Let me here state that I am entirely conscious that it is not a prerequisite to earnest living to be socially effective at all. One can pursue one's occupation, be it house-keeping, school teaching, scientific philanthropy, or novel writing without taking any part in what is known as society, and still be respectable and worthy in character. Yet if every woman were simply to eat her three meals a day, sleep, be affectionate to her family, reasonably charitable, and do her daily task, the world would lose much of its vivacity, color, and æsthetic interest. As the world is at present constituted the greater mass of human beings, both male and female, are shut off from participation in society in its narrower sense. Their means, their manner of living, and their tastes confine them to very simple or else to very coarse social diversions. Hence we are accustomed to read in the newspapers of "society people," as a term of reproach indicating that portion of the population which cultivates the social or æesthetic side of nature in its leisure hours. The demagogic force of the term is derived from the undeniable existence of a surface element of society, which has been and is still apt to conduct itself in such a manner as to subject itself justly to the charge of frivolity and extravagance. But the unthinking extend its application to the cultivated and intelligent many, who in all countries constitute the best force of the community. Society in this better sense must always exist, and, although the woman who holds herself aloof from it may not be distinctly culpable, there can be no question that those who succeed in participating in the social interests open to them, without neglecting or allowing them to obscure sterner pursuits, live finer and more serviceable lives than those who pass all their hours of relaxation by the chimney-corner, either because they fancy that essential to comfort or because they choose to despise what they call, with a virtuous inflection, "society."