the Ultimate One. In fact, it was all practically settled until she
invited our hero to accompany her on a little jaunt in her aeroplane. He
felt that there were few lengths to which he wouldn’t go on the ground,
but up in the air was unmistakably something else again; so he
progressed easily to the next young siren on the list.
[Illustration]
THE SAD CASE OF PEGGY
And then there was Peggy. Really, he couldn’t have found a more perfect
helpmate than Peggy--civil to her parents, pleasant to have around a
bridge table, fond of children and potted plants. Nothing could have
been sweeter--until she took him out motoring. He is here registering a
silent vow that if he ever gets home all in one piece, he will never
permit himself to so much as gaze upon his adorable little Peggy again.
[Illustration]
ANOTHER BLOW
By turning your head just a trifle to the left, you will got a rather
good idea of Dolores, the next to crash in our hero’s youthful
affections. He was in a fair way to get all worked up over Dolores’
vamping specialties--until in a confidential moment she laid bare her
strange, exotic, Ballet Russe sort of soul to him.... After that he knew
that things between them twain could never be the same again.
THE BITTER END
And just below is the end of the whole affair; trying out a half-dozen
of the most efficient sirens of his acquaintance, our hero finally
marries Mary, who rates about minus 30 in looks, brains, and charm. No
one has ever discovered why the veteran of countless affairs always
eventually marries a complete physical and intellectual blank. As the
proverb so aptly puts it, matrimony does make strange bedfellows.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE ENDLESS CHAIN
Only the shortage of white paper prevented the artist from prolonging
the above idea indefinitely. It is the motif for a frieze entitled
“Matrimony”--rather a quaint little conception, isn’t it? If you are at
all married--or even if you are only an innocent bystander--you will get
the idea without a struggle. As soon as divorce mercifully looses one
set of shackles, a change of partners is rapidly effected, new bonds are
formed--and there they are, right back at the very beginning again.
[Illustration]
Divorce: A Great Indoor Sport
_It is Beginning to Rank First Among Our Fashionable and Popular
Pastimes_
THE DAWN OF A NEW LIFE
Perhaps the sweetest time in a girl’s life is that roseate moment when
she gets her first divorce. It is a time that comes but once to a girl.
When at last her final decree arrives, she stands, in innocent wonder,
on the threshold of a new life. What pretty, girlish dreams are hers as
she goes out into the great world in search of a minister, so that she
can start things all over again.
[Illustration]
THE FLAW
There is, unfortunately, a bad hitch in the process of obtaining a
divorce. They haven’t perfected the method, as yet--it needs a lot of
working over. This having to wait about for months or years is really
too tiresome; it cuts in so on one’s time. Why, any really earnest
worker, going on the schedule of a forty-four-hour week, could be
married and divorced three or four times over in the time it now takes a
lady to be legally free from only one husband.
[Illustration]
THE DIVORCE SPECIAL
Any time that you want to see a bit of life, go to an American railway
station and watch the outgoing trains to Nevada. Several ticket agents
have to be constantly on duty in the window where both-way tickets to
Reno are sold; one man couldn’t keep up with the rush of trade. A
typical line at the ticket office is shown here--it is considered _de
rigueur_ for husbands to accompany their outgoing wives to the train. If
you are contemplating a jaunt to the nation’s reconstruction center in
the near future, it is a bit safer to book seats several weeks ahead.
[Illustration]
OLD HOME WEEK
It is so nice for the new bridegroom to meet his wife’s collection of
former husbands. It is something for him to look forward to, all through
the honeymoon. These little gatherings are so delightfully home like--it
is reassuring to feel that you are all members of the same club.
[Illustration]
BACK TO THE START AGAIN
This little scene is the sort of thing that divorce leads to,--hope
springs eternal, and all that. A divorce simply gets one into the right
frame of mind for a fresh start in matrimony. After all, Nature will
have its own way; there’s nothing like love--it is the passion to which
the best divorce lawyers attribute their success.
