The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-08-25
WAYS OF AN ADVENTURES.
Lippincott's Magazine.

stylish house upon Murray Hill, when a woman of less adventurous mind would grovel in Tenth street or Washington square. I always pay my board by hook or by crook, but when I ever pay it promptly two weeks in succession my sense of supe- rior virtue becomes insufferable-to to myself. I always inform my landlady that it is absolutely impossible for me to meet my engagements regularly; if she cannot take me upon such grounds I must look elsewhere for one who can. Naturally my choice of pen- sions becomes thus more restricted than it would be were I not an adven- turess. Frequently I am compelled to remain in or return to house ob- jectionable to me. Sometimes have been obliged to dismiss myself grace fully from charming quarters because the presiding genius was as impecun- ious as myself, or more impatient. Yet never in my life left house in debt, and never failed to pay debt in timel subsist by the scanty and precarious earnings of my pen. It is & fairly facile and clever pen, and an industrious one. But no striking ability guides it; hence, have never been able to distinguish myself above the common herd of penny a. liners, who live with difficulty from hand to mouth, yet have not even the choice offered them whether to live or not. Perhaps I might live an easier life did take it upon lower altitude than Murray Hill. Mais que voulez vous2 lived here before 1 became an adven- turess; all my acquaintances live here; my married sisters live here, and my celebrated brothers-all more or less in the adventuring line. Were I to go lower down 1 should ieei myself a failure, broken-down rather than a successful adventures, and in my dull lexicon of elderly youth is no such word as fail. l am more fond of dressing gowns than of ball dresses, of solitude than of society, of books than of men. I am not trying to catch husband, and I never cared to have fortune. The most golden of my ambitions is to have money enough to be freed from this demnition grind of ink, to have leisure to read with out taunting demon at my ear, and 10 be always sure of my car fare when am miles away from Murray Hill should not, of course, be willing then to wear bonnet crouching upon my forehead when other bonnets soar aloft, but neither am I now; and I should then, as now, wear mismated gloves and boots most unwillingly; but doubtless then, as now, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust that nobody finds them out!
 Sometimes go to @ party or ball. Then surely it would wiring any other than an adventuring heart to know to what straits I am put. It is no un- common occurrence for me to wash out my one lace- trimmed and trained petticoat in the basin with running water in my dressing closet, and to wear it without ironing, rough dried in my tiny room. My faded slippers refreshened by polish, my gloves chalked or linked, my dress is the con- crete fushion of dozen abstract rem- nants, my ruches and ribbons the price of more anxious thought than a review of Posnett's Comparative Lit erature." often wonder when I am dressed, and said to present a stylish Appearance, what the feminine verdict would be upon me were to die in that rig. Would my mirscaiously- alarmed silk stockings, my patch-w work dress, and my rag-bag laces gain me the praise of suffering, toiling saint, or would be houted as dead fraud2
 Yet let no one doubt that the way of the adventures is hard. If any one does, let that one realize how some of my book reviews-said to be re- markably pungent and brilliant-are written. More than once-upon-a- time 1t has happened to me to receive a package of booka, when not a cent, not a scrap of paper, not even 6 post age stamp, relieved the bowling will derness of my impecuniosity. Before those reviews could be written I must, of course, have paperl Before could have paper, I must, of course, have money
 Therefore nothing was left me to do but clap portion of those books under my arm and march off on foot into the Ar-of region of Wideway where Grace church points discrep- antly lean finger unto celestial spheres. There is an enticing shop known to all, where yesterdays nov els and books of travel and biography grace tO-day's shelves at half last evenings cost. There sold my books, as 1 had sold many and many book before, and, hailing car, runbled triumphantly down town to buy my wholesale paper.