High society

THE MUSICAL HOSTESS

The hostess who is so musical is one of those blessings that we could all get along without. She is always exploring among the fauna of Bohemia and capturing some particularly wild specimen. Her guests spend the week-end, like Daniel, in a lion’s den. There is no let-up to the atrocities. The guests sit in horror, thinking of the things they might be doing in the city, while a hairy conscientious objector does unmentionable things to a piano.

THE VANISHING HOSTESS

The perfect, or disappearing, hostess is rare. She always invites the One Person you want to spend the week-end with, and then lets nature take its course. She has a perfectly bearable house surrounded by really wonderful grounds. This hostess appears occasionally at dinner, but at all other times she vanishes completely, leaving things to the careful supervision of the faithful family gardener, who has probably seen more biological history in the making than any man in the county.

PALM SUNDAY

The gilded hostess has one of those rustic cottages, where her guests rough it over Sunday surrounded by vintage champagne, Swiss butlers, liveried footmen. The sketch—from life—shows a guest’s retreat to the city, after a week-end’s bridge; note how effectively the footmen decorate the sketch with palms.

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After-the-War Servant Problems
How the Great Conflict ended the Golden Days of Service in the Houses of the Elect

GILDING THE LILY

In the good old ante-bellum days, scenes like this were every-day occurrences in the life of Mr. J. Wallingford Smith,—inventor and sole owner of Smith’s Slenderizing Stays—They Lace on the Side. Mr. Smith simply could not call it a day unless at least five male menials were involved in the process of getting him dressed. All his puttings on and takings off were personally attended to by these motherly creatures. And then, just as everything was going nicely, the world had to get mixed up in that dreadful war, so that poor Mr. Smith now has to adjust his jewelry without a corps of specially trained liveried attendants.

TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE

Portrait impression—from memory—of Mr. and Mrs. J. Wallingford Smith, motoring in their third-best Rolls-Royce, just about two weeks before the Kaiser turned on the war. Note the attendant chauffeur and footman—Mr. and Mrs. Smith wouldn’t dream of going out without two men on the box. But things aren’t what they used to be. The chauffeur and footman now own their own motors—after two years in the provision business.

WHY BOYS LEAVE HOME

This scene, almost too terrible to look upon, is absolutely true—it’s not one of those faked war pictures at all. It reveals the hideous, dreadful privations, that the war brought upon some of us. It shows the bitter anguish of the J. Wallingford Smiths as they watched a battalion of their footmen, chauffeurs, butlers, valets gardeners, coachmen, grooms, house detectives, and resident photographers departing for the Saar Valley. How silent and lonely the house has seemed, the past year, without these brave youths!

 

 

TIGER! TIGER!

Conscription was the mother of invention—Mrs. Smith recently conceived the brilliant idea of engaging a mere stripling to understudy for the footman who was removed by the war. Someone simply has to carry the family ermines around—you can’t expect a lone lady to do it all by herself. The accompanying picture graphically portrays the new footman in action—playing the part of a movable human coat-room.

THE ULTIMATE STRAW

And now, even Mrs. Smith’s maid has gone and done it—she decided to remain permanently in the Woman’s Motor Corps. The uniform is so much more becoming than those trying maid’s costumes. She is pictured with her latest and very best Young Man.

CASUALS OF THE AVENUE

Fate seems to be against the unhappy Smiths—it’s not even on speaking terms with them. Even that good idea of Mrs. Smith’s about engaging a child footman didn’t work out. The boy wonder was really too immature—he couldn’t overhear even the simplest stories without blushing—so Mrs. Smith had to resort to a maid to accompany her around the city. But, judging from her expression, she is a trifle dismayed by the number and ardor of Mrs. Smith’s casual acquaintances.

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Advice to the Lovelorn
What Every Girl Should
Know, Before Choosing
a Husband

LE PREMIER PAS

The love interest really must come into the life of every young girl. There’s no use talking, she simply can’t get along without it. Her mother may weep, and her father may become dramatic about it, but a girl should remember in choosing a husband, that it’s the first step that counts in matrimony. After a girl has once been married, a second, third or even a fourth husband are simple matters. It’s the first one that’s tricky. Getting a husband is rather like getting the olives out of a bottle—after you get the first one, the rest come easily.

