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CHAP. X.] things! You take all the poetry out of it." For my own part I cannot see what poetry there can be in a girl's waist reduced to ten inches less than its proper size, any more than there is in the mangled skull of a Chinook Indian. When I see a figure like that described, I invariably think of what it would look like on the dissecting-table, and probably the same unpleasant idea would occur to any one who is familiar with the natural proportions of the human frame.

I do not mean to decry the beauty of a small waist, for those whose organs are small have naturally small, fairylike figures; but I contend most strongly, that to reduce the waist of a largely-built woman to the dimensions of that of a slight girl, is to produce a ridiculous deformity. I purposely call it ridiculous, for philosophically speaking, those things which we call ridiculous, which arouse our sense of humour, will be found on inquiry to be ill-adapted to the end they are intended to subserve, to the extent that they are out of harmony with their surroundings. We speak of absurd or ludicrous efforts, which are just those that are purposeless or ineffectual. Caricatures are drawn with big heads and small bodies. It is in this way that a squeezed-in waist is ridiculous, for it is evidently out of harmony with its surroundings, and it would jar fearfully against our sense of proportion were it not that that sense has become dulled by habit. (Compare Plates 1 and 2.)

At the risk of its becoming repulsive to the dainty and sentimental among my readers, I will