The Sarah Bernhardt tea-gown, for instance, figured in the
present issue, has many good points about it, and the gigantic
dress-improver does not appear to me to be really essential to the mode;
and though the Postillion costume of the fancy dress ball is absolutely
detestable in its silliness and vulgarity, the so-called Late Georgian
costume in the same plate is rather pleasing. I must, however, protest
against the idea that to chronicle the development of Fashion implies any
approval of the particular forms that Fashion may adopt.

* * * * *

Mrs. Craik's article on the condition of the English stage will, I feel
sure, be read with great interest by all who are watching the development
of dramatic art in this country. It was the last thing written by the
author of John Halifax, Gentleman, and reached me only a few days before
her lamented death. That the state of things is such as Mrs. Craik
describes, few will be inclined to deny; though, for my own part, I must
acknowledge that I see more vulgarity than vice in the tendencies of the
modern stage; nor do I think it possible to elevate dramatic art by
limiting its subject-matter. On tue une litterature quand on lui
interdit la verite humaine. As far as the serious presentation of life
is concerned, what we require is more imaginative treatment, greater
freedom from theatric language and theatric convention. It may be
questioned, also, whether the consistent reward of virtue and punishment
of wickedness be really the healthiest ideal for an art that claims to
mirror nature. However, it is impossible not to recognise the fine
feeling that actuates every line of Mrs. Craik's article; and though one
may venture to disagree with the proposed method, one cannot but
sympathise with the purity and delicacy of the thought, and the high
nobility of the aim.

* * * * *

The French Minister of Education, M. Spuller, has paid Racine a very
graceful and appropriate compliment, in naming after him the second
college that has been opened in Paris for the higher education of girls.
Racine was one of the privileged few who was allowed to read the
celebrated Traite de l'Education des Filles before it appeared in print;
he was charged, along with Boileau, with the task of revising the text of
the constitution and rules of Madame de Maintenon's great college; it was
for the Demoiselles de St. Cyr that he composed Athalie; and he devoted a
great deal of his time to the education of his own children. The Lycee
Racine will, no doubt, become as important an institution as the Lycee
Fenelon, and the speech delivered by M. Spuller on the occasion of its
opening was full of the happiest augury for the future. M. Spuller dwelt
at great length on the value of Goethe's aphorism, that the test of a
good wife is her capacity to take her husband's place and to become a
father to his children, and mentioned that the thing that struck him most
in America was the wonderful Brooklyn Bridge, a superb titanic structure,
which was completed under the direction of the engineer's wife, the
engineer himself having died while the building of the bridge was in
progress. 'Il me semble,' said M. Spuller, 'que la femme de l'ingenieur
du pont de Brooklyn a realise la pensee de Goethe, et que non seulement
elle est devenue un pere pour ses enfants, mais un autre pere pour
l'oeuvre admirable, vraiment unique, qui a immortalise le nom qu'elle
portait avec son mari.' M.