I did not, of course, lose sight of the fact that the story appealed almost exclusively to a class of people who keep their fingers clean (and have cleanly minds also), and that it was, therefore, not improbable that it had found more readers than the condition of its pages would indicate; but nevertheless I was forced to the reluctant admission that from a commercial point of view the publication of “The Rivals” had proved a failure; nor has the opinion which I formed then been upset by later observation and knowledge. All of which served to heighten my admiration for the enlightened policy which gave this unusual bit of fiction to the American public. I said something of this sort to a friend of mine, who, although rather given to fault-finding, had to admit that the Harpers had done a praiseworthy and courageous thing in printing M. Coppée’s story. “Yes,” said my friend, rather grudgingly, “it was a big thing of Alden to buy that story; but if that story had been offered to them by an American they wouldn’t have touched it with a forty-foot pole.” My friend was quite right, for if that story, or one like it, were offered in the literary market by an American writer, the editor to whom it was offered would know at once that it had been stolen, and would be perfectly justified in locking his office door and calling for the police. Coppée has simply told the story of a young poet beloved of two women, a shop-girl and an actress; and he has told it truthfully as well as artistically--so truthfully, in fact, that I shudder when I think of the number of people of the “Christian Endeavor” type who must have withdrawn their names from the _Monthly’s_ subscription-list because of it. If I could be assured that the number of these wretched Philistines were far exceeded by that of the intelligent men and women who added their names because of this important step in the direction of true art, I would feel far more confident than I do now of a bright near future for American letters. The very next day after that on which I read “The Rivals” I was aroused by a sudden agitation which spread through the reading-room of the quiet library in which I was at work. The table on which my books and papers were spread shook so that the thought of a possible earthquake flashed across my startled mind, and I looked up in time to see the young woman opposite to me drop the tattered remnants of _Harper’s Bazar_, from which she had just deciphered an intricate pattern, rush across the room, and pounce upon a periodical which had just been placed on its shelf by the librarian. If she had been a second later the three other women who approached at the same moment from three different parts of the room would have fought for this paper like ravening wolves. The Christmas number of the _Ladies’ Home Journal_ had arrived.