e envious of those who did once see Grisi plain, always shall find
solace in this pretty picture of her; holding it to be, for all the
artificiality of its convention, as much more real as it is prettier
than the stringent ballet-girls of Degas.

'HO-TEI'

A COLOURED DRAWING BY HOKUSAI

What monster have we here? Who is he that sprawls thus, ventrirotund,
against the huge oozing wine-skin? Wide his nose, narrowly-slit his
eyes, and with little teeth he smiles at us through a beard of bright
russet--a beard soft as the russet coat of a squirrel, and sprouting in
several tiers according to the several chins that ascend behind it from
his chest. Nude he is but for a few dark twists of drapery. One dimpled
foot is tucked under him, the other cocked before him. With a
bifurcated fist (such is his hand) he pillows the bald dome of his
head. He seems to be very happy, sprawling here in the twilight. The
wine oozes from the wine-skin; but he, replete, takes no heed of it. On
the ground before him are a few almond-blossoms, blown there by the
wind. He is snuffing their fragrance, I think.

Who is he? 'Ho-Tei,' you tell me; 'god of increase, god of the
corn-fields and rice-fields, patron of all little children in Japan--a
blend of Dionysus and Santa Claus.' So? Then his look belies him. He is
far too fat to care for humanity, too gross to be divine. I suspect he
is but some self-centred sage, whom Hokusai beheld with his own eyes in
a devious corner of Yedo. A hermit he is, surely; one not more affable
than Diogenes, yet wiser than he, being at peace with himself and
finding (as it were) the honest man without emerging from his own tub;
a complacent Diogenes; a Diogenes who has put on flesh. Looking at him,
one is reminded of that over-swollen monster gourd which to young Nevil
Beauchamp and his Marquise, as they saw it from their river-boat,
'hanging heavily down the bank on one greenish yellow cheek, in
prolonged contemplation of its image in the mirror below,' so
sinisterly recalled Monsieur le Marquis. But to us this 'self-adored,
gross bald Cupid' has no such symbolism, and we revel as
whole-heartedly as he in his monstrous contours. 'I am very beautiful,'
he seems to murmur. And we endorse the boast. At the same time, we
transfer to Hokusai the credit which this glutton takes all to himself.
It is Hokusai who made him, delineating his paunch in that one soft
summary curve, and echoing it in the curve of the wine-ski