An equally notable tower is the stately white charlotte russe. Its impenetrable wall of cardboard, re-enforced inside with a doughty thickness of cake, rises sheer from the glacis of the plate and terminates in crenelated battlements over the edge of which hang masses of cream, ready for the invader. Upon the topmost pinnacle is posted a sentinel cherry.
Of contrastingly mild aspect are the various crisp terraces--those luxuriant Hanging Gardens, where fruits of every sort are spread out in gorgeous profusion: rows of gold-gleaming apricots; neat hedges of orange plugs; happy pears and orderly better-halves of peaches; a bed of sugar-fed strawberries, each tucked in snugly; grapes chaliced in fluted pie crust; jocund apple chips and banana checkers, cuddled cosily slice against slice. Truly a paradise in pastry!
And there are a host of other fair shapes: the pantheon-like Kossuth cake, beneath the low dome of which is a votive offering of cream; the amazing custard skyscraper, with its innumerable floors, no walls, and gaily iced roof; the Byzantine _baba au rhum_, inlaid with tutti-frutti mosaics and steeped in subtle enchantment; and countless others--fanes, kiosks, minarets, pavilions, reliquaries of jam--baffling description or digestion.
Frail, ephemeral, created with no thought of permanence; and yet we should hardly enjoy them more if they were built of everlasting marble. The craftsmen who design them, scorning personal glory, do not sign their works. For theirs is the true æsthetic spirit, so rare in this commercial age. Their handiwork faithfully bears out the precept "Tart for Tart's Sake."
The average young wife is regrettably inexperienced in the matter of husbands. Unless it has been her fortune to have a wise mother or a divorce, she is likely to be quite ignorant of how to care for and train the "big stranger" who comes into her life. Therefore these precepts of friendly counsel may not seem to the matrimonial novice altogether amiss. The advice I would give is simple (in the fullest sense of the word); so that after the young wife has had a few husbands, she can dispense with it, if not sooner.
_Feeding._--This is the most important problem a wife has to face. The husband must be made to feel that he is well fed. Otherwise he will not be contented and docile.