The New York herald., 1922-02-26

of the commonest facts Of iife, and Of
making face over even the accidental
revelation of an inch Of ankle. How silly
it all was!
And as far as morals go, there Is con-
siderable evidence to back the theory that
they were no more moral than the girls
we see all about us. I'm willing to wager
that as many girls slipped out of the
path of virtue in the eighties or nineties
as lose their footing in these days. n=cb-
ably more, If the truth could be had.
Grandmother didn't know half 90 well
how to take care of herself az grand
daughter does. She had not learned that
battling impersonal manner which the
modern girl employs at need as her buck
Ter of defense against sex pirates.
How Secrecy About Sex
Did Much Harm in Past
Talk about sex! We forget many things
in even few years. Sex, the mystery of
it, the terrible allurement of it, was more
constantly dinned into the mind of the
girl of forty years ago than it is to-day.
Then it was whispered about and magni-
fled out of its true proportion to life The
efforts to make a secret of it, the clumsy
stratagems employed to sheer girls away
from any consideration of II, merely in
trigued the young minds that people
sought to protect Immense harm was
done and because of a psychology per-
fectly obvious. Nowadays sex is consid-
cred frankly. Probably too much is writ
ten about 1t, or rather too much is written
from wrong angle, but on the whole this
frankness is a good thing.
No, the girl of today, whether she n
American, English or French, fits the times
She is as modern as the times in which she
has her being. If you don't believe that
then pass a law to make young women
wear the clothes and the manners of the
late eighties. What would happen? Why,
mankind would rise in revolt. Mankind
would shrek in desperate disapproval. 1t
wouldn't do at all.
The reason that the girl OF today is
what she is today is because the men of to-
day want her as she is. II she crimsons
her pretty lips and powders her charming
nose and shortens sail on her skirt aud
bobs her hair. it is all because men want
1t so-because she is responding to- the
mysterious law which compels women to
adapt their garb and their manners to the
ever broadening ideas of man.
The day may come when she will wear
no skirts at all. mean, hasten to add.
that she may find another sort OF costume.
something in the way of breeches, or II
may be the tunic of the ancients more at
tractive than the present fashions and
more comfortable to mans desire. The
day may come when she may paint her
face in stripes or in circles, as the ladies'
Of 10000 years or so ago were accustomed
to do to meet their lords favor 1t may
be that some centuries hence she will wear
nothing but artificial flowers. But what
ever she may turn to in the way of costume
or decorative device II will be to anticipate
the desire of the object of her unswervpg
devotion-man.
The bobbed haired girl, the lip rouged
girl that left behind me but that meets
me here again in the New York I had not
seen for eleven years, is the girl of che
times. salute her. I shall make her a
heroine of mine. 1t may be that in my
seventy-hrst novel she will reign supreme,
a new portrait in the long gallery of the
lovely ladies of my fancy. And she will
not be the least lovely in that somewhat
crowded gallery.