There is Vanitas over the way;--he once wore just such pigmy affairs. See him walking down the street, treading with a dignified stride, as though he moved a foot above the vulgar pavement. See that poor, tattered wretch approaching. Down goes his coarse heel, crunch, upon the aristocratic toes of our friend; and observe how Vanitas writhes and limps, as the sudden contact with the lower animal has crushed all his pride and dignity out of him. How gladly would he exchange his costly models of modern skill for the sabots of the meanest peasant! Doesn't he carry those twinges around with him all day, and moralize--if Vanitas is capable of moralizing--upon the danger of fashionable, private corns being trodden on by low, vulgar cowhide? Now if Vanitas had not cultivated those excrescent sensibilities by assiduous compression, if he had thought more of big brains than little feet, his tattered, cowhided friend might have trodden harmlessly on his pedal phalanges. My dear Madam, see to it that Frank groweth not such poor grain. Cowhide is a most useful material, and does much for the world. It treads in the mire, that you and I may walk in cleanliness. It stands in the sodden highway and builds up the dry pathway. It kicks aside the rolling stone, that we may not strike our satined step thereon and fall thereby. Those No. Twos of yours would present but a sorry sight, and the tender charms they cover would be sadly torn and bruised, were it not for the path that it treads out before them. While I sit comfortably in my old slippers, and while you trip gracefully along in those laced beauties, poor, vulgar, soiled cowhide is wearily plodding over the rough, unbroken earth, and knows neither my rest nor your pleasure. I will never look angrily, should I chance to feel its weight. And, Madam, do you look kindly and smilingly--and that costs you nothing, I am sure, _with_out you are a Vanitas in petticoats--on its plain and homely worth.