[Illustration]
Wild Bores We Have Met
_Question! Who--in Society--Is the Unadulterated, 100 Per Cent. Bore?_
BEHIND THE “TIMES”
Bores may be met with at all times of the day, but none bores so
blightingly as he who bores at breakfast. Who more completely spoils a
déjeuner than the hideous male shown above who absolutely refuses to
pick up his cues in the sweet little matutinal dialogue?
THE MONDAY-TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY BORE
Mrs. Ormsby-Jones, at right, represents that class of almost unbearable
bores whose social slogan is “Never take no for an answer,” a group
otherwise known as the “Come-Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Class.” The
Newly-Wed Pangborns, at the other end of the wire, have already fought
off three different dinner suggestions from Mrs. O.-J. and can only
think of death from apoplexy as an avenue of escape. But is Mrs. O.-J.
down-hearted? Never! “Well, then, how about Thursday?” she asks
sweetly.
[Illustration]
THE BABY BORE
In ancient times, Spartans used to expose their infants on the mountains
to test their toughness. The people at Mrs. Willoughby’s tea are wishing
that this test had been tried on little Gladys, who has been exhibited
by her enthusiastic mother and made to recite La Fontaine’s “Maître
Corbeau” in the original Ollendorf. Major Radcliffe, who possesses only
military French, is seriously considering going over the top--with
Gladys as his objective.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE BOASTFUL BORE
A bore of tremendous calibre is the plutocratic person who enjoys what
psychologists call “acute caste-consciousness.” Take Mrs. Eric
Appledorn, for instance, who is the lady shown above with a map of the
Amazon River appliquéd on her façade. Can’t you imagine how it bores
Dorothy Dobbee, whose nearest approach to car-ownership is a pair of
yellow goggles, to be told of the six Rolls-Royces which Mrs. Appledorn
has bought for her children?
THE DIETETIC BORE
If I were little Ouija, I should certainly tip the table over on that
insufferable blighter who, at every meal, demands a special menu of
gluten bread, goldfish wafers, and prunes. “Nothing acid!” he cried;
“Nothing starchy! Nothing albuminous! No sugar! Have you saccharine?”
Geska, the maid, has no idea what saccharine is, but she is willing to
try ground glass on this creature--at a venture.
THE THEATRE BORE
To end a day of perfect boredom, it is only necessary to go to the
theatre with a person who has seen the play before and tells the plot to
all those within earshot. At the big moment, pictured at the right, he
has just crashed into the silence by assuring the Wilberforce girls that
Vera, the heroine, isn’t really killed at all. “Just wait until the next
act,” he says cheeringly, “she shoots _him_ then.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE AWAKENING TO SPRING
If you are at all interested in tracing the love interest back to its
very beginnings, all you have to do is to visit the nearest park, any
bright Spring morning. Little scenes like this are going on all over the
place; any member of the younger set, between the ages of two and five,
can give you all the information you may require on just how wonderful
nature really is. There is only one difference between love and any
other contagious disease: once you have had the other disease, you are
immune from a second attack.
HAIL, THE CONQUERING HERO!
When first love takes the form of hero worship, there is practically
nothing that can be done about it. The case illustrated below is almost
at the last stage, as is shown by the patient’s complete loss of
appetite. The object of her maiden dreams is her mother’s guest, a
returned big-game hunter--one of those bronze-skinned, clean-limbed
outdoor men. Really, these people with clean limbs and chiseled features
ought not to be at large; they get a young girl’s innocent inhibitions
and major complexes all tangled up.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PROFESSIONAL SIREN
Don’t dwell too long on the picture above, gentle reader; if you have
any heart at all, you will just break down and have a good hard cry.
This is one of the bitterest phases of first love--the case of the
adolescent moth and the professional flame. The youth is at that tender
age where he classes all women under thirty-five as crude, and all
unmarried women as uninteresting. The lady in the case is just about old
enough to be a nice, understanding great-aunt. She is graciously
allowing the youth to pour out his heart to her in a series of home-made
sonnets,--after all, his little stunt helps to pass away the time until
her next dance.
