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Title: High Society - Advice as to Social Campaigning, and Hints on the Management - of Dowagers, Dinners, Debutantes, Dances, and the Thousand - and One Diversions of Persons of Quality
Author: Chappell, George S. (George Shepard), Parker, Dorothy, Crowninshield, Frank
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes
Text that were printed in italics in the source document has been
transcribed between _underscores_. Small capitals have been changed to
ALL CAPITALS.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: STOP!]
No reader will be permitted to pass beyond this page who is not actually
_in_ society. This book is not for those who dwell in the gloom of mere
respectability, or the blaze of sheer wealth. It is a pasturage intended
solely for those who bask in the sunlight of the smartest society.
Those whose social standing could conceivably be classed with that of
brewers, green-grocers, minor poets, munition magnates, linen drapers,
provincial actors, and cubist sculptors, _must not_ trespass within
these covers.
BUT--
If your name appears in all the Social Directories; if you are a member
of six or eight fashionable clubs; if you never plan a dinner without
unpotting a pound or so of pâté de foie gras; if you never witness an
opera except from an opera box; if you never go to the city except in an
imported motor-car, why _then_ just knock at the title page, open the
door, walk in, take off your monocle--or your turreted tiara--and make
yourself perfectly at home.
[Illustration]
AN INVITATION TO THE READER
_Elucidating the Little May-Pole Festival on the following page_
Reader, will you join a gay dance
Of the younger Social Set,
And, amid their merry May-dance,
Personally pirouette?
Don a garment, smart and snappy,
Wear your most engaging smile,
Banish boredom and be happy--
In the world of chic and style.
Cedric woos Celeste--who dances--
Vowing love that never dies;
Ethel sees adoring glances
In athletic Albert’s eyes;
Peter--solvent as Mæcenas,
Lures a mermaid to the shore,
Telling her she looks like Venus,
Which, of course, she’s heard before.
You may dance, while Signor Cupid
Fiddles an entrancing tune;
Or, if you find jazzing stupid,
There are gardens--and a moon!
Life, and all its animation
Bids us join the mad mêlée,
And, to use an old quotation,
Gather rose-buds while we may.
Every make of merry mortal,
Wise or otherwise, is here,
And this page is but the portal
Of another world made clear.
Yes, a world, and you may buy it
In this giddy, gaudy book,
Though, of course, I can’t deny it
Has a rather Fish-y look!
G. S. C.
[Illustration]
The Social Merry-Go-Round
The artist is the director, the book a many-colored whirligig. Group
after group revolves before us, while the artist smiles with an arch,
faintly satiric smile, pointing out to us the weaknesses of the
participants in this sacred social world, a delightfully gay throng,
constantly occupied in singing, cajoling, feasting, playing, and
dancing. Each of the characters in this book recognizes only one duty
toward himself--not to be bored--and one law toward his neighbors--not
to bore them. The wheel of the merry-go-round turns again; color is
blurred with color; figure succeeds figure. Montez, Monsieur, montez,
Madame. The show begins.
HIGH SOCIETY
Advice as to Social Campaigning,
and Hints on the Management of
Dowagers, Dinners, Debutantes, Dances,
and the Thousand and One Diversions of
Persons of Quality
[Illustration]
The Drawings by
FISH
The Prose Precepts by
DOROTHY PARKER
GEORGE S. CHAPPELL
and
FRANK CROWNINSHIELD
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS · NEW YORK and LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
[Illustration]
A HINT TO HIGHWAYMEN
Copyright, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, by the
VANITY FAIR PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
Copyright, 1920, by G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Fish, And Her Work
When, in the summer of 1914, certain remarkable drawings of social life,
by a new hand, began to appear, in _Vanity Fair_ in New York, and in
_The Tatler_ in London, people all over the world stared at them,
amazed, amused, admiring. Then they stared at each other, demanding,
with one voice: “Who, under the sun, is Fish?”
Meantime, a tall, slender young girl of twenty-two was drawing the
pictures that were helping to keep laughter alive during those dark
days--and troubling very little indeed as to whether Fame’s wandering
searchlight would ever find her out.
That girl was “Fish,” deemed to-day, by many critics, the most
distinguished of satirical black-and-white illustrators.
Miss Fish has created, on that miraculous drawing-board of hers, a
complete human society, as original and amusing as the worlds of George
Du Maurier and Charles Dana Gibson. It is a world populated by young-old
matrons, astoundingly mature young girls, Victorian lady remnants,
resplendent captains of industry, pussy-footing English butlers,
amourous nursemaids, race touts, yearning young lovers, swanking
soldiers, blank and vapid bores, bridge-playing parsons, and
middle-class millionaires. But, for all its sophistication, it is a
world of innocence. The creatures in it are of a touching simplicity, an
incredible naïveté. Fish is one of the only caricaturists who has ever
done this sort of satire without malice--who has ever treated the poor,
misguided children of this world as if they were _really_ children.
But there is beauty in her extraordinary gallery, as well as caricature.
The patterns on her flappers’ gowns are like laces and hangings by
Beardsley; a Pomeranian lying on a rug, becomes a patch of elegant
scrollery, like a detail in a Japanese print. There is no trace at all,
in her drawings, of the hackneyed conventions of illustration:
everything in them is presented through the medium of an original
feeling for form. Even her profiteering millionaires become designs made
up of deft and satisfying curves. Her sketches are creations not only of
a clever and sophisticated intelligence, but of a true artist.
[Illustration: _Photograph by Malcolm Arbuthnot_
“FISH”]
In depicting fashionable society Miss Fish is perhaps at her best, for
the reason that the spectacle which seems to interest her most is that
pageant of “smart” types that race, as if by magic, to her
drawing-board, from every haunt of social life--from opera boxes,
ballrooms, race-meets, cabarets, smart supper parties, dinners of state,
musicales, and the thousand and one happy backgrounds against which the
contemporary _beau monde_ is wont to pose and posture.
In the pages of this book the reader will meet only with Miss Fish’s
social creations: the double-decked dowagers, the amateur vampires, the
horsey horsemen, the diabolically clever little débutantes, the tango
addicts, the incurable bridge-players, the worn-out week-end hostesses,
and the myriad types of human beings that seem perpetually to haunt the
portals of our most exalted society.
For six years, Miss Fish’s sketches have appeared, in America, only in
_Vanity Fair_. For the past two years the British public has only seen
her work in _Vogue_ (the British edition), and in _The Patrician_,--the
English edition of _Vanity Fair_. All the drawings in this book appear
here with the permission of Condé Nast, the publisher of _Vogue_,
_Vanity Fair_, and _The Patrician_.
THE EDITOR.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
List Of Contents
_In Which the Scenes and the Principal Characters Are Revealed_
PAGE
The Opening of the Social Season
How the Members of the Beau Monde will Spend what is Left of
their War-time Incomes 2
The Opera, in Full Blast
Showing that Things are Sounding Much as Usual at the Opera
this Year 4
Keeping on with the Dance
You Will Certainly be Considered a Social Pariah if you don’t
Dance the Night Out 6
Getting On, in Smart Society
If, at First, You Don’t Succeed, Dine ’em and Dine ’em Again 8
Hints on Honeymoons--for the Very Rich
How to Make a Smart Honeymoon--Comparatively Speaking--
Agreeable 10
The Poets that Bloom in the Spring
A Popular New Pastime in Smart Society--the Matinée Poétique 12
The Art Exhibition: Opening Day
After All, There is Nothing Like Modern Sculpture to
Stimulate the Imagination 13
A Week-End with the Recently Rich
Showing that a Profiteer is Without Honour in his Own Country 14
On the Trail of the Concert Lovers
“Among Those Present”--at all the Smart Concert Halls 16
The Trials of the Newly Poor
A Heart-Rending Picture of Life as it is Lived Behind
Aristocratic Doors 18
The Prize Fight Finally Gets into Society
The Smartest Diversion is now the Science of the Swat and the
Slam 20
Dreadful Moments in Society
Embarrassing Little Episodes which Might Happen to Even the
Best of Us 22
On the Trail of a Wife
Détours on the Road to Matrimony 24
Divorce: A Great Indoor Sport
It is Beginning to Rank First among our Fashionable and
Popular Pastimes 26
Wild Bores We Have Met
Question! Who--in Society--is the Unadulterated, 100 Per Cent
Bore? 28
The Throes of First Love, in Society
A Few Fashionable Little Variations on the Oldest Theme in
the World 30
A Calendar of Popular Outdoor Sports
As Practised among Persons of Breeding and Quality 32
The Seven Deadly Temperaments
As Frequently Met With in the Ladies 34
Six Brands of Week-End Hostesses
It’s a Lusty Life, if You Don’t Week-End 36
After-the-War Servant Problems
How the Great Conflict Ended the Golden Days of Service in
the Houses of the Elect 38
Advice to the Lovelorn
What Every Girl Should Know, Before Choosing a Husband 40
The Open Season for Strikes
If you Don’t See What you Want, Strike for It 42
The Art of Fashionable Portraiture
You Can’t be Quite “It,” Without the Aid of a Modernist
Artist 44
Social Superstitions
With Very Special Obeisances to Cupid 46
Who’s Who--in the Audience
Showing that the Smart Playgoer, Not the Smart Play, is
Really the Thing 48
The Horrors of the Week-End
From the Tortured Hostess’s Point of View 50
When Marriage Is a Failure--Cherchez La Femme
Have You a Little Failure in Your Home? 52
Opening of the Opera Season
The Opera Opened--To Crowded Boxes--With the Usual
Performance of “Aïda” 54
Blighters at Bridge
A Terrifying Triumvirate of Familiar Lady Auction Pests 55
The Way to Succeed on the Stage
A Lady, Once a Creature of Fashion, and Now a Famous Actress,
Tells of Her Success 56
Sports for the Summer
The Increasingly Feminine Tone of Our Outdoor Diversions 58
Sea Bathing has become the King of All the Dry Sports
Fashionable Debutantes Who Sojourn by the Sea 59
The Strategy and Finesse of Proposing
Advance Leaves from the 1921 Handbook of Courtship. 60
Palmy Days at the Seaside
Sights at the Bathing Resorts When the Season for Salt Water
is Declared On 62
An Interview with a Great Dancer
Privileged Peeps into the Soul of Mlle. Angeline, of Paris 64
[Illustration]
HIGH SOCIETY
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE RESTAURANTS
The season in the restaurants has opened strong. And the worst of it is
that the ladies _will_ spend all their time in these blessed robbers’
dens. Tell a woman that her place is in the home and--but you wouldn’t
do anything as rude as _that_, would you? There are two other
discouraging things about women in a restaurant: first, that they won’t
ever go home, and second, that they won’t ever sit down. Here we see a
tragedy illustrating both of these points. Muriel, who long ago finished
her luncheon simply _will_ not join the gentleman in the hallway (the
one who looks a little like President Wilson), although the poor
creature has been waiting for twenty minutes. And her charming little
_vis a vis_, Esmé by name (the one with the lap dog that looks like a
three-leaved clover), has, on her side, been keeping her fiancé standing
at attention for a similar period of time--and, all because the two
dears have such _thrilling_ and _wonderful_ things to talk about.
[Illustration]
The Opening of the Social Season
_How the Members of the Beau Monde Will Spend What Is Left of Their
War-time Incomes_
THE HORSE SHOW
Here we see the horse show in full blast. Here you will see everybody
happy, everybody occupied, scandals energetically and effectually
discussed, meetings arranged in whispers, society reporters calling
everybody by their wrong names, and everybody paying the strictest
attention to everything about them--except the horses.
THE ART SHOWS
Below we see the opening of the Vorticist Sculpture Salon, a debauch in
marble that always brings out a full quota of the artistic cognoscenti
of the town. Bohemia always appears in goodly numbers at these charming
little revels in stone. The extraordinary thing about much of the new
sculpture is that it looks like illustrations for those wonderful books
on hygiene, in which ladies’ are taking their matutinal exercises--by
correspondence, of course. Take, for instance, the case of the delicate
little gem entitled “Love” in this illustration. Captain De Pluyster who
is viewing it in company with his fiancée, Miss Corinna Walpole, is
listening to her: “Oh, that’s an easy one. I do that twenty times, every
morning, just before my bath.”
