k exception, she informed me, to many
statements concerning the American girl in the book. I made a point to
prove to her that all was right, and all was truth, and I think I
persuaded her to abandon the prosecution.

[Illustration: THE LADY INTERVIEWER.]

To tell the truth, now the real truth, mind you, I am rather tired of
hearing about the American girl. The more I see of her the more I am
getting convinced that she is--like the other girls in the world.

* * * * *

A friend, who came to have a chat with me after this lecture, has told
me that the influential people of the city are signing a petition to the
custodians of the museum calling upon them to drape all the nude
statues, and intimating their intention of boycotting the institution,
if the Venuses and Apollos are not forthwith provided with tuckers and
togas.

It is a well-known fact in the history of the world, that young
communities have no taste for fine art--they have no time to cultivate
it. If I had gone to Oklahoma, I should not have expected to find any
art feeling at all; but that in a city like Detroit, where there is such
evidence of intellectual life and high culture among the inhabitants, a
party should be found numerous and strong enough to issue such a heathen
dictate as this seems scarcely credible. I am inclined to think it must
be a joke. That the "unco guid" should flourish under the gloomy sky of
Great Britain I understand, but under the bright blue sky of America, in
that bracing atmosphere, I cannot.

It is most curious that there should be people who, when confronted
with some glorious masterpiece of sculpture, should not see the poetry,
the beauty of the human form divine. This is beyond me, and beyond any
educated Frenchman.

[Illustration: THE DRAPED STATUES.]

Does the "unco guid" exist in America, then? I should have thought that
these people, of the earth earthy, were not found out of England and
Scotland.

When I was in America two years ago, I heard that an English author of
some repute, talking one day with Mr. Richard Watson Gilder about the
Venus of Milo, had remarked that, as he looked at her beautiful form, he
longed to put his arms around her and kiss her. Mr. Gilder, who, as a
poet, as an artist, has felt only respect mingled with his admiration of
the matchless divinity, replied: "I hope she would have grown a pair of
arms for the occasion, so as to have slapped your face."

It