ay "Yes, ma'am," or
"Yes, sir," unless you are in that station of life to which you would be
very sorry it had pleased God to call you. Yet these forms seem
undeniably fit when used by the young to their elders, if the difference
of years is great enough.

The difficulty remains, however. You cannot as yet write on an envelope,
Smythe Johnes, Sir, or Mary Johnes, Lady; and, in view of this fact, we
find ourselves no nearer the solution of our constant reader's
difficulty than we were at first. The Socialists, who wish to simplify
themselves and others, would address Mr. Johnes as Comrade Smythe
Johnes, but could they address Mrs. Johnes as Comradess? We fancy not;
besides, Comrade suggests arms and bloodshed, which is hardly the
meaning of the red flag of brotherhood, and at the best Comrade looks
affected and sounds even more so. Friend would be better, but orally, on
the lips of non-Quakers, it has an effect of patronage, though no one
could rightly feel slight in a letter addressed to him as Friend Smythe
Johnes.

It is wonderful to consider how the ancients apparently got on without
the use of any sort of prefix or affix to their names on the roll of
parchment or fold of papyrus addressed to them. For all we know, Caesar
was simply C. Julius Caesar to his correspondents, and Pericles was yet
more simply Pericles to the least of his fellow-citizens. These
historical personages may have had the number of their houses inscribed
on their letters; or Pericles might have had Son of Xanthippus added to
his name for purposes of identification; but apparently he managed quite
as well as our Presidents, without anything equivalent to Excellency or
Hon. or Mr. or Esq. To be sure, with the decline of

"The glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome,"

name-honors crept in more and more. It was then not only politer but
much safer to address your petition To the Divine Domitian, or To the
Divine Nero, than to greet those emperors by the mere given names which
were not yet Christian; probably it would not have been enough to add
Caesar to the last name, though Caesar seems to have finally served the
turn of Esq., for all the right that the emperors had to bear it. In the
Eastern Empire, we are not ready to say what was the correct style for
imperial dignitaries; but among the sovereigns who divided the Roman
state and inherited its splendor, some rulers came to be sacred
majesties, though this is still a sens