The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-08-15

- J. 4;
" II
The prosperity of the time is sup
posed to be shown by the omnipresence
OF the bicycle, since every workingman
can afford his wheel. An English writer
calls attention to the universal femin-
inc fashion of white gloves for morn
ing wear, style that is adopted alike
by women of wealth and by those whose
dress is otherwise unobtrusive and even
cheap. This writer is puzzled to see
how poorer women initiate so cleverly
this expensive fashion, for their gloves
seem to be always as white as new,
even in the underground. 1t is nonsense,
she says, to think cheap white gloves
can be cleaned indefinitely; the gloves
must be good, and they must be new.
Even in England, where gloves are less
expensive than in America, this means
a continuous outlay, which implies
money.
This prevalent item of extravaganza
hardly seems to indicate that the great
er simplicity of living that reformers de-
mand has come. Is it not relief to us,
my sisters, that we are sufficiently far
from London and New York to do our
morning shopping without gloves, and
white gloves at that? I have a profound
admiration for one young woman of our
city, a charming girl, who fearlessly
does as she likes in this matter of wear
ing gloves. She drives her horses, and
even appears at church in her simple
wash gowns, her shapely hands I'M
gloved. I have collected a list of rea-
sonable women who are like her IN
this, and I am quite ready to add the
names of others who can bow to the
rationale of our unconventional climate.
have been interested in seeing how
some of our modern writer's of fiction
appealed to the Italians. Carlo Segre,
in an Italian magazine, thus scores
Thomas Hardy: His Jude the Obscure
is essentially a novel of purpOse-the
IL hot no
agined-to show that man is nothing
more than the necessary victim of his
social surroundings Where can one
find more melancholy types than those
OF his hero and heroine?" While he ad-
mires Hardy as a vigorous and capable
writer, he thinks the fine descriptive
and analytic passages are "overshad
owed by the dominant coiors of the
work, which, judged as a whole, re-
semble the confused and disjointed
nightmare of a fever patient"
Grant Allen and Sarah Grand are
condemned wholesale, and only on Es-
Their Waters does he bestOw grain of
approval. 1--WE might have preferred to
have seen the fancy of the author ar
rested by objects more worthy of his
and our attention, but it would be i'm
possible to deny that he has placed in
their true light the types, customs and
sentiments that he has sought out anu
reproduced.
Speaking of Esther Waters, the sub
ject of that much maligned book is
scullery maid, and her associations are
likely to be disagreeable, bringing, as
they do, a great knowledge of London
streets and giving a terrible revelation
of the evils of betting. 1t has a great
ethical value, however. 1t paints with
little eXaggeration the inevitable re-
suits of sin, but at the same time it
gives a type of heroine sublime as
| Cordelia." 1t shows a grand example
! in her nobility of soul, her answering
| determination to lead an honest life.
her devotion to her boy and her fidelity
| to her husband.
Perhaps on the whole they were wise
who deemed the book unfit for general
circulation in Honolulu. These judges
may be glad to know that hereafter it
will be dropped from the course in
Modern Novels at Yale. Not, am told
because DR.. Phelps considers it i'm
moral" but out of Difference to many
/ friends of the college who have felt
uneasy about the bad influence it might
| have.
Suppose someone gifted with great
! insight should attempt to do for Homo
| lulu what George Moore has done in
! this book. Suppose the life in this Es-
! Their Waters Second TO be that of the
! Islands, the servants to be Chinese and
| japanese, men and women. Suppose
| again that as in that betting epic" the
wrongs and temptations of English
servants were held up to their masters,
so in this book we should read how
| our helpers had toiled and struggled.
would any of us feel personal rebuke
|
In the August BOOkman Lawrence
Hutton has a note on Kate Field. He
! first met her, he says, in the early six
! ties. when she was writing editorials
| for the New York Herald on a salary of