humanity than the melting soul has hitherto discerned in the sunset, the ocean, or the starry heavens. There are among us men and women living in this spirit of idealism, and they, O, my correspondents! are the first-class passengers. To _A Modern Woman_ with Social Ambitions. I. In the first place let me assure you that I am in sympathy with you. I am not one of those unreasonable philosophers who would have every wife merge her identity in that of her husband, and every spinster who has decided not to marry relegated to obscure lodgings with a parrot and a dog. My sentiments recognize the justice and the value of the emancipation movement by means of which woman has obtained freedom to arrange her life conformably to her own ideas as to what is salutary and entertaining for her as an individual, whether she be married or single, beautiful or plain. In homely phrase the world has become woman's oyster, and, save for the little matter of the ballot, a restriction concerning which the subject-matter of this letter does not require me to agitate you, every woman is at liberty to open her oyster according to her own sweet will. Filial limitations and the other circumstances of her environment must prohibit this and make desirable that manner of living, just as in the case of man; but to all intents and purposes, if she be clear-headed and ambitious, she is free to do what she chooses in the way she chooses, whether it be to preside over a drawing-room exquisitely, to guide a woman's club to grace and glory, to renounce the world for the sake of art and a studio, or, it may be, to combine all these occupations in one seething round of tense existence which, according to the constitution of the subject, is liable to terminate abruptly in nervous prostration or, baffling the predictions of the doctors, to continue indefinitely unto hale and bright-eyed longevity. In brief, I make my best bow to the modern woman; I admire her and am stimulated by her. Indeed, I take her so seriously in her endeavor to be independent that I am almost ready to let her stand up in an electric-car or other overcrowded conveyance. I have on occasions even made so free as to bend forward in the theatre and, lacking an introduction, ask her to take off the high hat which obscured my view of the stage. Verily, these are piping times of progress for woman, as every one knows, and I am glad to put on record as a philosopher that I approve of and am edified by them.