The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-04-03

supposed to give grace has no reference to
the wobble OF the structure itself.
Upon all this is superimposed the toilet,
ann t0f--T this season 1t cannot be
said that il harmOnizes, save apart from
the wearer, since the shades of green seen
everywhere are as lily adapted to subdue
French sallowness as pale blue to the
African. The French woman, gracious
and charming as she often is, is an absO-
lutely artificial product, and her toilet is
OF the same order. Its beauty of detail,
its harmony OF color, American women
have already to a great degree assimilated.
But 1t is quite time that the theory that
whatever is Partisan is necessarily the Gull
mination of all that women can desire,
should be exploded. America has still
much to learn. The shoddy element there
will wear its diamonds in the morning
and its most gorgeous toilets on shopping
excursion, breach of good sense and
good taste, impossible to French woman.
But the American lady, young or old,
finds on this side of the sea not
one with keener eye for proper COM
bination Of color, or who wears
with more thorough grace the work
of the famous cOmbiners of material.
We need a school in which our dress
makers may be trained as thoroughly as
the Paris apprentice, but each year is add
ing to our resources, and it is certain that,
taking everything into consideration, we
are already beyond any question the best
dressed people of the civilized world.
Paris will still have plenty to teach us.
Delicate finish is q characteristic we as
simulate last. but we also have much 10
teach her. A city which enshrines the
most perfect form of woman that mortal
eyes ever rest upOn-the Venus de Milo
having cried, "Oeiel que ravissante!" pro-
ceeds to make every woman as absolutely
unlike il as human hands can accomplish.
The American is wiser, and though our
type is still too fragile and nervous, this
fact is a diminishing one, and we are gain
ing yearly in the health which is the real
foundation of beauty.
Why should / tell you what is to be
worn in April and what in September? A
hundred pens will do this with detail
leaving no lack, and it is certain that
beauty and fitness will meet, and that the
owner OF Paris toilet may still thrill as
she opens the wardrobe which holds it.
But because the American woman has
keener, more delicate perceptions; be-
cause she is truer in her instincts and
wiser from her larger opportunity, her
toilet will be the subtle expression of
these qualities. She will reject whatever
belittles them, and will, in the end,
demonstrate to the world that these
rare souls know also every charm of
setting and have taken from Paris all
that was best in her scheme, leaving to her
only the need of another Renaissance
a need never sorer than to-day, when art
in every form is well nigh soulless and
Paris the synonym for a superticialty,
which, if she has no ear for any lesson of
the past, viii bring her, with her beauty
and brilliancy and charm, to the same de-
struction that two thousand years ago fell
upon the people with whom she has much
in common-the gay and pleasure-loving
Athens, caring for naught but to hear
and to see some new thing. And if this
seems too somber ending for talk on
toilets it is because there is full faith
in the place and claim OF beautiful dress
ing that these words and no others find
place to-day. HELEN CAMPBELL.