[Illustration]
THE FASHION FÊTES
Perhaps the most delightful social occasion of all--at least as far as
married men are concerned--is the winter Fashion Fête at Luciline’s
select little dressmaking establishment. In the picture, you will
observe a married gentleman, accompanied by his gross tonnage. The poor
man is not at all listening to Mme. Luciline; no, he is gazing wistfully
and, with eyes aflame, toward the wholly divine young ladies who, every
season, do so much toward making the happy modes and unmaking the
unhappy marriages. “How different would have been my life,” he reflects,
“had I met one of those limp and sinuous sirens before I took up with my
Henrietta.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The Opera, in Full Blast
_Showing That Things Are Sounding Much as Usual At the Opera This Year_
AN OPERATIC DUET
For upward of a generation, now, operatic and musical matters have gone
along much as usual at our opera house. It’s always dangerous to be
different, or original, or diverting. Literally, the only novel thing
that has happened at the opera this season is that the director’s box,
which has always been empty, was, at one performance last week, tenanted
by a young gentleman in our best society, along with a tiny little
friend of his. To see this usually dim, untenanted cave so decoratively
occupied was a welcome change in the monotony of a somewhat uneventful
season.
HOME, SWEET HOME
Below, you will behold a little scene in Pneumonia Alley otherwise known
as the lobby of the opera. It is here that all of our best people
gather, after the opera, and wait for hours for their flunkeys and
limousines. Fashionable personages are really much cleverer than mere
people are wont to suppose. After twenty years of hard study, they have
finally devised a system by which--after the opera--they can wait around
in the lobby for their motors and reach their houses only an hour later
than they would if they left by the main door and picked up a passing
taxi.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HEARTS AND FLOWERS
One of the great tragedies of life is that men and women have a way of
saying pleasant things to your face, and _truthful_ things behind it.
Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in grand opera. Above, for
instance, you will observe a portrait of Signor Enrico Scottinelli,
buttering with fair words the bewitching soprano. Nothing could exceed
the sweetness of his remarks to her, during the opera. You know the
remarks we mean: “Your eyes are radiant arrows in my soul. Your lips are
torments to my heart. Look at me, and an eagle lifts my feet; kiss me,
and pansies blossom in my breast.” It’s all very operatic and charming,
but, back of the scenes--oh my!--what a difference!--“You call yourself
an artist! You, who paid a press agent for every line you ever got in a
newspaper! You who were hissed at Monte Carlo. You, who are only kept on
here at the opera in order to save storage charges on your body at the
warehouse! A singer! Ha! ha! ha! Why don’t you go back to washing? An
artist! Corpo di Bacco! Why don’t you go back to scrubbing floors? You,
who stand there dressed up like Marguerite! Where is your fur, where are
your claws, where are your shiny yellow eyes, cat that you are!” All of
this, disheartening and saddening as it is, only proves that social
amenities at the opera are very much as they are with us all in real
life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SPELL OF MUSIC
Why is it, we wonder, that the people in the first tier boxes at the
opera always seem like human beings. Even their tiaras, feathers, and
red Indian facial accoutrements, fail wholly to remove them from the
category of living creatures. But the inhabitants of the second tier
boxes are, somehow, a race apart. Their faces, figures, fans, hair, and
bodily habiliments all somehow take on a strange, wild note. “Are they
human?” we ask ourselves, “or are they merely some wax figures which we,
as children were wont to admire?” In the sketch we see a group of these
second-tier creatures suffering intensely under the spell of the
director’s baton.
[Illustration]
LES TROIS CORYPHÉES
Above is pictured a bright moment from the Ballet of the Rosebud--one of
the lighter, sweeter forms of ballet. The plot concerns the love of the
Rosebud for the South Wind--the sex interest is always developed early
in these little dramas--and it shows how he subsequently leaves her
ruthlessly--as it’s against the rules for any ballet to end happily.
This scene shows a Trio of Spring Flowers, in action.
THE EIGHT HOUR NIGHT
Below is an intimate glimpse of any gathering any evening, anywhere in
the, broadly speaking, civilized world. Now that the war is really over,
something had to be found to keep all the men interested,--so the dance
habit has come back more strongly than ever. If he can only have seven
or eight hours of fox-trotting every evening, a young man will get so
that he hardly misses his bayonet practise at all.
[Illustration]
Keeping on With the Dance
_You Will Certainly Be Considered a Social Pariah if You Don’t Dance the
Night Out_
In spite of sporadic outbursts of protest from non-dancing editors of
hearth-side magazines, the dance craze is still going strong. In fact,
it’s more violent than it ever was; it is no longer a mere craze--it has
reached the point of frenzy. Any kind of dance goes (whether in Rome,
Madrid, New York, Paris or London) from the intricacies of the Russian
ballet on the stage of the opera, to the simple little fox trot in the
privacy of your own home. Joy has never been so completely unconfined as
it is this season; everybody is going on--and on--with the dance. You
simply can’t get away from it. No matter where you go, some form of
dancing is sure to come into your life, someone is certain to appear
suddenly and dance with, beside, in front, or all over you.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A LEGEND OF RUSSIA
A quiet corner of the Ballet Russe--one of the calmest moments in the
company’s entire repertory. Both the lady and gentleman are, of course,
stars of the Imperial Ballet of Moscow--they always are. Any male dancer
wearing trick red boots, and any female dancer whose costumes are
designed by Bakst, instantly becomes a star of the Imperial Theatre of
Moscow. This is a scene from “The Golden Vodka,” a drama all about the
love of the Princess Soviet for Nikailovitch, the handsome samovar.
MORNING--IN THE PARK
Somebody once got all worked up about dancing and called it the poetry
of motion; if you want to go right along with the idea, you might speak
of barefoot dancing as the vers libre of motion. No one is quite certain
of what it’s all about. The lady in this sketch, a disciple of the art,
has left home to run wild in the park at dawn, in a little dance called
“The Birth of the Crocus.”
[Illustration]
THE SOCIETY DERVISHES
This is what some euphemist has delicately called “ballroom dancing.” It
occurs at least once in the course of every musical comedy and variety
show. The male half of the cast seems forever looking for an opportunity
to toss his partner out into the orchestra. Perhaps it’s the element of
uncertainty about this sort of dancing that makes it so popular with the
public; you never know at just what moment it’s going to prove too much
of a strain for the male member of the team, or when the lady in the
case is going to land, with a pretty informality, in your lap.
[Illustration]
THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS
The Dance of Salome seems never to lose its popularity--perhaps the
secret of its appeal is the sweet, wholesome joyousness of it all. It
requires very few properties. All a girl needs, to give her own version
of Salome’s famous specialty, is a plated silver platter, a papier maché
head, and the usual lack of costume.
Getting On, in Smart Society
_If, at First, You Don’t Succeed, Dine ’em and Dine ’em Again_
[Illustration]
IN THE INTELLECTUAL SET
The T. Pennypacker Higgingbothams reached the metropolis, a short while
ago, from the social ooze of the Texas oil fields. They wanted to break
into society, but, alas, a fondness for eating and a fortune of twenty
millions were all that they had to do it with. These pictures mirror
their progress in the frigid marble-and-gold society of our inhospitable
city. They are here shown at their first important dinner--a little
repast of eight--at their palace, a palace which, architecturally
considered, is a cross between the Temple of Karnak and Charing Cross
Station. They are wisely beginning their social climb among the
intellectual set. Brains are the best things to climb on until you got
fairly high up, when you can safely discard them. Reading from left to
right, T. Pennypacker Higgingbotham; Marietta Pillsbury Powyss, author
of “The Fear of Love,” “More Than Kisses”; Frederick von Nippelzow,
Professor of Czech, and the Slav and Bulgar languages at Oxford; Miss
Sophronisba Ottway, Japanese lacquer worker, Etruscan embosser, designer
of Indian art-jewelry; Guido Bruno Pfaff, lecturer on Malthusianism,
Mendelism and sea worms; Babette La Rue, smock designer, garden-stick
maker, flower-pot varnisher, book-end painter, art stenciler and jig-saw
artist; Bliss Merriweather Gow, play-reader, author of nine
Shakespearean masques, creator of a ballet entitled “The Birth of
Passion”; and, finally, the dazed Hostess, about to go down for the
third time.
[Illustration]
HEARTS AND DIAMONDS
The Higgingbothams were told that they could do nothing without a social
secretary. They accordingly engaged Miss Audrey De Vere, a young lady of
lineage. Audrey smokes, drinks, and plays “poker”: she also knows how to
get first-night tickets at the theatres and an outside table at a
cabaret. She can mix eleven different kinds of cocktails with only one
bottle of gin, one lemon, two bottles of Vermouth and a single olive.
She is engaged to a war hero--her vis-a-vis at this table. The dinner
has been cleared away and Audrey and her friends have just finished a
little session with the cards. Net result: the T. Pennypacker
Higgingbothams are minus the value of one small Texas oil well.
THE RECEPTION COMMITTEE
Front elevation of Mr. and Mrs. H. at the head of the grand stairway
leading to the gold organ room in their palace. Mr. and Mrs. H. are
expecting forty more or less strangers to dine with them. Gold favors
will be found under the napkins. Twenty pairs of footmen’s calves, in
wood, have just been successfully adjusted by the H’s footmen, in the
magenta and gold dining room, brought, at some expense, from Verocchio’s
palace in Venice.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE ATTACK ON BOHEMIA
The Higgingbothams have not, on the whole, been very successful in their
attacks on the smart set, so they are at present engaged in entertaining
Bohemia. Here you see a section of it let loose in the Verocchio
dining-room. Reading from left to right: Mr. H., somewhat at a loss to
know how to manage the bright young thing on his left; Miss Tessie
Truefitt, artists’ model, understudy to a barefoot dancer, poses for Jo
Davidson; Le Roy Eastman, socialist, drawing room anarchist, author of
“The Red Flag in Spain,” lectures on Government Ownership of Women;
Theda B. Small, film vampire, the worst woman in the city, rolls her
own cigarettes, never wears stockings; Archibald Witherspoon Troutt,
fashion artist, introduced the hoop in men’s evening coats, is suing
Lady Duff Gordon for stealing his ideas (note the Byron collar and the
Hero tie); Polly Pym, keeps a restaurant in the Apache region--paper
napkins, waiters in red shirts, pipe smoking allowed, _eau de quinine_
served from straw bottles, choral singing and recitations; Aristede Le
Blanc, French Impressionist, paints with a palette knife; and, finally,
poor Mrs. H., speechless at the wild and wanton scene around.
SUCCESS AT LAST
The Higgingbothams have had bad luck with their dinners and have now
decided to try nothing but little suppers after the opera. Here we
behold them with Mr. and Mrs. Lestranges, who compose the thickest part
of the social cream. The Higgingbothams have at last _arrived_. They
have a loge at the opera and know so many great people that they can
perfectly well afford to discard all their intellectuals, social
secretaries and Bohemians--all of them now unnecessary and _de trop_.
The Lestranges have already refused three courses at supper and are now
engaged in inspecting the little _Escargots, à la Melba_.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW
Mr. Higgingbotham has at last been permitted to join an ancient social
club. He is here enjoying a bottle or two of his famous private stock,
Veuve Clicquot, 1883, gray label, silver foil: only two cases in the
world--and Mr. Higgingbotham owns them both.
Hints on Honeymoons--For the Very Rich
_How to Make a Smart Honeymoon--Comparatively Speaking--Agreeable_
PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES
A type of honeymoon which is not seen very much now is the War Brand.
The lady mooner in the sketch below (she is the one leaning against the
tree) is Colonel of the First Daffodils, and, of course, the flower of
the regiment. The gentleman mooner is the Captain of the 7th Scotch
Sodas. They are taking their honeymoon in little slices, between drills,
as it were; not a bad system, as it prevents the happy young warriors
from becoming fed up with the sweetness of love.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE COTTAGE OF DREAMS
Oh, honeymooners, do you remember the little creeper-covered cottage to
which You and She planned to fly immediately after the Voice had
breathed o’er Eden? It was millions of miles from home, that little
rose-colored paradise, and there wasn’t to be any telephone, and letters
were not to be forwarded, and mother couldn’t annoy you, and you were
going to pick heartsease in the garden,--and then you found you couldn’t
afford it, and so you settled in a suburban villa in solitary exile.
[Illustration]
ALONE, AT LAST
The moment in the honeymoon, which is pictured below, is technically
known as the _enfin seuls_. The parents have been banished, the best man
is still in wine; the bridemaids are at the photographer’s, the footmen
have gone to chase up the entrée, and the lovers are at last alone with
their J-HOY. What a blissful moment! Six months later a moment like this
is a bit of a bore. Any third person then, even a dun from the tailor,
would be welcome, for love, alas, is like caviare; a little
indigestible--unless consumed in very small portions.
