ipyfl IT1C HATS Can Our Modern Editions of the Stnart Set Compare With Their ilnx . I : ' l I . . t . f . ' .... .f mere any. viucsiocwngs rirc .f '. bluestockings, , aift Wi t( "learning and the breeding of the original iribe, and with the social standing vhich they possessed when their glory was at its bright est? ' , ; , This, indeed, is the learned age, espe daily for women, and the ambitious America boasts of the most .learned women and witty women to be found anywhere. . But is there any coterie, any group of American women whose brilliancy hospitality and inborn ' cleverness can afford material for such a distinguished cult of culture as .graced - England during the eighteenth century? ' ' ' , ' This modern anecdote is apropos; .; Consuelo, ducliess of Marlborough, and IMrs. Willie Waldorf Astor, Jr.,-met this summer at a London tea. The duchess dis cussed A merican society .with special refer ence to our aristocracy, so the story runs, and cur aristocracy with .special reference to the yV - ff- 3l ! . , Ar's mi MUl n nf rci'fl Witi1 i"l i . I v r7W I I I 11.11 - -"--- - i 1 1 i , ., w niiiir 11 III I - AW ls' p5ii ii 11 11 11 1 1 1 1 1 m mi HiiiiHiii IMTgfil iU5 r ;:-3- 1 1 ' Girls o How A CERTAIN Miss Johnson, of Missouri Uni versity, has bewailed the lack of propriety JL JL amng the girb of this generation, and has ' determined to introduce the study of pro priety into the college curriculum. Just what propriety is will doubtless puzzle jpven Miss Johnson, he proper thing is so much Hike fashion, changing with the place, the season tend the climate, like the shape of a skirt, that eveo" e philosophical pedagogue will find propriety the liugest thing on the files- - - ' ,--; '--For inetance, it may be all Tight on Broadway i r a maiden to assist a gentleman at his lobster up to midnight or later, while the same in Missouri : iR'Ould-be more than scandalous. i i-vcw.jxc-ij 1 is quite niung 10 riue abiriuo end make the prairie melodious with kiddish yelps e nd other things : of a -wild west tendency that would be so scandalous in Poston's Back Bay drives that the rery squirrels would hide their facest i ' Fifty years ago, our grandmas, tell us, things , were so goody-good that the present liberties of the fair sex would have been rewarded with little thort of a publio switching. And then the bathing ruits. the low necks,' Bpooning in thp park, gum fliewing and scores of, such thinga wiU all have to le decided in the propriety department, and will no tooncr bo settled upon than they will have changed end new standards set. ' . The old folks declare that the younger genera tion does not know how to buhave, and when they were young they were told the same thing. It is ft ,iiam j i 4UmUf.,i l,- t, v preat problem,, and we can be thankful that the I'cdflgogues have taken it up, for now we can rely vn them to decide tt, tranquilly awaiting their Itimatum. T,S TUB days when the boys were partitioned oft from their sweethearts-In church and It was the fashionable thing for a maiden to be Just as shy, modest and blushing In the presence of maacu Isnity s youthful- spirit would, permit. "the short ...y.wit. tw'tw i m wowr-r no-wrrrrmg-TTtpnr -nnn nnflfir outfits would have occasioned such a sensation 1 jt the fernaloi world has never experienced. - And ,et w rsn testify that they were not half so s t .l w r lu the days of Queen Elixaheth. Wlt the naughty things they said in pollte "-society i the shocking things that made up their, reading. THE OREGON' SUNPAY ySS i 5' P :: li Sisters of' Old? grandeurs of the Vanderbilts., That' left the " Astors away back, in the woods. . Mrs. WaU aorf, Jr., who used to be Miss Nannie Lang- ' home, closed the argument: - - . Lonsuelo: ' she remarked, calmly, 'don't you know the A! stors stopped skin- ning skunks generations before the Vander bilts began to collect their f errs tolls?" 1 ' The story may be apocryphal but the It would seem that propriety travels Jn cycles. In one age a woman veils her face and must; not be seen with a man except In tha presence of a icore of mala t relative and spinsters. , ' The next decade does aWay with tha evll and s'; much more that the old folks throw up their hands ur norror. ano uie relations between the gins ana boys are free and companionable. . Fifty years ago-the Idea of a daughter of the household and her evening caller turning down the lights and spooning In the parlor Would have bowled . llnlB " spooning in the parlor would have oowiei ,ver the entire adult population of the house. In thi terrible age. the . family smiles and wlnka, and onl; tnis only grandma thinks It-Is so awful. - A Iong before our grandmothers were bom, however, , a certain Italian, Barberino