You must know, in the first place, that I am a resident of the thriving city of Ourtown, where for twenty years past I have held the position of librarian in the town library—a place which has, of course, brought me into contact with the most intellectual circles of society, and has won for me general recognition as the leader of literary and artistic thought in my native city.

Last winter I returned to Ourtown after a six months’ absence, and found to my dismay that the social life of the place was altered almost beyond recognition. “And is the Coasting Club still[Pg 261] flourishing?” I inquired, eagerly, for there was a foot of snow on the ground, and my memory went back to the jolly moonlight slides that we used to enjoy on the North Hill, and the late suppers of fried oysters, beer, cheese, and even hot mince-pie which had no terrors for us.

“The Coasting Club!” retorts Mrs. Jack Symple, to whom my remark was addressed; “mercy, no! We haven’t even thought of coasting this winter. As for me, I’ve been so interested in the Saturday Night Club that I haven’t had a moment’s time for anything else. Oh, you’ll be surprised when you see how much more cultured the town is now than it was when you went away! You never hear anything now about skating or coasting or sleigh-rides or doings of that sort. It’s all Ibsen and Browning and Tolsto? and pre-Raphaelite art and Emerson nowadays, and Professor Gnowital says that there’s as much real culture in Ourtown,[Pg 262] in proportion to the number of inhabitants, as there is in Boston.”

My eyes dilated as Mrs. Symple rattled off this jargon about the intellectual growth of Ourtown. A year ago I had regarded her as a young woman with brain-cells of the most primitive form imaginable, picking up pebbles on the shores of the Shakespeare class; and here she was drinking deep draughts of advanced thought, and talking about Ibsen and Tolsto? and Emerson as glibly as if they were old acquaintances.

“And who is Professor Gnowital?” I asked, “and by what formula does he estimate the comparative degrees of culture to the square foot in Boston and Ourtown? He must be a man of remarkable gifts.”

“Remarkable gifts!” echoed Mrs. Symple, “well, I should think so. He comes from Boston and he’s been giving readings here before the Saturday Night Club.[Pg 263] And oh, you must come and make an address at the meeting next week! It’s to be the grand gala one of the whole course. Professor Gnowital is coming on to attend it with some really cultivated people from Boston, and you’ll be surprised to see what a fine literary society there is here now.”

I agreed to address the Saturday Night Club, but I saw with deep sorrow that the town had simply gone mad over what it termed “culture.” People whom I had always regarded as but little better than half-wits were gravely uttering opinions about Carlyle and Emerson, or “doing” German literature through the medium of English translations. And all this idiocy in place of the Shakespeare Club, sleigh-rides, late suppers, and coasting, that once made life so delightful for us all.

Mrs. Symple had asked me to address the club on whatever topic I might select, and while I was considering the invitation[Pg 264] a great idea took possession of my brain. To think was to act; and without a moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a long letter to my old friend, Dr. Paulejeune, begging him to come up and address the club in my stead, and by so doing render a service not only to his lifelong friend, but to the great cause of enlightenment and human progress as well.

Now Dr. Paulejeune is not only an educated man with the thinking habit long fastened upon him, but also that rara avis, a Frenchman who thoroughly understands the language, literature, and social structure of America. Moreover he possesses in a marked degree the patriotism, wit, and cynicism of his race, and has a few hearty prejudices against certain modern vogues in art which are remote from the accepted ideals of the Latin race. Happily enough his name was well known in Ourtown by reason[Pg 265] of his little volume of essays, which had just then made its appearance.

Our town society never gathered in stronger force than it did on the evening of the Saturday Night Club meeting at the Assembly Rooms. At half-past eight the president of the club introduced the first speaker, Mr. W. Brindle Fantail, a young man who made himself conspicuous in Boston a few years ago by means of Browning readings, which he conducted with a brazen effrontery that compelled the unwilling admiration of his rivals. In the words of Jack Symple, “He caught the Browning boom on the rise and worked it for all it was worth.” Mr. Fantail advanced to the edge of the platform, ran a large flabby hand through his dank shock of light hair, and then announced as his subject, “Tolsto?, the Modern Homer.” Then, with that calm self-possession which has carried him unharmed through many a dreary monologue[Pg 266] or reading, he told his hearers what a great man Tolsto? was, and how grateful they ought to be for an opportunity to learn of his many excellences. Of course he did not put it quite as broadly as that, but that was the gist of his remarks. He told us, moreover, that the whole range of English literature contained no such work of fiction as Sevastopol, and that no writer of modern times excelled—or even equaled—this Russian Homer. “In short,” he said, impressively, “Tolsto? is distinctly epoch-making.”

The next speaker was the illustrious Professor Gnowital, who declared that Ourtown would never experience any genuine intellectual development unless a thorough study of the fantastic romances of Hoffmann was begun at once. I cannot imagine what started the professor off on that tack unless it was a desire to choose a subject of which his hearers knew absolutely nothing. His[Pg 267] words had a great effect, however, for very few members of the club had ever heard of Hoffmann, and it had never occurred to these that his ghostly tales were at all in the line of that modern culture which they all adored.

The next speaker was Mrs. Measel, whose career I have watched with feelings of mingled respect and amazement. Mrs.............