[Illustration]
WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE
The yachting honeymoon is always a mistake. If anybody offers you a
yacht for your honeymoon don’t accept it. The trouble with the ocean,
for social purposes, is that it has no kind of taxi service. Take the
case of Mr. and Mrs. Boodle-Beauty, who would have died of loneliness if
it hadn’t been for bridge. Fortunately, a cook and a sailor knew their
way about the card deck. Hearts would come into the bridegroom’s hand,
but, with the bride, everything was diamonds.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE EXPRESS TO EDEN
Showing the bride and groom at the station just before the departure of
the Eden express. Note the almost amorous gentleness with which the
sentimental porters are caring for the slippered luggage. Good luck to
you, happy newlyweds, before you pass into the Beatific Blue! Good luck,
and here’s hoping that the train is a limited express, with no
“stop-overs” in Nevada.
AMOUR DE VOYAGE
Of course, _most_ honeymoons take place at hotels. Such wonderful food,
and such dim, religious corners in the corridors. And it makes letters
home so ridiculously easy. “Dear Mamma, and all: Arthur and I arrived
last night. So, so happy. We are very comfortable. Arthur tries to be
very cruel, but, so far, I have had no trouble in sitting on him.”
[Illustration]
The Poets That Bloom in the Spring
_A Popular New Pastime in Smart Society--the Matinée Poétique_
New York, and other American cities, have lately had a visiting
procession of foreign poets. Robert Nichols, W. B. Yeats, Siegfried
Sasson, John Drinkwater and Lord Dunsany have given ringing poetry
recitals, and added greatly to their laurels. Here we have the latest
arrival from English shores, Lonsdale Thornditch, the young poet, who
finds compensation for the indifference of the British public by
reciting his verse to the appreciative audience of America. With the
present rate of exchange, and everything, Mr. Thornditch feels very
well compensated. He is here seen in the futuristic salon of Mrs. Updike
Jones, in New York, reading from his still-unpublished volume,
“Skeletons in Scarlet.” His poems are most effective when read aloud, as
may be judged from observing the prostrate illuminati about him. We
cannot see why this pretty idea of lending literati to other lands
should not be taken up by America. Why not redeem America’s literary
debt and introduce the people of England to the joys--and even
horrors--of the imported poetry recital.
[Illustration]
The Art Exhibition: Opening Day
_After All, There Is Nothing Like Modern Sculpture to Stimulate the
Imagination_
There was a time when one visited the Natural History Museums to observe
Nature’s latest vagaries in the shape of undeveloped amoebæ in bowls,
rudimentary horns on recently unearthed amphibians, and models of funny
little puffins, and green lizards, who had gone wrong while still in a
pre-natal state.
Now one may see all these little jokes of Mother Nature at any
fashionable exhibition of ultra modernist sculpture. The city is full
of them. You are probably familiar with them. Here, for instance, are a
few, which have been named by their creators as follows--reading from
left to right--along the very top row: “The Birth of Love,” “Portrait of
My Wife,” “Study of a lady,” “Fruitage,” “Inhibited Motherhood” and,
finally, “The Death of Libido.”
[Illustration]
A Week-End With the Recently Rich
_Showing That a Profiteer Is Without Honour in His Own Country_
OUR HERO
Mr. John R. Blivvins, of America, one of the leading figures in that
noble band of munitions factory owners who did such yeoman service--for
themselves--all through the great conflict. However, even though peace
is here, there is still work to be done,--Mr. Blivvins is about to crash
in on British Society. By way of a start in the right direction, he has
purchased--at 10 per cent discount for cash--an ancestral estate
equipped with all the modern conveniences, including built-in butlers,
hot and cold running footmen at all hours, and a resident bishop.
Everything goes with the estate but the title, and Mr. Blivvins looks to
his attractive daughter, Angelica, to furnish that, by marrying one.
[Illustration]
A HORRIBLE MOMENT
Up to this moment, everything has gone along beautifully. Angelica has
worked up a visiting Duke to the proposal point, and Mr. Blivvins has
behaved so conservatively that the dinner guests are on the verge of
accepting him. And then he had to wreck the entire works. Led away by
too conscientious attention to the products of the ancestral
wine-cellar, Mr. B. is, with unfortunate geniality, insisting that the
footman try one of his best cigars. The Duke might overlook this, but
the footman--never.
[Illustration]
THE COMMITTEE OF WELCOME
This moment marks the dawn of a new life for the Blivvins family. Their
future seems to be practically assured. Angelica, the one and only
daughter, has got in some deadly work on one of the local Dukes, who has
been pressed into coming down for the week-end. To make it all
delightfully homelike, the Duke has brought along his sister, one of the
most unmarried noble-women in the entire United Kingdom. This charming
little domestic scene shows the arrival of the guests, just at tea time.
Angelica is going strong with the Duke (his is the third figure from the
right--the clean-cut, red-blooded lad of barely seventy summers). Mr.
Blivvins is welcoming the bishop to the little circle--a bishop is
always so ornamental when draped gracefully around a tea-table.
[Illustration]
THE EROTIC MOTIVE
This picture does not show the great moment in any one of our popular
farces,--it is far more tragic than that. It shows how Mr.
Blivvins--always an artist at that sort of thing--has managed to get
himself disliked. In an absent-minded moment--all life’s bitter
tragedies happen in such moments--our hero has mistaken a door, and
walked into the room where the Duke’s sister has retired to her chaste
repose. The noble vestal is defending her honor at the point of a
curling-iron, shrieking, “Stop, villain, or I fire.”
[Illustration]
THE GRAND TOUR
The snappy little evening’s entertainment--Mr. Blivvins takes his guests
on a personally conducted tour of the picture galleries, proudly
pointing out all of his ancestral portraits--that came with the house,
when he bought it. Of course, a little of that sort of thing is
perfectly ripping, but, after the first eight miles, picture galleries
seem to pall a bit. The Duke’s sister is plainly bored.
[Illustration]
ON WITH THE DANCE
Things are looking considerably brighter here. Angelica has had the
inspiration of injecting a little jazz into the Duke’s attentions. After
all, dukes are but human; they can’t hold out against a jazz. The noble
antique has dropped forty years from his age, and is dancing with all
the abandon of a chorus man. Nothing could be sweeter, so far as
Angelica’s proud parents are concerned, but the bishop and the Duke’s
sister,--oh, Heavens!
THE BITTER END
And this is the hideous conclusion of the whole affair. The Duke is
indubitably not as young as he used to be, and the jazz dance has
brought on a complete breakdown. He has to be ignominiously led away to
Mortgaged Towers, the ducal estate, in a bath chair. The Blivvins family
plumbs the utmost depths of gloom--and all bets on Angelica’s marriage
into the British peerage have been officially declared off.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE DANCE OF THE GHOULS
A view of the extreme left wing of the balcony, during a piano recital
by the newest Russian prodigy. The members of this exclusive little
group simply don’t know how they would ever get along without music. If
it weren’t for music, they would be absolutely powerless to express
their souls. Nothing is over their heads. Debussy to them is just like
nothing at all to you or me, and they whistle catchy little tunes by
Rimsky-Korsakoff in their bath-tubs. They are shown here still a trifle
spent with enthusiasm after the pianist has obliged with one of his own
compositions, entitled, “Dance of the Ghouls.”
[Illustration]
LONG MAY HE PERMANENTLY WAVE
The world-famous pianist, who was once told that he had a Beethoven-like
brow and has been dressing the part ever since. He can only manage to
work in one concert annually; the rest of his time is taken up in making
phonograph and pianola records, posing for heavily shadowed photographs,
paying premiums for the insurance on his hands, and lending atmosphere
and tone to the more exclusive studio teas.
[Illustration]
NO COAXING
The society soprano--always a feature of the programme for the charity
concert. It is pretty to see how gladly she volunteers her services for
such events; there is no false modesty about it, no hanging back, no
making excuses, no insistence on being coaxed, no niggardliness as to
encores. No, she steps right forward, brings her music, supplies her own
accompanist, and just lets herself go. She is here portrayed at work,
rendering, by her own request, “Baby’s Boat’s the Silver Moon.”
On the Trail of the Concert Lovers
_“Among Those Present”--at All the Smart Concert Halls_
[Illustration]
THE INFANT PRODIGY
The little dear has been appearing in public for the last four
years--she is soon to celebrate her seventh birthday--and has played in
every country in Europe, before all the royalty worth knowing, adding
materially to the uneasiness of the crowned heads. This wonder-kiddie,
as her press-agent so affectionately calls her, never had a lesson in
her life; it’s a gift. It has also proved to be a gift to the father of
the phenomenon--he hasn’t done a day’s work in years.
[Illustration]
THE MALE DUET
The male, broadly speaking, duet--a great favorite with concert
audiences. They go in strongly for the brighter, cleaner school of song;
they are particularly good in those ballads about shepherds and
shepherdesses, named Colin and Phyllis. They also get in some really
great work on the botanical numbers; those heartbreaking ditties with
the mild sex interest, all about the love of the violet for the rose.
[Illustration]
AMONG THOSE PRESENT
A pack of concert-hounds about to corner their prey--straining at their
leashes in the foyer of the concert hall, just before the performance
gets under way. All the best-known types of the species are here
represented, from the strange beings who are here because they like this
sort of thing, to the pitiful creatures who _have_ to come--because
their wives like it.
The Trials of the Newly Poor
_A Heart-rending Picture of Life as it is Lived Behind Aristocratic
Doors_
[Illustration]
THE IDEALS OF ALGY
What a topsy-turvy old world it is. And how its recent antics have upset
our very highest Society! For a smart young Johnny to-day, Peace hath
its horrors just as well as War. Imagine being a Penniless Peer, as was
young Algernon Wemyss (of Wimbledon) when sterling-exchange suddenly
established its low-visibility record. But, did the brave lad falter?
Well, hardly. With only his coronet for capital, he strolled into the
pleasant supper parties, of the musical comedy field, finally playing,
with great success, the title-role in “The Ideals of Algy,” two of which
he may be seen embracing as he takes his first step toward
rehabilitating the shattered fortunes of his proud old family.
BACK TO NATURE
But there was, to Algy, something raffish about the stage. Once on his
financial feet again, he realized that the smartest possible form of
trade, for a chap with his tastes, is that of the creator of lovely
frocks for lovely maidens. And--no sooner said than done! In less than
two weeks Algy was known, far and wide, as the man who made Poiret take
to French brandy. Algy’s little shop was a rendezvous for every fair
lady with any pretensions to _chic_. But alas! he hopelessly offended
his very best customer, Mlle. Nini Latouche, of the Opera. Nini had him
black listed _everywhere_, with the result that the shutters were soon
up at Algy’s.
THE PEER AND THE PERI
It is something of a drop from the frills of fashion to the grease and
grime of being a fashionable chauffeur; but needs must when the problem
of high living drives. Having owned cars all his life, Algy naturally
spoke the language perfectly and found no difficulty in landing a job
with Abraham Ashurst, the Mattress King. Unfortunately, Algy became much
less interested in the mechanism of his car than in the personality of
its daily occupant--Miss Annabelle Ashurst who simply doted on
ignitions, and everything connected with speed, including the chauffeur.
Observing, from his classic portico, that Algy was more of a magneto
than a man-servant, father Abraham banished him forthwith from his
richly upholstered bosom.
[Illustration]
DE PROFUNDIS
And now we see Algy in that darkest hour which comes before
dawn--joyless and jobless, and yet still able to derive a certain bitter
amusement from a new game of solitaire which he plays exclusively with
unpaid bills. The idea is to work the things into two piles, in one of
which the certificates of indebtedness shall equal the accounts
receivable in the other. We may add that, in this pathetic pastime, Algy
has just failed to go game for the thirty-seventh time.
SUCCESS AT LAST
Hurrah for Algy! Like an inspiration came his last and best idea, to
capitalize his nimble feet and become a dancing instructor. Below, you
see him at the turning-point of his career, just as the maid is
informing him that a fabulously rich Miss Detworthy has arrived for her
first instruction. Note the enraptured expression of Miss D. (the lady
with the circular marks on her gown). Note the appreciative glance of
our hero. And so, at last, Algy is able to witness the triumph, in his
unhappy life, of Romance, Laughter, and Love.
[Illustration]
MILLY, THE LIGHT-WEIGHT
As the subsequent series of ringside flash-lights indicates, all the
world’s fashionable fair ones have taken up the maidenly art of
self-defense. Everybody’s doing it--both in London and New York. The
Wilson family is a typical example. Dainty Millicent, shown at right, is
prominently mentioned to win the Junior cup. No more breakfast in bed
for Milly. Vanished, the boredom of banting. An eight o’clock round with
the punching bag and the girl’s day has really begun.
