into consideration, as well as height, because a short, stout person, with a given amount of movement at the feet pointed outward, sways at the shoulders more than a taller person does with the toes turned out to the same degree; not actually more, but disproportionately with reference to height and breadth, and therefore to effect produced. Hence, the marked rolling motion of the shoulders, appropriate to the gait of a sailor, but not compatible with a graceful walk, is to be avoided by modifying the position of the feet with reference to individual physical conformation.

The length of the step should be proportioned to the length of the leg. If the foot is thrown too far forward for the natural stride, or the ankle-joint is not allowed play, when the foot reaches the ground it strikes stiffly, with a jar, on the end of the heel. The length of the step and the flexure of the ankle should be such as to allow the parts of the sole to touch the ground almost simultaneously.

The toes must never be turned out so much, nor the foot be so placed, as to allow the foot to rest on the outer edge. Neither must it be allowed to rest on the inner edge, but in all positions be firmly planted on the ground. The first position gives a simian, or ape-like, effect to the foot, and degrades the whole movement of the body. The second has the effect of what is known in surgery as splay-foot, in which the inner part of the ankle actually touches the ground, and has a most ungainly appearance. However, short of deformity, this position is, with the toes turned out, difficult to assume.

There is no more awkward appearance in walking than that produced by the toes excessively turned out, so that the side of the leg is seen in a person advancing presented to the front. Under these circumstances the movement of both leg and body is most unsightly, not to be exceeded by, if less vulgar than, the effect produced by turning the toes in, the essential vulgarity

of which is recognized by its being the invariable attitude of the circus clown.

In brief, turn the toes out slightly, graduate the step so that the parts of the sole of the foot shall reach the ground as nearly as possible simultaneously and squarely planted. Make the whole movement elastic; avoiding, on the one hand, the appearance of stiffness, and, on the other, that of springiness at the knees, the first a sign of muscular weakness, and the other an old buck's ill-advised protest against encroaching senility. When going at a moderate pace, let the arms, when unincumbered, swing gently in unison with the movement of the body, and the side, not the back of the hand, be to the front. When going at high speed, let the arms move vigorously at the sides in aid of the movement. In all movement of the arms, when walking, be careful not to let the forearm pass across the body as seen from the front. This action characterizes the rapid walk of the bumpkin, the hoodlum, and of all untrained persons. Examine the soles of your shoes occasionally for evidence of what you have been doing as to proper planting of the foot on the ground. If the heel is jammed, and the outer edge of the sole unduly worn, you turn your toes out too much, that is certain; and either your step is too long for the length of the leg, or your ankle-joint does not flex enough as the foot is about to be placed on the ground. Perhaps both causes are operative at the same time in effecting the wear and tear of the heel, and hence, full evidence being procurable by you, it is in your power gradually to modify and correct the error.

One thing is primarily necessary to grace, as well as to beauty,-form. But, even given form, beauty of the highest order cannot exist without grace. Grace, in turn, cannot exist without freedom of action in every part of the body. Nothing so mars it as constriction of the trunk and feet. Why do the movements of little girls dancing give so much pleasure to the

spectator, but that they exhibit the natural freedom of movement belonging to youth? There may not be present any particular physical beauty, and yet this endowment alone is ravishing. Observe only a few years afterward the movements of the same girls when similarly engaged, and see how the grace, which should by education have increased, has largely departed or entirely vanished. Whence does this arise but from the habit of constraining dress having reduced vigor and suppleness of body? The trunk, arms, and legs have lost the habit of subtle turns of beauty, which glide into each other with rhythmical flow. Stiffness pervades the whole carriage, whether in sitting, walking, dancing, or running; which last has come to be wellnigh impossible. Thousands of women who have within them. infinite capacity for grace, always move constrainedly through life, in their stifling and circulation-impeding corsets, their excruciating shoes, and, when fashion so wills, in sleeves so tight as to restrict them to the gestures of a kangaroo. Look on at ball-play, or at any pastime where young men are congregated, and see their athletic pose and movement and unconfined grace, and what a contrast do we find between them and the majority of young women in physical development and the highest being! So it often comes to pass that many individuals of the fair sex, which nature has most distinctively endowed with capacity for grace, deliberately abdicate with their rights their fullest empire

over men.

