The fact that she goes for a ride later on, “dressed in pure white,” sinks into insignificance beside this new and original creation of Mr. Dixon’s. A red morning gown, trimmed with cream lace, cut low enough to show the “beautiful white shoulders”—ye gods and little fishes! Where were the authorities, and why was not “Miss Sallie” taken to the detention hospital, pending an inquiry into her sanity?
It would seem that any man, especially one who writes books, could be sure of a number of women friends. Among these there ought to be at least one whom he could take into his confidence. The gentleman novelist might go to the chosen one and say: “My heroine, in moderate circumstances, is going to the matinée with a girl friend. What shall she wear?”
Instantly the discerning woman would ask the colour of her eyes and hair, and the name of the town she lived in, then behold!
Upon the writer’s page would come a radiant feminine vision, clothed in her right mind and in proper clothes, to the joy of every woman who reads the book.
But men are proverbially chary of their confidence, except when they are in love, and being in love is supposed to put even book women out of a man’s head. Perhaps in the new Schools of Journalism which are to be inaugurated, there will be supplementary courses in millinery elective, for those who wish to learn the trade of novel writing.
If a man knows no woman to whom he can turn for counsel and advice at the critical point in his book, there are only two courses open to him, aside from the doubtful one of evasion. He may let his fancy run riot and put his heroine into clothes that would give even a dumb woman hysterics, or he may follow the example of Mr. Chatfield-Taylor, who says of one of his heroines that “her pliant body was enshrouded in white muslin with a blue ribbon at the waist.”
Lacking the faithful hench-woman who would gladly put them straight, the majority of gentlemen novelists evade the point, and, so far as clothes are concerned, their heroines are as badly off as the Queen of Spain was said to be for legs.
They delve freely into emotional situations, and fearlessly attempt profound psychological problems, but slide off like frightened crabs when they strike the clothesline.
After all, it may be just as well, since fashion is transient and colours and material do not vary much. Still, judging by the painful mistakes that many of them have made, the best advice that one can give the gallant company of literary craftsmen is this: “When you come to millinery, crawfish!”