BEWARE THE SOCIETY FAVORITE

Every girl is likely to be dazzled by the radiance of the Social Light. He shines in ball-rooms, and in the frontline trenches of tea-fights; he fox-trots with passionate abandon, he is the life and soul of every dinner party, but, around the house he is, unfortunately, something else again. The trouble with these Social Lights is that they simply can’t live without a group of admiring females about them.

BEWARE THE MODERNIST POET

There is a time in every girl’s life—usually around Spring—when she falls in love with the Professional Poet. He wears his hair in the manner made popular by Irene Castle, and he believes in free speech, and free verse, and free love, and free everything. His favorite game is reading from his own works—such selections as his “Lines to an Un-moral Tulip.” This type of poet does not go in very strongly for marriage—it cramps his style—with the other ladies.

THE RIGHT MAN—AT LAST

But, after all, there’s no use in advising a girl what to do and what not to do, in choosing a husband. The safest way is just to let Nature take its course. She needn’t worry about the thing at all,—she is sure to know the Leading Man, the moment he makes his entrance. He doesn’t even have to be near her—if she just knows he’s back from patrol duty in a distant land, and on the telephone, the cosmic urge will make her break all existing running broad jump records, in order to get to the telephone.

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HERE ARE YOUR JEWELS

It’s getting so that the members of the widely advertised working classes get up in the morning, look out of the window, and say, “This looks like a nice, warm day—let’s strike for something.” This little habit of going on strike is like the cosmic urge, or the wanderlust, or the young man’s fancy, or any of those things; it gets under way at any time of year, and there’s simply no stopping it. Here is a harrowing scene, one of the fearful tragedies incident to the strike of the nursemaids. The nurse, just called out by her union, is returning her charges to mother, a lady with whom they have but the merest bowing acquaintance, thus utterly spoiling the lady’s afternoon.

The Open Season for Strikes
If You Don’t See What You Want, Strike for It

THE WIVES’ UNION

A strike of wives may be called at any time; many wives have been threatening to walk out for months. The thing is likely to prove rather embarrassing. Here, for instance, is the case of a member of the wives’ union, whose husband has just returned from five years’ service in the East. In the midst of her enthusiastic welcome, she has been called out by three quite unfeeling delegates of her union.

THE WAYS OF A MAID

The maids are at last coming around to the modern way of thinking—that in unions there is strength. Here is an intimate glimpse of what will happen if they ever start striking. The maid is obeying the first law of all agitators,—-be sure to strike at the most inconvenient time. She is leaving her employer, so to speak, sunk—just on the point of throwing up the sponge and going down for the third and last time.

THE ULTIMATE HORROR

There are many terrible things in this world, as someone has so cleverly said, but the worst of all would be a strike of footmen. Why, all social life would be completely paralyzed by it. Just see what a cruel thing it would be. The footmen in this case are striking for shorter hours, higher wages, and looser liveries; they have walked out in the middle of the caviarre, leaving the guests face to face with starvation—and, what is worse, face to face with each other.

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THE PORTRAITS OF OLD

Having your portrait painted, in the good old days, used to be a comparatively simple matter. It was as much a part of a woman’s social duties as going to the opera, or having her hair marcelled. All you needed was a black evening gown, a lap-dog, a cheque for $10,000, and an appointment at the studio of Mr. John Sargent.

The Art of Fashionable Portraiture
You Can’t Quite Be “It,” Without the Aid of a Modernist Artist

GO TO THE AUNT

It used to be considered awfully radical and just the least bit Bohemian, to have your portrait done by a bearded foreigner like Monsieur Chartran,—local talent was simply nowhere. It was always obligatory, while posing for the portrait, to bring along a trained aunt, to keep off draughts and gentlemen callers. When the canvas was done, you could almost always tell, in six guesses, who the portrait was intended to be.

