Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-08-24

because their mother does not approve
Partisan bicycle costumes, and, thirdly,
because they have no time.
These girls have thrown themselves into
music, as others throw themselves into re-
ligion or novel reading. The elder daugh-
ter, after brilliant studies, has been adj
mitted to the Paris Conservative, an honor
of whose greatness We have no just con-
musical education in Europe" so few ever
passing the most preliminary of examina-
lions. Being an eleve du conservatoire
she must start out at $50 o'clock four
mornings of each week, and. accompanied
by her mother, take an omnibus tour
across Paris to the classic shades of that
noble institution.
Her mother takes a novel or review with
which to kill the time OF waiting, as
hundred other mothers do. At lunch time
the girl Is free to take her mother to the
chosen cake shop, where they make a light
and elegant repast of pate de foie gras
with cup of chocolate On other morn
ings and afternoons there are piano les
sons from private teachers. as the course
followed by the young lady at the con-
servatoire is in composition only. The
younger sister participates in the piano
lessOls. spending her Industrious days at
the devoted instrument. And so the raw
ages of art are visible from month to
month.
These girls begin to find it pleasanter to
chat with professors and celebrated COM
posers who have learned the way to their
mothers Evenings" than to improvise
dances with the faithful Englishmen and
Americans. to whom the Pas de Quantre"
Is very music. Worse they have become
acquainted with French poets with long
hair, who come recte their unpublished
verses, roll their splendid black and vel
vety eyes. and, under the pretext of COM
posing words for original music or having
the honest, rugged American and English
hearts OF oak into the shade.
So it happens that now an English sister
takes her wounded brothers side, and there
Is GOODNESS. Or an American daughter finds
1t hard to induce her peace-loving papa to
be her escort to these gaudy Evenings"
So the circle narrows. And this narrowing
of the circle by reason of the essential in
compatibility of French and Angio-Saxon
character is the essential reason why half
of the American girls in Paris find life dull
because they lack society and why the
other moiety drift to the French. These
girls are sad because the English and
Americans drop off; but, nevertheless, they
do not see their way clear to excluding the
French language from their salon. They
are enthusiastic Americans and look for
ward eagerly to promised visit soon to be
accomplished. When in America they will
not feel the necessity of French society;
but in Paris-well, they find life dull with
their few coun trymen.
A husband is serious thing in Paris for
they do not grow on bushes. And one of
the risks of an American girl in Paris is
that her young bloom may ripen into ran
cid sp.nsterhood. Who Is she to marry?
An English clerk whose father has paid
premium to get him into an importing
house at salary of IS week for the first
five years? He is there to learn the bust
ness, his salary is a derision, he lives on an
allowance from home. In the commercial
class his father and his mother and his
sisters all cry out against the foreigner.
II he can marry money, good but with his
future all before him and long years of
waiting for advancement to be gone
through patiently in Paris, he thinks rather
OF obtaining nice society than marrying.
VIII she marry an American art student?
He regularly has no money and no means
Of giving an assurance that he ever will
nave any. Living on a scholarship sent
over by an aunt, or subsisting on his saw
ings as a Sunday newspaper illustrator, he
Is willing indeed to marry any girl who can
continue to support him. That states the
case, with few exceptions.
Or will she have a young American doc
tor practicing in France? There are not
many, and they hold themselves high, ask
ing substantial dot. There are a scatter
ing of American corporate clerks; but
they generally come married. Tourists do
not count, because they do not meet these
American girls who live in Paris. Rich
young Americans who come to Paris for a
year or more have regularly their program
laid out, which includes more nfght-Iife
than the searching for wife.
STERLING HELLO.