[Illustration]
The Prize Fight Finally Gets into Society
_The Smartest Diversion Is Now the Science of the Swat and the Slam_
[Illustration]
MILADY, THE WELTER-WEIGHT
On the right is Millicent’s mama, who, as the picture clearly shows, is
rapidly rounding into championship form. Her sparring partner,
kind-hearted old Harry Wilson, who is both outweighted and outranged,
labors under the added disadvantage of being, in private life, the
lady’s husband. The male half of the bout is plainly covering-up. One
false blow,--a cross-counter to any one of his adversary’s chins, for
example,--and Harry could be haled into the nearest court on a charge of
mass murder.
Showing how the smartest dowagers of the sea lion class are waking up to
the need of fighting their way into the bear-cat class. It’s only in
play, of course, but it’s wicked play.
[Illustration]
THE LADY BANTAM
Below, we see little sister Grace, home from school for the holidays
and, of course, mad about boxing, as all the rest of society is. The
young parson, bless his pale pink soul, has inquired about the
extra-curriculum activities of Grace’s schoolmates, not for a moment
expecting that the answer to his innocent interest would be a blow in
the Adam’s-apple. This, Grace explains, is the favorite blow of M.
Carpentier. An intriguing phase of the tragedy is the delight of old
Mrs. Brown, who sits in the right-hand, ring-side armchair, and who has
secret designs on the parson--in the shape of her daughter, the adjacent
young person who looks a little like a turban-ed turkey’s-egg.
[Illustration]
A CHARMING EVENING IN HIGH SOCIETY
Just now boxing is all the rage in the great and wicked metropolis.
Set-to’s happen in the best regulated sets. Nothing, for instance, could
have kept the last Sutherby dinner-party awake, after ten, had it not
been the perfectly arranged post-prandial entertainment provided by
these thoughtful hosts. In spite of an abundance of wines, Lucullan
dishes, triple extract of mocha, and an orchestra of twelve saxophones,
the party was dying on its feet, until Madame S. escorted the guests to
the ballroom where a ring greeted their eyes. From that point on, the
weary guests came out of their slumbers, and gaiety reigned supreme.
[Illustration]
THE CARELESS CRITIC
The unexpected is always interesting but it is sometimes frightfully
disturbing, as well. For instance, here is Miss Emily Rivington, who has
gone to a dance and has just remarked, over her left shoulder, to her
friend Lucille Taplow--“I ask you, my dear, have you ever seen anything
more hideous than this room?” Of course, the poor child was entirely
unaware of the fact that her hostess had pussyfooted her way into the
room just in time to receive, point blank, the full force of little
Emily’s remarks.
[Illustration]
Dreadful Moments in Society
_Embarrassing Little Episodes Which Might Happen to Even the Best of
Us_
[Illustration]
ART FOR THE ARTLESS
If Algy Appleton’s fiancée had shown him something easy to understand in
the way of art--like an insurance calendar or the cover of a seed
catalogue--he might have been able to murmur something intelligent, but
when, in the presence of the sculptor, she led him up to a portrait of
herself done in the most modern manner, the poor boy’s mental motor went
absolutely dead.
[Illustration]
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
What is a modern ménage without its little _affaire de coeur?_ Surely,
those whose hearts still find room for romance will pity the plight of
charming Mrs. Francklyn Sunderland who finds herself, as it were,
between two fires, one of which warms the slippers of her home-loving
husband, while the other crackles over the telephone in the burning
words of Mrs. S.’s latest and very best beau. Mrs. S.’s situation is
rapidly growing desperate. Query! What should she do?
[Illustration]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN
Marian Holworthy’s right-hand dinner neighbor is the guest of honor and
a tremendous genius of some sort, but, for the life of her, Marian
cannot think what his specialty is. She has tried him on Art, Music, and
Literature without eliciting more than a grunt and is wondering whether
she ought to ask him, right out, whether he works for a living.
POVERTY AND RICHES
Poor penniless Dick Wadleigh is in a dreadful fix. He has promised that
he will tender his heart and hand to Loretta Lorillard, the rich sister
of his over-seas American chum. And now he is gazing upon the lady for
the first time and finding that she is, socially and physically
speaking, a dud. Just to make things pleasanter, brother Lorillard is
hoarsely whispering: “Do it now, old boy, do it now.”
[Illustration]
ENTER THE HERO
Having tried everything else at least once, our hero feels that it is
only fair to see if there’s anything in matrimony, so he has set forth
in quest of something really good in the way of a wife. He is here shown
at the conclusion of his affair with Mirabel, a debutante with every
qualification of the Perfect Helpmate. But just as everything was
getting pleasantly arranged he discovered her secret vice--she is a
slave to free verse. She pours out her soul in unfettered rhythms for a
whole evening and, really, he never could have anything like _that_ in
the house.
[Illustration]
On the Trail of a Wife
_Détours on the Road to Matrimony_
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SECOND ENTRY
The next event in the series is Phyllis, who specializes in Early
Victorian work--blushes, swoons, down-cast eyes, dropped handkerchiefs,
and all the rest. Our hero was just about to fall a prey to her
appealing femininity and beg her to name the bridesmaids. And then they
chanced to drop in at an informal little sparring match, and he caught a
glimpse of Phyllis’ inner nature (Phyllis is here pictured in action).
Our hero is painfully realizing that this effectually shatters his dream
of a sunny married life.
EXHIBIT C
Reader, let us present Chloe, Exhibit C in our hero’s collection of
possibilities. From the moment he met Chloe he was intrigued; he
followed her about doggedly, always pining to see more of her. Alas, he
got his wish when he invited her to the opera, and she appeared in her
new Paris gown. Although he feels that, after seeing her in the dress,
the ethical thing to do would be to marry her, he cannot help insisting
on having a little illusion left--so he regretfully passes out of her
life.
[Illustration]
THE ORDEAL BY AIR
The next in the batting order is Daphne, who appeared, for a time, to be
the Ultimate One. In fact, it was all practically settled until she
invited our hero to accompany her on a little jaunt in her aeroplane. He
felt that there were few lengths to which he wouldn’t go on the ground,
but up in the air was unmistakably something else again; so he
progressed easily to the next young siren on the list.
[Illustration]
THE SAD CASE OF PEGGY
And then there was Peggy. Really, he couldn’t have found a more perfect
helpmate than Peggy--civil to her parents, pleasant to have around a
bridge table, fond of children and potted plants. Nothing could have
been sweeter--until she took him out motoring. He is here registering a
silent vow that if he ever gets home all in one piece, he will never
permit himself to so much as gaze upon his adorable little Peggy again.
[Illustration]
ANOTHER BLOW
By turning your head just a trifle to the left, you will got a rather
good idea of Dolores, the next to crash in our hero’s youthful
affections. He was in a fair way to get all worked up over Dolores’
vamping specialties--until in a confidential moment she laid bare her
strange, exotic, Ballet Russe sort of soul to him.... After that he knew
that things between them twain could never be the same again.
THE BITTER END
And just below is the end of the whole affair; trying out a half-dozen
of the most efficient sirens of his acquaintance, our hero finally
marries Mary, who rates about minus 30 in looks, brains, and charm. No
one has ever discovered why the veteran of countless affairs always
eventually marries a complete physical and intellectual blank. As the
proverb so aptly puts it, matrimony does make strange bedfellows.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE ENDLESS CHAIN
Only the shortage of white paper prevented the artist from prolonging
the above idea indefinitely. It is the motif for a frieze entitled
“Matrimony”--rather a quaint little conception, isn’t it? If you are at
all married--or even if you are only an innocent bystander--you will get
the idea without a struggle. As soon as divorce mercifully looses one
set of shackles, a change of partners is rapidly effected, new bonds are
formed--and there they are, right back at the very beginning again.
[Illustration]
Divorce: A Great Indoor Sport
_It is Beginning to Rank First Among Our Fashionable and Popular
Pastimes_
THE DAWN OF A NEW LIFE
Perhaps the sweetest time in a girl’s life is that roseate moment when
she gets her first divorce. It is a time that comes but once to a girl.
When at last her final decree arrives, she stands, in innocent wonder,
on the threshold of a new life. What pretty, girlish dreams are hers as
she goes out into the great world in search of a minister, so that she
can start things all over again.
[Illustration]
THE FLAW
There is, unfortunately, a bad hitch in the process of obtaining a
divorce. They haven’t perfected the method, as yet--it needs a lot of
working over. This having to wait about for months or years is really
too tiresome; it cuts in so on one’s time. Why, any really earnest
worker, going on the schedule of a forty-four-hour week, could be
married and divorced three or four times over in the time it now takes a
lady to be legally free from only one husband.
[Illustration]
THE DIVORCE SPECIAL
Any time that you want to see a bit of life, go to an American railway
station and watch the outgoing trains to Nevada. Several ticket agents
have to be constantly on duty in the window where both-way tickets to
Reno are sold; one man couldn’t keep up with the rush of trade. A
typical line at the ticket office is shown here--it is considered _de
rigueur_ for husbands to accompany their outgoing wives to the train. If
you are contemplating a jaunt to the nation’s reconstruction center in
the near future, it is a bit safer to book seats several weeks ahead.
[Illustration]
OLD HOME WEEK
It is so nice for the new bridegroom to meet his wife’s collection of
former husbands. It is something for him to look forward to, all through
the honeymoon. These little gatherings are so delightfully home like--it
is reassuring to feel that you are all members of the same club.
[Illustration]
BACK TO THE START AGAIN
This little scene is the sort of thing that divorce leads to,--hope
springs eternal, and all that. A divorce simply gets one into the right
frame of mind for a fresh start in matrimony. After all, Nature will
have its own way; there’s nothing like love--it is the passion to which
the best divorce lawyers attribute their success.
[Illustration]
Wild Bores We Have Met
_Question! Who--in Society--Is the Unadulterated, 100 Per Cent. Bore?_
BEHIND THE “TIMES”
Bores may be met with at all times of the day, but none bores so
blightingly as he who bores at breakfast. Who more completely spoils a
déjeuner than the hideous male shown above who absolutely refuses to
pick up his cues in the sweet little matutinal dialogue?
THE MONDAY-TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY BORE
Mrs. Ormsby-Jones, at right, represents that class of almost unbearable
bores whose social slogan is “Never take no for an answer,” a group
otherwise known as the “Come-Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Class.” The
Newly-Wed Pangborns, at the other end of the wire, have already fought
off three different dinner suggestions from Mrs. O.-J. and can only
think of death from apoplexy as an avenue of escape. But is Mrs. O.-J.
down-hearted? Never! “Well, then, how about Thursday?” she asks
sweetly.
[Illustration]
THE BABY BORE
In ancient times, Spartans used to expose their infants on the mountains
to test their toughness. The people at Mrs. Willoughby’s tea are wishing
that this test had been tried on little Gladys, who has been exhibited
by her enthusiastic mother and made to recite La Fontaine’s “Maître
Corbeau” in the original Ollendorf. Major Radcliffe, who possesses only
military French, is seriously considering going over the top--with
Gladys as his objective.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE BOASTFUL BORE
A bore of tremendous calibre is the plutocratic person who enjoys what
psychologists call “acute caste-consciousness.” Take Mrs. Eric
Appledorn, for instance, who is the lady shown above with a map of the
Amazon River appliquéd on her façade. Can’t you imagine how it bores
Dorothy Dobbee, whose nearest approach to car-ownership is a pair of
yellow goggles, to be told of the six Rolls-Royces which Mrs. Appledorn
has bought for her children?
THE DIETETIC BORE
If I were little Ouija, I should certainly tip the table over on that
insufferable blighter who, at every meal, demands a special menu of
gluten bread, goldfish wafers, and prunes. “Nothing acid!” he cried;
“Nothing starchy! Nothing albuminous! No sugar! Have you saccharine?”
Geska, the maid, has no idea what saccharine is, but she is willing to
try ground glass on this creature--at a venture.
THE THEATRE BORE
To end a day of perfect boredom, it is only necessary to go to the
theatre with a person who has seen the play before and tells the plot to
all those within earshot. At the big moment, pictured at the right, he
has just crashed into the silence by assuring the Wilberforce girls that
Vera, the heroine, isn’t really killed at all. “Just wait until the next
act,” he says cheeringly, “she shoots _him_ then.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE AWAKENING TO SPRING
If you are at all interested in tracing the love interest back to its
very beginnings, all you have to do is to visit the nearest park, any
bright Spring morning. Little scenes like this are going on all over the
place; any member of the younger set, between the ages of two and five,
can give you all the information you may require on just how wonderful
nature really is. There is only one difference between love and any
other contagious disease: once you have had the other disease, you are
immune from a second attack.
HAIL, THE CONQUERING HERO!
