true and proper line of profile? I rejoice to think that we
ourselves are exempt. I attribute this to our love of Pompeian Pots
(on account of the beauty and distinction of this Pot's shape I spell
it with a big P), which has kept us straight in a world of
crookedness. The pursuit of profiles under difficulties--how much
more rare than a pursuit of knowledge! Talk of setting good examples
before our children! Bah! let us set good Pompeian Pots before our
children, and when they grow up they will not depart from them.

Lady Duff Gordon's _Letters from the Cape_, and her brilliant translation
of _The Amber Witch_, are, of course, well known. The latter book was,
with Lady Wilde's translation of _Sidonia the Sorceress_, my favourite
romantic reading when a boy. Her letters from Egypt are wonderfully
vivid and picturesque. Here is an interesting bit of art criticism:

Sheykh Yoosuf laughed so heartily over a print in an illustrated
paper from a picture of Hilton's of Rebekah at the well, with the old
'wekeel' of 'Sidi Ibraheem' (Abraham's chief servant) _kneeling_
before the girl he was sent to fetch, like an old fool without his
turban, and Rebekah and the other girls in queer fancy dresses, and
the camels with snouts like pigs. 'If the painter could not go into
"Es Sham" to see how the Arab really look,' said Sheykh Yoosuf, 'why
did he not paint a well in England, with girls like English
peasants--at least it would have looked natural to English people?
and the wekeel would not seem so like a madman if he had taken off a
hat!' I cordially agree with Yoosuf's art criticism. _Fancy_
pictures of Eastern things are hopelessly absurd.

Mrs. Ross has certainly produced a most fascinating volume, and her book
is one of the books of the season. It is edited with tact and judgment.

_Three Generations of English Women_. _Memoirs and Correspondence of
Susannah Taylor_, _Sarah Austin_, _and Lady Duff Gordon_. By Janet Ross,
author of Italian Sketches, Land of Manfred, etc. (Fisher Unwin.)

POETRY AND PRISON
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, January 3, 1889.)

Prison has had an admirable effect on Mr. Wilfrid Blunt as a poet. The
_Love Sonnets of Proteus_, in spite of their clever Musset-like
modernities and their swift brilliant wit, were but affected or fantastic
at best. They were simply the records of passing moods and moments, of
which