The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-08-14

To Miss Gwendolen Astyne.
 My Dear Gwendolen: With the excep- ton of the wives of the foreign eommis sioners I do not imagine that the women of European countries that you see at the Exposition could be taken as representa- tive women l should be sorry if they Were, but l cannot be made to believe that some of the women here are really American born and only garbed in this Oriental fashion An American woman nannot look Oriental. She cannot acquire that sensuous grace of the women Of the East. and she is not the type to wear the loosely hanging kmonas embroidered in huge gold dragons and the massive sil- vered things that come from the Orient. So it seems quite absurd to try to palm off an American woman as type Of the far East, or to suggest that the dreamy eyed creature who smiles at you from her balcony in Seville is any western girl with a lace mantilla. This phase of the Fair-the lace mantilla part of it-I find extremely interesting and woman-like there is nothing more fascinating to me than the shops of the Exposition. The eFair is really place where you are able to shop in any street of the world. Everything is for sale here from plaster group in the Florentine exhibit to the 1ndian bags that many smart American women are wearing. The only difference betW cen shopping here in the streets of Cairo and the real thing is that. you do not have to pay duty on the things you bring home. The Arabs in their white turbans and the brown-sldnned. dark-eyed women adorned in beautiful jewels and wonderful looking draperies md head dresses preside over the booths and you can supply yourself with enohsh hammered bronzes and gold and silVered tinsels scintiating with jewels to satlsfy gour Oriental tastes for years 10 come.
 You have always loved the land or Spain There is a little replica of Be- lvine here a fascinating market place where your may wander about lelsurly as if you were a Spanish senorita ana had nothing to keep you at home. ne women here wear lace manullas, VIII BeH you anything from crucillx 10 Ian will chat to you of their country nnd lean far out of their balconies to smile their adieux.
 Not even when l am in the South am I able to pass shop decorated With Jap anese lanterns and umbrellas and 1ahs' but here l can actually enter a 1nricksha' be drawn BID to the very doors or the yapanese bazaar, and find myself In the very heart of the land of cherry bios Roms Geisha girls in lowered kimonas bring you tea on exqusitely laequered travs, and you sit at little tables screened off with tall satin screens embroidered In purple Mistaria. Did you know that MS faria blooms In Japan early in April ana that cherry blossoms come in May very much the same season that we have them except that we do not write poetry apouI them.
 In the Japanese bazaar the first thing you will want is a pink slken kimona, hand embroidered in cherry blossoms. l Thought we Americans understood the art of embroidery. But after you see the embroderies of the Japanese women you think that we should take our first les sons. They seem to understand color better than we do and 1t is difficult 10 tell just where the embroidery begins and ends because of it's delicate graceful appearance The Japanese woman ap- preciates softness above everything. Their silks their lingerie, is of such eXquisite texture and the woman who looked at me from almond-shaped eyes was simply swarthed in soft silks. She wore her halr pompadour but even this was sott ana inclined to fall about, and she reminded me of a figure in a Japanese fan or on the Iacquered tray you sometimes use on your at home day.
 By the way, all the heavy cut glass IS no longer good taste. and to be au faut you must have your glass plain with the exception of your monogram or lhual rut in the center. Then your dinner ser vice must also be perfectly plain with the exception of a gold edge and your coat of arms done in the center of each piece. I should not advise you to send any of the autumn brides massive cut glass; but as you are not only connois- Beur but never overdo things I am sure your gifts will not lack in good taste.
 What exquisite taste some of these for eigners have Not taste so much in dress, but in their art. It would never occur to us who speak a strange tongue from theirs, to live In yelow-tinted mosques and have our balconies shaded with scar let awnings and our rooms carpeted with scarlet rugs But here even in the brazzy heat all this color Is gorgeous picture and it seems rather deplorable that the architecture, of the wonderful art treasures, the gardens, are so soon to be a thing of the past, when, If the Fxposition could only be made perma- nent Institution, so much could be learned in the way of building houses and furnish ing them. Probably in time there could be art societies that would improve some of the nideous architecture In this country and instead of all this overcrowding in our homes the BarlSn looklng pictures anu all the superhuous things would be dis carded. A woman whom I know cannot have the rare things she wants but in- stead of lining her walls with cheap pictures in gilt frames, she has Just above her desk Sir Galahad in the Sepia tints and framed in brown woods. That picture means something to her and ghe has restful room where people can breathe. I remember hearing you confess rat, bad gro Of of Gibson and Christy heads and l got a