I
warrant before Eve had finished her fig-leaf petticoat she was bothering
Adam to know if he thought there could be another woman anywhere who had
a garment of rarer leaves than her own.'
"The clubs do somewhat better, being under male management, but those
among them that ranked as so conservative that membership was the hall
mark of intellectual acquirements and stamped a man as either author,
artist, or amateur of letters and the fine arts, have had their doors
pushed open by many of those who wish to wear in public the name of
being without good right, and so the little groups of kindred spirits
have broken away, the authors in one direction, the followers of the
drama to habitations of their own, artists who are too independent to be
overborne by money in another, and thus the splitting spirit increases
until it vanishes in a maze of cliques and coteries. The names may stand
on the lists, the faces are absent, and one must wander through half a
dozen clubs to really meet the aggregation of thinkers and workers of
the grade who gathered in the snug corners of the Century's old club
house in East Fifteenth Street when we were young fellows, and my father
secured us cards for an occasional monthly meeting as the greatest
favour he could do us.
"Come down if you can, take a holiday, or rather night, and go with me to
the January meeting, and we will also stroll among some of our old
haunts.
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