The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-01-28
THE SMART SET NOW PLAIN.
A socini Renction In New York That De.
mands the Chassst Simplicity.


The last and loudest and most poignant
cry in society, SAYS the New York Herald,
is for simplicity in entertainments.
Sweet simplicity. Chaste simplicity.
Elegant simplicity. Noble simplicity.
The simplicity that distinguished the
dinners and dances OF our grandmothers,
when hospitality appealed 10 the heart
more than 1t did to the senses.
Small, quiet dinners, nice little dances,
and modest and unpretentious suppers
after the dances are over. These furnish
the themes now for drawing-room pane
gyric and O'Clock tea enthusiasm.
II is the characteristic of the human
mind that it can not build up without
pulling down at the same time.
The people who are building up senti-
ment in favor OF simplicity in the conduct
of social affairs are doing what they can to
bring what is costly and complicated into
disrepute.
Big balls are plebeian. Large dinners
are vulgar. Elaborate receptions are
snobbish
The idea of ostentatious display has
been at the bottom of all such social
demonstrations
They have been given chiefly for the
purpose OF surprising and amazing society
friends and acquaintance, and, above all,
society rivals.
The dinner-tables have been spread with
gold plate and surrounded by liveried
servants.
The menu has recalled the feasts OF inn
perial Rome
At the balls the rooms have been DECOR
ated with costly flowers, and the favors Tor
the german have been expensive presents.
They have been industriouslv announced
in advance, and the invited crowds have
hurried TO the entertainments with all the
curiosity and anticipation felt by first
night crowd at the theater.
OF course they have been surprised and
In many cases mystified.
But now comes the reaction.
Sweep all this over decoration and en-
Enlistment or OrnamentatiOn away.
Let us be sweetly simple.
\ great many people will doubtless as
sert that the swells mean that they want
to be cheaply simple.
But the present movement is not 10 be
accounted for in that way.
1t is true that neither Mrs. Astor nor any
OF the Vanderbilts have as yet joined the
! reformers.
They are in sympathy with the reform
movement, however, and may join later
on.
In the meantime Mrs. Aston serves ter
rapin canvasback duck and choice Johan-
nisberger for the refreshment Of those
who attend her big receptions, and her
| dinners are, for the present, quite as elab-
crate as they have been.
Little by little, though, dinners, lunch
cons, collations and ball suppers will be
| cut down TO simpler proportions.
II may be stated without further pre-
| liminary that this cry for simplicity is
| directed against what are now Familiarity
known as the new rich and their social
| pretensons.
Millionaire families have come here
| San Francisco, Chicago, and even from
Boston and Philadelphia, and have capt
| ured our best society with their superb
dinners, their priceless wines and their
gorgeous and Theatre dances.
They have purchased cottages at New
! port, costly equipsges, aud boxes at the
| opera, and they have startled and sur
prised society into accepting them and
the spectacular hospitality they dispensed
No birth. No breeding. No education
No cultivation. No grandfather. No fam
| lily tree. No genealogical records. No
| coats-Of-arms, unless purchased with their
! Newport cottage and their opera box.
Simply rich men and women. The
chest society" has been contemplating
| this condition OF things.
They have been watching the aggressive
| progress OF the new rich. and they recOil
in horror from the contemplation of it.
tits scarcely necessary TO say that the
| tendency toward simplicity will be over
done. precisely as the tendency toward
what was handsome and costly was car
ried to an absurd development.
Costly decorations, rich viands for din
ner and supper, superb favors for the ger
man, will be replaced, not by what is
sensible and appropriate, but by what if
silly and inappropriate.
1t is useless, however. to attempt the
checking of this movement toward the
meager and unsatisfying.
l hear OF a dance supper that consisted
chiefly of bouillon, sandwiches and lem
| onade.
We will soon be told that Ward Meal
| lister and his followers are satisfying their
midnight appetites with crackers and