The sun., 1918-09-01
Sophie Kerr on Literary Man Milliners

says:
"Both wore their hair in a simple fash
ion to suit their years, which must have
been seventy or more; both were dressed
with the dignity that such years call for,
and I may mention here that so were all
the ladies above certain age in this town
of admirable old fashioned propriety. In
New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, la
dies of 20 won't be old ladies any more;
they're unwilling to wear their years
avowedly in quiet dignity by their fire
sides; they bare their bosoms and gallop
egregiously to the bathrooms. of the
young This was written before the day
of short skirts, or Mr.. Wister might well
have added feeling paragraph on the
way the old ladies of 20 also bare their
ankles-and more than their ankles.
But that is indiscreetA And I must
record also that Mr.. Wister, while he
avoids tucks, hens and ruffles, is perfectly
able to get an effect. For instance, he
calls Hortense Rieppe "steel wasp and
as complete description of that lady,
face and figure, clothes and character,
heart and soul, it is superfection. 1 know
of no other so briefly felicitous.
Her Feet Beneath Her Petticoat.
Mr.. Wister deigns to mention the very
small white shoes of Kitty, Hortense's
friend, who was so much divorced. Here
the novelist betrays a common masculine
weakness. Mr.. Harrington, too, has more
than once extolled small, shapely slippers
with small feet inside them.
Even so, Mr.. Harrington, like Mr..
Wister, too frequently plays it safe, and
let's pretty phrase conceal his ignorance
of flounces. Witness that he says of
Fanchon Beraud that she was "far gone in
taffetas," and of Betty Carewe that "her
little lace gauntletted glove was placed in
his hand and her white slipper shimmered
out from the lilac founces of her dress"
And there is Helen Sherwood of The Gen
tleman From Indiana. Listen to this bit
about slipper and such:
"His glance rested on the bank; but its
diameter included the edge of her white
skirt and the tip of little white high
heeled slipper that peeped out beneath it"
On another page this same Helen is "a
divinity in a pink shirtwaist and hat
that was woven of gauzy cloud by hooking
fairies" Really, Mr.. Harrington, is this
sort of thing quite fair to women who have
to buy hats of Leghorn or Milan or other
prosaic straw? And aren't you simply
lodging the sort of hat Helen really wore?
The Old Blue Dress.
Margaret Schofeld, sister of Penrod,
once wears a "ong, light blue military
cape" (probably dull blue or gray blue
/ hope SOY, and l wish could remember
whether or not Mr.. Harrington actually
described Mary in The Turmoil as wearing
70 very old blue dress when that cat of
Sybil came to call on her and stick pins
in her. 1t was so in the illustration that
Mr.. Chambers made for it, and a more
perfect illustration l never hope to see.
There sat Mary in a dress that was really
an old blue thing such as we all have
hanging in the backs of our wardrobes,
but it couldn't dim her loneliness or her
grace. And there sat Sybil, crisp in an
expensive, badly chosen, tailored suit and
aggressive white spats and hat that
shrieked style and cost, but despite it all
so hopelessly common. 1t was real inter
probation of the text.
And there's Henry Sydnor Harrison.
who tells us briefly that the husband-seek-
ing Angela wore a blue serge suit and a
black hat with yellow wing, and thereby
betrays his masculine ignorance of MILL
merry. l don't believe that it could have
been yellow wing! A yellow flower, or
n yellow feather, yes-but yellow wings
are as scarce in women's headgear as they
are omnipresent on live canaries. Prob
ably it was one of the "new beige tones
or warm TAM" and Mr. Harrison didn't
know any better than to call it yellow.
At any rate, he saws nothing else about