It is just in the subtle quality of charm that the women of the
last ten years have fallen away from their elder sisters. They
have been carried along by a love of sport, and by the set of
fashion's tide, not stopping to ask themselves whither they are
floating. They do not realize all the importance of their acts nor
the true meaning of their metamorphosis.
The dear creatures should be content, for they have at last escaped
from the bondage of ages, have broken their chains, and vaulted
over their prison walls. "Lords and masters" have gradually become
very humble and obedient servants, and the "love, honour, and obey"
of the marriage service might now more logically be spoken by the
man; on the lips of the women of to-day it is but a graceful "FACON
DE PARLER," and holds only those who choose to be bound.
It is not my intention to rail against the short-comings of the
day. That ungrateful task I leave to sterner moralists, and
hopeful souls who naively imagine they can stem the current of an
epoch with the barrier of their eloquence, or sweep back an ocean
of innovations by their logic. I should like, however, to ask my
sisters one question: Are they quite sure that women gain by these
changes? Do they imagine, these "sporty" young females in short-
cut skirts and mannish shirts and ties, that it is seductive to a
lover, or a husband to see his idol in a violent perspiration, her
draggled hair blowing across a sunburned face, panting up a long
hill in front of him on a bicycle, frantic at having lost her race?
Shade of gentle William! who said
A woman moved, is like a fountain troubled, -
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.
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