This may sound elementary, but I present it as a premise to which is to follow. You, my correspondents, are ambitious to progress socially, yet doubtless you are not altogether impervious to the seductive suggestion that social interests are hollow and unprofitable. For instance, I feel sure that you, Number 5, the radiant, able-bodied spinster, haughtily unconcerned about love and lovers, feels the pressure of the times, and would regard the life of a Madame de Staël or a Madame Récamier, however brilliant or picturesque, as at variance with modern theories of social utility. I hear you making some such representation as this, which is merely an enlargement of the letter you wrote me: "Here am I, a young woman of some means, without family responsibilities or other demands upon my time. I have no prejudice against marriage; indeed, I earnestly hope to meet some day, some man who will love me and whom I may love, and whose wife I may become; but as I am no longer so young as I was once, being nearly thirty, I have no intention of bothering my head about the subject further, and so put it aside as a contingency. I have no special talent; that is, I never could accomplish anything unusual with my voice, my pen, or a brush. I have taken, and I do take, a strong interest in charitable enterprise and investigation. I belong to philanthropic societies, and it has more than once occurred to me to join a college settlement and live among the poor. I have friends who do that; but I do not feel a special fitness for the work. Nor am I sure that, however valuable that experience may be as a form of loving service to the people one hopes to influence, it can be other than episodic and limited to the individuals who are conscious of the need or of the inspiration. I am painfully aware of the dissipations and vanities of fashionable people, in many of which I have taken part myself, and have no desire to be merely a frivolous devotee of social amusements. And yet I feel sure that the social side is no less genuine in its claims upon us than any other. It seems to me that I might interest myself socially, but I am puzzled by the intricacies of the situation. It is so difficult to be democratic in one's sympathies and yet maintain the old standards of elegance and refinement. To be socially effective one ought to be in touch with modern social tendencies and yet be true to the finest instincts of aspiring womanhood. What can one do to realize this?"