Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1884 — WOMAN GOSSIP. [ARTICLE]

WOMAN GOSSIP.

Why He Did Not Hear the Sermon. “Well, hubby, how did you enjoy the service this morning?” “To tell the truth, darling, 1 didn’t take much interest in it. I could hardly hear a word of the sermon.” “Why, I heard it perfectly. What was the matter?" “Well, I don’t know. It may have been because your new bonnet was so loud.” And then a silence fell on the dinner-table so intense that you could hear the ice-cream. Albany Journal.

A Woman’s Nature. I think I have several times alluded to the very curious kind of thing woman is. I came across a French play which illustrates one phase of the female nature most amusingly. A young man has run away to escape a woman he has been flirting with. He is making love to a fresh flame, when the deserted one hunts him up. After a few bitter reproaches Bhe says: “Henry, darling, I love you. You know it. I have never hidden it from you. Perhaps you have not returned it. But mine is no selfish love. Tell me that you love another and I will say no more. Tell me frankly you do not love me, and I will leave you without a murmur. ” “Well,” says the youth, “frankly, I do not love you.” Then she proceeds immediately to tear all his hair out and leaves him on the floor shattered wreck. —San Francisco Chronicle. The Fast Girl. The girl who is inclined to be fast is a very distinct type. There is certainly no place in America where a young woman can go to the devil at quite so high a speed as in New York. Men are not sentimental here. The majority of them graduate in vice at an early age, and the girls who give them any. encouragement must travel at a breakneck pace to keep up with them. It’s a thousand to one that the maiden who makes the slightest advance i§ a wicked way, goes under at lightning speed. The facilities for wrong-doing that are offered on every hand are enough to frighten the most worldly of woman in New York. As far as my observation goes, anditiß not that of a recluse, it is the youDg married women who are most often “rapid,” and very seldom the girls. The dashing women of good families who hold their heads so well in the air, carry their shonlders well back and move so briskly, who lunch with society men at Delmonieo’s, the Brunswick, and even the road houses in the middle of the day, while the majority of men are down town, will nearly always turn out to be young married women and not girls. When it is a girl how the scandals fly, and in what uncommonly short order the maiden is shipped to *a convent, or sent abroad with a dragon of an aunt. Of course nothing is done to the man in these cases. The fathers and brothers are too well aware that they would have done likewise under the circumstances. —New York letter.

Padded Women. A writer in the California NewsLetter says: I remarked as I sat at the window that, after all, San Francisco women are the most stylish dressers anywhere to be seen—their figures so slim, and yet so round and perfectly in proportion, set off the exquisite toilets admirably: “Every woman seems to have a pretty shape,” I remarked, innocently, “therefore there is little credit to you for the perfect fits you make.” Madame looked at me with surprise. “Don’t you know that we have more bother over these same figures than making a dozen dresses ?” she went on. “A woman comes here as flat as a pancake—no busts, no hips, no anything. ‘ Here is velvet and brpcade,’says mv customer. ‘Make me an elegahtly fitting dress, and, of course, you will have to make my figure first ’ “Then I build up the figure; several sheets of wadding are pinned over the hips, and it takes quite a time to make the proper shape. Then the bosom of the corset being perfectly empty is neatly packed with more wadding. Wadding is also laid in the hollow of the chest, where you may often bury an eg?; and, having stuffed my block, I go to work to fit. The wadding placed on the figure goes into the dress, and yards of stiff crinoline are packed into the drapery at the back.”

“So, then, madame, most of your fine figures are thin.” “Skin and bone, vou mean; and don’t I turn them out well?” said the exultant dressmaker. “We i, you certainly do; but what a disappointment they mnst be to their husbands when they marry,” I say, reflectively. “Well, I should rather think so; the men marry plump young partridges, and find them in the end simply bags of bones. ” The American Type of Beauty. The most perfectly fascinating creature which the Anglo-Saxon race ever produced was the typical belle of Baltimore, the representative of the whole South. In her grace, her tact and fascination one quite forgot that aha would

have been quite tbe same thing if she had been unable to read. Perhaps she never did read, not even a novel. Even when she had a little cnltnre, it all ran to “accomplishment,” and its real use was only to charm the men a little more.

This type of girl, still common in America, and till of late common in England, is disappearing with incredible rapidity. It is going with the long hair, which was once the crowning glory of woman, and with it is going much that was once held to be essential to guard life and society from utter ruin. I have dwelt on this because it is Incoming so common here that not to comment on it would be to ignore tbe most remarkable phenomenon of English life as it at present exists. As girls realize that it is becoming more difficult to marry with a certainty of being able to live as well as they did at home, as there is a growing unwillingness to raise large families and be left as poor widows to support them, as, in fact, all the old ideals disappear, and new ones of being able to make a living and be “independent” and “bird-fref ” are developed, they are beoommg careless as to beauty, indifferent as to being charmers. A poor young man in England, who is in no way distinguished either family or works, is indeed to be pitied. Women, old or young, speak of him as a nuisance. The only interest which he excites is a wonder why ho cumbereth the ground. Now, as all men oannot be rich enough to marry poor girls, let them work ever so industriously, this is manifestly hard for them. So they emigrate or go to the bad, and so the dance goes on. — Leland's London Letter.

Views of Women. In love, as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken. A fan is indispensable to a woman who can no longer blush. Thb man who can govern a woman can govern a nation.— Balzac. It is easier to make all Europe agree than two women.— Louis XtV. The mistake of many women is to return sentiment for gallantry.— Jouif. God created the coquette as soon as He had made the fool.— Victor Hugo. Woman is a charming creature, who changes her heart as easily as her gloves.— Balzac. Who takes an eel by the tail or a woman by her word soon fluds he lias nothing. — Proverb. Rascal! That word on the lips of a woman, addressed to a too daring mam, often means—angel! How manv women would laugh at the funerals of their husbands if it were not the custom to weep ? I have seen more than one woman drown her honor in the clear water of diamonds. — D'Houdetot. We meet in society many attractive women whom we would fear to mako our wives.— DHarleville. An asp would render its sting more venomous by dipping it into the heart of a coquette.— Poincelot. Women swallow at one mouthful the lie that flatters, and drink drop by drop a truth that is bitter.— Diderot. Women deceived by men want to marry them; it is a kind of revenge as good as any other.— Beaumanoir. A woman who pretends to laugh at love is like the child who sings at night when he is afraid.— J. J. Rousseau. It is easier for a woman to defend her virtue against men than her reputation against women.— Rocheburne. She is the most virtuous woman whom nature has made the most voluptuous, and reason the coldest.— La Beaumelle.