Without question, the vulgar standards of expression these simpering sirens are setting for the impressionable young girl of today will degrade her just as surely as the wholesome, high-bred type of womanhood evolved by Charles Dana Gibson improved and developed all that was best in her sister of twenty years ago.
. . . .
The theory that nature imitates art is much older than Oscar Wilde, who (owing to the carelessness of Mr. Whistler) is supposed to have originated it.
It is so old that Mr. G. K. Chesterton any moment may rise to dispute it, and announce to an astonished London that it is Art that imitates Nature; nevertheless, Nature does imitate Art.
Is it possible that there is method in all this magazine madness? Is it possible that these magazines being devoted (among other devotions) to ladies’ attire, fear that too great an improvement in the female of our species would divert her thoughts from the imbecilities of dress to higher—and less profitable—things?
Allah forbid!