by name, set down rules for the conduct of ladles which would have wrung cries pt protest from our prim ancestresses. Among other remark he made about the -ladies were the following: ' . - ' : ., - A girl approaching the marrfageahle age should not go -out to church, and a woman should never go Mill n I nn. .....a , V, . a a . ( Ir t tt ftnltt. MXV a rnr women WJVO "gaa about alter fortune tellers, li Iris ro to balls whr men are. it must be tn the day time or "st least inan i abundanoe of. light." With ' regard to the use of osrttetlcs, he says they make the teeth black, the llps'srreen and the skin prematurely old-looking; all of which is horrible enough to frighten any girl. , JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST. 7,: 1010 .. xm- . i ) ;" VN'. . 1 I """HI '' a - , 5 V, : ,v, : ; -; .. - - wit was ' genuine tand the treat world lus accepted if as equally .American and old English in Us bliidzeonlike style. " ' ' But one hardK kick between friends . doesn t ' make a bluestocking, and the ' blue- Nowadays, It Is not considered or regarded as a mortal, sin If a girl does not "sit upright and squarely in a chair, with bott eet on the floor; by no means crossing tha limbs." as the old folks prescribed. The hands are to be folded In the" lap and the most demure expression to be donned In the presence of the gen- ' Uemen. ... ... - , The athletic girl of this immediate' period finds it essential to dispense with some of the garments and -much of the primness that used to mark a respect able maiden, and, again, their increased self-reliance and the necessity of earning their living has induced women to go to places, at hours and under clrcum- -stances that would have been little short of damning in the enlnds of the mothers In the forties and fifties. ... . To establish fixed rules and regulations, to write Mext books on propriety. Is almost impossible In the light of the constant change , In standards. By the time the first lectures on behavior are penned who knows? the ladles for their greater convenience may be wearing trousers (horrible thought), and the whole series would certainly; have to be rewritten to fit new conditions. Some of the problems which Miss Johnson win have to settle, according to current reports, are whether it Is proper to make trysts in the library, whether it is proper . to play cards or dance every evening after supper at a boarding house, whether it is" proper to stroll after dark,' and how late at night a girl may ask a man to stop in for a time., , -vi i . A girl would-have fainted from sheer horror fifty years ago at the thought of receiving a. man In her room; but there were no girls coming to the city alone to make their living at that time. There were no lodging houses without parlors where a girl could receive her friends. It may not be proper yet, but ' , there are a great army of giVls alone in the cities, ' Jiving under these circumstances, ,who do receive t callers in this fashion and are not criticised for it - The laws of morality are absolute,, perhaps, but the laws of propriety, of gopd or bad behavior, are ': matters of convention, and ibis hard to say that the : girls of the present age do not know how. to behave, that the standards are degenerating, et cetera, a Girls are free-, but they are also stronger, better tutored in the ways of the world and better able to take care f themselves. ' ' .,.'-, .;, ... Living conditions seem to have made the old pro priety impossible, although the old folks would never 'acknowledge it. They 'would have the college gin . play basketball in hoopsklrts, the factory girl keep aloof from .her fellow-workers and refuse to walk to :' and from work with the boys, unless the parents were Well aware of it They would have no woman travel ; from, city to city seeding ner xortune line a man un less accompanied by -the proper force of antiquated cli .v."".' ..; in fact thev would have so man y things that are no longer possible that the girls are the more likely to rebel in the strengtn ano vigor 01 me y gor of the young genera- tlon and tell their grandmas tnatttey as that-thev are a "mile behind the procession," or something equally Irrev erent and equally characteristic of the age., 0:Beiiave : ft) " ' 1 3 J&J?sf&wrp -stocking wit of the; genuine brand must be I , . , . . . . . . SOUPht elsewhere thdh tn Amerxr.an snnttv: or - u..i:.i. '.1 ; ... . " 'English either, for ' that matter. 1 T TosT,orth J can be ai those American women living today who' accounted, learned or clever are saving sell to the newspapers and magaalnes. - Mrs. Van Rensselaer Cruger has been, perhaps, the only one who has essayed the establishment of a genuine salon; and she went over to London to try It. She didn't make such a startling success of it whea he tried. 