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Show i Woman of Yesterday Correctly Represented? An Interest- ' jug Question. , gjElKlNG ILLUSTRATIONS. . j;e Woman of the Past and : "resent The Modern Idea of ; fearing Apparel. 111) the people of forty years .,ro really think tlie women of thai; time were beautiful? f they did t only shows that people can change their UU'as Inure quickly and radically than they can anything else. That is. of course, if the mag-zine mag-zine ilUisti-atrations and other I 0',P dav rellocteil the popular channiiisr and beautiful wo- ally suggests colic. Possibly the artists of that day meant to express the idea of a flower drooping rra its stem. The neck In all the old pictures is longhand slender, slen-der, and often, with the head, suggests nothing so much as a crook necked squash. The yonng woman pictured as the modern idea is an entirely different being. be-ing. .She holds up her head in an independent inde-pendent way, throws out her chest, walks erectly and firmly and looks, as she is, quite able to take caro of herself. The woman cf forty years ago would have thought her a very unladylike, improper im-proper person. And she would lind it quite impossible to live the kind of life that woman did. She has on her yachting yacht-ing suit now, but she has just the same good health, good spirits and independent independ-ent manuer, whatever the costume she dons and whether you find her in New York or in any one of five hundred cities and towns all over this country. Perhaps the most astonishing point of development between this young woman and the woman of the mid-century picture pic-ture books is tho shoulders. Hers are broad and square and look solid and of some use. And those of tho other womandid wo-mandid ever a woman who wasn't a freak have such shoulders? I cannot help believing that there is a little more imagination than reality in the pictures of those vinegar cruet shoulders. They appear to represent an ideal which the women of the time strove to live up to as nearly as they could. She who came the nearest to it was considered, in that A GHACEFt'L ATTITUDE, lindn-'s Lilly's Book. Reproduced by l.'rai.sion of the puiilistiere. ve lately been looking over some :azines of tha middle of this cen-; cen-; ml tho conviction v,-as forced o that tho maiden of 1850 could 'k up Broadway in 1890 even if e dressed in modern style with-ating with-ating looks of wonderment and of laughter :is far ns she went by the way, if she w:ts really the creature she looked, would not e tlian a few blocks. THE GIRIi WE'VE LEFT BEHIND T'S. (From Qodey's Lady's Bonk. Reproduced by i. permission of the publishers. particular, the most beautiful. Those two pairs of shoulders are about the most significant tiling I know of in the I social evolution of the last half centnry. They tell an eloquent story of the change that has come about in the general cin-ion cin-ion about women and in the actual capacities capa-cities of the sex. The woman of those days is represented also- Rsbcftig timid, frightened and clinging. cling-ing. When elie didn't simper or look tearfully, melancholy the' artists appear to have thought that the next most charming expression was a startled or a frightened one, particularly if it was possible to put into the'pieture a man to whom she could cling. Those were the ivy and oak days, and the artists seem to have had no idea that woman couli1 FOIiTY YEARS AGO. Harper's Magazine. Reproduced by permission per-mission ot the publishers. illustrations of the day, magazine ier, that are spread abroad nowa-'present nowa-'present very accurately the wo-i; wo-i; the present. Making allowance increase of skill in illustrating, it to suppose that the pictures of 'rs reflected nearly as accurately : e of woman of that time and the r idea of how a beautiful woman to look. I that idea seems to have been a r'tig, resigned and tearful expres-: expres-: set of curls, a crook in the neck, tes that sloped at an angle of f or- THE GIRL WE'VE FOUND. TFrom Harper's Bazar. Reproduced by permission permis-sion ot the publisuera.J be typified by any other vegetable, Here is another picture from one of the earliest volumes of Harper's Monthly: The amount of actual danger can be inferred from the careless expression of the darkey boy with his feet dangling from the rock and the hilarious enjoyment enjoy-ment of wind and air and scene expressed ex-pressed in the man's face. Considenng that he has three frightened women hanging to him, he bears up remarkably well. And they, poor creatures, with their flying curls and ribbons and mantillas, man-tillas, were really to be pitied, for even if they were not as terrified as they looked they had to seem so. For the woman who wasn't tearful, frightened and clinging on the slightest provocation was not a true woman. At least, the artists do not seem to have considered it worth while to make pictures of her. w 1 Mmm i THK MODERN IDEA, "'rrer's Bazar. Reproduced by permis-siun permis-siun of the publiiberr:. 1 degrees, a consumptive chest, a -am waist and a drooping attitude. " compare this illustration from a Plato if you want to get an idea havoc forty years have made in the r notion of feminine beauty and :- W is from Godey's Lady's Book -j". 1950, and, since fashion cuts c hound to represent a particular can bo depended on to embody Wal conviction of the timo its to f,'rms the greatest charm in wo-to wo-to portray the general appear-" appear-" the woman of the well to do swond cut is from the first bound of thrj-per's Monthly and repre- tha typa of woman who meekly ' and simpered her way through e fashion pages of that time, the drooping attitude so ruii- y adopted was supposed to convey ;ea 01 excessiva modesty nnd the l.y vliip'n yvas then esteemed as lu -s darling ornament, or was snp- he graceful, is beyond the 1633 -.. t ,0!jern ej-e it geaer- ,,.T.V wolX WAH AN IV. j rv HsrS-sSaxlae. Beprlacsd l-T P- ' i0"1 H'USLtonofuiepubiere.i Would the modern young woown m snc.i rSon look and J v-nf Khp Tne chances am tnat se . uld chaUenging her escort to jump j off the rock. FpcH KsLLY |