The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1895-11-02
FEMININE FAlLINGS
FEMINlNE FAILINGO
How Fair Woman Betrays
Her Earthly Origin by
Vanity and Mysteries.
MRS. LYNN LINTON ON HER SEX
For a Young Girls Library-Re-
turn of the Bangle in New
and Fanciful Designs.

People with gifts are especially fond
of showing off, says the Philadelphia
Press. A small scantling of dramatic
talent, with or without a pliable and
musical voice, is an incentive to showing
off we'll nigh irresistible.
In season and out of season there is
always that tap of recital ready turned
on and waiting only the withdrawal OF
the plug. The least thing does it. No
pretext is too small, no peg too weak. Ii
but two or three friends be gathered to-
gether round the tea table, the rec1ter
who loves to show off offers his services
% help amuse those want no amusing at
all, and ask only the peace of being let
alone. Or the violin is down stairs and
the roll of music lies handy: would you
like a little music? 1t helps a thing of
this kind and makes it CO." AS you can
not refuse these offers, the self-adyertiser
has his own way, and every poor amateur
shows off his ~second-rate capacities with
more aplomb than many a master would
feel, and certainly with more eagerness of
initiative.
These two gifts of reciting and "a
little music are terribly apt to become
infections to the friends of the showers
off. BY that-benevolent or malevolent?
blindness given by vanity no one i'm
agines he can be aught but welcomed
when he would display his accomplish
ments. All second-rate talent runs the
danger of thinking itself perfection, and
most second-rate performers have the
trick of showing off. 1t is not the best
men or women who volunteer their ser,
vices where not required. 1t is only the
second-rate, the undistinguished, the OBJ
scure. These want merely the opportu-
nifty of showing off, and " no regard
for aught else. Grant them that and you
open to them Heaven. Wheeler that heav-
en- of theirs is your ~purgatory or not
does not enter into their calculations.
All sorts of things besides those men
toned we show off on all occasions.
| Some of us wear our best frocks when
| a simpler taste and a more thrifty mind
| would take the second best sufficiently
| smart. And some of us parade all our
| jewelry on all uniting as we'll as proper
occasions. Some of US show on our
| hands and feet when these happen to pc
| pretty; and some always turn our prohle
when we lave a good nose, or look very
straight. and square wnen we nave me
! eyes and only a duTnpy little Dit OF a nose
between them. Some of us turn the con-
versation on figures when we have slim
waists and well-formed Threats, and some
| maintain that the whole value of a face
| lies in its brows and eyebrows. We have
| these very fine in our own persons and
the talk shows them off.
Some Of US show ourselves Off in our
| children, and some in our wives and hus-
bands. Furniture, ~bric-a-brac, pictures,
| eolors and Goodyere's stuffs are again
| causes for showing off, of which the ex-
pert takes advantage. In fine, there is
nothing in the world of which we cannot
make capital for seIf-glorification If we
are so minded. But the inveterate show
ers-off are in general wearisome folk to
be with, and when we drop them at the
street corner we fetch a sigh of relief and
sink pack into the monotonies of insig-
nifeance with the feeling of one who has
toiled up a-step and long hill, and now is
at rest in his own home.