_After All, There Is Nothing Like Modern Sculpture to Stimulate the Imagination_
There was a time when one visited the Natural History Museums to observe Nature’s latest vagaries in the shape of undeveloped amoebæ in bowls, rudimentary horns on recently unearthed amphibians, and models of funny little puffins, and green lizards, who had gone wrong while still in a pre-natal state.
Now one may see all these little jokes of Mother Nature at any fashionable exhibition of ultra modernist sculpture. The city is full of them. You are probably familiar with them. Here, for instance, are a few, which have been named by their creators as follows--reading from left to right--along the very top row: “The Birth of Love,” “Portrait of My Wife,” “Study of a lady,” “Fruitage,” “Inhibited Motherhood” and, finally, “The Death of Libido.”
_Showing That a Profiteer Is Without Honour in His Own Country_
Mr. John R. Blivvins, of America, one of the leading figures in that noble band of munitions factory owners who did such yeoman service--for themselves--all through the great conflict. However, even though peace is here, there is still work to be done,--Mr. Blivvins is about to crash in on British Society. By way of a start in the right direction, he has purchased--at 10 per cent discount for cash--an ancestral estate equipped with all the modern conveniences, including built-in butlers, hot and cold running footmen at all hours, and a resident bishop. Everything goes with the estate but the title, and Mr. Blivvins looks to his attractive daughter, Angelica, to furnish that, by marrying one.
Up to this moment, everything has gone along beautifully. Angelica has worked up a visiting Duke to the proposal point, and Mr. Blivvins has behaved so conservatively that the dinner guests are on the verge of accepting him. And then he had to wreck the entire works. Led away by too conscientious attention to the products of the ancestral wine-cellar, Mr. B. is, with unfortunate geniality, insisting that the footman try one of his best cigars. The Duke might overlook this, but the footman--never.
This moment marks the dawn of a new life for the Blivvins family. Their future seems to be practically assured. Angelica, the one and only daughter, has got in some deadly work on one of the local Dukes, who has been pressed into coming down for the week-end. To make it all delightfully homelike, the Duke has brought along his sister, one of the most unmarried noble-women in the entire United Kingdom. This charming little domestic scene shows the arrival of the guests, just at tea time. Angelica is going strong with the Duke (his is the third figure from the right--the clean-cut, red-blooded lad of barely seventy summers). Mr. Blivvins is welcoming the bishop to the little circle--a bishop is always so ornamental when draped gracefully around a tea-table.