The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-05
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

When a young girl announced her
engagement the other day, her chum,
who is an exquisite embroiderer, Of
fered to make her a full set of en-
broidere1 underwear.
With astonishing fortitude. the
bride-to-be actually refused this offer.
Its perfectly lovely of you she
declared, but there isn't going to be
single hand embroidered piece of
underwear in my trousseau."
Her friends were frankly astounded
at this heresy.
She is, herself, a girl who enbroiders
beautifully, and everyone had prophe-
sled 5pdt her trousseau would 1dtdn
anything before seen in tne ne' ghbCr-
hood "a cauu.site hand work.
Il simply don't believe in wearing
out my eyes or letting my friends
wear theirs out" went on the bride
to-be, lin fine hand embroidery, when
you can get such dainty edgings and
nainsook and hamburg edgings and in
sertions that make just as effective
things. I should feel unhappy every
tune 1 looked at an embroidered set,
because I'd think of the horrible eye
strain it meant. We've raved so much
about hand embroidery that we've got
ten into the way of believing that it's
much prettier than anything else. But
is it reaIly7 I've been thinking a lot
about it lately and I've decided that
it's the amount of work involved that
were SO crazy over, and not the actual
prettiness- Why, I heard two or three
of the girls say that they thought that
lace and nainsook set in Roses trouS-
seau was just about twice as pretty as
the one she nearly embroidered her
eyes out over. We all made fuss
over the other. and she called it her
best, because it represented SO much
work, not because it was so pretty
Don't you think the de-to-be's
noint of view on this matter is interest
ing?
do.
And 1 think it is a point of view that
can be used not only in trousseaus
but on the clothes question in general
I believe that if we would honestly
try to make prettiness, effectiveness
and daintiness the criterion of our adj
miration instead of the expense and
the amount of work involved, we
would simplify the whole clothes ques-
ton
was much amused the other day,
when I asked another young girl who
was showing me her trousseau, which
himself liked the best. and she an
swered Indignantly. I'm ashamed to
tell you. He's perfectly ridiculous
about it. He insists he likes THIS the
best THIS" was a simple, inexpen-
sive blue Bingham morning gown with
a dainty little sailor collar of hamburg.
The gown costs perhaps two dollars
,
little work but 1t was made on fine
simple lines-it was exquisitely fresh
and dainty and it was of style and
color which became her perfectly.
Judged by standards of expense and
effort, it was a decidedly inferior
thing.
But the man did not judge that way.
He judged by the standard of actual
s ard beauty. by the actual
pleasure he received from looking at
the gown The little blue morning
gown was undoubtedly more genuinely
effective than the elaborate steel color |
crepe meteor, or the wonderfully en- |
0roidered green and black marquisette, |
and he was wise enough to know it.
/ wish more women could judge
clothes by this standard
And do you know, I think great |
many men-especially the worth While
0nes-do.
Women do not realize this. They |
fret and fume and tire themselves out /
10 win mems admiration by extensive |
and costly and elaborate wardrobeS, |
while the simple and inexpensive, but |
becoming thing. means just as much,
Or vastly more to him.
What Jane Austen said a hundred |
years ago is as true today as it was
hen. 1T would be Notifying to the |
ceilings of many ladies, could they |
how little the best of men
5 affected by what is costly or new in
heir attire, how little moved by the
exture of the muslin, how unsuscepti-
de of peculiar tenderness toward the
iprigged, the spotted, the null or the
ackonet Woman is fine for her own