Woman as Decoration

hes upon manners? It is amazing, and only prov

of the most successful costume balls ever given in New York-the crinoline ball at the old Astor House-spoke of how our unromantic Wall Street men fell to the spell of stocks, ruffled shirts and knickerbockers, and as the evening

ore than one of them will have this gift for effects. It will be she who knows at a glance which of the available odds and ends she wants for herself, and with a sure, swift hand will wrap a bright shawl about her, tie a flaming bit of silk about her d

ence of seeing a well-known opera singer, when a victim to a bad case of the grippe, leave her hotel voiceless, facing a matinee of Juliet. Arrived in her dressing-room at the opera, she proceeded to change into the costume for the first act. Under the spell o

e find it is the same thing: the scarlet, and silver and gold of the early Jacobeans, is followed by the drabs and greys of the Commonwealth; the marvellous colour of the Chu

ur of the Puritans' clothes, so in turn the drab clothes, prescribed by th

TE

mes on the Holy Women a

cotta in white, blue, green, yellow and

ent of hair, capes and gowns which are E

itan Mus

rt of the

ef in Terra-Co

s in Puritan drab and Grecian white, but the child in every man takes symbol for fact. So it is that to-day, some shudder with the belief that Beauty, re-enthroned in all her gorgeous modern hues, means near disaster.

ench models, under expert supervision. You may never turn out to be an artist in the treatment of your appearance, instinctively knowing how a prevailing fashion in line and colour m

n of spirit from the consciousness that she is faultlessly gowned; the other succumbs to se

he is perfectly turned out and lets it go at that, we have only grateful applause. She it is who c

d by clothes, the more she struggles to rise above them the more her spirit flags. The case is this: the woman's mind is wrong; her clothes ar

s to have cultivated a certain degree of self-reliance. To know that one's appearance is pleasing, to put it mildly, is of inestimable value when it comes to meeting the world. Every child, if normal, has its good points-hair, eyes, teeth, complexion or

belongs to the woman who knows, though she may not have thought it out, that clothes can make one a success, but not a success in the enduring sense. Dress is a tyrant if you take it as your god, but on the other hand dress becomes a magician's wand when dominated by a clever brain. Gown yourself as beautifully as you can afford, but with judgment. What we do, and how we do it, is often seriously and strangely affected by what we have on. The writer has in mind a literary woman who says she can never talk business except in a linen collar! Mark Twain, in his last days, insisted that he wrote more easily in his night-shirt. Richard Wagner deliberately put on certain rich materials in colours and hung his room with them when compo

ination. She once ventured a cerise hat and instantly dropped to the ranks of the commonplace. Fine eyes, hair, skin, teeth,