The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-07-09
HEATED TERMS.


Form the New York Sun.
nARIs-If a striking example were
- needed to illustrate the folly of
the American girls who leave COM
Portable homes under the delusion that
an artistic career awaits them in Paris,
the suicide of Margaret Craveps would
supply it. Her fate should serve as a
warning, Il not to the girls at least to
those morally responsible for them.
Volumes could be filled with tales of
unhappiness, Of misery, of death, II
those of us who live in Paris and keep
in touch with American student life were
to relate what we know. The naive am
bition of coming to Paris to live in Bo-
hemian fashion seems to form for nine
out of ten girls a sufficient basis on
which to start an artistic career whether
in music, in painting, in sculpture or in
letters.
Margaret Cravens, had she remained
In America, might have been happy
wife and mother. In Paris she was one
of many young women who have striven
for artistic success and failed. Her in
come spent on expensive music lessons
see a way out of her financial difficulties
despite the strictest economy in living
expenses, near starvation and living
alone in a sixth floor fiat in house
filed with coachmen and other tenants
below her in social standing, Miss Cravens
resorted to suicide as the only solution
of an intricate situation.
Her death was planned deliberately
She made provision for her funeral ex-
penses, for neither in life nor in death
was she willing to be burden to her
friends.
Some years ago Miss Carvens, who had
a great deal of artistic instinct and some
talent, came to Paris with a view of~be-
coming a professional pianist. She found
her first home with a respectable French
woman used to good society, who took
her as a paying guest and really tried
to protect her and make home for her.
But the Fernch pension keeper who is
a conscientious woman rarely retains
American girl students among her board
ers, for she Invariably endeavors to
make them adopt French customs while
In Paris. The French idea of protective
surveillance is irksome to the American
girl, who forgets that the small town or
city from which she came Is very DIFF
ferent place from Paris, which is world
metropolis full of the dangers cosmo-
politan center always presents.
The Fernch hostess of a paying guest
or pension keeper, If she is conscientious,
is never popular with the American girl
students. She will naturally discourage
high priced lessons in music or painting
unles she notes genuine talent. She has
porbably lived in an artistic atmosphere
all her life and readily distinguishes the
wheat from the chaff
Mary or Lilly or Gertrude who was a
remarkable products in her home circle
is often hopeless mediocrity in Paris.
Everyone has faults. The hostess of
paying guests in France often sins by
parismonlousness in her table and her
way of conducting her house. but If the
American girl forgives suoa things she
never forgiyes what she considers re-
strictions upon her liberty or lack of
appreciation of her artistic possibilities.
J, In leaving her first safe home Miss
Cravens prepared the way for her imam
cial difficulties. her artistic disappoint-
ments, her decisions eliminating In a
morbid desire for death as supreme
relief.
AS has been said. the safe, conscien-
tious pension keeper in Farnce is never
por,ular with the American girl. and this
has led to the establishment of numbers
of free ard easy going pensions or arts
tic schools all over Paris. Into such
houses the American would-be artists too
often drift. an easy prey for the proprie-
tors
Such places. having outwardly the
most respectable appearance. cause the
ruin of scores of American girls There
is no surveillance over the girl student.
She comes and goes alone, she visits
places where no French girl would dream
of being seen. She may smoke her cigar
cite and order her cocktail and tell risky
stories, and the false artistic element
surrounding her seemingly approves.
She will live in q room an American
stable boy would refuse to occupy Be-
cause there is a piano in it furnished
free by concern having relations with