The Throes of First Love, in Society
_A Few Fashionable Little Variations on the Oldest Theme in the World_
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
The great romantic tragedies are no more tragic than an affair like
this; for sheer bitterness, the epic of little Gladys and her adored
Unknown makes “Romeo and Juliet” look like a bedroom farce. While
walking in the park with her nurse, little Gladys, up to that moment but
a headless slip of a girl, comes face to face with her fate--her
Soul-Mate, her Ineffable One, her Man. It is love at first sight; but
the anguished lovers are torn asunder almost immediately. The cruel
nurse drags the stricken heroine home to her nap, while the Unknown’s
father insists that he must deport himself like a little Man.
[Illustration]
THE DANGEROUS DÉBUTANTE
And now we must witness the futile yearnings of the youth who has fallen
in love with the most popular débutante of the season. He is virtually
in a state of shell-shock. The thing has hit him so hard that all power
of speech has completely left him. It is seldom that love affects anyone
this way, in later life. You just take these little things as all in the
day’s work, after you’ve had a few years’ experience with them.
FIRST LOVE--AND THE NOBLE THEATRICAL GOD
Here is an experience that comes but eight or ten times to a young
girl--her worship of the dramatic hero. There are few purer forms of
love than these idylls, and few more lucrative emotions--from the
box-office standpoint. The youthful worshippers, chastely chaperoned by
a vestal, attend every matinée, to bask in the glances of their idol.
All their childish pennies are scraped together to buy the front row
seats. It’s just the old, old story--it’s the woman that pays, and pays,
and pays.
[Illustration]
GARDENING
Gardening is always an extremely popular sport,--some people do so love
to get close to nature. Of course, there are many who won’t have
anything to do with this sport; they remember that all the trouble in
the world started in a garden. It is not at all difficult to become a
highly accomplished gardener. All it requires is a study of that
invaluable text-book “How to Know What Makes the Wild Flowers Wild.”
[Illustration]
A Calendar of Popular Outdoor Sports
_As Practised Among Persons of Breeding and Quality_
[Illustration]
LAWN TENNIS
Lawn tennis is one of those sports that are very popular among the
onlookers. Ladies who can’t tell a tennis racket from any other noise,
and gentlemen who never have been able to understand why the players
stand on different sides of the net, are most enthusiastic tennis
spectators, never missing any of the big matches. Oh, well, history has
proved that there always has been a certain deadly fascination in
watching one’s fellow creatures suffer needlessly.
[Illustration]
INDOOR GOLF
Golf, that greatest of all reasons why men leave home, has become a
delightful indoor sport. All butlers count as hazards, and footmen may
not be removed from the course. Mr. Reginald Vere de Vere, one of our
best known after-dinner golfers, is here portrayed demonstrating that
fine shot he nearly made on the eleventh hole.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SUMMER BOATING
Are you one of those who have always believed that a punt is the lowest
form of wit? If you are, you must change your views, for punting is
bound to happen at all the smartest wet places. All our dowagers and
dancing men are delighted with the sport. It’s so pleasant to fish from
a punt,--some people do so love to angle for anything that seems to be
in the social swim.
CROQUET
The clergy is going in for croquet more strenuously than ever before. It
is indeed splendid exercise; there is no better way of developing the
vocabulary. The reverend gentleman on the right really should not hit
his adversary over the head with his mallet. He should know that whoever
hits his opponent with a mallet loses his next turn. The correct thing
to do is to hit him with one of the stakes.
[Illustration]
The Seven Deadly Temperaments
_As Frequently Met With in the Ladies_
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE FELINE TEMPERAMENT
Four members of the feline, velvet-pawed, low-springing, meat-eating,
Cat family, shown in the act of trepanning little Angela, the sweet,
blonde, yielding, and wholly worshipful being who is seated on the sofa
before you. There is not one single nasty thing that the felines have
forgotten to say about Angela, a girl who never did a wrong
thing--except that she allowed Destiny to make her attractive to married
men.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MATERNAL TEMPERAMENT
Here we see the ideal mother, the chatelaine type, a type upon which so
many poets, novelists, and music hall singers have dilated. The future
of the race is hers. It is a trifle hard to tell--whether she is a
futurist sofa pillow or a marble parquet floor. This type of lady is
always irresistible to the clergy, especially when they are of the
Protestant persuasion. As will be observed, upon a closer scrutiny of
the lady and her biological factor--the union has been fruitful.
