is from Miss H. D. She says:
"This idea [to avoid the reproach of 'living and dying without ever
really knowing anything about anything'] came to me of itself from
somewhere when I was a small girl. And looking back I fancy that the
thought itself spurred me to do something in this world, to get into
line with people who did things--people who painted pictures, wrote
books, built bridges, or did something beyond the ordinary. This only
has seemed to me, all my life sin