Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1885 — Women’s Arms. [ARTICLE]

Women’s Arms.

The most beautiful girl on the American stage to-day is Pauline Hall. That is my opinion; and when I also present it as the naked truth you will agree with me if ever you have seen her in the breviary condition of drapery common to burlesque. She has a lovely, good-humored face and a faultless form, excepting that her hands and feet are somewhat too generous. They make a mistake in their mode of using her, however, for she ought not to be allowed to stir while in sight of the audience, for she is as awkward as a cow with the blind staggers. Her movements are heavy and labored, and I have often felt like suggesting to the manager the expediency of strewing torpedoes along her track on the stage so that a series of explosions might enliven her foot steps. But she is an entrancing creature, and the dudes in the front rowshave to be strapped to their chairs to keep them from sliding down on their knees before her. What I mentioned her for was to describe her queer system of gesticulation. She has been taught since her debut to use a naturally good voice with some skill, but I fancy that the motions with which she accompanies her vocalism are of her own invention. You may have observed the painfully mechanical gestures with which the serr-comic girl of the variety shows is usually afflicted. Well, she is spontaneity itself compared with the automatic gyrations of Pauline’s arms. They are a perfect pair, ahd I don’t blame her for uncovering them to the tip-tops of her shoulders ; but their series of extensions, weavings, self-huggings, and prayerclaspings. repeated for every verse of a long song, without the faintest shadow of variation, is the most curious thing in current amusements. The other evening she inadvertely started in with a gesture which belonged in the middle of a stanza. She was so completely upset that she broke down entirely, and had to begin over again, like a vocalist who has got so badly out of time that disaster is inevitable, i When we consider how artfully and effectively most actresses employ their arms, I wonder that the belles of society do not acquire the same accomplishment. We are too apt to let our limbs remain as useless as the lower ones, so far as gesticulation is concerned, and I recall only one girl among my acquaintances who displays her arms for all they are worth. As seen at an opera or ball, the?’ are not the insensate things commonly seen, but are animate, helpful appendages, taking their active ahd graceful part in her movements and conversation. Let somebody open a school of arms for girls.— Cidra Belle’s Letter.