hing in the
commonplaces of fashionable life which turns woman from the real to
the unreal, from the substantial to the superficial, which smothers
all originality of thought, and makes her a simple reproduction
in appearance, if not in disposition, of the "Anonyma," with her
meretricious beauty and dashing toilets. Is it well for woman to
subject herself to be criticised as follows? "The girl of the period
is a creature who dyes her hair and paints her face, whose sole idea
of life is a plenty of fun and luxury, and whose dress is the object
of such thought and intellect as she possesses. Her main endeavor
is to outvie her neighbors. She cares little for advice or counsel.
Nothing is too extraordinary, and nothing too extravagant, for her
vitiated taste; and things which in themselves would be useful reforms
if let alone, become monstrosities worse than those which they have
displaced, so soon as she begins to manipulate and improve. If a
sensible fashion lifts the gown out of the mud, she raises hers midway
to the knee. If there is a reaction against an excess of hair oil, and
hair slimy and sticky with grease is thought less nice than if left
clean with a healthy crisp, she dries and frizzes and sticks hers out
on end like certain savages in Africa, or lets it wander down her back
like Madge Wildfire's, and thinks herself all the more beautiful the
nearer she approaches in look to a maniac or a negress! What the
_demi-monde_ does in its frantic efforts to excite attention, she also
does in imitation. If some fashionable courtesan is reported to have
come out with her dress below her shoulder blades, and a gold strap
for all the sleeve thought necessary, the girl of the period follows
suit next day, and then wonders that men sometimes mistake her for
her prototype, or that mothers of girls, not so far gone as herself,
refuse her as a companion for their daughters."

If the fashionable danseuse is imported from the brothels of Paris,
and is brought to our cities to exhibit herself to whoever is vulgar
and lewd enough to desire to see her, thousands of the fashionables go
with opera glass, and tolerate a disgusting play that they may enjoy
a sight which is a guarantee to every young man that the woman knows
little of and cares less about the virtue which distinguished the girl
of the olden time, before whom men bowed in admiration, and concerning
whom an impure thought seemed like an unpardonable sin. Women may say
tha