disqualifying me from getting my knowledge of them at first hand. And there is a Business and Professional Club and a Poor Richard, bringing one back to Franklin again, in the same Little Street. And there are Browning Societies, and Shakespeare Societies, and Drama-Reforming Societies, and Pegasus Societies, and Societies for members to read their own works to each other; and more Societies than the parent Society discoursing in the woods along the Schuylkill could have dreamed of: with the Contemporary Club to assemble their variously divided ends and objects under one head, and to entertain literature as George W. Childs had entertained it, and, going further, to pay literature for being entertained, if literature expresses itself in the form of readings and lectures by those who practise it professionally. The change disconcerted me more than ever when I, Philadelphia born, was assured of a profitable welcome if I would speak to the Club on anything. The invitation was tentative and unofficial, but the Contemporary Club need be in no fear. It may make the invitation official if it will, and never a penny the poorer will it be for my presence: I am that now rare creature, a shy woman subject to stage fright. And I cannot help thinking that, despite the amiability to the native, the stranger, simply because he is a stranger, continues to have the preference, so many are the Englishmen and Englishwomen invited to deliver themselves before the Club who never could gather an audience at home.
