The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-08-06
In Woman'S World.

I am proud to be able to offer a sugges-
ton to the i~mpecunious. says a London
journal. Not to the ~impecunious who en-
visage existence so casually and airily in
the East-end but to those more hardly
pressed un~fortunates who haunt Mayfair
staircase, and whose means of support are
as hypothetical as their pedigree IS
authentic. Do. we not know them well,
men and women with suave anners
making pathetic efforts to to- be in the
movement, harassed by a-hunared cares
with unpaid for coats and dresses upon
their backs and a perpetual forced smile
upon their lips? When their affairs comes
to a~scrisis. these. needy folk take desper-
ate measures. The men sometimes be-
come wine merchants agents, or tobac-
conists' touts, lake positions as major
domo to the newly rich, intimidate theft
friends on the subject of coal or life
assurances, and think themselves fortu-
nate if they secure the post of paid sec
rotary to a club. AS for the women
well, what do they not do n~owadays2
They open bonnet shops, go out TO do
massage and chaperon cocaine maniacs.
They take up palmistry, c-lairvoyanee,
and lead ladies lands even know a
fwell-born woman who has seriously start
ed on the career of a professional con-
juror!
Now, many of these younger scions of
decaying families are charming enough.
They are well hammered, excellent talk
ers. ard have the entry into real society IN
London and in the counties. They would
not be asked out if they wer not amusing;
and their conyersation-their ever-howing,
omniscient TALKS listened to when more
prosperous and stolid folk can hardly get
a hearing. They have known everybody
and been everywhere. and they are nearly
always amateurs of the arts and dilettanti
of music. literature and the drama Now,
If a man can make a comfortable living
by recommending wine or cigars to his
frierds and acquaintances, why should he
not do the same for the aeter-manager
and the hanless actor? Why not turn
what is sometimes described as an honest
penny by pressing comedies and ro-
mances, farces and biographies. instead
of cigarettes or Chateau LATTE? For
everybody knows-and no one better than
a manager or a publisher-that, while the
minority may be swayed by the view Of
the critic who knows whether q play or
a book is art and literature. or artifice
ard claptrap. the majority are guided by
whether they like or dom like" a
thing, and b. what other people say of
it.
So here we have a new field of enter
prise for men and women who can COM
mand a hearing at the dinner-table, and
7 no are listened to with Difference by the
boudoir fire on autumn evenings. 1t is
open to any one with brains and position
to make the reputation of that Interesting
specimen of human horticulture. a bud
ding author, of that astronomical atom,
the rising star-aetress. Since we must all
talk. and the age moreover, is nothing II
rot m~aterial-why should not the social
advertising agent be handsomely paid for
his pains? If the mar about town or the
club-wonan can make the vogue of
Smiths new play or Browns new novel.
will there be strenuous competition on
the part of the publishers and managers
to secure their services? They would
have, of course their retaining fee exact
ly like any distinguished Queens Coun-
sci or persuasive Acknowledgement. The
resources of their eloquence, the weight of
their special pleading. would all be en-
ployed on behalf of their clients, and
soon. no doubt. should my idea take root.
it will be considered no more d~erogatory
for a man to defend a writer's abominable
literary style than it would be to appear
on his side should he be tried for the pos
sibly more serious crimes of murder or
forgery.
ttArabella is safely shut away in an old
daguerreotype, and there is nothing left
10 her memory but a few dead rose
leaves and the fading dreams in the
hearts of the old. But we would Offer
to her memory a tribute of praise for
certain sweet endearing young charms
which are almost lost arts at the TIRES
hold of the twentieth century, writes
Carrie E.. Carrot in the August Woman's
Home Companion.
ssTrue, Arabella was a pale. faint star
in the brilliant light of the new girl, and
vet. looking into that old daguerreotype
Or just the right line of vision. one sees
some sweet old-fashioned ~propensities
which have been banished to the cobwebs
and dust of age, but which ever the
proud New Girl would do well to adopt.
IF 1t is old fashioned to be modest,
thenitisagrand good old fashion. and We
need to dig it UP out of the past and give
It a genuine nineteenth century boom"
Old fashioned gowns. old songs. old plays
are born again after years of burial, and
delight new generations. Happy if some
old fashioned virtues long abandoned and
forgotten might be resurrected and be-
come the ragel Is there any thing so
refreshing land. so rare) in this weary
world as a sweet. unaffected. modest
youth? After the cheap jests and shrugs
and mannerisms of society, a pure, frank,
unspoiled manner is like sunshine on the
waters of a brook after the yellow glare
of gaslight. Arabella was wont to sit in
a state of sweet receptivity and absorb
the eloquence of man. which, though per-
haps inglorious. was at least ~restful.
Therefore. she had that pearl of all man
ners-repose. The New Girl, on the con-
trary, is all the time making a palpable
effort to sustain her reputation for bril-
liancy. Now, the conscious effort to be
continually witty and entertaining may
be as trying to the nerves as those deadly
pauses which occur between ideas (and
which unauestionably occur pretty fire.
49,