The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-06-28
POSING FOR EFFECr.
It Isn't Becoming and 1t Nearly Always
Fails.

It Isn't Becoming and 1t Nearly Always
Fails.
New Orleans Picayune.
Why posep 1t is rarely becoming never
clever, and means eventual failure. GAS
sumo virtue II you have It not'' was never
meant to stimulate posing, though it has,
perhaps, tendency ia that direction, and has,
doubtless, supplied many an excuse for atti-
studinizing.
q TO affect a taste, to pretend to an enthu-
eiasm, TO stimulate devotion are trying at
titudes and difficult to maintain.
Ibis curious to consider the various forms
OF pretense and kinds of affectation: for this
full, each age having its fashionable pose,
each nationits virtues assumed and each in
dividual ite crowning insincerity.
n In the history OF woman, 1t has been in turn
the fashion to be many things intellectually
and physically. In one age we find women,
asa whole, affecting q; sort of childishness,
% sfInpering simplicity, desiresto appear not
cver-wisc In another abe plays the role of
philosopher, affects the logican, apes the
mstaphysician. Again she poses for the
athlete, reveals tendency to great muscular
development, must be strong, rosy, healthy.
b She must be these things, even If everything
In her nature is opposed to the prevailing
'fad" These are conventional pretenses
waves OF affectation sweeping countries at
intervals without apparent reason.
There is the national pose, the thing one
pretends to be, characteristic of his peculiar
nation, affecting the traits it Is supposed to
posses. The Englishman emphasizes his in
Indifference of manner, the Frenchman his
dramatic emotion. and the German his
stolidity.
The individual posing in our own small
world is, however, of more moment to us.
Our own men and women who are straining
their minds, hearts, and muscles in forced
and unnatural positions for our applause,
yhnVa
are, they would possess infinite charm and
succeed where they now fail.
To affect a literary taste is an amazing alb
surdity, as there is no virtue in liking certain
books and no vice in not caring for them. A
man may be clever and not appreciate
Shakespeare, and woman brilliant who does
not admire George Eliot. 1t is an evidence
Of stupidity to pretend to taste, but not an
evidence OF it to be without it. There are
poseurs-those bright little women who say
they read Carlyle with delight, find Browning
pleasure, and Emerson joy-who display,
while they are speaking, mental traits and
conditions rendering them totally incapable
of so doing
In regard, for instance, to Carlyle, they are
not educated for an appreciation of him, they
literally do not know enough to understand
him; for, from an actual drift of their lives,
there has been no possibility of the mental
training necessary for such result. AS to
Browning, requiring, as he does, true poetical
enthusiasm and intense emotional capabili-
ties, one realizes fully that such women are
here, too, incapable; and for Emerson's ma
jesty of thought, one feels their insufficiency.
They are, however, capable Of many charm
ing things Intellectually. They are witty and
original, but not literary and learned; they are
delightful, but not analytical; and they would
be far happier If they understood their strength
and developed it, and did not encourage their
mental weakness.
To each has been given something truly
good and great; then why pretend at all!
There is nothing so charming as simplicity
Of character, and nothing more refreshing,
in this age of posing, than thoroughly sim
cere man or woman with the courage Of his
opinions"