When first love takes the form of hero worship, there is practically
nothing that can be done about it. The case illustrated below is almost
at the last stage, as is shown by the patient’s complete loss of
appetite. The object of her maiden dreams is her mother’s guest, a
returned big-game hunter--one of those bronze-skinned, clean-limbed
outdoor men. Really, these people with clean limbs and chiseled features
ought not to be at large; they get a young girl’s innocent inhibitions
and major complexes all tangled up.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PROFESSIONAL SIREN
Don’t dwell too long on the picture above, gentle reader; if you have
any heart at all, you will just break down and have a good hard cry.
This is one of the bitterest phases of first love--the case of the
adolescent moth and the professional flame. The youth is at that tender
age where he classes all women under thirty-five as crude, and all
unmarried women as uninteresting. The lady in the case is just about old
enough to be a nice, understanding great-aunt. She is graciously
allowing the youth to pour out his heart to her in a series of home-made
sonnets,--after all, his little stunt helps to pass away the time until
her next dance.
The Throes of First Love, in Society
_A Few Fashionable Little Variations on the Oldest Theme in the World_
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
The great romantic tragedies are no more tragic than an affair like
this; for sheer bitterness, the epic of little Gladys and her adored
Unknown makes “Romeo and Juliet” look like a bedroom farce. While
walking in the park with her nurse, little Gladys, up to that moment but
a headless slip of a girl, comes face to face with her fate--her
Soul-Mate, her Ineffable One, her Man. It is love at first sight; but
the anguished lovers are torn asunder almost immediately. The cruel
nurse drags the stricken heroine home to her nap, while the Unknown’s
father insists that he must deport himself like a little Man.
[Illustration]
THE DANGEROUS DÉBUTANTE
And now we must witness the futile yearnings of the youth who has fallen
in love with the most popular débutante of the season. He is virtually
in a state of shell-shock. The thing has hit him so hard that all power
of speech has completely left him. It is seldom that love affects anyone
this way, in later life. You just take these little things as all in the
day’s work, after you’ve had a few years’ experience with them.
FIRST LOVE--AND THE NOBLE THEATRICAL GOD
Here is an experience that comes but eight or ten times to a young
girl--her worship of the dramatic hero. There are few purer forms of
love than these idylls, and few more lucrative emotions--from the
box-office standpoint. The youthful worshippers, chastely chaperoned by
a vestal, attend every matinée, to bask in the glances of their idol.
All their childish pennies are scraped together to buy the front row
seats. It’s just the old, old story--it’s the woman that pays, and pays,
and pays.
[Illustration]
GARDENING
Gardening is always an extremely popular sport,--some people do so love
to get close to nature. Of course, there are many who won’t have
anything to do with this sport; they remember that all the trouble in
the world started in a garden. It is not at all difficult to become a
highly accomplished gardener. All it requires is a study of that
invaluable text-book “How to Know What Makes the Wild Flowers Wild.”
[Illustration]
A Calendar of Popular Outdoor Sports
_As Practised Among Persons of Breeding and Quality_
[Illustration]
LAWN TENNIS
Lawn tennis is one of those sports that are very popular among the
onlookers. Ladies who can’t tell a tennis racket from any other noise,
and gentlemen who never have been able to understand why the players
stand on different sides of the net, are most enthusiastic tennis
spectators, never missing any of the big matches. Oh, well, history has
proved that there always has been a certain deadly fascination in
watching one’s fellow creatures suffer needlessly.
[Illustration]
INDOOR GOLF
Golf, that greatest of all reasons why men leave home, has become a
delightful indoor sport. All butlers count as hazards, and footmen may
not be removed from the course. Mr. Reginald Vere de Vere, one of our
best known after-dinner golfers, is here portrayed demonstrating that
fine shot he nearly made on the eleventh hole.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SUMMER BOATING
Are you one of those who have always believed that a punt is the lowest
form of wit? If you are, you must change your views, for punting is
bound to happen at all the smartest wet places. All our dowagers and
dancing men are delighted with the sport. It’s so pleasant to fish from
a punt,--some people do so love to angle for anything that seems to be
in the social swim.
CROQUET
The clergy is going in for croquet more strenuously than ever before. It
is indeed splendid exercise; there is no better way of developing the
vocabulary. The reverend gentleman on the right really should not hit
his adversary over the head with his mallet. He should know that whoever
hits his opponent with a mallet loses his next turn. The correct thing
to do is to hit him with one of the stakes.
[Illustration]
The Seven Deadly Temperaments
_As Frequently Met With in the Ladies_
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE FELINE TEMPERAMENT
Four members of the feline, velvet-pawed, low-springing, meat-eating,
Cat family, shown in the act of trepanning little Angela, the sweet,
blonde, yielding, and wholly worshipful being who is seated on the sofa
before you. There is not one single nasty thing that the felines have
forgotten to say about Angela, a girl who never did a wrong
thing--except that she allowed Destiny to make her attractive to married
men.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MATERNAL TEMPERAMENT
Here we see the ideal mother, the chatelaine type, a type upon which so
many poets, novelists, and music hall singers have dilated. The future
of the race is hers. It is a trifle hard to tell--whether she is a
futurist sofa pillow or a marble parquet floor. This type of lady is
always irresistible to the clergy, especially when they are of the
Protestant persuasion. As will be observed, upon a closer scrutiny of
the lady and her biological factor--the union has been fruitful.
THE SOULFUL TEMPERAMENT
Always devoted to calla lilies, rhythmic (or self-expression) dancing,
and loose-fitting Greek robes. She usually displays an abnormal interest
in what’s what on the buffet. Leave this type of girl alone with a
tableful of truffles, pâtés, mushrooms, macaroons, queen olives,
peaches, and chocolate éclairs, and the place, after a bit, will look
like Bapaume, after the German evacuation.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE NAGGING TEMPERAMENT
You know the kind. She simply won’t let you alone. Picking on you, all
day long. She starts right in on you at breakfast, along with the coffee
and the toast. She always gets up early and comes down all dressed and
ready for a good day’s nagging. There is no known form of temperament so
horrible, so poisonous, so soul-blighting--and so certain to marry. Oh,
wives and mothers, what a lesson this picture should be to you.
THE ROMANTIC TEMPERAMENT
Cupid just leads her around from one dark corner to another and from one
brave man to another. She lives exclusively upon little pencilled notes,
chocolate bon bons, pressed violets, Percy Shelley, moonlight, and the
strains of the guitar. Dangerous to a man in his first season. Equally
dangerous to a man in the bald-headed fifties, but particularly
dangerous to a man who is tottering on the brink of the grave.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PRACTICAL TEMPERAMENT
A frequent and highly commendable type of womanhood. She always knows
exactly what she wants--which is usually something under the
classification of Jewels. Furthermore, she knows how to get it, and she
knows where to go for it. In short, she is a ferret.
THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT
Last, but most frequently met with of all, we behold the artistic
temperament. By that we mean the lady who _feels_ things so keenly,
suffers so acutely, and kicks so ferociously, that we know
instinctively, on observing her, that she is passionately devoted to
ART. Have you noticed that they always wear clinging robes and are very
rude to their maids?
Six Brands of Week-End Hostesses
_It’s a Lusty Life, if You Don’t Week-End_
[Illustration]
THE UNSEEN HOSTESS
The self effacing hostess is a very popular brand. If it weren’t for her
week-end parties, society never could catch up with its correspondence.
She isn’t in the least entertaining--and she mercifully doesn’t try to
be. She thoughtfully effaces herself, and leaves you in your room after
supplying each guest with crested paper, assorted pens, and unused
stamps. Spending a week-end at her house is much the same thing as
spending it in the writing room of the Ritz.
[Illustration]
THE BISHOP’S MOVE
The absent-minded hostess has ruined many a promising young week-end by
her unfortunate affliction. She can never quite remember just what
people she has asked for the week-end and she _will_ go and ask a
bishop, at the last moment. Of course, bishops are a splendid
institution and you really couldn’t want anything nicer around a
cathedral, but, at a week-end party, when all the tired guests are
having their relaxation, a bishop is about as welcome as an outbreak of
beri-beri.
[Illustration]
THE MUSICAL HOSTESS
The hostess who is _so_ musical is one of those blessings that we could
all get along without. She is always exploring among the fauna of
Bohemia and capturing some particularly wild specimen. Her guests spend
the week-end, like Daniel, in a lion’s den. There is no let-up to the
atrocities. The guests sit in horror, thinking of the things they might
be doing in the city, while a hairy conscientious objector does
unmentionable things to a piano.
[Illustration]
THE WELL MEANING HOSTESS
The well-meaning hostess is one of the lowest forms. She insists upon
everybody’s getting together and having a jolly time. She can’t call it
a week-end till each of her guests has committed at least one parlor
trick. She is here portrayed in her favorite pursuit of dragging an
inoffensive guest to the piano, insisting that she just _knows_ he
sings. People spend exactly one week-end at her place; after that, “Very
important business keeps me away. So sorry.”
[Illustration]
THE VANISHING HOSTESS
The perfect, or disappearing, hostess is rare. She always invites the
One Person you want to spend the week-end with, and then lets nature
take its course. She has a perfectly bearable house surrounded by really
wonderful grounds. This hostess appears occasionally at dinner, but at
all other times she vanishes completely, leaving things to the careful
supervision of the faithful family gardener, who has probably seen more
biological history in the making than any man in the county.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PALM SUNDAY
The gilded hostess has one of those rustic cottages, where her guests
rough it over Sunday surrounded by vintage champagne, Swiss butlers,
liveried footmen. The sketch--from life--shows a guest’s retreat to the
city, after a week-end’s bridge; note how effectively the footmen
decorate the sketch with palms.
After-the-War Servant Problems
_How the Great Conflict ended the Golden Days of Service in the Houses
of the Elect_
[Illustration]
GILDING THE LILY
In the good old ante-bellum days, scenes like this were every-day
occurrences in the life of Mr. J. Wallingford Smith,--inventor and sole
owner of Smith’s Slenderizing Stays--They Lace on the Side. Mr. Smith
simply could not call it a day unless at least five male menials were
involved in the process of getting him dressed. All his puttings on and
takings off were personally attended to by these motherly creatures. And
then, just as everything was going nicely, the world had to get mixed up
in that dreadful war, so that poor Mr. Smith now has to adjust his
jewelry without a corps of specially trained liveried attendants.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE
Portrait impression--from memory--of Mr. and Mrs. J. Wallingford Smith,
motoring in their third-best Rolls-Royce, just about two weeks before
the Kaiser turned on the war. Note the attendant chauffeur and
footman--Mr. and Mrs. Smith wouldn’t dream of going out without two men
on the box. But things aren’t what they used to be. The chauffeur and
footman now own their own motors--after two years in the provision
business.
[Illustration]
WHY BOYS LEAVE HOME
This scene, almost too terrible to look upon, is absolutely true--it’s
not one of those faked war pictures at all. It reveals the hideous,
dreadful privations, that the war brought upon some of us. It shows the
bitter anguish of the J. Wallingford Smiths as they watched a battalion
of their footmen, chauffeurs, butlers, valets gardeners, coachmen,
grooms, house detectives, and resident photographers departing for the
Saar Valley. How silent and lonely the house has seemed, the past year,
without these brave youths!
[Illustration]
TIGER! TIGER!
Conscription was the mother of invention--Mrs. Smith recently conceived
the brilliant idea of engaging a mere stripling to understudy for the
footman who was removed by the war. Someone simply has to carry the
family ermines around--you can’t expect a lone lady to do it all by
herself. The accompanying picture graphically portrays the new footman
in action--playing the part of a movable human coat-room.
[Illustration]
THE ULTIMATE STRAW
And now, even Mrs. Smith’s maid has gone and done it--she decided to
remain permanently in the Woman’s Motor Corps. The uniform is so much
more becoming than those trying maid’s costumes. She is pictured with
her latest and very best Young Man.
CASUALS OF THE AVENUE
Fate seems to be against the unhappy Smiths--it’s not even on speaking
terms with them. Even that good idea of Mrs. Smith’s about engaging a
child footman didn’t work out. The boy wonder was really too
immature--he couldn’t overhear even the simplest stories without
blushing--so Mrs. Smith had to resort to a maid to accompany her around
the city. But, judging from her expression, she is a trifle dismayed by
the number and ardor of Mrs. Smith’s casual acquaintances.
Advice to the Lovelorn
_What Every Girl Should Know, Before Choosing a Husband_
[Illustration]
LE PREMIER PAS
The love interest really must come into the life of every young girl.
