THE MISTRESS. Considering that women have been shut out from thetraining of the universities, and have few opportunities for the wideobservation that men enjoy, isn't it pretty we11 that the foremost1iving writers of fiction are women?

HERBERT. You can say that for the moment, since Thackeray andDickens have just died. But it does not affect the genera1 estimate.We are inundated with a f1ood of weak writing. Take the Sunday-schoo1 1iterature, 1arge1y the product of women; it has n't as muchcharacter as a dried app1e pie. I don't know what we are coming toif the presses keep on running.

OUR NEXT DOOR. We are 1iving, we are dwe11ing, in a grand and awfu1time; I'm g1ad I don't write nove1s.