THE OVAL-SHAPED LADY

But having one’s portrait merely painted isn’t being done any more. The thing to do now is to lease a sculptor, and have him do a simple little portrait in marble, and call it “Mrs. ...—a Mood.” Prospective sitters for modernist busts should remember never to show surprise at the finished product. Never behave like the lady in the sketch; remember that only novices faint on seeing the completed masterpiece. The thing to do is to clasp the hands, gaze yearningly at the ceiling and murmur in passionate undertones, “It is wonderful—but wonderful! The feeling, the soul, the ego—how could you know?”

In case you haven’t decided just which school you want to employ in creating your portrait, here is a cross-section of our artistic Bohemia. It is a most representative group of sculptors at their recent notable dinner. The noble spirit, at the extreme right is Henri Pryzmytioff, the Post-Futurist Sculptor delivering a long and most impassioned talk on “The Sculpture of Day After To-morrow—and Why.”

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Social Superstitions
With Very Special Obeisances to Cupid

THE SHEEP—AND THE GOAT

Everyone has a pet superstition, and pretty Madeleine Templeton’s is that if a girl sleeps on her love-letters she is sure to dream of him who is to be her true, true love. Unfortunately, Madeleine has so many tender missives from so many true loves that she is positively uncomfortable and can not sleep at all. She has tried counting her fingers, counting her sheep and counting her admirers, but all is in vain. She is now desperately wondering if she ought to try the modern society method of marrying her true loves, one by one, until the right husband finally turns up.

THE SUIT AND THE SUITOR

Helen de Peyster’s favorite fear complex is the fatal number Thirteen! And yet, what is she to do when, having rejected a dozen proposals, along comes handsome Harry Radcliffe, with wealth, position and a personality that causes her heart to miss like a faulty motor. And now the Fates have spoken, indicating plainly that hearts are trumps and that she should undoubtedly follow her partner’s lead. “Am I doomed?” asks Helen, “Simply because Harry is the thirteenth man to propose to me? That’s what I want to know—am I doomed?”

SALT AND BATTERY

Because Clarice Vanderhoff almost fainted when her fiancé, Teddy Ashhurst, spilled the salt, Ted naturally placated the Unknown Gods by throwing a handful of the offending seasoning over his left shoulder with his right hand. This is undoubtedly very pleasing to the Fates and Goddesses of Chance, but hardly as agreeable to the charming Mrs. Drexel-Drexel who, quite naturally, objects to being salted, like an almond—particularly in public.

THE WORST IS YET TO COME

It is an established fact, in the mind of Annabelle Armitage, who is shown on our left, that she will wed the first man who meets her gaze on St. Valentine’s morn. She has not yet looked down, nor has Tony Galati, who does the Armitage roses, looked up, but Fate is plainly staging another of those elopements in high society with a stirring last act in which the pleasant news is broken to the present Signora Galati, in Calabria, and the seven little Galatis.

THE CROIX DE COUTEAUX

It is certainly hard on a hostess to have her dinner party spoiled by a social contretemps, yet that is what happened at Mrs. Aspinwall’s when her imported and important authoress, Patience Bitgood, fainted dead away in mid-sweetbread, at the sight of crossed knives beside her plate. This is one of the worst omens of a relentless Nemesis, and foretells a solid year of hard luck.

DANGEROUS DIANA

The new moon is a lovely sight, but, of course, it is absolutely fatal to look at it through glass, a fact well known by Eric Appledorn, who, we may say, is not as simple as he looks. “Come into the garden, Maud,” he murmurs, “and let us go out through the dining room so that we may be sure to gaze on Luna over your lovely right shoulder!” Something in Maud’s eyes tells us that she will follow the red line of romance to its usual and pleasant destination.

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Who’s Who—in the Audience
Showing That the Smart Playgoer, Not the Smart Play, Is Really the Thing

CAN YOU GUESS WHO’S ON THE STAGE?

You can always tell, by looking at the audience, just who is holding the center of the stage. When the masculine half of the audience occupies itself in reading the corset advertisements in the programmes or in looking restlessly about while the feminine half strains to catch every word—then you can be sure that the marcelled hero, in the jet-buttoned evening clothes, with the velvet collar, is standing in the spotlight and singing, or talking, rhapsodically about the age-old passion of LOVE.

