These colossal changes necessitate an attempt to adapt the constitution of 1789 to an entirely different kind of civilization from the one for which it was planned. The only significant change made to meet this new civilization is the great American maid-of-all-work, the Inter-State Commerce Commission.

And, for something completely different, there is “Incarnat,” a brutal and heartbreaking dance show from Brazil that features miniportraits of self-abasement involving nudity, gobs of chocolatelike liquid and a variety of beastly physical violence.

Individuals exposed to it become vertiginous, and are almost in a state of stupour: their animal heat is augmented one or two degrees, and the pulse in an adult gives one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty-four beats in a minute; and in a child of ten years of age gives one hundred and sixty.

It had once been painted, but the rain and the snow had now denuded it of all such outward varnishment, and without any spire or porch, it was simple enough in its exterior for a Quaker tabernacle.