answers to these changes of temperature with thrills of the purest
physical pleasure. In fact, the whole frame seems purged of its earthy
nature and transformed into something of a finer and more delicate
texture.

After a pause, the attendant makes his appearance with a large wooden
bowl, a piece of soap, and a bunch of palm-fibres. He squats down beside
the bowl, and speedily creates a mass of snowy lather, which grows up to a
pyramid and topples over the edge. Seizing us by the crown-tuft of hair
upon our shaven head, he plants the foamy bunch of fibres full in our
face. The world vanishes; sight, hearing, smell, taste (unless we open our
mouth), and breathing, are cut off; we have become nebulous. Although our
eyes are shut, we seem to see a blank whiteness; and, feeling nothing but
a soft fleeciness, we doubt whether we be not the Olympian cloud which
visited lo. But the cloud clears away before strangulation begins, and the
velvety mass descends upon the body. Twice we are thus "slushed" from head
to foot, and made more slippery than the anointed wrestlers of the Greek
games. Then the basin comes again into play, and we glide once more
musically through the scale of temperature.

The brown sculptor has now nearly completed his task. The figure of clay
which entered the bath is transformed into polished marble. He turns the
body from side to side, and lifts the limbs to see whether the workmanship
is adequate to his conception. His satisfied gaze proclaims his success. A
skilful bath-attendant has a certain aesthetic pleasure in his occupation.
The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he
feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree
of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily
light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies,
and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye as an