There’s no use talking, she simply can’t get along without it. Her
mother may weep, and her father may become dramatic about it, but a girl
should remember in choosing a husband, that it’s the first step that
counts in matrimony. After a girl has once been married, a second, third
or even a fourth husband are simple matters. It’s the first one that’s
tricky. Getting a husband is rather like getting the olives out of a
bottle--after you get the first one, the rest come easily.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BEWARE THE SOCIETY FAVORITE
Every girl is likely to be dazzled by the radiance of the Social Light.
He shines in ball-rooms, and in the frontline trenches of tea-fights; he
fox-trots with passionate abandon, he is the life and soul of every
dinner party, but, around the house he is, unfortunately, something else
again. The trouble with these Social Lights is that they simply can’t
live without a group of admiring females about them.
BEWARE THE MODERNIST POET
There is a time in every girl’s life--usually around Spring--when she
falls in love with the Professional Poet. He wears his hair in the
manner made popular by Irene Castle, and he believes in free speech, and
free verse, and free love, and free everything. His favorite game is
reading from his own works--such selections as his “Lines to an Un-moral
Tulip.” This type of poet does not go in very strongly for marriage--it
cramps his style--with the other ladies.
[Illustration]
WITH THIS RING
There is unquestionably much to be said on the side of the Munitions
Millionaire, as a husband. The course of true love certainly does run
much more smoothly if it’s travelled in a Rolls-Royce. Such trifles as
diamond tiaras, Russian sables, chintz-lined limousines, and ropes of
pearls help Love’s young dream along considerably. The only trouble with
a Munitions Millionaire is that his neck is a little too much inclined
to bulge over the back of his collar.
THE FUTURIST--WITH A PAST
Then there is the Futurist Artist. He is really a great factor in a
girl’s education: he can show her how, at a glance, to tell the
difference between a Matisse painting and a Spanish omelette, and he
knows just what the vorticists are trying to prove. He dresses like the
property artist in musical comedies and he is simply ripping at
designing costumes--he tells you how Lucile is battling to engage him if
he would only descend to commercialism. Avoid them, girls, avoid them!
They always have a past!
[Illustration]
THE RIGHT MAN--AT LAST
But, after all, there’s no use in advising a girl what to do and what
not to do, in choosing a husband. The safest way is just to let Nature
take its course. She needn’t worry about the thing at all,--she is sure
to know the Leading Man, the moment he makes his entrance. He doesn’t
even have to be near her--if she just knows he’s back from patrol duty
in a distant land, and on the telephone, the cosmic urge will make her
break all existing running broad jump records, in order to get to the
telephone.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HERE ARE YOUR JEWELS
It’s getting so that the members of the widely advertised working
classes get up in the morning, look out of the window, and say, “This
looks like a nice, warm day--let’s strike for something.” This little
habit of going on strike is like the cosmic urge, or the wanderlust, or
the young man’s fancy, or any of those things; it gets under way at any
time of year, and there’s simply no stopping it. Here is a harrowing
scene, one of the fearful tragedies incident to the strike of the
nursemaids. The nurse, just called out by her union, is returning her
charges to mother, a lady with whom they have but the merest bowing
acquaintance, thus utterly spoiling the lady’s afternoon.
The Open Season for Strikes
_If You Don’t See What You Want, Strike for It_
[Illustration]
THE HUSBANDS’ REVOLT
It’s only a question of time before the down-trodden husbands form a
union and strike for freedom. They have come to realize that bitter
truth of married life--it’s always the man who pays, and pays, and pays.
Street-cleaners, ship-builders, riveters, gasfitters, and all other
laborers claim the right to a forty-four hour week and every evening and
Sunday off, with no questions asked--why not husbands? Here is one of
the agitators of the Industrial Husbands of the World, shown in the act
of uprising.
WHAT ARE THE WILD WAVES SAYING?
Even the hairdressers are getting into the spirit of the times, and
pledging themselves to strike while the curling-iron is hot. They have
found that there is really very little in this silly idea of a life on a
Marcel wave. Observe this terrible catastrophe--the striker is throwing
down his badge of labor and going out, leaving his unfortunate client
with half her hair as art intended it to be, and half of it in the
unfinished state in which nature left it.
[Illustration]
THE WIVES’ UNION
A strike of wives may be called at any time; many wives have been
threatening to walk out for months. The thing is likely to prove rather
embarrassing. Here, for instance, is the case of a member of the wives’
union, whose husband has just returned from five years’ service in the
East. In the midst of her enthusiastic welcome, she has been called out
by three quite unfeeling delegates of her union.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE WAYS OF A MAID
The maids are at last coming around to the modern way of thinking--that
in unions there is strength. Here is an intimate glimpse of what will
happen if they ever start striking. The maid is obeying the first law of
all agitators,---be sure to strike at the most inconvenient time. She is
leaving her employer, so to speak, sunk--just on the point of throwing
up the sponge and going down for the third and last time.
THE ULTIMATE HORROR
There are many terrible things in this world, as someone has so cleverly
said, but the worst of all would be a strike of footmen. Why, all social
life would be completely paralyzed by it. Just see what a cruel thing it
would be. The footmen in this case are striking for shorter hours,
higher wages, and looser liveries; they have walked out in the middle of
the caviarre, leaving the guests face to face with starvation--and, what
is worse, face to face with each other.
[Illustration]
THE PORTRAITS OF OLD
Having your portrait painted, in the good old days, used to be a
comparatively simple matter. It was as much a part of a woman’s social
duties as going to the opera, or having her hair marcelled. All you
needed was a black evening gown, a lap-dog, a cheque for $10,000, and an
appointment at the studio of Mr. John Sargent.
[Illustration]
The Art of Fashionable Portraiture
_You Can’t Quite Be “It,” Without the Aid of a Modernist Artist_
[Illustration]
GO TO THE AUNT
It used to be considered awfully radical and just the least bit
Bohemian, to have your portrait done by a bearded foreigner like
Monsieur Chartran,--local talent was simply nowhere. It was always
obligatory, while posing for the portrait, to bring along a trained
aunt, to keep off draughts and gentlemen callers. When the canvas was
done, you could almost always tell, in six guesses, who the portrait was
intended to be.
[Illustration]
THE OVAL-SHAPED LADY
But having one’s portrait merely _painted_ isn’t being done any more.
The thing to do now is to lease a sculptor, and have him do a simple
little portrait in marble, and call it “Mrs. ...--a Mood.” Prospective
sitters for modernist busts should remember never to show surprise at
the finished product. Never behave like the lady in the sketch; remember
that only novices faint on seeing the completed masterpiece. The thing
to do is to clasp the hands, gaze yearningly at the ceiling and murmur
in passionate undertones, “It is wonderful--but wonderful! The feeling,
the soul, the ego--how could you know?”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HUMAN EGG
If you want to go that far, you can have your portrait done by one of
the cubist sculptors, who are causing such a furor--among themselves.
Just ask the first sculptor you meet at dinner if he won’t do a bust of
you; he is sure to be a cubist. He will only be too glad to oblige with
a charming trifle, looking rather like an egg after a hard Easter, and
to name it “Arrangement: Mrs. B.”
THE NUDE SOUL
But the sculpture of the young Roumanian refugee artiste, now so
plentifully in our midst, is the very farthest one can get in modern
portraiture. The gifted sculptress specializes in soul portraits.
Naturally, every woman loves to have a little statue of her soul,
somewhere around the house. The completed statue, always in the nude,
bears the title “My Soul, in Passing: Nocturne.”
[Illustration]
In case you haven’t decided just which school you want to employ in
creating your portrait, here is a cross-section of our artistic Bohemia.
It is a most representative group of sculptors at their recent notable
dinner. The noble spirit, at the extreme right is Henri Pryzmytioff, the
Post-Futurist Sculptor delivering a long and most impassioned talk on
“The Sculpture of Day After To-morrow--and Why.”
[Illustration]
Social Superstitions
_With Very Special Obeisances to Cupid_
THE SHEEP--AND THE GOAT
Everyone has a pet superstition, and pretty Madeleine Templeton’s is
that if a girl sleeps on her love-letters she is sure to dream of him
who is to be her true, true love. Unfortunately, Madeleine has so many
tender missives from so many true loves that she is positively
uncomfortable and can not sleep at all. She has tried counting her
fingers, counting her sheep and counting her admirers, but all is in
vain. She is now desperately wondering if she ought to try the modern
society method of marrying her true loves, one by one, until the right
husband finally turns up.
[Illustration]
THE SUIT AND THE SUITOR
Helen de Peyster’s favorite fear complex is the fatal number Thirteen!
And yet, what is she to do when, having rejected a dozen proposals,
along comes handsome Harry Radcliffe, with wealth, position and a
personality that causes her heart to miss like a faulty motor. And now
the Fates have spoken, indicating plainly that hearts are trumps and
that she should undoubtedly follow her partner’s lead. “Am I doomed?”
asks Helen, “Simply because Harry is the thirteenth man to propose to
me? That’s what I want to know--am I doomed?”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SALT AND BATTERY
Because Clarice Vanderhoff almost fainted when her fiancé, Teddy
Ashhurst, spilled the salt, Ted naturally placated the Unknown Gods by
throwing a handful of the offending seasoning over his left shoulder
with his right hand. This is undoubtedly very pleasing to the Fates and
Goddesses of Chance, but hardly as agreeable to the charming Mrs.
Drexel-Drexel who, quite naturally, objects to being salted, like an
almond--particularly in public.
THE WORST IS YET TO COME
It is an established fact, in the mind of Annabelle Armitage, who is
shown on our left, that she will wed the first man who meets her gaze on
St. Valentine’s morn. She has not yet looked down, nor has Tony Galati,
who does the Armitage roses, looked up, but Fate is plainly staging
another of those elopements in high society with a stirring last act in
which the pleasant news is broken to the present Signora Galati, in
Calabria, and the seven little Galatis.
[Illustration]
THE CROIX DE COUTEAUX
It is certainly hard on a hostess to have her dinner party spoiled by a
social contretemps, yet that is what happened at Mrs. Aspinwall’s when
her imported and important authoress, Patience Bitgood, fainted dead
away in mid-sweetbread, at the sight of crossed knives beside her plate.
This is one of the worst omens of a relentless Nemesis, and foretells a
solid year of hard luck.
[Illustration]
DANGEROUS DIANA
The new moon is a lovely sight, but, of course, it is absolutely fatal
to look at it through glass, a fact well known by Eric Appledorn, who,
we may say, is not as simple as he looks. “Come into the garden, Maud,”
he murmurs, “and let us go out through the dining room so that we may be
sure to gaze on Luna over your lovely right shoulder!” Something in
Maud’s eyes tells us that she will follow the red line of romance to its
usual and pleasant destination.
[Illustration]
Who’s Who--in the Audience
_Showing That the Smart Playgoer, Not the Smart Play, Is Really the
Thing_
IT’S ALL IN THE LINES
Musical comedy audiences are always notable for the rapt attention they
pay to the evening’s entertainment. The male students of the drama, in
particular, seem to be ever on the lookout for good lines--especially
those of the ladies of the chorus. Above is shown a loge-ful at that
standing-room-only success, “The Girl on the Nightboat.”
[Illustration]
CINEMA LOVERS
This is a scene from that realm of outer darkness--the moving picture
theatre. The audiences are the thing that make moving pictures move.
Observe how intent they are upon the thrilling scenes reeling out before
their very eyes. The stirring picture now on the screen shows the
inhabitants of Nova Scotia tinning salmon. Only two people--in the back
row--fail to register interest in the scenes before them,--those two
are, nevertheless, true devotees of the cinema theatres.
[Illustration]
CAN YOU GUESS WHO’S ON THE STAGE?
You can always tell, by looking at the audience, just who is holding the
center of the stage. When the masculine half of the audience occupies
itself in reading the corset advertisements in the programmes or in
looking restlessly about while the feminine half strains to catch every
word--then you can be sure that the marcelled hero, in the jet-buttoned
evening clothes, with the velvet collar, is standing in the spotlight
and singing, or talking, rhapsodically about the age-old passion of
LOVE.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
DOUBLE ENTENDRES
The war was really responsible for a great many unfortunate occurrences,
as so many observant people have already pointed out. Here, for
instance, is the case of two returned Lieutenants who, in their year’s
stay in Germany, have managed to pick up a good working knowledge of the
French language. By way of celebrating their home-coming, they have been
invited to see the latest imported French farce--and find that they can
understand every word of it. In the future, they will only patronize
domestic products.
FOR THE CHILDREN’S SAKE
This is one of those delightful little occasions where the children are
given their annual holiday treat. All their existing ancestors, in a
body, take them to the Hippodrome. For weeks before the eventful
evening, their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles go about
suffering intensely saying what a fearful bore it is going to be and how
they dread it, but they really must go through with it--it means so much
to the kiddies. Here is the party, shown in action,--observe the deadly
boredom of the grown people and the hysterical hilarity of the little
guests of honor.