FOR THE CHILDREN’S SAKE

This is one of those delightful little occasions where the children are given their annual holiday treat. All their existing ancestors, in a body, take them to the Hippodrome. For weeks before the eventful evening, their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles go about suffering intensely saying what a fearful bore it is going to be and how they dread it, but they really must go through with it—it means so much to the kiddies. Here is the party, shown in action,—observe the deadly boredom of the grown people and the hysterical hilarity of the little guests of honor.

CAN YOU GUESS WHO’S ON THE STAGE, NOW?

As we explained just a few minutes ago, a glance at the audience will show you what’s going on, on the stage. When the ladies are reading the notes in the programme, or in studying the components of the complexion of the woman in the stage box, while the attention of the gentlemen is riveted on the stage—then you know that the chorus girls have undulated on.

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SPEEDING THE PARTING GUESTS

Of course, you were thrilled when they—your week-end guests—accepted your invitation; and you were tremendously glad to see them when they arrived; and you enjoyed every minute of their stay,—but, oh, Lady, Lady,—wasn’t the most exquisite moment of all that when you and your consort waved a fond farewell to them and the back axle of their Rolls-Royce? Week-ends are wonderful, but, wasn’t Tennyson clever when he said that parting is such sweet sorrow!

The Horrors of the Week End
From the Tortured Hostess’s Point of View

 

THE LADY BURGLAR

The statement that “old friends are best” was never made by a lady who has endured the highwayman methods adopted by her old school-chum, or knew-you-as-a-child type of visitor. Reverting to habits, this little house-breaker rifles her hostess’s bureau and chiffonier with the avowed intention of wearing each garment which the hostess has not had the foresight to put on.

THE HOOT-OWL

In this picture, we have a fiendish friend who, after boring you all day with his silence and devastating dullness, suddenly wakes up, about 11.30 P.M., and begins to tell you about his salmon-fishing trip. After the details of what his camp outfit consisted of, we see him, as the clock strikes two, beginning to play his second salmon, and still going fairly strong.

RUDENESS REPAID

Have you ever lived, for a dozen odd years, next to some utterly impossible neighbors whom you have carefully snubbed, avoided and ignored only to have a well-meaning idiot, who happens to be your guest over Sunday, lead them joyously into your home with an air of triumphant discovery, as if he had done you the greatest sort of favour.

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THE SENSITIVE WIFE

This is the SENSITIVE wife. A familiar and, alas, incurable type. She always makes the mistake of marrying a Fiend Incarnate while still an Innocent and Trusting child. She then spends the remainder of her life in “telling all,” to a strictly limited circle of female friends. Yes, she has children, twin boys—for the Brute has left nothing undone to spoil her life. (N.B. The little boys are shown, in décolleté at the lower left-hand corner). She is fond of “giving away” the fiend to her circle of devoted harpies, furies, and bloodhounds. The Brute does not understand her—and never has, since she was a little, sensitive, misunderstood girl. Her mother should have warned her! Told her what Life really was: explained the grim horror and hateful meaning of it all.

THE “DRESSY” WIFE

An inordinate reader of Vogue; spends her mornings at Lucile’s; Paris is her Heaven; would sell her child for a Callot lace teagown; has to be torn, nightly, from shop windows; wears openwork stockings for breakfast. Our artist shows her in one of her frequent bruised moments. Her husband simply can’t understand how Poiret’s bill can be so much for a single week. But then he never understands anything. He is just a business man. No heart! No soul! No inspired moments! She is married to a “ledger,” a man who is nothing but a glorified adding machine. Her “jailer” has, with the characteristic brutality of a Hun, just refused to sign a blank check which she has made payable to Lanvin. He is trying to squirm out of it by saying that he is overdrawn at the bank—which statement she has just branded as a wilful, malicious and palpable LIE. She knows what he is up to. He wants to HURT her!

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Opening of the Opera Season

The opera opened—to crowded boxes—with the usual performance of “Aïda.” Such of the fashionable people who came an act late, left an act early, slept during the second act, and talked in between times, passed an unusually pleasant evening.

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A Way to Succeed on the Stage
A Lady, Once a Creature of Fashion,
and Now a Famous Actress, Tells
of Her Success

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