The Portland daily press., 1881-03-07
The New Society Craze.

Most amusing accounts are given of the new
craze which has seized on certain section Of
London society. 1t seems, for some time past,
sundry young men and women have betaken
themselves to the Showing of their shapes
as Jack Tar calls it, in the most fantastical COS
tunes of the medieval ages, and playing such
tricks before high heaven as make the angels
weep. The women exhibit themselves in tight
fitting garments, devoid of all shape and color,
chnging to the form and showing the contour
Of the figure with quite as much precision as
the ieshlings of the ballet-girls the hair cut
short and frizzled over the eyes and dyed of a
deep orange brown; the throat encircled by a
double row of large amber beads, from which
depends medieval ornament; and looking
glass hanging to the side as in the pictures of
the Venetian ladies by Paul veronese The
female aesthetic is in general sallow and half
starved and wo-begone in expression, dry
Tipped, and always looking thirsty and ex-
hausted. She affects the colorless raiment as
beheld in the pre-Raphaeliue piotu res-olive-
green skirt, long and trailing the ground,
but so tight as to show the angles of the knee
joints when she is seated; the bodice is of
deep, dull orange color, laced with the palest
blue; the sleeves, tight-ftting to the elbow
hang to the feet and are made of different COL
or and material to the rest of the attire. A
pale, dim fawn color is in general most pat
ronized and is lined with the brownish green
seldom seen in Nature save on the back of a
toad.
The beautiful aesthetic has in general din
gy look, which is attributed to the efforts made
to attain to that dizziness of coloring il which
alone resides perfection, according to her ideas
and which in some cases is procured by artif-
fetal means. She signs and looks vacantly
around from beneath the shock of stiff frizzled
hair, dyed of a reddish brown, according to the
law she has made unto herself of having no
defined color on any portion of her frame. She
scarce can open her lips to speak, so tightly are
they pressed together, and never smiles save
when the male aesthetic approaches, and then
they whisper together, and sometimes disap-
pear, locked arm in arm toward the supper
room, where they are not more backward than
the vulgar herd in their enjoyment of the
creature comforts provided.
But while the female aesthetic is simply ri
dicnlous, the male of the species is absolutely
offensive. He lisps and ambles; his locks flow
uncombed over his collar, but. when no one is
by, he is not above investigating the contents
OF tankard of Bass ale, of which he partakes
freely. He generally carries an artificial lily
in his hand, at which he shifts pathetically
now and then. He has been caricatured un-
mercifully in the illustrated papers and even
on the stage, but he heeds it not. He goes on
lisping and shifting, we'll aware that his new
method of getting into notice and emerging
from the ranks of obscurity to which his own
incapacity has hitherto confined him is the
easiest and cheapest of ALL; To show the ex-
tent to which the aesthetics have encroached
upon the domains of common sense and pro-
priety, it is only necessary to mention one or
two Of the vagaries to which they have given
vent of late. ~
lady of high repute and much respected
and beloved, but who has gone in for the as-
thetic phase, determined to act up to the char
actor she had assumed, and at soiree given
at her house, after having treated her friends
to few melodious twangs upon an ancient
Tyre kept in her husbands studio to assist him
in painting his antique groups, she disappeared
from the room. Presently she returned with
crystal platter on which was an antique COB
let turned upside down. Going round to each
guest she whispered in hollow tone, "Supper
is ready" at which announcement the guest
who accepted the invitation to descend to the
supper-room was expected to turn the goblet.
The male aesthetic, on his side, keeps ia per
burning before the portrait of the lady who
pleases him BEST never owns his love, but goes
on signing and moaning and dining and sup
ping at the same time, with the most self-saeis-
fed calm imaginable. An effort is now being
made by the leaders of fashion to crush this af-
fectation, which is eneryating the youth of
both sexes and converting some of the salons
of London into the semblance of the mortuary
chapels of the Campo Santo at Pisa.