[Illustration]
CAN YOU GUESS WHO’S ON THE STAGE, NOW?
As we explained just a few minutes ago, a glance at the audience will
show you what’s going on, on the stage. When the ladies are reading the
notes in the programme, or in studying the components of the complexion
of the woman in the stage box, while the attention of the gentlemen is
riveted on the stage--then you know that the chorus girls have undulated
on.
[Illustration]
SPEEDING THE PARTING GUESTS
Of course, you were thrilled when they--your week-end guests--accepted
your invitation; and you were tremendously glad to see them when they
arrived; and you enjoyed every minute of their stay,--but, oh, Lady,
Lady,--wasn’t the most exquisite moment of all that when you and your
consort waved a fond farewell to them and the back axle of their
Rolls-Royce? Week-ends are wonderful, but, wasn’t Tennyson clever when
he said that parting is _such_ sweet sorrow!
The Horrors of the Week End
_From the Tortured Hostess’s Point of View_
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
WHY DINNER WAS LATE
The chief horror of every week-end is the lady guest who comes without a
maid, borrows the hostess’s, monopolizes her wholly and leaves the
hostess marooned in her boudoir, unnerved, unnoticed, and unhooked. This
migratory blight always wears a gown out of which she can only escape
with the aid of Harry Houdini. In the meantime, below stairs, the
pommes-soufflés have collapsed and--which is a great deal more
important--the cook is getting ready to do likewise.
VISITORS-IN-LAW
There is something about family relationships that always wrecks the
entente-cordiale which should exist between guest and host. For
instance, there is your wife’s brother, who, warmed by heavy inroads on
your vintage Scotch, invariably tells you how little he thought of you
when he first met you, and how broken up his family were over the
wedding. Only the sacred rites of hospitality stand between this
repulsive and misguided being and the honors of a sudden death.
THE LADY BURGLAR
The statement that “old friends are best” was never made by a lady who
has endured the highwayman methods adopted by her old school-chum, or
knew-you-as-a-child type of visitor. Reverting to habits, this little
house-breaker rifles her hostess’s bureau and chiffonier with the avowed
intention of wearing each garment which the hostess has not had the
foresight to put on.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HOOT-OWL
In this picture, we have a fiendish friend who, after boring you all
day with his silence and devastating dullness, suddenly wakes up, about
11.30 P.M., and begins to tell you about his salmon-fishing trip. After
the details of what his camp outfit consisted of, we see him, as the
clock strikes two, beginning to play his second salmon, and still going
fairly strong.
[Illustration]
RUDENESS REPAID
Have you ever lived, for a dozen odd years, next to some utterly
impossible neighbors whom you have carefully snubbed, avoided and
ignored only to have a well-meaning idiot, who happens to be your guest
over Sunday, lead them joyously into your home with an air of triumphant
discovery, as if he had done you the greatest sort of favour.
When Marriage Is a Failure--Cherchez la Femme
_Have You a Little Failure In Your Home?_
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE LAPLAND MODEL
Here we see a living embodiment of Model No. 2--the BIJOU DOLL. She is
often a blonde, but always a deceiver. Despite persistent complaints--by
husbands--against wives of this model, the demand for them continues to
be brisk. She always has a serious grievance against Fate! Why is it
that her husband is so _groundlessly_ jealous? Is it _her_ fault if his
men friends pester her and bother the life out of her? Was it _her_ plan
to share a chair with Mr. Reginald Stuart? And how absurd her husband is
to carry on in that ridiculous way, just because, being tired, she had
to sit _somewhere_, and, as there was nothing else to sit on, the
thought suddenly flashed on her: Why not sit on Mr. Stuart?
A CATALOGUE OF WIVES
There are only six kinds of wives. They are all shown on these two
pages, but only one of them can be--on a crossed heart--warmly
recommended. Fortunately marriage--which is at best but a primitive
substitute for friendship--is becoming less and less fashionable, so
that every year fewer of our young society leaders are sacrificed on the
wedding pyre. This is especially true among _clever_ people. And now,
reader, here is our first exhibit in wives, a very terrible kind, to be
sure. She is known as the DEVOTED wife. She loves--and watches out
for--her husband, especially in the early morning hours. Note the
restraint exercised by our artist in refusing to introduce a cuckoo
clock, a device usually inevitable in pictures of this kind.
THE SECRET SOLVED
And here we see the only perfect wife, the model known as the “LET YOU
ALONE.” She is positively the final word--the _dernier cri_--in wives.
Have you ever tried one? No! Ah, then you can’t imagine what married
happiness really is. She is guaranteed never to ask any of the four,
fatal questions, namely: Why? Where? Who? and When? Hers is an
incomparable model that robs marriage of many of its horrors. Give her a
cigarette, a glass of chartreuse, on improving little French novel, a
pet dog or two and she won’t ask for another thing during an entire
afternoon--until the gentlemen callers begin to arrive. More and more
sociologists are realizing that married life can be made one grand,
sweet song, if the two combatants will only _let each other alone_.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SENSITIVE WIFE
This is the SENSITIVE wife. A familiar and, alas, incurable type. She
always makes the mistake of marrying a Fiend Incarnate while still an
Innocent and Trusting child. She then spends the remainder of her life
in “telling all,” to a strictly limited circle of female friends. Yes,
she has children, twin boys--for the Brute has left _nothing_ undone to
spoil her life. (N.B. The little boys are shown, in décolleté at the
lower left-hand corner). She is fond of “giving away” the fiend to her
circle of devoted harpies, furies, and bloodhounds. The Brute does not
understand her--and never has, since she was a little, sensitive,
misunderstood girl. Her mother should have warned her! Told her what
Life really was: explained the grim horror and hateful meaning of it
all.
THE “DRESSY” WIFE
An inordinate reader of _Vogue_; spends her mornings at Lucile’s; Paris
is her Heaven; would sell her child for a Callot lace teagown; has to be
torn, nightly, from shop windows; wears openwork stockings for
breakfast. Our artist shows her in one of her frequent _bruised_
moments. Her husband simply can’t understand how Poiret’s bill can be so
much for a single week. But then he _never_ understands anything. He is
just a business man. No heart! No soul! No inspired moments! She is
married to a “ledger,” a man who is nothing but a glorified adding
machine. Her “jailer” has, with the characteristic brutality of a Hun,
just refused to sign a blank check which she has made payable to Lanvin.
He is trying to squirm out of it by saying that he is overdrawn at the
bank--which statement she has just branded as a wilful, malicious and
palpable LIE. She knows what he is up to. He wants to HURT her!
[Illustration]
THE HUMAN BANK ACCOUNT
And here is the last portrait in our gallery--the rich or MONEYED wife.
We would like entirely to discontinue the manufacture of this model and
substitute for it, on all future occasions, the old-fashioned,
penniless, demure, rosy-cheeked, Oh Alfred, all-for-love, type of wife,
but, alas, business is business, and rents, and club dues, and golf
balls, and servants wages, are all going up, so why not recognize the
fact that a rich wife is a good thing to _begin_ on; something to hang
on to until you get up a little free action in the direction of True
Love? The only trouble with marrying a rich wife is that, when you sign
up for life, you are handed a leather leash along with the wedding
certificate. Put a metal collar on your neck and a little red velvet
blanket around your middle and you might just as well be Yami, or Sing
Hi, or Chihuahua, the only three things in the world that your female
meal-ticket really seems to love. Observe the prisoner’s heart-breaking,
backward glance! The cry of anguish: the caged spirit, sending out an
S.O.S. to two lovely nymphs.
[Illustration]
Opening of the Opera Season
_The opera opened--to crowded boxes--with the usual performance of
“Aïda.” Such of the fashionable people who came an act late, left an act
early, slept during the second act, and talked in between times, passed
an unusually pleasant evening._
[Illustration]
THE POOR, INNOCENT VICTIM
What type of bridge player is the most spirit-blighting? Some favor the
talking player; some the cheat--but we must vote, on every ballot, for
the three girlies mirrored on this page. First, there is the creature
shown above, who, after losing five rubbers, suddenly registers horror
with the orbs, and exclaims in dismay: “Heavens! are we playing for
_money_? I never dreamed of such a thing! I _never_ play for anything!”
Note the indifference of the other participants--intensified by
financial anguish.
[Illustration]
Blighters at Bridge
_A Terrifying Triumvirate of Familiar Lady Auction Pests_
[Illustration]
THE BLIGHTER, _PAR EXCELLENCE_
The supreme Blighter is undoubtedly that moon-faced Medusa who, after
each and every hand, lays it out, and delivers herself of a lengthy
post-mortem, the object of which is to prove that there must be
something mentally wrong with her partner and that he ought to be put
under observation, at once, by a first class alienist. She usually
passes for a lady, so that violent reprisals, however desirable, are not
always possible.
[Illustration]
THE HOODOO-ED DOWAGER
Explain, if you can, why luck always seems to run the wrong way with
Certain Sensitive Dowagers, just as the game is at its tensest? It does,
you know,--with the result that the poor Persecuted One insists upon
holding up the rubber while she does a majestic Marathon round and round
her little gilt chair. Such childish overtures to Chance may be employed
by ladies in many trifling matters, such as Love, Marriage, and Divorce,
but, Georgiana, dear! try to remember, this is BRIDGE!
A Way to Succeed on the Stage
_A Lady, Once a Creature of Fashion, and Now a Famous Actress, Tells of
Her Success_
[Illustration]
CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE
“So many heartbroken girls have asked my advice on how to achieve an
artistic destiny on the stage, that a frank word or two, on such a
theme, may not be amiss. To begin with, girls should remember that the
wishes and tastes of their audience have to be considered--before
everything. An artistic standard that does not meet with popular
approval must, of necessity, be a false standard to work by. Take my
little bit, for instance, in the third act of ‘Houp-La.’ I tried to
interest my audience in my wonderful imitations of the Allied statesmen.
But, try as I would, I left them cold. Then, my manager, one of the best
dramatic critics I have ever met, drew my attention to what he deemed a
radical defect in my performance. The subjects of my imitations, he
said, were all too _restful_! Not one of them was associated, in the
public mind, with movement--especially with the movement which we know
as Kicking. So I changed my repertoire to include impersonations of
Nijinski, and Miassine, with the result that my act has been a veritable
_riot_.
“So, remember, girls, consider your audience.”
[Illustration]
REMEMBER YOUR MOTHER
“I want to insist upon the importance--in an artiste--of listening to
the counsel of a good manager. Only last night, for instance, after the
ring-down in my triumphal screen scene in ‘A Woman at Bay,’ (the one in
which the screen, behind which I am dressing, is knocked over by the
maid), my manager joined me, in the Ritz grill, and gave me the most
wonderful advice in the world. He showed me how I could kill the star’s
act by laughing in the middle of it; how I could steal the leading man’s
entrance; how I could get the spot for a whole act--by giving the
spotlight operator a Tecla pearl pin; how I could centre the publicity
man’s interest in little me (merely by kindness) and how I could get my
name up, in gas, merely by asking a dear friend of mine--(who is the
President of a steel company) to invest some money in a musical comedy
which my manager is going to put on. He has also given me advice about
my dear mother. He thinks that the city air is disagreeing with her, and
he suggests that, in the country, he could engage a single room for
her--with the use of a bath--where she could pass the winter very
comfortably. So there is _another_ thing to remember, girls: ‘Always be
good to your mother!’”
[Illustration]
TRY TO BE KIND TO THE CRITICS
“And now, girls, here is one more point. Remember that critics are
Human. They never seem so, of course, when you read their stuff, but my
experience has been that they are susceptible to little kindnesses.
Martha, my maid,--she has been with me since I left the convent--always
asks Izzy Stern--he is my personal press representative--to invite the
critics back to my little dressing-room, after every first performance.
I have a few bon-bons, or cigarettes, or new stories, or orchids there,
which I distribute among them, along with a smile, a laughing word,
and--on rare occasions--a little kiss, on the tips of their funny old
noses. So, girls, there’s _another_ lesson! Always be kind to the
critics.”
[Illustration]
THE BEAUTY OF MODERATION
“And now, I have only one more word to say. Try always to be regular in
your habits. Half of the failures on the stage--among feminine artistes,
at least--are due to the fact that actresses do not observe a _regular_
mode of living. I have only one rule! Be Regular! For instance, I never
dream of taking a pint of champagne for supper on Monday, and then three
pints on Tuesday. No, I always take two pints every night in the week,
including Sunday. I keep my cigarettes down, in the same way, to two
boxes a day. One headache powder in the morning! One trional powder at
night! One bouquet from each admirer, every evening. Never any more:
never any less! So girls this is my parting word to you all: Be
Moderate; be Regular; be Good. Moderation always pays--in the long
run.”
