"that cricket, the most
popular of games, fills so small a space in literature." Does he
forget that CHARLES DICKENS devoted one entire Christmas Book to _The
Cricket on the Hearth_?

* * * * *

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

NO. I.--TO SOCIAL AMBITION.

DEAR SIR, OR MADAM,

I trust you will observe and appreciate the discreet ambiguity of
style with which I have chosen to address you. I may assure you at
once that I have done this not without considerable thought. For,
though I have often watched you in the exercise of your energies, I
have never yet been able to satisfy myself as to whether I ought to
class you amongst our rougher sex, or include you in the ranks of
those who wear high heels, and very low dresses. Sometimes you fix
your place of business in a breast adequately covered by a stiff and
shining shirt-front and a well-cut waistcoat. Sometimes you inhabit
the expansive bosom of a matron. Nor do you confine yourself to one
class alone out of the many that go to the composition of our social
life. You have impelled grocers to ludicrous pitches of absurdity;
you have driven the wife of a working-man to distraction because her
neighbour's front room possesses a more expensive carpet, of a sprucer
pattern than her own. Clerks have suffered acutely from your stings,
and actresses have spent many a sleepless night under your malign
influence. You have tortured Dukes on the peaks of gracious splendour
where they sit enthroned as far above common mortals as they ought to
be above the common feeling of envy; and you have caused even Queens
to writhe because there happened to be a few stray Empresses in the
world.

[Illustration]

On the whole, then, I think I do wisely in leaving the question of
your sex a doubtful one. You would wish it so left yourself, otherwise
so powerful a personality as yours would, I am certain, have revealed
itself with greater clearness to an honest investigator, such as
I humbly trust I have proved myself. But, be that as it may, I can
assert with perfect confidence that you are no respecter of persons,
though it must, in fairness, be added, that one of your chief
functions seems to be to implant an exaggerated respect and admiration
of others in the minds of your victims. In saying this I praise your
impartiality, while I hint a dislike of your ordinary methods. Not
that I have any hope of causing you to desist. For to desist would be
to cease to exist