If we were instructing girls and young women in calisthenics, we would surely take advantage of the effects produced in the bearing of the whole person by the carrying of objects like water-jars upon the head. No one who has ever been in climes where women thus habitually bear such burdens can have any doubt as to the excellence of the training for securing graceful attitude. The arms, too, as they are sometimes raised alternately at intervals, to re-adjust the burden or to insure its

safety, touching with the finger-tips the poised jar or other object, come in for a share of training in gracefulness. The first meeting of Jacob with the beautiful Rebecca at the well was singularly adapted, from the setting in which she appeared, to bring about the love at first sight that ensued.

Montaigne remarks in one of his essays, that—

Those mean fellows that teach to dance, not being able to represent the presence and decency of our nobleness, are fain to supply it with dangerous leaps and other strange motions and fantastic tricks. And the ladies are less put to it in dances where there are several coupées, changes, and quick motions of the body, than in some other of a more solemn kind, where they are only to move a natural pace, and to represent their ordinary grace and presence.

This is but equivalent to saying that twinkling feet, leaps, and pigeon-wings may but serve to conceal total lack of grace. The movements which approach most closely to the habitual ones of life are the crucial tests of inherent grace, the rarest of all graces being the pose and movement of the head on wellturned shoulders. The physical elements, the machinery, are often present, but not the movement which should be associated with them. To produce this special gracefulness, nothing is more efficient than the exercise of carrying on the head a light burden, high enough to require balancing. Women, it is true, are in some countries obliged to carry burdens so great as to degrade, instead of improving, form and movement; but we have already pointed out that any kind of labor pushed to the point of toil is destructive, instead of promotive, of physical well-being. It must be remembered, therefore, when we speak of the beneficial effect on gracefulness of carrying burdens upon the head, that we exclude exercise involving toil, and even what might be called labor, and refer exclusively to exercise which, as determined by the muscular force necessary to accomplish it, and by the time required for its performance, any one would consider light. Calisthenic exercises look to the improvement of the physical condition, as representing vitality, and to rounding

muscles, as representing beauty of form and one of the first conditions of gracefulness. The kind of exercise just recommended as especially conducive to gracefulness, whether growing out of the habits of the country or undertaken for the sake of its special effects, makes excellent training for co-ordinating different parts of the body, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. The centre of gravity of the burden requiring to be maintained, the most perfect accord in the movement of the bearer is necessitated. The head erect, neck and spine acting together, all must harmonize exactly with the pace. One of the most charming sights that ever gratified our artistic sense in a foreign land was the lithe, vigorous figure of a young girl clad in a single garment, with a basket of limes poised gracefully upon her head. After a little practice, the effort necessary at first to balancing an object of some height, such as a water-jar, entirely ceases, and the sense of ease with which it can be done is pleasurable. The burden seems to have become part of the bearer, and when relieved of it the educated spinal column. ceases not to assert its gain, especially in the gracefulness of the pose of the head.

Only in April last, Dr. Ellis, whose views on standing and walking Mr. Finck so approvingly quotes, appeared in an elaborate article, in Wood's "Medical and Surgical Monographs" (William Wood & Co., New York), entitled "The Foot." The writer is Dr. Thomas S. Ellis, Consulting Surgeon to the General Infirmary at Gloucester, England. As this is Dr. Ellis's last word on the structure of the foot, standing, and walking; as the exercise of walking is the most general of any among mankind; and as upon the proper execution of it much of the development and nearly all grace of person depend, the subject is one of such great importance that we here pursue it in the most effective of all methods by challenging the accuracy of Dr. Ellis's conclusion. That a monograph of one hundred and one