section of a sea-wave--its flow, relaxation, and fall; but this is a
single movement, whereas the line of cigarette-smoke in a still room
fluctuates in twenty delicate directions. No, it is impossible to accept
the saying that the poor spiral or scroll of a human design is anything
but a participation in the innumerable curves and curls of nature.

Now the plaid is not only "cut off" from natural sources, as Ruskin says
of Oriental design--the plaid is not only cut off from nature, and cut
off from nature by the yard, for it is to be measured off in inorganic
quantity; but it is even a kind of intentional contradiction of all
natural or vital forms. And it is equally defiant of vital tone and of
vital colour. Everywhere in nature tone is gradual, and between the
fainting of a tone and the failing of a curve there is a charming
analogy. But the tartan insists that its tone shall be invariable, and
sharply defined by contrasts of dark and light. As to colour, it has
colours, not colour.

But that plaid should now go so far afield as to decorate the noble
garment of the Indies is ill news. True, Ruskin saw nothing but cruelty
and corruption in Indian life or art; but let us hear an Indian maxim in
regard to those who, in cruel places, are ready sufferers: "There," says
the _Mahabharata_, "where women are treated with respect, the very gods
are said to be filled with joy. Women deserve to be honoured. Serve ye
them. Bend your will before them. By honouring women ye are sure to
attain to the fruition of all things." And the rash teachers of our
youth would have persuaded us that this generous lesson was first learnt
in Teutonic forests!

Nothing but extreme lowliness can well reply, or would probably be
suffered to reply, to this Hindu profession of reverence. Accordingly
the woman so honoured makes an offering of cakes and oil to the souls of
her mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law, and great-grandmother-in-law, in
gratitude for their giving her a good husband. And to go back for a
moment to Ruskin's contrast of the two races, it was assuredly under the
stress of some too rash reasoning that he judged the lovely art of the
East as a ministrant to superstition, cruelty, and pleasure, whether
wrought upon the temple, the sword, or the girdle. The innocent art of
innocent Hindu women for centuries decked their most modest heads, their
dedicated and sequestered beauty, their child-loving breasts, and
consecrated c