Evening star., 1899-03-04
PEOPLE AND THINGS
Pauline Pry's Prattle About Every
day Affairs.
IMPRESSIONS OF an OBSERVER
Fads and Fancies Seen and Talked
About in Washington.
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WAY
Written for The Evening Star.

lSn uemDer Oh uHS JOINT HiSH CoiHliiSSioii'
The sort of thing he referred to was
huge artificial palm adorning the reception
room of one of our highest-priced hotels.
well, what is the matter with it? I'm
sure you don't have larger ones in London,
or more expensive"
Heaven forbidv' was the answer in a
tone that kind of nettled me. and 1 took
considerable pains to show this dull Brit
isher the utilitarian value of manufactured
palms-thsy don't have to be watered, they
don't get buggie and brown and ragged
they're always green-greener than the real
thing, a lot, and they show how tremen-
dously clever we are first in making such
pretty sharas and next in making money
enough to buy them.
But they are imitation the man in
sisted and when 1 asked what that
amounted to, he confessed he couldn't tell,
but he confided to me that something OF the
same sort he lately experienced had set
him dead against an Angio-Amerlcan al
lance.
Il was at dinner the other night at the
house of a man who, l was told, was one
of your typical self-made Americans 1
didn't mind the man so much, and by a
great effort l kept his oVer-Strained, anX-
ious uncertain-how-to-do-th do-the-proper-thing
wife off my nerves. l even retrained from
spanking the precocious brats who were
kept out of bed to do fancy dance and
French fable for the entertainment Oh the
guests, and l never screamed once during
the awful agony of ten-course dinner
served to twenty people, and only one
scared, ifi-trained colored girl in attendance
upon the table. l doWned the food-When
l got cold installment-and / downed the
wine without fi.nchlng. l cou.d forgive and
forget all those things, but, do you know,
in the center of the table was a horribly eX-
pensive vase filled with even more horribly
French L
was too much for me. Artificial flowers
with your food-fancy it! Why not stage
birds and roasts and all the other property
eatableS to feed your eye, and the chemical
elements of the real thing administered to
you in pills before sitting down. Brutal
downright brutal disregard for the natural
yearnings of a true and Simp.e soul. tell
you, it convinced me that you Americans,
your frank contempt for the heart-the gen.
uine life of things-are not safe to be taken
into the family of plain, honest John Bull"
That isn't the only odious comparison be-
tween Americans and English I've been
hearing lately. Gertrude Atherton, who
has followed in the footsteps of Henry
James and VIM. Waldorf Astor and taken
up her abode in England, where she has
come visiting us this winter, tells me she
was driven to denationalize herself by the
bad manners of her native countrymen.
TO be sure, says she, there are in
divfdual Americans who are quite charm
ing as any people on earth, but the collec
tive impression people in this country make
on one who comes before the public is
simply impossible. During my nine years
Of literary work in the United States
never received one Word-not one word-of
helpful criticism. My friends serve me no
better than my enemies in this respect.
The former, when l publish a book, treat
me to a lot of circus advertising-the more
sensational they can make it, the greater
kindness they fondly think they're doing
above all, vulgar in parading in print what
they believe to be weak points of my purely
present-not literary-affairs. In London
it is all so different. Englishmen seem
never to lose their temper, and they are in
variably polite. They even correct your
own bad temper in the incest possible way.
When you fly into rage, they treat you
like a sadly spoiled child, and it isn't long
until you are fairly shamed into being
something like as amiable and courteous
as they are.
when l went over to London four years
ago, vowed I'd never like the English, and
never, never in the world would become
English. But all that, the good heart and
good manners of the English have changed
to satisfy my ideal of fine character and
good breeding"
The Misses Letter are responsible for an
Anglo-maniacal fad conspicuous the past
winter on Connecticut avenue-women
carrying walking sticks. The stick in
favor is very light, with either Prince of
Wales crook at the end or a small bulb.
The Misses Letter have a truly British
unconcern about their manner of doing this
thing, but the majority of their imitators
are as awkwardly self-conscious about it
as is the average American woman smok-
ing cigarette. The only American woman
l have seen who even outdoes Britannia
with a walking stick is Mrs. Leslie Carter.
l met her and Belasco coming in from
Chevy Chase one day, and the Albert Ed
ward stick Mrs. Carter carried was literally
out of sight amid the truly Chicagoesque
glory of all that went with it. She wore a
short skirt-a very short skirt, ZaZa herself
would not have cut it shorter, and the
meager length was made up in the remark
able thickness of the soft, beautiful Scotch
wool it was. Below it were high, stout
boots and plaid hose; under it were tights.
A trim-fitting Eton jacket and silk blouse
both black-covered the upper portion of
her body, and topping her wonderful red
hair was a Tam O'Shanter cap. On her
breast she wore much-bejeweled watch
suspended from a pin containing a huge
turquoise surrounded by diamonds The
clasps Of ner belt were other even huger
turquoise surrounded by diamonds, and her
ungloved hands were ablaZe with great
and very precious stones. AS / sat opposite
her riding into town l seemed to hear as in
a dream the changing of Chicago cable
cars; | saw the expensive immensity of
the Auditorium; l smelled the rich and
vastly penetrating perfume of Chicago
river, and l wished that Mrs Carter would
go thus to London town and show slow
stupid Britannia how much more than
carrying a walking stick being born in
Chicago can do to make woman interest
ing and distinguished.
X
Do you know who is the m ost exasperat-
ing woman in the world? I'll tell you-the
woman you can't snub She is two kinds
the meek and lowly sort, that when YOU
smite her turns the other cheek until you're
positively too tired to deal her another
blow, and the one whose self-importance is
invulnerable as Achilles heel. 1 met one
of the last kind early in the winter On
general principles I would avoid this wo-
man because she's skinny and her facs
shines. Something is all wrong about a
skinny woman; one way or another she's
dangerous. Caesar feared a lean man and
was too scared of a lean woman to so much
as name the thing of horror that she is
When a skinny woman's face shines it
means she's above using powder and is
sure to make a parade, as of virtue, of the
very wrong that is to account for the lack
of flesh on her bones. couldn't help the
woman calling on me, and I returned her
first call rather than run the risk of what
she might do to me if I violated this fun
damental principle of right social action
as prescribed by every etiquette book in
the land. When she called a second time
she addressed me as my good woman"
can forgive almost anything but being