of artificial instinct that
qualifies him for the exigencies of his servitude; but submissiveness
_per se_, however valuable for plastic purposes, is certainly not a
characteristic concomitant of superior intelligence. In the soul of the
Hindoo, the Chinese, and the Eastern Slav, the long-inculcated duty of
subordination has become almost a second nature, while the most
intelligent tribes of the ancient Greeks were famous--or, from a Chinese
point of view, perhaps infamous--for a strong tendency in the opposite
direction.

Patience is not a prominent gift of our four-handed relatives, but
compensating nature has endowed them with the genius of self-help and
its adjuvant talents,--observation, causality, imitativeness,
covetousness, and self-asserting pluck. They also possess a fair share
of such faculties as inquisitiveness, vigilance, and perseverance, all
rudiments, indeed, but the rudiments of supremacy.

FELIX L. OSWALD.

* * * * *

ELUSIVE

Just out of reach she lightly swings,
My Psyche with the rainbowed wings,
A floating flower, by winds impelled,
The honeyed spray has caught and held.
Now circling low, with grace divine,
She sips the tulip's chaliced wine.
Why should I seek to bring her nigh
And find--a simple butterfly?

O isles in ocean's azure set,
Like sculptured dome and minaret
Your purpled cliffs and headlands rise
Against the far-off, misty skies.
Yet, thither borne by helpful breeze,
As lifts the veil from circling seas,
Well know I your enchanted land
Would prove but rugged rock and sand.

O friend whose words of wisdom rare
Inspire my soul to do and dare,
Across the distance wide and drear
I will not reach to bring you near.
Why cast ideal grace away
To find you only common clay?
The best of life and thought and speech
Is that which lies--just out of reach.

SARAH D. HOBART.

* * * * *

THE PARISIAN COUTURIER.

The _couturier_--the bearded dressmaker, the masculine artist in silk
and satin--is an essentially modern and Parisian phenomenon. It is true
that the elegant and capricious Madame de Pompadour owed most of her
toilets and elegant accoutrements to the genius of Supplis, the famous
_tailleur pour dames_ or ladies' tailor, of the epoch. But Supplis was
an exception, and he never assumed the name of _couturier_, the
masculine form of _couturiere_, "dress-maker." That appellation was
reserved for