parade, and that if women look back with pride,
as they may, upon their personal achievements and labors, they will also
regard them with astonishment. Women, we read every day, long for the
rights and privileges of men, and the education and serious purpose in
life of men. And yet, such is the sweet self-sacrifice of their nature,
they voluntarily take on burdens which men have never assumed, and which
they would speedily cast off if they had. What should we say of men if
they consumed half their time in paying formal calls upon each other
merely for the sake of paying calls, and were low-spirited if they did
not receive as many cards as they had dealt out to society? Have they not
the time? Have women more time? and if they have, why should they spend
it in this Sisyphus task? Would the social machine go to pieces--the
inquiry is made in good faith, and solely for information--if they made
rational business for themselves to be attended to, or even if they gave
the time now given to calls they hate to reading and study, and to making
their household civilizing centres of intercourse and enjoyment, and paid
visits from some other motive than "clearing off their list"? If all the
artificial round of calls and cards should tumble down, what valuable
thing would be lost out of anybody's life?

The question is too vast for the Drawer, but as an experiment in
sociology it would like to see the system in abeyance for one season. If
at the end of it there had not been just as much social enjoyment as
before, and there were not fewer women than usual down with nervous
prostration, it would agree to start at its own expense a new experiment,
to wit, a kind of Social Clearing-House, in which all cards should be
delivered and exchanged, and all social debts of this kind be balanced by
experienced bookkeepers, so that the reputation of everybody for
propriety and conventionality should be just as good as it is now.

DINNER-TABLE TALK

Many people suppose that it is the easiest thing in the world to dine if
you can get plenty to eat. This error is the foundation of much social
misery. The world that never dines, and fancies it has a grievance
justifying anarchy on that account, does not know how much misery it
escapes. A great deal has been written about the art of dining. From time
to time geniuses have appeared who knew how to compose a dinner; indeed,
the art of doing it can be learned, as well as the art of cooking and