rl who has too small a waist, whether natural or
artificial." "In architecture, a pillar or support of any kind is called
debased and bad in art if what is supported be too heavy for the thing
supporting, and if a base be abnormally heavy and large for what it
upholds. The laws of proportion and balance must be understood. In a
waist of fifteen inches both are destroyed, and the corresponding effect
is unpleasant to the eye. The curve of the waist is coarse and
immoderate, utterly opposed to what Ruskin has shown to be beauty in a
curve. Real or artificial, such a waist is always ugly: if real, it is a
deformity that should be disguised; if artificial, it is culpable, and
nasty to boot."

No rhyming can withstand such reasoning. If the ballads really had any
effect in fostering an admiration of abnormally small waists, both
science and a truer conception of beauty should by this time have
counteracted their influence. Women cannot much longer, with decency,
plead ignorance of the results of a practice which would be ridiculous
were it less pernicious.

J.J.

VICTOR HUGO AT HOME.

On the steep heights of the Rue de Clichy, at the corner of a street, we
find the number 21. How many heads crowned either with a laurel or a
diadem have passed beneath the arch of this doorway since Victor Hugo
left the Rue Pigalle to take up his abode here! The apartment inhabited
by the poet can hardly be considered either spacious or elegant. Its
dining-room is of cramped dimensions, and the famous red drawing-room,
though handsomely furnished, lacks the air of individuality that one
would naturally expect to find in it. Probably this arises from the
wandering life that Victor Hugo has led for so many years. After the
_coup d'etat_ the furniture of his house in the Rue de la Tour
d'Auvergne was sold at auction. Contrary to custom, and probably through
the interference of some member of the imperial party, no police were at
hand to protect or watch over the articles exposed for sale.
Consequently, the depredations were frightful. Small objects were
carried off bodily, tapestries were cut to pieces and the furniture and
statues were mercilessly mutilated. One well-dressed man walked off with
Columbus's compass--that which the insurrectionists had a few months
before examined so respectfully, their leader remarking, "That compass
discovered America." Many of the poet's household treasures remain at
Hauteville House, in the islan