1 ..'' -Those who are reckoned among the leading lights of letters -here, like Mrs. Edith Wharton Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett and Mrs. Mary E. Wllklns Freeman, appear to rind all their energies exhausted by their liter- ji ary labors, and make little or no. effort to enjoy the pleasures of conversation on the grand scale that char- acterizsd their predecessors across the water, ,,. . . ' 1 Many attributes and qualification went to make, a true bluestocking then, and foremost among them were social standing and ample wealth. v Yet on occasion any one of the endowments prised by their contemporaries seems to have been dispensed with, if the others were crenent, quite as the heiress to the millions that began wlth New York ferry tolls has been received in the- most exclusive British circles, and as tha - doughty defender of the early skunk skinners has been . welcomed to her side. ..-':: v v ',.. Ethel Rdlt Wheeler has completed labor of much . research,-and has done It with much grace and charm, in. compiling the histories of "Famous Bluestockings;" the title under which the John Lane Company has pub lished her work. There one t an find the portrait and the life of the brilliant Mrs. Thrale,-who ranked the equal of any blue when the cult was at its height, yet was mora shamed ef her handsome husband's brewery than either the duchess of Marlborough can be of her ancestral v ferrvboat or the Samson courage of Mrs. Astor will ever , be of the early American skunk. :, ; A- MAN -OF MUCH DIGNITY Mrs. Thrale came of a good Welsh family and brought hgg.huaha.nA a-fair.fortuntt.xf-lfl.00u.-,Mr-.Thrale was a brewer of note in the trade; repiesented the historic seat. cuihv,rir r.nui.iv in narllflmnnt: Kent his nacK oi hounds at Croydon and maintained his residence, sireai such natural dignity- and force of character that he was able 'at any time to silence th fulmlnstlOns of tha redoubtable Doctor Johnson, which w.as going soms for ham Piuce. in snienaor. tie was a nuMnu ni" ny host to those who have read their BoswelL Tet when, after his. death. Ijrs. Thrale concluded tha .sale of the brewery for 135,000-nearly 700,000-she wrote: fcrilLZl.Ll" l'arealn purchased peace and a stable l0" .l my orlRlnal rank In life and a ,u JnmJi i'ftVrbp1 by commercial Jargon, unpolluted iectior?s- rrauds. undlsgraced by commercial con. n.WriV,e? a pret,y fa'r ldea f the way baa trade Wf.h f,rI .hyMPeop 0( on'y 8od birth and endowed Th2 !?n the pollte lparninK o the year 17SI. ine ihrale menage, amid the wlini rmnwl of th in 4t2 .tiM..and Ji' ?Mma to, have. been almost alone of the VirtnS -?tV.hi? PianS ofJ,tlle tyP'041 British family the hoSI? ;,iW,Jh.thifhu8b,ln3 "il8Putably the head of priSrnament " W c prized-Perhap8 too . greatly .nAr;:,Ealby hf" wialth- nl imposing personality hi.'S ekai;e08,(;1 his position, never relinquished until his death the authority and prestige of head of the hVK.Y?'ICbnWt ntel' he esteemed so highly that he Insisted on reserving her vitality for social display; he was not even permitted to manage her own house, because domestic duties or responsibilities of any kind were rated too far beneath her genius. ' Nevertheless, her cleverness, and her learning she knew French, Italian, Spanish, Latin and Hebrewwere 0 famous that It was she whose memory survived throughout a hundred years, wh her Imposing husband's ended practically, with hi iif. . ' ; - . " Perhaps Boawll, as Johnson's biographer, did most . ef all to perpetuate that fame of hers, but any chronicler of the times must have taken her Into his reckoning as woman of exceptional brilliancy and charm. The Thrale home for nearly seventeen years housed the family wltH whom Doctor -Johnson, lived on, the terms of closest Intimacy, as the husband's moqt valued adviser and the Wife's revered mentor and friend. A pen picture of the latter half of the eighteenth century" which portrays Mrs. Thrale and her contempo raries must present a scene that Is surprisingly suggest lve. of tha dominance of American society by the Ameri can woman of today, albeit on a scale much less 'exten sive than obtains here now,: The husband of theblue stocking seems to have been as self-effacing as tha Amer I lean husband is in the twentieth century. The woman who ranked as the queen of the "blues was Elizabeth Montague, her husband a member of parlia ment and a mathematician absorbed in his legislative . duties on the one hand and his beloved mathematics on the other, content that his. wife should be as elegant,. . learned and popular as she wished and quite indifferent , to it alL ABLE ESSAYIST 8he,c like so many modern women, was a social leader! but her leadership was founded la something more sub stantial than the mere ability to spend the money her husband furnished and the petty craftinesses by which one woman seeks to outshine her rivals. At a time when discussion of Shakespeare's genius raged most acutely she had the daring to take up the gauntlet of Voltaire, and her "Essay on Shakespeare" elicited from Cowper enoomlums on its learning, good sense, sound judgment and wlL 1 -' ' .