LINCOLN B. SWEZEY was a high-toned and inquiring American citizen, who came over to study our Institootions. He carried letters to almost everybody; Dukes, Radicals, Authors, eminent British Prize-fighters, Music-hall buffoons, and he prosecuted his examination steadily. He did not say much, and he never was seen to laugh, but he kept a note-book, and he seemed to contemplate in his own mind, The Ideal American, and to try to live up to that standard. When he did speak, it was in the interrogative, and he pastured his intellect on our high-class Magazines. LINCOLN B. discovered many things, and noted them down for his work on _Social Dry Rot in Europe_, but one matter puzzled him. He read in papers or reviews, and he vaguely heard talk of a secret institution, the Society of Souls. They were going to run a newspaper; they were _not_ going to run a newspaper. There was a poem in connection with them, which mystified LINCOLN B. SWEZEY not a little; he "allowed it was darned personal," but further than that his light did not penetrate. He went to a little Club, of which he was a temporary member; it was not fashionable, and did not seem to want to be, and SWEZEY thought it flippant. There he asked, "What _are_ the Souls, anyhow?" "_Societas omnium animarum_," somebody answered, and SWEZEY exclaimed "Say!" "They are a congregation of ladies. Their statutes decree that they are to be _bene natae, bene vestitae_, and _mediocriter_,--I don't remember what." SWEZEY perceived that he was being trifled with, and turned the conversation to the superior culture and scholarship of American politicians, with some thoughts on canvas-backed ducks. He next applied to a lady, whom he regarded as at once fashionable and well-informed, and asked her, "Who the Souls were, anyhow?" "Oh, a horrid, stuck-up set of people," said this Pythoness. "They have passwords, and wear a silver gridiron." "Why on earth do they do that?" asked SWEZEY. "No doubt for some improper, or blasphemous reason. Don't be a Soul--you had better be a Skate. I am a Skate. We wear a silver skate, don't you see" (and she showed him a model of an Acme Skate in silver), "with the motto, _Celer et Audax_--'Fast and Forward.'" SWEZEY expressed his pride at being admitted to these mysteries--but still pursued his inquiries. "What do the Souls _do_?" "All sorts of horrid things. They have a rule that no Soul is ever to speak to anybody who is not a Soul, in society, you know. And they have a rule that no Soul is ever to marry a Soul." "Exogamy!" said SWEZEY, and began to puzzle out the probable results and causes of this curious prohibition. "I don't know what you mean," said the lady, "and I don't know why you are so curious about them. They all read the same books at the same time, and they sacrifice wild asses at the altar of the Hyperborean Apollo, IBSEN, you know."