I cannot see what is the matter with our figures. Steel rods and rubber are more modern materials than oak beams and pink plaster. Neither we nor our modern lovers admire the opulent Venuses, indolent and rose-embowered, who adorned the ceilings of old-fashioned ballrooms. They were stupid, self-indulgent creatures, not even good mothers, whatever the sentimental elderly gentlemen in their top-hats and whiskers may have to say. What is a good mother we will discuss in a later chapter, but for the present it is enough to say that more dangerous childbirths are due to narrow pelves caused by rickets than to hips contracted by the corsets of vanity. Let the doctors turn socialist and feed the poor, instead of spending their time lamenting the inadequacy for childbirth of a few fashionable women who don’t very much matter. Middle- and upper-class girls nowadays――and most working-class girls, too――go corsetless up to maturity. They do gymnastic exercises, and dances that give suppleness to the body. They swim and they play out of doors. Those who are rich enough to be adequately fed are graceful and active as kittens, and as healthy. By the time adolescence brings, as it always does, a few years of intensive sex-vanity, the corset can do very little harm. The muscular little body does not tolerate it stiff, or very tight, and the bones are well grown. The mystery of feminine dress helps the appearance of slimness. There are few clothes, and no lumpy gathers. Beneath that boyish outline are firm little breasts, clean arching hips, abdominal curves and thighs, lovely as anything the Venus of Milo has to show. Artemis fashioned this modern woman. That is admitted. Has Artemis her vows?