ote the former President. "I find sufficient reason for this in the
fact that the matter you suggest for elimination has been largely
exploited lately. And in looking the matter over carefully, I am
inclined to think that the article expurgated as you suggest will gain
in unity and directness. At first, I feared it would appear a little
'bobbed' off, but you are a much better judge of that than I. ... I
leave it altogether to you."

It was always interesting to Bok, as a study of mental processes, to
note how differently he and some author with whom he would talk it over
would see the method of treating some theme. He was discussing the
growing unrest among American women with Rudyard Kipling at the latter's
English home; and expressed the desire that the novelist should treat
the subject and its causes.

They talked until the early hours, when it was agreed that each should
write out a plan, suggest the best treatment, and come together the next
morning. When they did so, Kipling had mapped out the scenario of a
novel; Bok had sketched out the headings of a series of analytical
articles. Neither one could see the other's viewpoint, Kipling
contending for the greater power of fiction and Bok strongly arguing for
the value of the direct essay. In this instance, the point was never
settled, for the work failed to materialize in any form!

If the readers of The Ladies' Home Journal were quick to support its
editor when he presented an idea that appealed to them, they were
equally quick to tell him when he gave them something of which they did
not approve. An illustration of this occurred during the dance-craze
that preceded the Great War. In 1914, America was dance-mad, and the
character of the dances rapidly grew more and more offensive. Bok's
readers, by the hundreds, urged him to come out against the tendency.

The editor looked around and found that the country's terpsichorean
idols were Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle; he decided that, with their
cooperation, he might, by thus going to the fountainhead, effect an
improvement through the introduction, by the Castles, of better and more
decorous new dances. Bok could see no reason why the people should not
dance, if they wanted to, so long as they kept within the bounds of
decency.

He found the Castles willing and eager to co-operate, not only because of
the publicity it would mean for them, but because they were themselves
not in favor of the new mode. They had little