Los Angeles herald., 1892-07-02
THE BOSS GIRL.

We notice tendency on the part of
our San Francisco contemporaries to
levity in their Sunday issues, and there
is decided disposition to discuss the
niceties of the female toilette. Thus,
the Chronicle, in its last Sundays issue,
devoted column or so of its editorial
space to the subject of buttons" as
applied to the investiture of the fem
mime form divine, while the monarch"
surrendered much of its space to similar
topics. Then one of the leading jour
nails consecrated the labors Of one of it's
editors to the question of the compare
tive beauty of the ladies of Tennessee
and San Francisco. Of course this is
dangerous ground. 1t is precisely that
kind of thing which led on to the Greco
Trojan war, and which is embodied in
the Judgment of Paris, not that of the
County Paris, in Shakspeare's immortal
Romeo and Juliet, nor yet of the Count
de Paris, the present head of the house
of Orleans, but of that winseme Paris
OF Troy who wiled the glad and radiant
able in the land of Priam.
But, at the expense of being regarded
as an unwarranted intervenor in this
dispute, we must beg to be heard. The
California editor who was quoted last by
his San Francisco contemporary gives
the palm of beauty to the ladiesof the
Golden Gate, while admitting the almost
incompatible charms of those of Ten
nessee. In this we think he was wrong,
and for reasons which we shall proceed
to give.
When one approaches the confines of
Kentucky or Tennessee, from north or
south, one enters region where Queen
Dido of old might have held her court.
The men are brave and the women
beautiful, and superlatively SO as to
both these qualifying terms. The
women of those states have almost
invariably queenly car riage, and they
recall Virgil's lovely goddess with the
rosy nimbus on her neck. They sug-
gest and personify grace, dignity,
beauty. and all imaginable loveliness.
They seem to glide rather than to walk,
and to exhale vitality rather than to
suggest the vulgar idea of the actual
life of this work-a-day world. Pride
attunes their physical perfections to the
! ethereal standard; and to see really
/ beautiful Kentucky or Tennessee woman
is to see something that would crush
the canvass of Bougoureau, with its
minifying niceties, and would demand
the space and state of a Raphael or
Tintoretto. The eclectic type of the
beauty who is toasted in Tennessee or
Kentucky as belle is classic and statu-
esque, with titful suggestion that she
is at times human through the furtive
and yet at the same time humid eye,
when it rests upon male specimen of
her kind who happens to please her.
| Just thus stands forth the beautiful
girl of the Blue Grass region. Her
charms are innumerable and almost in
imitable, and yet not quite so as to the
latter adjective. Aud why not? We
shall endeavor to show, in few short,
crisp sentences.
In the first place, there is her sister of
San Francisco. If the Blue Grass girl Is
-"tall and most diyinely fair" the girl
OF the Golden Gate hath charms of a
kind that are recognized by all male
beings whose good fortune has permit
ted them to look upon her. And what
a sight she is to see, as the matinees
disgorge their argosies of precious
freight of Saturday afternoon, for in
stance? We have sometimes felt tempt
ed to write defence of the Kearney
street statues. There has been, per-
haps, too much harsh judgment di-
rected against these unhappy ephe-
mera. What wonder that, like
moths, they rush to destruction in
the lambent flames darted from the
brilliant eyes that dazzle Kearney and
Montgomery streets at that hour? In
that procession are to be seen forms of
beauty that would discount Cleopatra,
OF lotus flower and aspen memory. The
predominant type is that OF the leopard
ess, with 1.-the and elastic motion that
disdains to touch the earth. Miracles
of color all their own distinguish
these dainty creatures. In addition,
they are gifted with taste in dress that
is absolutely ravishing. The prevailing
.directoire style of toilette admits of the
display of forms whose voluptuousness
is only rivaled by their suppleness.
They are pervaded by their robust and
yet melting personality. They all wear
the air of uncrowned queens, and happy
would be the king who possessed one of
these exquisite and shapely creatures.
This is one reason why we deny to
either Kentucky or Tennessee the palm
OF beauty.
And there ia still another reason
which we should be recreant to our eec-
tion were we to fail to advance, and
that is
Why, of course, the peerless beauty of
the daughters of Southern California,
most pre-eminently embodied in the
Los Angeles girl. And what an ernbod-
iment it is. This consummately de-
lightfnl creature is what the orange is
to the apple blossom-what the necta-
rine is to the peach. She is compound
of the north and southland -of the
blushing peach bloom of New England
md fbo t,1-1..