delicacy, and led a life of
exquisite and artistic refinement. As to the animus and intent of this
story there could be no doubt; both were good, but in atmosphere and
execution it was essentially unreal, overwrought, and melodramatic. For
three or four months after its publication there was a perfect outburst
and overflow in newspapers and magazines of the lower order of stories,
all more or less bad, some simply outrageous, and all treating, or rather
pretending to treat, the same problem which had furnished theme for that
novel.

Probably a close observation and collecting of the dreary statistics would
bring to light a curious proof of the extent and certainty of this sort of
contagion.

Reflecting on it, having it thrust in one's face at every book-counter,
railway-stand, Sunday-school library, and parlor centre-table, it is hard
not to wish for some supernatural authority to come sweeping through the
wards, and prescribe sharp cold-water treatment all around to half drown
all such writers and quite drown all their books!

Jog Trot.

There is etymological uncertainty about the phrase. But there is no doubt
about its meaning; no doubt that it represents a good, comfortable gait,
at which nobody goes nowadays.

A hundred years ago it was the fashion: in the days when railroads were
not, nor telegraphs; when citizens journeyed in stages, putting up prayers
in church if their journey were to be so long as from Massachusetts into
Connecticut; when evil news travelled slowly by letter, and good news was
carried about by men on horses; when maidens spun and wove for long,
quiet, silent years at their wedding _trousseaux_, and mothers spun and
wove all which sons and husbands wore; when newspapers were small and
infrequent, dingy-typed and wholesomely stupid, so that no man could or
would learn from them more about other men's opinions, affairs, or
occupations than it concerned his practical convenience to know; when even
wars were waged at slow pace,--armies sailing great distances by chance
winds, or plodding on foot for thousands of miles, and fighting doggedly
hand to hand at sight; when fortunes also were slowly made by simple,
honest growths,--no men excepting freebooters and pirates becoming rich
in a day.

It would seem treason or idiocy to sigh for these old days,--treason to
ideas of progress, stupid idiocy unaware that it is well off. Is not
to-day brilliant, marvellous, beautiful? Has not living