al
form of scenery than most modern scene-painting is. From the same master-
hand which designed the curtain of Madison Square Theatre I should like
very much to see a good decorative landscape in scene-painting; for I
have seen no open-air scene in any theatre which did not really mar the
value of the actors. One must either, like Titian, make the landscape
subordinate to the figures, or, like Claude, the figures subordinate to
the landscape; for if we desire realistic acting we cannot have realistic
scene-painting.

I need not describe, however, how the beauty of Hester Grazebrook
survived the crude roses and the mauve tablecloth triumphantly. That it
is a beauty that will be appreciated to the full in America I do not
doubt for a moment, for it is only countries which possess great beauty
that can appreciate beauty at all. It may also influence the art of
America as it has influenced the art of England, for of the rare Greek
type it is the most absolutely perfect example.

The Philistine may, of course, object that to be absolutely perfect is
impossible. Well, that is so: but then it is only the impossible things
that are worth doing nowadays!

WOMAN'S DRESS

(Pall Mall Gazette, October 14, 1884.)

Mr. Oscar Wilde, who asks us to permit him 'that most charming of all
pleasures, the pleasure of answering one's critics,' sends us the
following remarks:--

The 'Girl Graduate' must of course have precedence, not merely for her
sex but for her sanity: her letter is extremely sensible. She makes two
points: that high heels are a necessity for any lady who wishes to keep
her dress clean from the Stygian mud of our streets, and that without a
tight corset 'the ordinary number of petticoats and etceteras' cannot be
properly or conveniently held up. Now, it is quite true that as long as
the lower garments are suspended from the hips a corset is an absolute
necessity; the mistake lies in not suspending all apparel from the
shoulders. In the latter case a corset becomes useless, the body is left
free and unconfined for respiration and motion, there is more health, and
consequently more beauty. Indeed all the most ungainly and uncomfortable
articles of dress that fashion has ever in her folly prescribed, not the
tight corset merely, but the farthingale, the vertugadin, the hoop, the
crinoline, and that modern monstrosity the so-called 'dress improver'
also, all of them have owed their origin to the same er