Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-01-31
FOOL GIRLS IN SOCIETY.

Woman-hating Society Man Makes Some
Mean Remarks About Them.
seTHE FOOL GIRLS ONE so FIRE.
4quently meets in society make me
fatigued," said q professed misogynist in con-
versation with . writer for THE STAR the
other day. 81 refer particularly to the
accomplishments they profess in the
way of music and art II young woman
does not play on the piano nowadays it
is necessarily supposed that she draws and
paints. You go to her house and her admiring
family exhibits for your enjoyment the latest
daubs on canvas or placques of her production.
Don't you think that she has very remark
able talent?' says mamma.
''Of course you are obliged to say that 1t il
wonderful. Now, myself have on occasions
told whoppers without any particular distress
to my conscience, but I dislike exceedingly to
play the part Of hypocrite. However, there
is no alternative.
Incidentally to the conversation you learn
that the art works in question are copies
Mademoiselle has taken o good thing perhaps
and simply reproduced IL as well as she was
able with her own brushes and paints. There
is no disguise about It, nor is any attempt made
to pretend that the products are original, for
the simple reason that neither the young
woman nor her friends appreciate the fact
that there is any particular difference in point
of ability requisite between originating pic
ture and copying one.
g is not the dear child's talent remarkableT
asks y Papa; ,or,oo,,, . ,o,,,,.-. 80.
thing purely and absolutely mechanical. Any
one can learn to copy. What requires talent
Of course, is origination. Ask one Of these
talented girls to draw the simplest thing out Of
her own head. though it be merely q face or a
hat, and she hasn't the least idea how to do il.
Her notion Of drawing anything original is but
slightly more developed than when OF school
she used to represent a cat on her slate with Q
triangle for head and . parallelogram on four
stills for body and legs. Obviously these re-
m arks do not apply to some few young women
who actually have talent, but they are very rare
exceptions.
Sometimes the pictures exhibited by these
girls as their own are very fair indeed. That is
because the works in question have been actually
executed by the teachers. The young women
do not intend any deception in the matter, i'm
agining, as they really do, that they themselves
have done them. They do not at all realize
that the instructor with dab here and stroke
there from time to time has actually made the
result l have known most admirable paint
ings Of dogs heads to be turned out in this
way by very sweet girls, who had no more no
ton Of art than is possessed by average Indian
e4uans- vi COuIbc ~ IL tue luttrcbt Oh the
teacher to make the work produced BY the
pupils as good as possible.
''In certain respects what have been say
ing applies to music. 1t is considered the thing
that young lady shall be taught to play the
piano. No one considers first Of all whether or
not she had any musical inclination. On gem
eral principles she must begin while yet in very
short frocks to bang the keys, though she may
not be able to tell by ear one note from an
other. Her performance is never anything
more than mechanical, but by spending several
hours day at it for years she acquires the 'ac-
complement Incidentally it is expensive,
but it must be had.
But what makes me more tired than any,
thing else about the fool girls one meets SO
frequently in society Is their ignorance Ienor-
ance Is The proper word to use in the case and
to none OF them Is 1t SO applicable as to those
who have been educated at the most expensive
and fashionable schools. There was one young
lady 1 was introduced to the other day who
had been graduated from the most swell and
exclusive boarding school in New England She
had studied French, German and little Ital-
ian, besides taking all the extras, and yet she
never heard Of Bulwer or his novels. Another
giri whom | danced with at the dancing class
last week had never heard anything about Dr.
koch's lymph, although the whole civilized
world has been sgog over that discovery for
months past.
What should recommend il that the soci-
ETY. girls betake themselves to reading the news
over daily once in twenty-four hours, and yet
young woman who is willing to do that much
will find herself greatly sdvantaged for con-
versational purposes and she will not be com
PEELED to confess her ignorance Of pretty much
| everything in which the world at large is inter-
ested. The scientific men say that a frog de-
prived Of its brain, gets along about as well, il
| regularly fed, as with it. Upon my word the
same might fairly be said Of the average girl in
society. The dudes will feed her with ice cream
and chicken salad and for the rest she has only
to be draped with pretty clothes, to
bang the piano, perhaps, or to copy
pretty pictures in water colors or
oils There was q time, generation or two
ago, when women, although not nearly SO well
educated as at present, studied the art Of con-
| versation and really knew something Now.
conversation in society is almost a lost art To
introduce topic worth discussing is to make
| oneself a bore. 1t is commonly imagined. or
at all events asserted, that Boston girls are par
ticularly clever and entertaining conversation
ally, but my observation is that the fact il quite
otherwise. Those Of them who really have
brains try to be scholarly and are not at
traetive, while, inasmuch rs il 10 the fashion
| there to be clever, all the stupid ones pretend
to be so and are less agreeable on that ac-
count"
The First Typewriter.
From the Charleston News and Courier.
1 saw 9 few days ago . model Of the first
\