A Little Journey in the World

Journey in the World, by Charles
Dudley Warner

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Title: Little Journey in the World
Author: Charles Dudley Warner
Release Date: October 10, 2004 [EBook #3103]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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JOURNEY IN THE WORLD ***

Produced by David Widger

A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
By Charles Dudley Warner

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH
The title naturally suggested for this story was "A Dead Soul," but it
was discarded because of the similarity to that of the famous novel by
Nikolai Gogol--"Dead Souls"--though the motive has nothing in
common with that used by the Russian novelist. Gogol exposed an
extensive fraud practiced by the sale, in connection with lands, of the
names of "serfs" (called souls) not living, or "dead souls."
This story is an attempt to trace the demoralization in a woman's soul
of certain well-known influences in our existing social life. In no other
way could certain phases of our society be made to appear so distinctly
as when reflected in the once pure mirror of a woman's soul.
The character of Margaret is the portrait of no one woman. But it was
suggested by the career of two women (among others less marked) who
had begun life with the highest ideals, which had been gradually eaten
away and destroyed by "prosperous" marriages and association with
unscrupulous methods of acquiring money.
The deterioration was gradual. The women were in all outward conduct
unchanged, the conventionalities of life were maintained, the graces
were not lost, the observances of the duties of charities and of religion
were even emphasized, but worldliness had eaten the heart out of them,
and they were "dead souls." The tragedy of the withered life was a
thousand-fold enhanced by the external show of prosperous
respectability.
The story was first published (in 1888) in Harper's Monthly. During its
progress--and it was printed as soon as each installment was ready (a
very poor plan)--I was in receipt of the usual letters of sympathy, or
protest, and advice. One sympathetic missive urged the removal of
Margaret to a neighboring city, where she could be saved by being
brought under special Christian influences. The transfer, even in a
serial, was impossible, and she by her own choice lived the life she had
entered upon.
And yet, if the reader will pardon the confidence, pity intervened to

shorten it. I do not know how it is with other writers, but the persons
that come about me in a little drama are as real as those I meet in
every-day life, and in this case I found it utterly impossible to go on to
what might have been the bitter, logical development of Margaret's
career. Perhaps it was as well. Perhaps the writer should have no
despotic power over his creations, however slight they are. He may
profitably recall the dictum of a recent essayist that "there is no limit to
the mercy of God."
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
Hartford, August 11, 1899.

A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
I
We were talking about the want of diversity in American life, the lack
of salient characters. It was not at a club. It was a spontaneous talk of
people who happened to be together, and who had fallen into an
uncompelled habit of happening to be together. There might have been
a club for the study of the Want of Diversity in American Life. The
members would have been obliged to set apart a stated time for it, to
attend as a duty, and to be in a mood to discuss this topic at a set hour
in the future. They would have mortgaged another precious portion of
the little time left us for individual life. It is a suggestive thought that at
a given hour all over the United States innumerable clubs might be
considering the Want of Diversity in American Life. Only in this way,
according to our present methods, could one expect to accomplish
anything in regard to this foreign-felt want. It seems illogical that we
could produce diversity by all doing the same thing at the same time,
but we know the value of congregate effort. It seems to superficial
observers that all Americans are born busy. It is not so. They are born
with a fear of not being busy; and if they are intelligent and in
circumstances of leisure, they have such a sense of their responsibility
that they hasten to allot all