d
bridges and our domed hotels!"

"You are forgetting that big palace surmounted an immense melon-shaped
dome," grumbled by M. Daniset, an old art amateur, in a voice of
restrained rage. "I am amazed at the degree of ugliness which a modern
city can attain. Alca is becoming Americanised. Everywhere we are
destroying all that is free, unexpected, measured, restrained, human,
or traditional among the things that are left us. Everywhere we are
destroying that charming object, a piece of an old wall that bears up
the branches of a tree. Everywhere we are suppressing some fragment
of light and air, some fragment of nature, some fragment of the
associations that still remain with us, some fragment of our fathers,
some fragment of ourselves. And we are putting up frightful, enormous,
infamous houses, surmounted in Viennese style by ridiculous domes, or
fashioned after the models of the 'new art' without mouldings, or
having profiles with sinister corbels and burlesque pinnacles, and such
monsters as these shamelessly peer over the surrounding buildings. We
see bulbous protuberances stuck on the fronts of buildings and we are
told they are 'new art' motives. I have seen the 'new art' in other
countries, but it is not so ugly as with us; it has fancy and it has
simplicity. It is only in our own country that by a sad privilege we may
behold the newest and most diverse styles of architectural ugliness. Not
an enviable privilege!"

"Are you not afraid," asked M. Ceres severely, "are you not afraid that
these bitter criticisms tend to keep out of our capital the foreigners
who flow into it from all arts of the world and who leave millions
behind them?"

"You may set your mind at rest about that," answered M. Daniset.
"Foreigners do not come to admire our buildings; they come to see our
courtesans, our dressmakers, and our dancing saloons."

"We have one bad habit," sighed M. Ceres, "it is that we calumniate
ourselves."

Madame Clarence as an accomplished hostess thought it was time to return
to the subject of love and asked M. Jumel his opinion of M. Leon Blum's
recent book in which the author complained. . . .

". . . That an irrational custom," went on Professor Haddock, "prevents
respectable young ladies from making love, a thing they would enjoy
doing, whilst mercenary girls do it too much and without getting any
enjoyment out of it. It is indeed deplorable. But M. Leon Blum need
not fret too much. If the evil exists, as