St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-08-23
MODESTY IS SOUGHT.
Are the Social Customs of
the American People De-
generating.
The American Lady Of the
Past and Her Hardened
Granddaughter.
Delicacy the First Requisite
Of Both Art and Litera-
tupe.
Tolstoi's Sin Against Art
The Great Power of the
Ideal.

"The DecolIete in Modern Life" is
the title of all article by Elizabeth Stuart
Phelps in the August number of the
Forum. The article, written reluctantly
from an overwhelming sense of duty,
is fierce invective against certain in
delicate tendencies in modern life, art,
and literature, and plea for a return
to the finer customs of our forefathers.
However exaggerated may be some of
Miss Phelps opinions of modern de-
generacy, there is much in her plea
which our too careless ladies of society
would do we'll to heed, as the follow
ing extracts will show:
One of the profoundest bits of phil
osophy uttered in our time was given us
by Ruskin when he said. Call real
strength lies IN delicacy." The Corliss
engine could cut the finest of watch
screws. lit always reminds me of God"
said Mrs. HaWley at the Centennial eX-
hibition. We feel, more often than we
perceive. the fact that force and fine
ness are one. Indeed, we are more apt
to be aware of the antagonism than of
the harmony between these two things.
Specifically, they seem to conflict. The
protest of force is noisy and self-asSert-
i've. The scorn of fineness is misappre-
hended, neglected, too often dumb.
Ii there is any department of life in
which civilization is supposed to have
achieved something, it is the moral. 1t
is conceded that we do, on the whole,
live better lives than people did 1900 or
5000 years ago. 1t is claimed, and it is
probably true. that 1--WE, the people" of
to-day have purer homes and higher
ideals than history has had to show for
itself before our times. 1t is claimed.
and it is probably true, that the average
civilized man or woman is person Of
decency of life and ready conformity to
social ethics. 1t is clalmed-but is it
true?-that the instinct of delicacy has
matured with the world. and goes to the
front with other advancing growths and
graceS in the movement of life.
Civilization, Symmetrically developed,
must bring progressions of human
strength. DsprOportionately devel-
oped, it may bring retrogressions. In
creased delicacy is the ready proof Of
increased civilization. We may almost
say that civilization is delicacy. In one
important respect this definition per-
haps fails us. 1t is doubtful if the
sense of personal mOdesty has kept pace
with the progress of the age. We
might ask if this instinct has not been
the subject of atavism. Has it retro
verified to ruder and earlier state of de-
velOpment? think there ore indica-
tons of such fact. If it be fact, it
is one of class which brings the swift
est sense of general or particular dis
grace. For civilization Supremely i'm
plies personal modesty. The lack of
personal modesty betokens the savage
A good lady of Puritan training (but,
let it be added, of thorough education
and generous culture) took trip abroad
in middle life under circumstances
which required her to chaperon some
young friends to the French opera.
She was the object Of infinite badinage
when it was discovered that during the
performance of the ballet she always
shut her eyes. A prominent literary
man, himself used to the world and the
ways thereof, urged earnestly upon the
the author the publication of this paper,
saying, ''In my humble opinion the
ideal of propriety held by what is called
society, has absolutely no relation to
the moral sense. To take point:
when | see the ease, nay, the eagerness
with which our young girls attend, and
seem to prefer those plays where the
ballet is enough to make any gentleman
uncomfortable, | am confused. What
does it mean?
InvfOIate MaidenhOOd.
There is all indescribable expression
in the eye-every fine observer knows
(which distinguishes modest girl
from matron. Look for it in the eyes
of our girls to-day. 1t is missing so
often: it is replaced by another so I'M
welcome, so worldly-wise. so unpleaS-
antly experienced. that we shrink with
sense of having lost the most precious
thing in girlhoOd. 1t is not our pur-
pose to prove here that the lax theatre
cal view of life is largely responsible
for this, but only to ask, by the way,
how far it may be responsible. Better,
like the Puritan lady, to shut the eyes
when the ballet comes! Better SIM
pie, serious. unworldly ignorance of the
low and vicious coming in name of the
high and cultured; better, a thousand
fold, the instinct of modesty which can
not see coarse sight. than the cool, in
different, ungirl-like familiarity with
criminal suggestions which is now the
fashion among US.
A lady reared in the traditions of high
birth and gentle training of genera
ton ago, has a certain exquisite inno-
cence, herself, like an ideal girls,
which prevents her from approaching
the perils of her children. She who
would have thought it moral lapse to
allow young man, without tight, to
hold her hand; she whose lips were
l.x1 he
them to her plighted lover; she who
ideal in a dream does not readily per-
ceive or accept the conditions of a
lowered moral standard. IS it not
enough to be lady? Is not my girl
the daughter of her mother?
Read your girls eyes. you lovely
lady of the Brahman birth. and sweet
soul. Question her. She may return
you the clear, heavenly look of the heart
of YOUR own high youth, and heaven
bless her! Far be it from me to mutter
and croak, as if modest maid were an
extinct curiosity. But, if she has passed
from under your shelter and beyond
your standards: if she has been what
we call gay" if she has tossed a good
deal in the foam OF young peoples
frolics; if she has had some mock of a
chaperon, or none at all; if she has sat
in the parlor alone till midnight with a
young man once too often; if, in short,
she has drifted on the current of exist
ing social streams-question her; ques-
ton her.
MOdesty in Dress.
One cannot pass such topic as this
without finglng one more lance of
scorn at the subject of women's dress.
= 1t is afact, gloss it anyhow as
we may, that decent women have never
dressed so indecently in our country
and our century as they dc in fashion
able life to-day.
Would that some enterprising journal
might take the moral census OF this sub
ject asa substitute for prize-baby COM
petitions or guesses on Nelly Bly,. We
should like to throw down the gauntlet
to the women ofAmsfica. 'sDefend these
Speak for yourselves if
you CAMP l do not believe that two
reputable women in the land would
dare publicly to defend the styles of I'M
dress which now disgrace our sex. The
time has more than come for such
protest against this abomination as will
smite women to the dust for shame.
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