For many years a favorite and much praised accomplishment was the cutting of paper in ornamental designs. This art was ambitiously called Papyrotamia, and it was of special usefulness in its application to watch-papers, a favorite lover’s token of the day. The watch proper at that time was separate and removable from its case, which was of gold, silver, shagreen, or lacquer. Of course the watch did not fit closely into the case, and watch-papers were placed within to serve as a cushion to prevent jar and wear; sometimes the case would hold several. Artistic and grotesque taste could be used in the manufacture of these tokens of regard. I have seen them cut in various open-work designs from gilt and silver paper, embroidered in hair, painted in water colors. One I have has two turtle-doves billing over two hearts, and surrounded by a tiny wreath; another, embroidered on net, has the words “God is Love;” another has a moss rose and the words “Rejoice and blossom as a rose.” Another bears a funeral urn, and is evidently _in memoriam_. Still another, a heart and arrows, and the sentimental legend “Kill me for I die of love.” Jefferson, writing as a young man, bitterly deplores his inadvertent tearing of watch-papers which had been cut for him by his beloved Belinda. Watch and watch-papers had been accidentally soaked in water, and when he attempted to remove the papers, he says, “My cursed fingers gave them such a rent as I fear I shall never get over. I would have cried bitterly, but that I thought it beneath the dignity of a man.” And he trusts the fair Becca will give him another paper of her cutting, which, though but a plain round one, he will esteem more than the nicest in the world cut by other hands. Nothing can be more pathetic than the thoughtful survey of the crude and often cumbersome and ludicrous attempts at decorative art, through which the stunted and cramped love of the beautiful found expression, until our own day, in country homes. The dreary succession of hair-work, feather-work, wax flowers, shell-work, the crystallization with various domestic minerals and gums of dried leaves and grasses, vied with yarn and worsted monstrosities, and bewildering patchwork. Occasionally some bold feminine spirit, made inventive through artistic longing, gave birth to a novel, though too often grotesque form of decoration.