-.....--, She Was a satirist as well, and the lash of her pea was felt by none more than by the women of fashion, among whom she was herself a shining light. 1 At her assemblies there were to be found all who could claim distinction of any kind authors, critics, artists, orators, lawyers, clergy, tourists and travelers; Ambassadors and all remarkable foreigner were sought out by her or sought her; she was the premiere Hon tamer In the society of her day. Her most lavish enter tainments followed the completion of her splendid resi dence In Portman square, where the Inaugural "break fast'1 entertained 700 guests. v " ' ' The name "bluestocking" remained" a distinction untn the berinnins- of the last decade of the eighteenth cen tury. But then it was liable to be a term of reproach. Implying dull pedantry and grotesque affectation of learn ing, Instead of the flow of spirit which had previously relieved from that fatal reproach the reputations of the, various-leaders .of the cult, . ' j .. v ... - If tha-blues as a-xlass-hastened-to-flee-from h derision which was attaching to their accomplishments, individually they maintained their supremacy to the end '.of .their days. iH --;" Mrs. Montague, the most conspicuous as tha combi nation of Minerva and the grande dame, proceeded 05 her regal way long after it was to- laugh when the word "bluestocking" was uttered. - ;-' C " ' In -1799 she was receiving two or three nundred admirers at her famous breakfast parties, giving several dinners every week,-and was the cherished friend of further ro. sthe h"n';.0!?.?ris cesses breakfasting with her at once. ' Fannv Burney. daughter of Doctor Burney, London s British royalty, than' wmcn snw -niiuuu- fashionable music master, won her fame as a novelist v. MAiam tiannr ' Hir was me ca ear nuite in the modern- manner. - ner v 'f" romantic, beginning with inBlant acclaim 01 ner grniue wi-S i-U .'wfiina'" m tmb ished when she was 16 years old nl ranging through" court life, jntlmacy with the French emigres In ; Lonaon, mamngo iron mur , d'Arblay, one of those penniless noblemen, and residence in France through the changes and vicissitude, of his- " ai. . fl Wafer An . ' She survived until 1840, and, linked the minor literature of two centuries, with friendships extending- from Doctor Johnson to Sir Walter Scott. A LEADER IN PHILANTHROPY Hannah More's name survives with perhaps som rreater flavor of distinction than attaches .to that ot S-annv Burney. She, of all among her contemporaries, rsnresents the modern type of woman whoBe felm It Is to ,eln and benefit the world about , them tn a practical wav Tha schools she established, limited ss they were in their usefulness, Vers precursors of the schools for ths poor with which all nations have since been vitally 0nshenwaa hot only the patron and friend of the poor, but the valued intimate of such leaders of their life and time as Newton, Johnson and Garrlck. - - - ' The ' British Museum still treasures , thepapwr " mosaics" Of Mrs. "Delaney, memorials of the "WtJrnan - " vVnnj niifira nrntiminped "a trtilv rreat woman . . or, tVi. Vilo-hot.hrH wnmnn In 1 represent art In tlws bluestocking coterie, while Elisa ' beth . Carter, In spite of the fame-of learning possessed IIIQ TT"1 I". VW " bv the otners. sntnes as me reai mincrv ej-. Tt was she who translated Eplctetus, an achievement, at a period When Greek was Greek indeed to most women, which gave her rank in England equal to that of Mme, GeoffrlS in France, where that gracious hostess' exqul. site gift of sympathy earned for her a salon of Euro- peftSomebfew' of" thoie famous bluestockings lacked wealth? and some others lacked ''birth" as England re vered it: and one or two of them lacked eve rytr ng ex cept unblemished reputations and exceptional brains. But all owned that essential quality of tact which draws ad mlrsrs from out of the void of frlendlessneas which per meates all society. In all lands.' ', ;- "'It may mat wn -wnn, --"" hospitality in the tJnlted States arm to ..tolerate and really like one another, this country may bring forth a eoterlj ?f blue,equal to Kn gland s. v . ."tZA 'ear;h; and the other will hesitate -to refer .fiag-ct Avrikn. .a to tm minmw mi