THE SOULFUL TEMPERAMENT
Always devoted to calla lilies, rhythmic (or self-expression) dancing,
and loose-fitting Greek robes. She usually displays an abnormal interest
in what’s what on the buffet. Leave this type of girl alone with a
tableful of truffles, pâtés, mushrooms, macaroons, queen olives,
peaches, and chocolate éclairs, and the place, after a bit, will look
like Bapaume, after the German evacuation.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE NAGGING TEMPERAMENT
You know the kind. She simply won’t let you alone. Picking on you, all
day long. She starts right in on you at breakfast, along with the coffee
and the toast. She always gets up early and comes down all dressed and
ready for a good day’s nagging. There is no known form of temperament so
horrible, so poisonous, so soul-blighting--and so certain to marry. Oh,
wives and mothers, what a lesson this picture should be to you.
THE ROMANTIC TEMPERAMENT
Cupid just leads her around from one dark corner to another and from one
brave man to another. She lives exclusively upon little pencilled notes,
chocolate bon bons, pressed violets, Percy Shelley, moonlight, and the
strains of the guitar. Dangerous to a man in his first season. Equally
dangerous to a man in the bald-headed fifties, but particularly
dangerous to a man who is tottering on the brink of the grave.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PRACTICAL TEMPERAMENT
A frequent and highly commendable type of womanhood. She always knows
exactly what she wants--which is usually something under the
classification of Jewels. Furthermore, she knows how to get it, and she
knows where to go for it. In short, she is a ferret.
THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT
Last, but most frequently met with of all, we behold the artistic
temperament. By that we mean the lady who _feels_ things so keenly,
suffers so acutely, and kicks so ferociously, that we know
instinctively, on observing her, that she is passionately devoted to
ART. Have you noticed that they always wear clinging robes and are very
rude to their maids?
Six Brands of Week-End Hostesses
_It’s a Lusty Life, if You Don’t Week-End_
[Illustration]
THE UNSEEN HOSTESS
The self effacing hostess is a very popular brand. If it weren’t for her
week-end parties, society never could catch up with its correspondence.
She isn’t in the least entertaining--and she mercifully doesn’t try to
be. She thoughtfully effaces herself, and leaves you in your room after
supplying each guest with crested paper, assorted pens, and unused
stamps. Spending a week-end at her house is much the same thing as
spending it in the writing room of the Ritz.
[Illustration]
THE BISHOP’S MOVE
The absent-minded hostess has ruined many a promising young week-end by
her unfortunate affliction. She can never quite remember just what
people she has asked for the week-end and she _will_ go and ask a
bishop, at the last moment. Of course, bishops are a splendid
institution and you really couldn’t want anything nicer around a
cathedral, but, at a week-end party, when all the tired guests are
having their relaxation, a bishop is about as welcome as an outbreak of
beri-beri.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
THE WELL MEANING HOSTESS
The well-meaning hostess is one of the lowest forms. She insists upon
everybody’s getting together and having a jolly time. She can’t call it
a week-end till each of her guests has committed at least one parlor
trick. She is here portrayed in her favorite pursuit of dragging an
inoffensive guest to the piano, insisting that she just _knows_ he
sings. People spend exactly one week-end at her place; after that, “Very
important business keeps me away. So sorry.”
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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.
After-the-War Servant Problems
_How the Great Conflict ended the Golden Days of Service in the Houses
of the Elect_
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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!
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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.
Advice to the Lovelorn
_What Every Girl Should Know, Before Choosing a Husband_
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
WITH THIS RING