The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-07-19

look as beautiful as possible. They still exhibit in quite their full measure 1 those weaknesses of Woman- kind In which so much of their strength is supposed to lie Most of them after all are still quite suggestive of buttehtlies | in the gay appearance they make, es- pecially so in the flimsy, ethereal fab rics of the present summer, with the prevailing craze for ruffs and frills and streamers. Wonderful, too, is the in genuity these swell women are display ! ing just now in the effort to not sacri- flee beauty at the shrine of courtly eti- quette. Of course all the highest la dies are in mourning at present, or at | least in half mourning. But who ] doesn't know that many a forlorn creature sorrowing over departed l helpmeet has managed somehow to look almost as pretty in her widow s weeds as in her wedding dress; and as to half mourning, who that takes any , interest whatever in womanly attire IS not well aware that ladies look charm | ing in a gown of white lace or white India silk, topped off, as concession l to court etiquette, with stunning black Gainsborough trimmed in the highest style of New Bond street art? Those who are not aware of these things should have been here during the past week to see what i've alp have seen.
 | At the same time, if one should con- clude as he zigzags in and out amongst these titled devotees of beauty and fashion noting how tall most of them are, and how exquistely gowned, lis tening to their merry laugh and mark Ing especially what soft, musical voices they have in converse tion-if as one sees them thus on show this afternoon or to- night, sh should conclude that he is qualified by this view to interpret their lives, writing them down as friv- olous, with no higher ambition than to shine and sparkle and dazzle, how eg- gregiously fooled that man would be and what rank injustice he would do to class whom Everybody in England has learned to respect and who are really the mainstay practically no less than ornamentally, of nearly all those philanthropic agencies for which Lon don is justly famous, Tennyson mis- led no end of people when he told us, Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood Certainly they are; everybody knew that before Tennyson started every railer against titles to quoting 1t at us. But what Is to forbid that kind hearts and coronets shall go together? To- day amongst the aristocracy of Eng land they do quite frequently, and in the same veins through which flows the bluest of Norman blood does there also flow oftener than not, that simple faith which at once keeps virtue invi- olate and prompts to good deeds in be- half of humanity
 These fashionable, placed wo- men of England seem somehow to have struck a happy compromise between what the preachers would call this worldiness and other worldliness. They never fail of Sunday morning church and they go afterwards to Hyde Park almost as regularly, if not as re- liglously, to show off their sparkling eyes and stunning dresses and healthy English complexions and tall, strong frames-the finest product of English
 
 From the grand stand at Ascot race course to the meeting of d church guild is one of the easiest transitions imag- inable. They effect this transition cas- ily because they've been bred to 1t, and because, according to the code of their class, they see no incongruity Tn It. Most of the titled women of England would have to plead guilty to what some one has called the poodle ma nia" Each will be tied at times to her pet dog, but just as generally will all who are in the fashion be tied to some pet charity, and this latter is surely very good fashion. They are not, as said. Flora MacFlimseys out and out, these finely formed, broad-shouldered, vet rather ephemeral-looking and alto gether fascinating products of Engllsh