Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1905-04-27

WOuieH uuLnlle 10 us much wrong 10
their beauty as to the purses of their
husbands and fathers. What would
you say of a young girl who expressed
her thoughts in terms very choice in
deed, but taken word for word from
phrase book? What charm could you
find in this borrowed language? The
effect Of toilets well designed In them
selves, but seen again and again on
all women indiscriminately, is precise
~ the same.
cannot resist citing here a passage
from Camille Lemonnier that harmo-
nizes with my idea:
Mature has given to the fingers of
woman a charming art, which she
knows by instinct and which Is peoul.
iarly her own, as silk to the worm and
lacework to the swift and subtle spi-
der. She is the poet, the interpreter of
her own grace and righteousness, the
spinner of the mystery in which her
wish to please arrays itself. All the
talent she eXpends in her effort to equal
man in the other arts is never worth
the spirit ana conception wrought out
through bit of stuff in her skillful
hands.
"Well, wish that this art were more
honored than it is. AS education.should
consist in thinking with ones mind,
feeling with ones heart, expressing the
little personalities of the inmost, invis-
ible (which, on the contrary, are
repressed, leveled down. by conformi-
ty-I would that the young girl in her
novidaSe of womanhood, the future
mother, might early become the little
exponent Of this art of the toilet-her
own dressmaker, in short-she who one
day shall make the dresses Of her chill
dren, but with the taste and the gift
to improvise, to express herself In that
masterpiece of feminine personality
and skill, a gown, without which wo-
man Is no more than a bundle of rags"
The dress you have made for your
self Is almost always the most becom-
ing, and, however that may be, 1t Is
the one that pleases you most, Wom-
en- of leisure too often forget this;
working women also in city and coun-
try alike Since these last are cos
tuned by dressmakers and milliners
in very doubtful imitation of the mod
ish world, grace has almost disappear
ed from their dress. And has anything
more surely the gift to please than the
fresh apparition of young working
girl or daughter of the fields wearing
the costume of her country and beau
tiful from her simplicity alone?
These same reflections might be APP
piled to the fashion of decorating ana
arranging our houses. If there are toll
lets which reveal an entire conception
of life, hats that are poems, knots OF
ribbon that are verltable works or art,
SO there are interiors which after their
manner speak to the mind. Why I'M
der pretext Of decorating our homes,
do we destroy that personal character
which always has such value! why
have our sleeping rooms conform TO
those Of hotels, our reception rooms TO
waiting rooms, by making predomi-
nant uniform type Of official beauty!
What pity to go through the
houses of city, the cities of a country,
the countries of vast continent, ana
encounter everywhere certain forms
Identical, inevitable, eXasperating by
their repetition! How aesthetics would
gain by more simplicity! Instead OF
this luxury in job lots, all these deco
rations, pretentious, but vapid from
iteration, we should have an Infinite
variety; happy improvisations would
strike our eyes, the unexpected In
thousand forms would rejoice our
hearts and we should rediscover the
secret of impressing on drapery or
a piece of furniture that stamp OF hu-
man personality which makes certain
antiques priceless.
Let us pass ut last to things simpler
still; | mean the little details of house
keeping which many young people OF
our day find so unpoetfcal Their con-
tempt for material things for the hum
BILE cares a house demands, arises from
q confusion very common, but none the
less unfortunate, which comes from
the belief that beauty and poetry are
within some things, while others lack
them; that some occupations are dis
tinguished and agreeable, such as cult
waiting letters, playing the harp, and
that others are mental and disagree
able like backing shoes, sweeping and
watching the pot boil. Childish error!
Neither harp nor broom has anything
to do with it. All depends on the hand
in which they rest and the spirit that
moves It, Poetry Is not in things; 1t
is In us. 1t must be impressed on OBJ
jects from without, as the sculptor I'M
presses his dream on the marble. II
our life aud our occupations remain
too often without charm in spite of any
outward distinction they may have 1t Is
because we have not known how to put
anything into them. The height OF art
/ IL to make the inert live and to tame
the savage. | would have our young
GIRLS apply themselves to the develop
ment of the truly feminine art Of Civ
/ ing soul to things which have none.
/ The triumph of woman's charm is in
that work Only n woman knows how to