has been good enough for us and our parents should certainly be
satisfactory to the younger generations." It seems to the contented like
pure presumption on the part of their acquaintances to wander after
strange gods, in the shape of new ideals, higher standards of culture, or
a perfected refinement of surroundings.

We are perhaps wrong to pity complacent people. It is for another class
our sympathy should be kept; for those who cannot refrain from doubting
of themselves and the value of their work--those unfortunate gifted and
artistic spirits who descend too often the _via dolorosa_ of discontent
and despair, who have a higher ideal than their neighbors, and, in
struggling after an unattainable perfection, fall by the wayside.

No. 7--The Discontent of Talent

The complacency that buoys up self-sufficient souls, soothing them with
the illusion that they themselves, their towns, country, language, and
habits are above improvement, causing them to shudder, as at a sacrilege,
if any changes are suggested, is fortunately limited to a class of stay-
at-home nonentities. In proportion as it is common among them, is it
rare or delightfully absent in any society of gifted or imaginative
people.

Among our globe-trotting compatriots this defect is much less general
than in the older nations of the world, for the excellent reason, that
the moment a man travels or takes the trouble to know people of different
nationalities, his armor of complacency receives so severe a blow, that
it is shattered forever, the wanderer returning home wiser and much more
modest. There seems to be something fatal to conceit in the air of great
centres; professionally or in general society a man so soon finds his
level.

The "great world" may foster other faults; human nature is sure to
develop some in every walk of life. Smug contentment, however,
disappears in its rarefied atmosphere, giving place to a craving for
improvement, a nervous alertness that keeps the mind from stagnating and
urges it on to do its best.

It is never the beautiful woman who sits down in smiling serenity before
her mirror. She is tireless in her efforts to enhance her beauty and set
it off to the best advantage. Her figure is never slender enough, nor
her carriage sufficiently erect to satisfy. But the "frump" will let
herself and all her surroundings go to seed, not from humbleness of mind
or an overwhelming sense of her own unworthiness, but in pur