sperous" marriages and association with unscrupulous
methods of acquiring money.

The deterioration was gradual. The women were in all outward conduct
unchanged, the conventionalities of life were maintained, the graces were
not lost, the observances of the duties of charities and of religion were
even emphasized, but worldliness had eaten the heart out of them, and
they were "dead souls." The tragedy of the withered life was a
thousand-fold enhanced by the external show of prosperous respectability.

The story was first published (in 1888) in Harper's Monthly. During its
progress--and it was printed as soon as each installment was ready (a
very poor plan)--I was in receipt of the usual letters of sympathy, or
protest, and advice. One sympathetic missive urged the removal of
Margaret to a neighboring city, where she could be saved by being brought
under special Christian influences. The transfer, even in a serial, was
impossible, and she by her own choice lived the life she had entered
upon.

And yet, if the reader will pardon the confidence, pity intervened to
shorten it. I do not know how it is with other writers, but the persons
that come about me in a little drama are as real as those I meet in
every-day life, and in this case I found it utterly impossible to go on
to what might have been the bitter, logical development of Margaret's
career. Perhaps it was as well. Perhaps the writer should have no
despotic power over his creations, however slight they are. He may
profitably recall the dictum of a recent essayist that "there is no
limit to the mercy of God."

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

Hartford, August 11, 1899.

A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD

I

We were talking about the want of diversity in American life, the lack of
salient characters. It was not at a club. It was a spontaneous talk of
people who happened to be together, and who had fallen into an
uncompelled habit of happening to be together. There might have been a
club for the study of the Want of Diversity in American Life. The members
would have been obliged to set apart a stated time for it, to attend as a
duty, and to be in a mood to discuss this topic at a set hour in the
future. They would have mortgaged another precious portion of the little
time left us for individual life. It is a suggestive thought that at a
given hour all over the United States innumerable clubs might be
considering the Want of Diversity in American Life. Only in this