Men Unsuccessful look to me for new inspiration, new hope.  They are always interesting.  They are mental fragments flung aside by God, and by Him held down—­so they tell me.  They are bitter, cynical, and nearly always dyspeptic.  They are near of kin to my Sympathy Seekers, who are pale, light-haired creatures, continually making appeals for sympathy.  But my Sympathy Finders are very near and dear to me.  They are generally silent, melancholy men.  They are always bearable, unless they chance to be in love with some other woman, and make me, along with a dozen other people, their one and only confidant.  Then is my life made a burden.  I am privately interviewed on all occasions, the more inopportune the better.  I am cornered and made a vessel for his pent-up feelings.  I am told of her cruel treatment.  I am told of her charms and of her faults—­principally not loving him.  I am worked up into a nervous state.  My physical nature grants him tears, while my mental nature speculates about the sincerity of his passion and just to how many others he may have told the self-same story.  Of course all this is wearing, yet it is very interesting.

Newspaper Reporters are a much-abused, downtrodden class.  I have known many, and I have yet to know one unworthy of a true woman’s confidence.  Treat them as if they were dogs, and they will act like dogs—­forever barking and biting at your heels; but treat them like human beings, with due and just consideration, and they will prove to you the wisdom of your course.  Newspaper Poets gather about me in a body.  I have all styles and gradations.  They run the entire range from bad to fairly good; but there is one who writes a most exquisite verse.  He is a tender, sympathetic, yet cynical man.  Somehow he has slipped away.  I was not able to hold him, nor did I wish or even dare to keep him.  He is scornful of the world.  He sees no reason why he should be here.  He would rather not have been born—­if he had been consulted.  After all, I may have idealized and overrated him.  One of his rival poet friends once told me that my favorite and favored verse-maker was an inveterate poker-player and a continual loser!  Ergo, the cynicism and scornfulness of the world.  But banish tawdry thought!

Authors Private and Authors Public haunt my salon; men who have written and printed “little things of their own” for “private circulation only;” and men who have given their books to the world at large—­generally to the detriment of the world.  They are full of twists and notions.  They seek me to gain admiration, and they do—­for I am a generous person.  People Of The Army and People Of The Navy are valuable to have around, for the sake of looks and manners.  They never disappoint you.  A man who has been on an Arctic expedition is especially desirable.  You get material for a hero at small cost.  I have one Arctic Explorer, and two army men who have been stationed in Yellowstone Park, and who fought with the dead Custer.  My Bohemians are my chief delight, and they are many.  They give the brightest, strongest colors to my Kaleidoscopic Circle.  They give me new strength to fight the little battles and calms of every-day life.  They give me the halo and the aroma of a new existence.  This, in brief, the retinue.