I do not believe much in
anecdotes."

Why? "In history they are all false"--a sufficiently broad statement
--"in literature all libelous"--also a sufficiently sweeping statement,
coming from a critic who notes that we are "a people who are peculiarly
extravagant in our language--" and when it is a matter of social life,
"almost all biased." It seems to amount to stultification, almost. He
has built two or three breeds of American coquettes out of anecdotes--
mainly "biased" ones, I suppose; and, as they occur "in literature,"
furnished by his pen, they must be "all libelous." Or did he mean not in
literature or anecdotes about literature or literary people? I am not
able to answer that. Perhaps the original would be clearer, but I have
only the translation of this installment by me. I think the remark had
an intention; also that this intention was booked for the trip; but that
either in the hurry of the remark's departure it got left, or in the
confusion of changing cars at the translator's frontier it got
side-tracked.

"But on the other hand I believe in statistics; and those on divorces
appear to me to be most conclusive." And he sets himself the task of
explaining--in a couple of columns--the process by which Easy-Divorce
conceived, invented, originated, developed, and perfected an
empire-embracing condition of sexual purity in the States. IN 40 YEARS.
No, he doesn't state the interval. With all his passion for statistics
he forgot to ask how long it took to produce this gigantic miracle.

I have followed his pleasant but devious trail through those columns,
but I was not able to get hold of his argument and find out what it was.
I was not even able to find out where it left off. It seemed to
gradually dissolve and flow off into other matters. I followed it with
interest, for I was anxious to learn how easy-divorce eradicated adultery
in America, but I was disappointed; I have no idea yet how it did it.
I only know it didn't. But that is not valuable; I knew it before.

Well, humor is the great thing, the saving thing, after all. The minute
it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and
resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place. And so,
when M. Bourget said that bright thing about our grandfathers, I broke
all up. I remember exploding its American countermine once, under that
grand hero, Napoleon. He was only First Consul then, and I was
Consul-General--for the