should both preserve and develop our individuality. What we need is more study of art; not of the arts with their special technique, painting, sculpture, and music, but a knowledge of the principles of art at the centre, the art human, the art of daily life. The models which seem to be followed in dress to-day are the German-soldier man and the Noah's-ark woman. People are less anxious to wear what is becoming than to wear what is the latest style. The fundamental laws of beauty are violated by modern costumes. The beauty of lines radiating from the points of support which is so fine in the Grecian dress is ignored now, A beautiful woman is on her lowest plane in a tight-fitting dress-an ugly woman at her best in drapery. The graceful undulations of the form are prevented by the tightening, which is just enough to cramp motion, and not tight enough to reveal beauty; and the laws of health, as well as those of beauty, are violated. The freedom of motion and the grace of carriage are no longer possible. Men and women are mechanical; their movements are abrupt and lack the grace of expression. The gestures of people in conversation and of actors on the stage do not extend over the whole body, but are spasmodic, broken, and expressionless. The fundamental law of expression is control at the centre, freedom at the extremities, and perfect flexibility of all parts of the body, so that it responds to the

passing emotion and translates it faithfully. The loves of to-day, not the scars of yesterday, require the highest harmony of motion for their expression. In great actors the body is so sensitive that the motion passes over it in great waves, so fine, so complicated in its harmony that we think of it as expression, not gesture. Thus we often hear it said of a great actress, "Oh, she makes very few gestures." Talking once with Madame Ponisi about Rachel, she said: "I cannot describe her. I can only speak of her effect on the audience. We fairly clung to our seats in horror." "What did she do?" I asked. “Oh, she did not do anything. She only stood by a pillar." Rachel motionless by a pillar and the modern girl motionless in a tailor-made suit stand on the opposite poles of expression.

Interview with EDMUND RUSSELL.

THE HOME OF A SOUL.-The house in which she lives, says a mystical German writer, is for the orderly soul which does not live on blindly before her, but is ever, out of her passing experiences, building and adorning the parts of a many-roomed abode for herself, only an expansion of the body; as the body, according to the philosophy of Swedenborg, is but an expansion of the soul. For such an orderly soul as she lives onward, all sorts of delicate affinities establish themselves between her and the doors and passage-ways, the lights and shadows of her outward abode, until she seems incorporated into it-till at last in the entire expressiveness of what is outward, there is to her, to speak properly, no longer any distinction between outward and inward at all; and the particular picture or space upon the wall, the scent of flowers in the air at a particular window, become to her not so much apprehended objects as themselves powers of apprehension and doorways to things beyond-seeds or rudiiments of her faculties, by which she dimly yet surely apprehends a matter lying beyond her actually attained capacity of sense and spirit. -Marius the Epicurean.

"The end and aim of all our work should be the harmonious growth of our whole being."—Froebel. "Make work what God meant it to be: the school of character. There are only two states, life and death, the presence or absence of helpful association."-Heber Newton.

"Books are no more education than laws are virtue."-Frederic Harrison.

CHAPTER XX.

A TALK ON HOUSE DECORATION.

A woman's description of another woman-How to arrange our walls-Striking contrasts call too much attention to themselves-Complexity in color-Black again-Practical art-What is conventionalization? ONE of the most unique, winning, and attractive specimens of womanhood it has ever been my lot to see. Medium size, lithe, panther-like in motion, dark hair and eyes, surrounded by a cloud of wonderful gold-red silken robe which hung about her in straight, scarcely-draped lengths from shoulder to floor.

It was the color of sumach-leaves in late fall. It formed a small circle just above the collarbones and well below the turn of the neck. The back was close-fitting, with corsetless, plump sinuous curves. The front hung as in the pictures of old Roman senators, ever so slightly raised

from the feet to the left, forming a few easy folds like so many swan's necks. The sleeves were smooth and long. The neck was hung in strands of red coral, punctuated at intervals by knobs of carved coral, large as walnuts, from which strands depended irregularly to the waist. The dark brown hair was coiled low on the neck and brushed out at the sides as in that Egyptian picture yonder. The dark eyes glowed like soft coals of fire from under a low, broad forehead. White teeth snapped and gleamed while she talked, and the small hands spoke quite as much as the lips, I think. Fun of it was we all sat there looking for her appearance from behind a quaint Indian screen that graced the stage entrance, when to our astonishment up she swirled through the aisle from behind us, her long golden train snaking along after her noiseless motion, her graceful head curving from right to left in recognition of the soft "womany" glove-pats that greeted her appearance. Her voice was pitched in a musical, gurgling alto distinct and adaptable. Her manner was exactly as it might be here in this elegant boudoir talking to us two-anything less like a female lecturer you cannot imagine.

"Em; what did she say about the decoration ?" The very first sentence made me think about Mamie D. She said that inherent or natural beauty should never be snuffed out by adornment. You know, Mamie just dredges herself

with brilliant stones after she is dressed, so that in looking at her we see nothing but them, and it never occurs to us that she has wonderful sparkling eyes, teeth, and complexion..

She said that the least bit of inherent beauty was ever so much more important and attractive than that which was accessory, and that when the latter was placed over the former good taste was violated and unconsciously the mind rejected, especially if a trained, attentive mind.

She explained the leaning of a cultivated mind to light and delicate hues by saying that sharp contrasts of red and white, black and yellow, blue and red, were but the beginning of observation as in children and the ignorant; the finer variations of color appealed only to developed taste. Good idea I have often wondered why the common colors" were considered vulgar. Indeed, I remember when they were more attractive to myself than they are now.

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She objected to pictures as wall ornaments and square frames for backgrounds, saying they more often than not disfigure the heads and faces of people standing in front of them. For instance, see me stand in front of this yellow frame, green landscape, brown and red figuring, with my blonde tints and lavender dressing. The discordance is as bad for your paper too as for me. Probably "low taste" would not experience the sensation of seasickness which such conjunctions pro