Below we see the opening of the Vorticist Sculpture Salon, a debauch in marble that always brings out a full quota of the artistic cognoscenti of the town. Bohemia always appears in goodly numbers at these charming little revels in stone. The extraordinary thing about much of the new sculpture is that it looks like illustrations for those wonderful books on hygiene, in which ladies’ are taking their matutinal exercises--by correspondence, of course. Take, for instance, the case of the delicate little gem entitled “Love” in this illustration. Captain De Pluyster who is viewing it in company with his fiancée, Miss Corinna Walpole, is listening to her: “Oh, that’s an easy one. I do that twenty times, every morning, just before my bath.” [Illustration] THE FASHION FÊTES Perhaps the most delightful social occasion of all--at least as far as married men are concerned--is the winter Fashion Fête at Luciline’s select little dressmaking establishment. In the picture, you will observe a married gentleman, accompanied by his gross tonnage. The poor man is not at all listening to Mme. Luciline; no, he is gazing wistfully and, with eyes aflame, toward the wholly divine young ladies who, every season, do so much toward making the happy modes and unmaking the unhappy marriages. “How different would have been my life,” he reflects, “had I met one of those limp and sinuous sirens before I took up with my Henrietta.” [Illustration] [Illustration] The Opera, in Full Blast _Showing That Things Are Sounding Much as Usual At the Opera This Year_ AN OPERATIC DUET For upward of a generation, now, operatic and musical matters have gone along much as usual at our opera house. It’s always dangerous to be different, or original, or diverting. Literally, the only novel thing that has happened at the opera this season is that the director’s box, which has always been empty, was, at one performance last week, tenanted by a young gentleman in our best society, along with a tiny little friend of his. To see this usually dim, untenanted cave so decoratively occupied was a welcome change in the monotony of a somewhat uneventful season. HOME, SWEET HOME Below, you will behold a little scene in Pneumonia Alley otherwise known as the lobby of the opera. It is here that all of our best people gather, after the opera, and wait for hours for their flunkeys and limousines. Fashionable personages are really much cleverer than mere people are wont to suppose. After twenty years of hard study, they have finally devised a system by which--after the opera--they can wait around in the lobby for their motors and reach their houses only an hour later than they would if they left by the main door and picked up a passing taxi. [Illustration] [Illustration] HEARTS AND FLOWERS