Success was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows. Those who succeeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but when any one failed, the fickle crowd passed him by to bow at more fortunate feet. No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a perpetual Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have been sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough to keep--a constant competition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daring spirits and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frail humanity ever on the qui vive. Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the calm of our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the opinions of others to influence our ways. This lofty detachment from environment is achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers themselves (who may be said to have invented the art of "posing") were generally as vain as peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with the verdict of their contemporaries and their position as regards posterity. Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal. As one keen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of being alone that he will seek the society of those he neither likes nor respects sooner than be left to his own." The laws and conventions that govern men's intercourse have, therefore, formed a tempting subject for the writers of all ages. Some have labored hoping to reform their generation, others have written to offer solutions for life's many problems. Beaumarchais, whose penetrating wit left few subjects untouched, makes his Figaro put the subject aside with "Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer." The author of this little volume pretends to settle no disputes, aims at inaugurating no reforms. He has lightly touched on passing topics and jotted down, "to point a moral or adorn a tale," some of the more obvious foibles and inconsistencies of our American ways. If a stray bit of philosophy has here and there slipped in between the lines, it is mostly of the laughing "school," and used more in banter than in blame. This much abused "world" is a fairly agreeable place if you do not take it seriously. Meet it with a friendly face and it will smile gayly back at you, but do not ask of it what it cannot give, or attribute to its verdicts more importance than they deserve. ELIOT GREGORY _Newport_, _November first_, 1897 No. 1--Charm