to acquiesce in the limitations implied, affords a satisfaction that is very acute and special. The sensation has two great advantages: it enables one to savor, by the sense of accurate appreciation, what he cannot attain, and also self-respectfully to do without it. There is nothing abject about the moral of Dr. Holmes's "Reflections of a Proud Pedestrian." It also releases much of his effort and faculty for what is attainable. Discontented Americans returned from abroad, for instance, and yearning for European flesh-pots (as Lot's wife yearned for Sodom, or as Adam and Eve for Paradise, shall we say?) would do well to reflect upon the solace of this sensation of delicacy and distinction. It is within everyone's reach. But it must be pursued as an ideal, and not resorted to in relaxation for repose.

In all the recent talk about woman-suffrage in the State of New York there has been scarcely any inquiry as to whether it would cost men anything to give women the right to vote. The whole discussion has turned upon the probable effect of the ballot upon woman, and has prevailed almost exclusively between those who have held that it would pay her to have a vote and those who have held that it would not. However men in general may have pondered in their secret hearts, they have had almost nothing to say as to whether it would pay them to let women vote. Representatives of some few special interests have had convictions about it, and have allowed them to come out. The liquor-dealers, for example, are generally understood to feel that woman-suffrage would be detrimental to their business interests; but they are alone among merchants, so far as I have noticed, in admitting that they could not afford to meet women at the polls. The milliners are not concerned as milliners; they do not fear that suffrage will affect the feminine taste in bonnets. The dry-goods men show no uneasiness. The manufacturers of infants' foods neither fear nor hope. Makers of bicycles are not especially hot for suffrage, nor are side-saddle manufacturers especially opposed to it. The average New York man does not seem to feel that anything unprecedented will happen whether woman-suffrage comes or not. It does not appear that

he apprehends that his vote will be worth any the less to him because he shares it with a woman, or that his liberties will be restricted, or that the woman will be any less a woman because she shares his vote. Outwardly at least he has posed as a spectator, interested indeed, but bland, courteous, and sympathetic even in his doubts. His behavior has been a credit to him. He has shown scarcely a sign of disposition to admit the existence or possibility of any antagonism between the interests of women and of men. He has not been overready to believe that it would be advantageous to women to vote, but his attitude has been that if it would be advantageous to them he will not stand in their way; and while he has not bound himself to accept their opinion as to the benefits of suffrage he has certainly shown an unaffected desire to know what their opinion is, and decided symptoms of a willingness to be guided by it.

Appearances are not absolutely to be trusted, but so far as they may guide one's judgment, man in New York really does not care very much, so far as he himself is concerned, whether woman votes or not. Certainly his attitude is admirable. It is intelligent and affectionate and respectful; and yet man never assumed an attitude that showed more conclusively his confidence in the authenticity of his commission as Lord of Creation. Even those exceptionally vehement suffragists who denounce him as the Tyrant, do not scare him.

He is not dismayed at any possible hosts of skirted voters that those ladies may array against him. He knows that the ballot is but an instrument and the voters are but the keys, and he seems content that whoever can shall play what tune they may. The possibility of more keys does not worry him, though he has not yet conceded its advisability, for he knows that be they many or few, they will all yield their most effectual music to the hands that are best adapted to them. The tune, man thinks, will be about the same as heretofore, and there will be no sweeping shiftings of performers; but if more notes will give fuller or more harmonious music, for his part he seems ready to have them.

Such, and so confident, is his attitude! The only wonder is that it has not occurred

to any observant woman to satirize it in a gentle essay on "A Certain Condescension in Males."

FROM childhood onward, by whatsoever monitor crosses our path, we are bid remember that life is real and earnest. Yet, surely, whoever knows anything knows that. An instinct of it appears in those who know nothing. Infants and idiots-under some such instinct, possibly-put much earnest into their play. The beggars, the vagrants, the pensioners, of high and low degree, take life none too seriously, of course. But the instinctive and curt way in which society sets them apart shows that they must be an exceptional and comparatively small fraction. For most men the law of life is the quite simple one of work or starve, and most men learn it without any telling.

Even to the lighter-minded, or to the graver-minded in their lighter moments, the earnestness and reality of life are sufficiently clear. In their pursuit of pleasure they have no thought, apparently, of anything but that; and the pursuit of pleasure, however, is much less a blindness than a revulsion and revolt. The sense of the reality of life has grown too strenuous, too oppressive, and the man seeks a moment's remission and oblivion from it. When pleasure runs into dissipation the moment's oblivion has merely been too sweet and has started an irresistible desire to prolong it to a day, a month, a year, and, finally, to a lifetime. Prolonged it grows less and less of an oblivion, moreover; and probably no man has a more torturing, however futile, consciousness of the reality of life than the

roue.

Too keen a sense of the reality of life is the direct cause of half its diseases, of half its disasters. For while, under it, one class of men, in high revolt, fling themselves into dissipation, another class decline into slavish submission. They allow themselves no moment of forgetfulness, real or factitious. All capacity for diversion has died in them. They still eat and sleep

moderately-for nature requires that even of her machines; the steam-engine does no less. But of doing anything out of pure delight, they have quite lost the faculty. They are as if in some given moment they had said, and then had grimly adhered to it, "What is the use resisting? Nothing is possible in life but work."

If, instead of laying so much emphasis on a lesson that we can all be left to get by ourselves, our preceptors would only give us some effective guidance in confronting the reality of life lightly, they would render a genuine service. There is where we stand really in need of aid. In the sense of responsibility, which there is such zeal to inculcate, men were probably never before so strong as they are to-day. A larger number certainly, and probably a larger proportion of the whole than ever before, are exercising foresight and deliberate energy in meeting at least the material needs of themselves and their families. The degree of such foresight and deliberate energy is the sanctioned measure of our ascent from barbarism. Tried by it alone we show a splendid progress. We have mounted immeasurably-in business. But have we made a corresponding ascent in pleasure? The form of the barbarities changes a little, but are not our favorite diversions barbarities still? Of course we do not all, when we are going in for a bit of pleasure, get drunk or engage in any of the grosser immoralities; but we do all, or very nearly all, waste and squander. Of either our time, or our money, or our strength, or all three, we make for our avowed pleasure an expenditure that brings us nothing. We do this too not wholly unawares. are more or less disturbed over it in our consciences, and excuse ourselves by saying, "But a man cannot be working all the time; he must have some relaxation;" as if the only possible alternative to work were folly. The very weakness of the justification shows our need of intelligent guidance not in gravity, but in gayety. We should have over us some strong, wise masters of the revels.

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