Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/830

800 poetical the subject, the muse is invoked; for surely Mr. Donnelly's late view of Mr. Washburne's personal character was not poetical, and yet four times he appealed to the Swan of Avon—"Who steals my purse," "Vaulting ambition," "I charge heethee [sic], Cromwell," "Shake not thy gory locks." The ingenuity with which poetry and prose are sometimes interwoven throws Mr. Wegg entirely into the shade. We do not refer to the "lion" that roared twice in the lobby by mistake (worse than Bully Bottom), but to such a debate as that, for instance, between Messrs. Pile and Marshall, on the comparative knavery of the two great parties, in which the latter quoted four lines, beginning—

His opponent was evidently unprepared to drop into poetry on the spot; but next morning came into the House, secured the floor, and fired away in this style, as the report went:

But he knew, also, that when, as in the case of the Democratic party,

Now, surely, this was as good as anything of Mr. Wegg's, and in the same vein. Take this, for instance:

And this leads us directly to the moral we aim at, namely, the "strain upon the intellect." When Mr. Boffin inquired of Mr. Wegg if poetry "would come dearer," that eminent elocutionist was obliged to say it would; because, as he justly remarked, "When a person comes to grind off poetry night after night," it must produce " a weakening effect on his mind." If this theory be true (and it can hardly be denied), the question is, may we not tremble for our orators?

— No man worthy of the sight of beauty can have failed to notice the great improvement which has taken place in the woman's figure, as seen by the naked eye, within the last year or two. It has acquired a grace and flow of outline, an ease of motion, and an unspeakable charm, to which it has for years, when "toiletted," been quite a stranger. But all who have noticed this blessed transformation may not have perceived exactly to what it is owing. The cause of it is unmistakable, one which should be, and which yet rarely is, in constant and unrestrained operation, and which yet is simply a compliance with nature. Women's waists are now where they ought to be. In other words, the waist of a woman's gown is now where the waist is of the woman. Consequently, every woman's figure has now all the charm which nature has bestowed upon it in this respect, and of which, by the long waists of recent years, it has been almost entirely deprived. Upon women's waists the distinguished Dr. Knox, professor of anatomy in the University of London, has the following interesting passage in his work on Artistic Anatomy, a subject upon which he is one of the first living authorities, and which he considers solely from the esthetic point of view: "The contours and flexuous undulations of the torso in woman are of surpassing beauty. The chest is shorter than in man, and of a form entirely different. The waist is placed where man's is not, but the reverse. In man the waist is low; in woman it is high, commencing at the fifth rib and extending to the eighth or ninth. In man it commences with the ninth rib and extends to the haunches. Nothing in the anatomy of the human frame has been more mistaken than the form of the waist in woman." So far Dr. Knox, with whom every observant man who is capable of beauty, and for that matter, every such woman, must not only agree but feel. And yet do we not know that next year, nay, verily, next month, at the order of certain mantua-making folk in Paris, all the women would carry their waists down to their hips, and, moreover, put themselves therefor to the torture of steel and cordage? They would fling away as worthless one of the chief and most womanly of their personal charms rather than not be in the fashion. Well did Eve adopt the fig-leaf as the sign that she had fallen.