Morning journal and courier., 1882-04-25
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has been discovered that 1t has destructive quality. Ladies, young and old, have found from experience that it is unbecomlng; that if drawing room and it's mistress are to LOOK we'll, there is no such picturesque security for their doing so as the subdued and falnt!y tinted light thrown by the latest novelties ln drawing room lamps
 The days of the salon as an institution are happily over and the ladies who endeavor te establish one soon find that they are perpe- trating an anachronism Societys minor queens only succeed in founding little des- potism of boredom ; and the well-meanlng women of certain age, who perpetually re- mind every male whom they know that they are always visible about the period of five o'clock tea, may tax the chivalry even of the most indefatigable knight of danes. Yet though the era of the salon is over, the reign of the drawing room was never more power 1 full and if it's influence is to be irresistible, l there must be forthcoming the artistic ad- l iuncts already specified. The eye must not such atrocities as naked and hideous gas | lamps The woman who does not realize thls 1 fact can never make her drawlng-room the center of any kind of authority.
 1 Nor is she herself likely to acquire that l subtle ascendency over men which IS the se- cret of feminine success. If those whom sne l may really wish to win, and whose good l opinion or affection she may prize, betake 1 themselves under these circumstances to l other women's drawing rooms, she mas only l herself to blame It is not mere neatnesS, | or scrupuous cIeanl ness, or the costl1ness Of | it's contents and the excellence of their ar l rangement which makes adrawing-room what it ought to be, and what men expect. Some thing more than the industry the primness and the care of the well drilled housewife is wanted. A woman's character may be told just as much from the character of her draw ing room as from her dress, or her manner, or her conversation The charm of a draw ing-room. is, like that of it's owner, it's womaE- liness and, so far as It lacks that, It lacks US idiosyncratic merit.
 ! There are ladies who consider themselves
 sensible and practical persons, who profess,
 and consistently illustrate in their action, a
 supreme disregard for these little amenities.
 Instead, however. of being sensible, they are
 really silly and thoughtless. They do not
 take the trouble, and, perhaps, they lack the
 imagination which would move them to do
 so, to ascertain or to consider what are the
 true foundations of woman's power. The
 secret of Byron's fatal difficulty with his
 wife will never be known but it is just pos
 sible that there may have been no secret at
 all Lady Byron was 'faultily faultless. V
 She had none of @ woman's faillngs, or of an
 ordinary woman's weaknesses, and to say
 this is to admit that she had few of woman's
 attractions.
 Men often do not find out this defect before
 marriage, or if they suspect it they underrate
 it's significance The sequel is generally
 more or less disastrous or disagreeable. The
 world knows what it was in Byronss case,
 assuming the conjectursl account of 1t now
 put forward to be correct, but 1t does not
 kr ow what it is in host of other instances "Other women's drawing rooms' IS an ex pression which must be construed ln the
 most comprehensive sense; and the reason l why these chambers have such fascination for many men, whose wives have drawing
 rooms of their own, is that the domestic
 drawing room is wanting in the finishing
 touch of grace and elegance which it ought tt l have.