The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1892-06-07
VERANDA TALK.
FADS OF FAMOUS PEOPLE THE SUB
JECT DISCUSSED.
Modjeska and Her Cigarcttes-Helen Terry's
Scrap Bag-Nilsson a Collector of
Tans-Is the Crazc Superstition?

100, women ana men.
"Fads" are all right.
A fad is a persons recreation usually
| and, perhaps, Professor Munsterbrug, the
wonderful young German, who is coming
over to Harvard university next October to
sit in the chair of Psychological Expert
| mentation," will be able to tell us why we
| each privately keep a pet superstition. 1t
| was said the other day that half the literary
women in Boston have mania for Spir-
| itualism, but won't confess it,
Fads of Famous People.
| A smart person sets up his own fad. The
| crowd usually run together in common pur-
suit of the fad that is the fashion; it is a
pink tea, or it is coaching; or it is living
whist or it is skirt dancing, or it is q society
circus performance, or it is Summing.
| One of the busiest lawyers in Boston
| spends his spare time with microscope and
drop of dirty pond water, and says he
| should have been crazy long before this
| time but for this fad. Charles Egbert Grad
| dock is devoted to fancy work, and so is
| Mrs. A. d. II. Whitney Louisa Alcott used
| to pride herself on getting up stunning pro-
| grammes for evening entertainments and
| considered tableaux her strong point. Mrs.
| Margaret Deland takes to carving chimney
| pieces, and Mrs. Celia Thaxter to poppy
| gardening.
Ellen Terrys Fad.
| Miss Ellen Terry's hobby is one with a
| practical aspect. At her charming home in
| South kensngton she keeps huge work
| basket full of odds and ends of things for
the poor. When her friends go to see her
! they must take their choice of knitting,
| crocheting or sewing and use their needles
| like so many Penelopes when they talk.
| Mrs. Bernard Beere, ''England's Tosca,"
| as she Is usually called, has a strange fancy
for mechanical toys, dancing dolls and
| money boxes A horseshoe, which she pick
| ed up once upon time at Sandringham,
| hangs over her boudoir door.
Modjeska's Fad.
Modjeska's is cigarette smoking, habit
| she learned In her girlhood. She wanted to
| be with her brothers, but the smoke of
| their cigars made her cough, so to get ac-
| customed to it. she herself learned to smoke.
| She thinks the fact that she smokes q
| package or SO of cigarettes every week
| should not be regarded as a heinous Of
Tense.
| II do smoke, but I am not smoker My
cotheS never suggest the smell of tobacco,
my breath is not tainted, and there is not n
| trace of nicotine on my fingers. | do not
shop, or gossip; am neither n candy-eater,
| tea-drinker, nor wine-drlnker. require
| something to quiet my nerves, and l think
| l have chosen the least injurious of all
stimuantS."
Nflsson's Fad.
| Madame Christine Nilsson has a hobby
| for collecting fans.
| Most of her fans have been given her by
eminent people. The finest one she has
| was presented to her by the sabib of Mo
roi; it is made of gold, gems and feathers
| another, which was given to her by Il
queen of Dudes famous fan. 1t is made
of white silk, and sticks of ivory and
gold, the whole being covered with rubies,
diamonds and pearls and emeralds. The
Empress Eugene once gave Nilsson fan
which formerly belonged to Madame Du-
barry, and was painted by Boucher; an
other fan i'll the fair songster's collection
was presented by the city of Venice. 1t i,
Of silver filagree and point lace. asaa
| another, once belonged 10 M;.rle AntOinette
and was used by her in prison. Altogether
Nilsso9's collection of fans is valued at
$4,000.
Mental Telegraphy.
Today one would better hesitate to call
person 'superstitious' simply because
he is rather inclined to believe there may
be something III thought transference.
The fact is that everybody one meets
seems to have al experience to relate bear
ing upon the subject.
The other evening at q family dinner
table anecdotes of the war went around
One brother said: The funniest thing /
first battle. l don't know when l have
thought of it before
"A man near me was overcome by pure
nervousness and broke out into loud
fed and ashamed. Stop that he sad,
shaking him. You coward! anybody
would think you were babyr
-" on, wish l was a baby blubbered
the miserable one in solemn earnest, and
girl baby at thatv
q npy If,
rator OF this anecdote said: Whom do
you think / saw last night? The man who
wanted to be girl baby I haven't seen
or heard of him since the war. He lives in
the west and was here for the first time in
twenty years. Doesn't it seem as though
his vicinity put that old story into my
mnd?'
Most of us are familiar with the psychi-
cal phenomenon of the arrival of a letter
from person of whom we have been sud.
denly set thinking, or of his ring at the door,
thus announced.
Dickens and Little Nell.
And what shall we call that strange md
tragcal experience of young English girl
some years ago, in which Charles Dickens
bore part? Shall we pronounce the feel
ing which took possession of her to be super
stition?
A friend tells me the sto-y,
During the period when Master Humph-
reys Clock, or, us it became afterwards
known, "The Old Curiosity Shop" was run
nlng IN some current magazine, q Young
glrl in precarious health became perfccty
enthralled with the story and so absorbed
did she grow in the development and char
acter of Little Nell that she felt persuaded
her own life would continue just so long as
the little heroine's, and that both would
terminate together.
This she told her father one day. adding
that she knew Little Nell must die III the
course of the story. And then began
piteous letters from the afflicted father 10
Charles Dickens, stating the case and bis
daughters infatuation. and pleading as only
a parent who watches his child standing on
the threshold of death can plead-that the
novelist might preserve alive Little Nell.
Dickens was deeply touched but replied that
he could not do it; that the child in the story
must die, only he would keep her alive
through still another number of the maya
zine, Notwithstanding the story was already
dragging, and that was all he could do
Finally came the closing pages of that
sweet, sad tale of Little Nell's life: and
even as she fell asleep the young English
girl, who had bound her Pickering life to
that others, turned her face to the wall and
walked no more.
The Evil Eye.
But l can relate a case of what may be
called genuine superstition-frm faith in
the ''evl eye"
An Irish woman said to me one day last