ledge of
character and of measures, is it not probable that he would find it a
tissue of misconceptions? Few things are actually what they seem today;
they are colored both by misapprehensions and by moods. If a man writes a
letter or makes report of an occurrence for immediate publication,
subject to universal criticism, there is some restraint on him. In his
private letter, or diary especially, he is apt to set down what comes
into his head at the moment, often without much effort at verification.

We have been led to this disquisition into the fundamental nature of this
private record by the question put to us, whether it is a good plan for a
woman to keep a diary. Speaking generally, the diary has become a sort of
fetich, the authority of which ought to be overthrown. It is fearful to
think how our characters are probably being lied away by innumerable pen
scratches in secret repositories, which may some day come to light as
unimpeachable witnesses. The reader knows that he is not the sort of man
which the diarist jotted him down to be in a single interview. The diary
may be a good thing for self-education, if the keeper could insure its
destruction. The mental habit of diarizing may have some value, even when
it sets undue importance upon trifles. We confess that, never having seen
a woman's private diary (except those that have been published), we do
not share the popular impression as to their tenuity implied in the
question put to us. Taking it for granted that they are full of noble
thoughts and beautiful imaginings, we doubt whether the time spent on
them could not be better employed in acquiring knowledge or taking
exercise. For the diary forgotten and left to the next generation may be
as dangerous as dynamite.

THE WHISTLING GIRL

The wisdom of our ancestors packed away in proverbial sayings may always
be a little suspected. We have a vague respect for a popular proverb, as
embodying folk-experience, and expressing not the wit of one, but the
common thought of a race. We accept the saying unquestioning, as a sort
of inspiration out of the air, true because nobody has challenged it for
ages, and probably for the same reason that we try to see the new moon
over our left shoulder. Very likely the musty saying was the product of
the average ignorance of an unenlightened time, and ought not to have the
respect of a scientific and traveled people. In fact it will be found
that a large proportion of the pr