The significance of all this is that, even if we ourselves have not the time for play in our strenuous lives, we still like to hear about those whose chief pursuit is entertainment and recreation. The leisure class in every community is the conspicuous class, just as is the successful man. The toilers and the failures may be sure that they will be undisturbed and forgotten, and take what comfort they can in the knowledge that their right to privacy will be respected. But social leaders must pay the penalty of their leadership. The publicity that those in humbler walks of life shrink from, they must accept as part of the day’s work. They must submit to satire, caricature, and even slander, without concern. They must not complain if, as has recently been intimated, envious novelists misrepresent them and their customs and traditions. They are to remember that they exist, not only to entertain and amuse themselves, but to do the same for the lookers-on, who are not part of the show. * * * * * Mrs. Humphry Ward has outdone herself in the interest aroused by “The Marriage of William Ashe,” Harpers, and the book has kept readers and reviewers busy, with many editions, since its publication. The surmise that its author provided herself with some historical backing for her portraiture of Lady Kitty and Geoffry Cliffe, in the characters of Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron, by no means diminishes admiration of her creative powers. The background of reality merely serves to protect her from the charge of over-exaggeration, while the personality of the restless and many-sided little heroine herself takes too strong a hold upon all readers to leave much room for criticism in this respect.