Sports for the Summer
_The Increasingly Feminine Tone of Outdoor Diversions_
[Illustration]
MOTORING
It has been a busy Summer for our lusty young athletes. Golf
tournaments, tennis championships; polo, sparring, sea bathing, (see
opposite page). Then there was also motoring, canoodling, dancing, and
working at the office in order to pay income taxes. This picture shows
the most dangerous of all the smart Summer sports--motoring. Indeed it
may be said that a lad is never safe in a motor--when there is a lady
about. Oh, and gentle Reader,--do you believe in signs?
[Illustration]
CANOODLING
Canoeing is practically the safest of all our Summer sports. Safest
because little _attachments_ are virtually impossible while indulging in
it. A sentimental chap, when canoeing, may drown, to be sure, but he is
safe from the menace of having a lady drape herself around his neck like
a constrictor, an occurrence which is quite possible in motoring. When
you propose in a canoe, don’t be afraid of shocking the silly
birds--they are used to it.
[Illustration]
SLAVING
What with the eighteen different kinds of taxes which the late Emperor
William is causing us to pay into the Treasury, a chap had to slave away
at the office last Summer, or else force his wife and children to go
without the luxuries of life, that is, motor cars, sugar, diamonds, and
eggs.
[Illustration]
DANCING
Dancing, this past Summer, was just about as enlivening as taking a cup
of camomile tea with two titled women in a cathedral close. This is a
little scene at a fashionable house-party. Note that the only youthful
cavalier in sight is just home from school, and has been dancing with
Lady Muriel Pitt Powyss (his mother’s distinguished guest) until he is
fed up with it to the point of the tonsils.
[Illustration]
SEA BATHING HAS BECOME THE KING OF ALL THE DRY SPORTS
Fashionable Débutantes may sometimes safely sojourn by the sea, but it
is a good rule never actually to immerse one’s body in the fluid.
The Strategy and Finesse of Proposing
_Advance Leaves from 1921 Handbook of Courtship_
[Illustration]
THE PROPOSAL BY LETTER
A faint-hearted method--not at all recommended. Letters are all very
well in their way, but, if a wooer wishes to get absolutely sure
results, he ought, in person, to be on hand when the terrible moment
arrives. Letters of proposal have any number of drawbacks. For instance:
(1) They may miscarry and be delivered to the wrong candidate--some lady
who leaves you cold. Or (2) the dear girl may accept you--by a somewhat
precipitate telegram--before you have had time to think the thing over,
in which case you will find yourself in the cart. (3) Letters sound so
deucedly silly when the attorneys get up to read them in the courtroom
for the benefit of the press. Finally (4), a letter never has the force
of a good face-to-face recitation. The pen, though mighty, is hardly to
be compared in efficacy with the three great aids to wooing: the
capacious sofa, the soft-shaded lamp, and the smouldering fire. So,
dismiss the page-boy and step around to Irene’s yourself.
THE PROPOSAL TERPSICHOREAN
There is only one certain way of making the modern débutante--like
Muriel, for instance--capitulate, and that is to dance her into complete
submission. Just accept every single engraved invitation that comes to
you at your club--so long as it mentions dancing--and then go and
dedicate yourself to the job of keeping Muriel turning. Remember, that,
nowadays, hearts and thrones are oftenest won by revolutions. Remember
that it is only in dancing, that a man inspires in a woman that close
feeling of confidence so essential to bliss and felicity in the married
state. So, if a maiden is even a little wary of your advances, or in any
way disposed to fight you off, just get some willing friend to strafe
the piano for you, then lift the diffident child out of her chair, give
her position A, and launch out with her upon the whirlpools of the
dance.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PROPOSAL, A LA PASHA
If you think it demeaning and ignoble to be loved for your pelf alone,
try to remember that no girl accustomed to the sort of things which she
is forever seeing advertised, is going to marry a man who never gives
her anything but roses, and, here and there, a chocolate or two. In
giving presents to the little dear, try always to stick to jewels. True
love thrives best in a young lady’s bosom, on a diet of pearls, rubies,
emeralds, sapphires and diamonds. Oh, and another thing! If she marries
you, you have a half equity in the stones. If she _doesn’t_ marry you,
you can force her mother to return them. Flowers fade! Bonbons vanish.
But good diamonds _shine on forever_.
THE PROPOSAL BY TELEPHONE
In a great progressive city like ours, especially with stocks jumping up
about five points a day--you can’t very well expect a chap to leave the
stock-ticker in his club or in his café, trot up to the social zone and
loaf round a girl’s house all day. And that merely to propose to her as
soon as she has--at the end of an hour or so--consented to dress and
give her hair and complexion the careful treatment which she always has
to give them when she receives visitors. This is a very busy little
world and a proposal over the wire often saves an immense amount of
time--and sometimes two or three points margin at your brokers’. So,
wherever she is, telephone! Don’t waste time. Call her up anywhere, even
in her bedroom. This little sketch shows the delightfully intimate
relationship which is sometimes established between the dining-room at a
man’s Club and the bathing pavilion contiguous to a lady’s sleeping
room. It was a scene such as this that inspired the composer who in a
moment of supreme inspiration, wrote that lyrical gem entitled “Hullo,
Central, Give Me Heaven.” In proposing by telephone, it is of course
just as well to get the right girl on the wire. A friend of ours
recently became a trifle confused--after being accepted by a female
voice, to learn that the houri at the other end of the telephone was no
less a dignitary than his lady-love’s maiden aunt.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PROPOSAL BY PHONOGRAPH
Our new, exclusive, patented, and correct model for diffident bachelors.
No more plucking of marguerites (she loves me, she loves my car, etc.).
No more tortured proposals on the knees (ruining the fit of the new
trousers). If she accepts, she writes to you. If she refuses, she files
the record along with her latest Hawaiian Aloha song. In buying your
proposal records, insist on having the phonograph people insert your
name and hers on the discs,--_without charge_. The names can be added in
less than ten minutes’ time. If you are a busy man, you can of course
order your records by the dozen--merely cautioning the makers to use the
names of as many girls as you happen to be wooing at the time. You can
then distribute the records to the girls and await developments. In case
you should happen to receive two or more acceptances, the simplest
method is to toss a coin.
[Illustration: “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not”]
[Illustration]
LANDED AT LAST
The artist has mercifully drawn a veil over the hero in this scene. This
is always the way you finish. You try out your proposals on different
girls and find yourself landed at last with a big, masterful sort of
sparring partner, a girl who grabbed you when you weren’t looking and
marched you up the aisle with the Lohengrin record turned on at third
speed. And, behind you and your big masterful girl, there stalks that
dreadful mother of hers, and her soul-blighting Uncle Cyril, and her
dreadful little twin brothers, and then--walking with a man whom you
happen to hate--the bride’s sister Gertie, the bright little girl whom
you _really meant to marry_.
[Illustration]
THE NEWLY RICH ELEMENT
Heroic little bands like this annually advance upon the fashionable
resorts, to make an overt attack upon society. These invaders come from
the heart of the wilds, where the head of the family (merely a courtesy
title) is known locally as the Gravel Roof King. Little family groups of
this sort are not considered complete without four daughters, at least,
each more painfully unmarried than the rest.
[Illustration]
Palmy Days at the Seaside
_Sights at the Bathing Resorts When the Season for Salt Water is
Declared On_
[Illustration]
FOND MEMORIES
There is, alas, but little of this sort of thing, these days. The
spectacle of a venerable waiter, working himself into a healthy glow
over the wholesome indoor exercise of bottle-opening is becoming rarer
every day. A corkscrew, once the national emblem, will soon be but a
relic for a civic museum.
[Illustration]
ON THE SIDE LINES
It is such little groups as these that lend a really homelike air to the
seaside resorts. These pillars of society know the entire history of the
resort by heart; they are specialists on dates, social standing, if any,
and previous conditions of matrimony. They are a complete Guide to the
closet skeletons of all the married and unmarried guests in the hotel.
THE CINEMA VAMP
This year the movie vampire is on the promenade resting from the outdoor
scenes of her new picture, “The Super-Sin,” which will barely get by the
national board of censorship. The cinema vampire is highly unpopular
with the débutantes at the seaside resort. They seem always to resent
professional competition.
[Illustration]
THE TENNIS HOUNDS
Any day you may see the tennis hounds assembling at the court for a set
of mixed--hopelessly mixed--doubles. The curious thing about most of
these strange creatures is that no living-eye has ever beheld them
actually playing; they appear on the court with much ceremony, carrying
all the properties, and wearing the most technically correct costumes,
but that is as far as most of these sartorial creatures ever seem to
go.
[Illustration]
MIXED FOURSOMES
There is always a liberal assortment of these foursomes scattered over
the seaside golf course. They are the slowest-moving bodies known to
science; there is a wait of twenty minutes on every tee, while an
argument rages as to whether it took Ethel fifteen or seventeen to get
out of the rough, every argument, for and against, being carefully
considered. Any other players who happen to be golfing on the course at
the time, have just about as much chance of passing as the Germans had
at Verdun.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE RECENTLY RICH
The little gatherings of those to whom wealth has all the refreshing
charm of novelty are a familiar and well-loved sight in the seaside
resorts. They have done nicely for themselves in munitions stocks, and
expect to devote the years of peace to well-earned spending.
THE LURE OF THE STAGE
It is simply wonderful how the drama has helped our resorts along. It’s
surprising how much a pair of friendly young actresses can add to the
charm of a place. The male half of the visitors are unanimous in
declaring that the drama is the greatest institution of the age.
SEASIDE PANORAMA
Ask any experienced traveler what impressed him most about the seaside,
and he will immediately answer that the welcome committee, which met him
at the portals of the hotel, and which bade him a tender farewell, is
the memory which he will cherish longest,--even to his dying day.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
GLIMPSES WITHIN
How little we know of the “vie intime” of the fashionable stage idols,
twinkling stars in the dramatic firmament, far-removed from the
orchestra astronomers. It has been our recent privilege to interview, at
close range, lovely Angeline Etoille, the famous dancer of two
continents, whose throbbing reactions to the simple things of life are
indeed a revelation. Her enthusiasm for her art is inspiring. Her whole
life, for that matter, may be said to be a lesson in adorable
enthusiasms.
An Interview with A Great Dancer
_Privileged Peeps into the Soul of Mlle. Angeline, of Paris_
BARKING BLOSSOMS
“Animals! I adore them,” cried la Belle Etoille. “I could not exist
without them. Only see my three canine graces, Rose, Violet, and Lily.
My maid sprays each one of them with its name-perfume every morning.”
ALONG THE BEACH
“There is only one word,” said Mlle. A., “which describes the ocean in
all its moods of calm and storm, fickle as a lover, rising and falling
like the stock-market, as changeable in color as the fashion in hair. It
is ‘adorable.’”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MOTHER INSTINCT
When we spoke of children, the lovely dancer’s face took on a
madonna-like expression. “I adore them,” she faltered. “I often borrow
my sister’s twins, for photographic purposes. It is my crown of sorrow
that I have none of my own, but, as I am young and unmarried; what would
you?”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BUCOLIC BEAUTIES
“One of the most adorable things in an adorable world,” said the dainty
danseuse, “is the country. The lowing kine, the bleating lambs, the
bosky dells, all within season-ticket distance. It is my dream. I
constantly see myself as a shepherdess, strolling through the meadows,
whispering my little secrets to the bees and birds.”
THE FLORAL TRIBUTE
“How can I express my love of flowers except by saying that I adore
them?” questioned the exquisite Angeline. “They are, with me, a passion,
and, do you know, I can gauge a man’s devotion by the way he sends me
flowers. If he spends more than his salary--he loves me. If he spends
_only_ his salary, I know that he is cold.”
[Illustration]
ANGELINE’S ADORABLE ADIEU
It was with real regret that our interviewer rose to take his leave of
the dancing idol. The great diva, reclining on the great divan, had
given us such a charming close-up of her soul that, for a moment, we
felt specially privileged. And then, a fatal moment! we noted, behind
the arras, and protruding beyond the lower right-hand cushion, a smartly
shod male foot--a well-rounded male knee, and we realized instinctively
that others beside ourselves had found Mlle. Etoille--adorable.
[Illustration]
Transcriber’s Notes
The chapter titles do not always occur at the top of the respective
chapters.
Inconsistencies in spelling, lay-out, use of accents, etc. have been
retained; only some minor obvious typographical errors have been
corrected silently. Errors in non-English words have not been
corrected.
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