anonymity.

As to the delights of anonymity, these are they. I become so free. I revel in liberty; in the equality I confer on myself by writing familiarly of others, of the great, of the lowly, of the merely eccentric; in the fraternity authors know—how friendly, in the name of art, we greet the opening bud, the dipping gull, Phoebus Apollo himself—with what warmth we espouse the cause of an ill-starred hero, with what sympathy view the soul struggles of our heroine.

Furthermore, anonymity allows one to use, so much more freely, the known. Not that you, who are unlucky enough to be known to me, will find yourselves displayed by my pen. Ah, no! I am a little abler than that. As the artist mixes his colours, so do I blend my friends; from them choose characteristics which, filled out by means of that faculty I can find no other name for than imagination, form a composite personality. No, you will not find yourself in my pages—a touch of you, perhaps, but you won't recognise that.

As to environment—city, village, train, boat, hotel—neither my power of description nor yours of observation is, in all probability, great enough to allow of recognition. Guess, if you like. And while you vainly probe, I shall continue to sign myself “Helen.”