The San Francisco call., 1896-02-23
They All Now Belong to the
School of Vingtieme
Steele.
FIRST STEP Is NATURALNESS.
The Next Progression Is to Marry a
Man Ten Years their
Junior.

you must be an optimist. Everything
that we connect with the word fin de
steele is out of form, and anybody who is
anybody says that one is vingtieme steele.
You wouldn't think the change in words
would make so much difference, but it
does. The fin de steele girl was given over
to many bad habits-cigarette-sm smoking,
lolling about in teagowns and darkened
rooms, incoming over erotic poets or ana
lytical novels, and, in fact, belonging to
the school of Aubrey Beardsley, who is
cleverly enough making money at fooling
the world. And up to its bent.
By the by, Mr.. Beardsley has just
added to his fame-is it fame or noteriety :?
by painting a picture of the Virgin
and Child" and his conception of the
Holy Mother shows her IN a hooped gown
OF red velvet, looped with pink roses. And
London laughs, but still it buys his books.
He has just announced that the woman
who Is most exquisitely shaped, or as he
puts it, ''divinely tall,' should measure
from the hip to the bend of the knee
twenty-five inches, and from the knee to
the heel twenty-five inches.
Curiosity led me to measure a friend
who is of medium height, with the result
that she measured from the hip to the
bend OF the knee twenty-three inches, and
from the bend of the knee to the heel
eighteen inches. Mr.. Beardsley's measure
ments probably cause him to be so i'm
mensely off in his drawings. About his
color l can say nothing, but should
think he needed to be treated as the
Howling Swell said his uncle was, that is,
You see, dear boy, ne did not know red
from black, but he went to Johnny doc
tor, paid his fee, and now he can see as
oil uho1x ~; rla& 81
for the Beardsley school to go to Johnny
doctor and get Its seeing apparatus
Strengthened so that their women W Ill not
look like round bathtubs put on clothes
poles and topped with tea cup and sau-
GER
But to return to the girls. The fin de
steele girl liked to talk about death, about
its joys, about the painful pleasures of life,
and she changed her religion quite as often
as she did her washerwoman, in her efforts
to get one fitted to her poor little soul.
Such miserable little soul! 1t has been
haggled over, put out on exhibition, its
possibilities discussed by long-haired men
and short-haired women until, absolutely,
l doubt its being worth dedlcatIng to any
thing. All the women who knew nothing
talked about the daughter of the unknown.
And all the wise women stood off and
wondered if, when Congress was over, the
fool-killer would come around. But we
have changed all that. The girl that is
vlngtleme steele must, first of all, be
natural. She eats we'll, she enjoys her
self heartily and she finds an immense
pleasure in telling the truth. Sometimes
she embarrasses you with her great
| truthfulness. She is rich in opinions
about bonnets, about books. about abies,
about pictures and about men. She is
particularly fond of announcing her age.
| She patronizes the youth of 20.
whose father has allowed him to go out
alone in his first dress-clothes. by saying
| to him: Now, my dear boy, am ages
older than you'll am quite 28-old enough
| to be your mother! Let me introduce you
to that nice little blond. Miss Giddy, who
is just II, and you two lovely young things
| can have a beautiful time together"
| That wasn't what he came for. Under
his breath he wishes that Giddy girl was
| in heaven, and he tells Miss Theodore
Truth that he would much rather stay
with her. Of course, she expected this,
but still, when he has acted like goose
and proposed to her, she is able to say to
the women of his family: 'I never tried
than he was; | said | could be a mother,
but not a sweetheart, to him, and offered
to introduce him to no end of pretty girls.
But he would hang about me"
She of the vingtieme steele may tell the
truth, but the truth, dressed or in its
nudity, is as dangerous to handle as nitro
glycerine. What is the consequence? You
pick up your morning paper and you say:
Gracious goodness! Paul Smith, that
boy of Kitty's, has married one of those
Fornace girls. Why, she is at least ten
years older than he is.
The answer, little languidly spoken, is
"Oh, my dear, it is getting to be such an
old story for men to marry women older
than they are. The son of the richest man
in the world is desperately in love with a
young lady who, if we used the horrid old
terms we used to, would be called an old
maid, and l don't think he is 21,
Then the famous divorcee married a
| man younger than herself by some
thing like eight years, and, personally,
| think that the idea has got into the
heads OF the Johnnies that they can
save themselves money and time by marry
ing the woman who has had the expert
ence which is unknown to them. and who
would, In view of their youth, be less
selfish than young girl, and so would
make the mans happiness the first con-
sideration." listened with bit of sur
prise, because | had not credited the
Johnnies with so much brain, but is it q
rabbit. or which small beast, that has al
most as much brain as a man? If the
girl Of the vlngtieme steele is writing q
book, and, of course, she makes some mis-
takes, it is on the subject of "How to en-
Joy vourSelf twenty-three hours out OF
twenty -four" And if she has been led
astray and induced to write a play that
will cause the curtain to go up at least
once, you can be pretty certain that the
story involved is one of true love, and all
the people in it are good and are having a
good time. The villain is never anythin g
worse than the cook but then bad cook
is villain whose ways are secret and in
tense.
Just at present the girl of the twentieth
century is saying to herself, why should
spend my dollars, good American dollars.
earned by a jolly, good, generous American
man. on an italian woman who says she
despises this country?'' Oh, my dear girl
do hope you and every other woman in
this country will say to yourself: Not a
dollar shall that woman get from me- 1t
is an insult, you know, to our brains, for
an actress to say II despise America. !"
| (By the by, she did not say it to me, but
| she is quoted by the best newspapers as
having said IT'D
If her hatred for America is so intense,
she had better extend ner dislike to Amer
| lean dollars and remain in Italy, where sh e
will probably find greater appreciation,
but where she will certainly make less
money. Have bit of courage and tellthe
truth. Unless you understand French or
italian varv weil what 10 tho uca of NOV