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The courtyard is irreproachably Japanese, with its lanterns and dwarf trees. But the studio where one poses might be in Paris or Pontoise; the self-same chair in "old oak," the same faded "poufs," plaster columns, and pasteboard rocks.
To an expert of that period it should not be impossible, however." Septimus Marvin was all awake now, with flushed cheeks and eyes brightened by enthusiasm. "Do you know why? Because her hair is dressed in a peculiar way poufs de sentiment, these curls are called. They were only worn for a brief period. In those days the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau had a certain vogue among the idle classes.
The courtyard is irreproachably Japanese, with its lanterns and dwarf trees. But the studio where one poses might be in Paris or Pontoise; the self-same chair in "old oak," the same faded "poufs," plaster columns, and pasteboard rocks.
What thinks she, I wonder, if she thinks at all, of the pale European, paler for want of exercise and engrossing occupation, who steps out of her carriage in front of her, an ungraceful heap of poufs and frills, tottering painfully on high heels, in tight boots, her figure distorted into the shape of a Japanese sake bottle, every movement a struggle or a jerk, the clothing utterly unsuited to this or any climate, impeding motion, and affecting health, comfort, and beauty alike?
A very handsome girl, with a coronet of fair hair, from which strayed braids and curls and crinkles and puffs and bands and flowers and ribbands; her dress in the extremest extremity of the fashion, very long, very low; with puffs and poufs innumerable; the whole borne up by the highest and minutest pair of heels that ever a beguiling shoemaker sent forth.
To an expert of that period it should not be impossible, however." Septimus Marvin was all awake now, with flushed cheeks and eyes brightened by enthusiasm. "Do you know why? Because her hair is dressed in a peculiar way poufs de sentiment, these curls are called. They were only worn for a brief period. In those days the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau had a certain vogue among the idle classes.
There were little screens in the room, with shelves specially constructed to hold little gimcracks, which in their turn were specially shaped to stand upon the little shelves. There was a portentous standing-lamp, six feet high in its bare feet, with a shade like a crinoline. There were settees and poufs and des prie-Dieu, and strange things hanging on the wall without rhyme, reason, or beauty.
If she did not put frills round piano legs, she placed tasselled poufs about the drawing-room that every short-sighted visitor fell over, and used large bows of slightly discoloured ribbon to mask unneeded brackets.
When a mother, who ought to be most interested in training her children for usefulness and heaven, gives her chief time to fixing up her back hair, and is worried to death because the curls she bought are not of the same shade as the sparsely-settled locks of her own raising; and culturing the dromedarian hump of dry-goods on her back till, as she comes into church, a good old elder bursts into laughter behind his pocket-handkerchief, making the merriment sound as much like a sneeze as possible; her waking moments employed with discussions about polonaise, and vert-de-gris velvets, and ecru percale, and fringed guipure, and poufs, and sashes, and rose-de-chêne silks, and scalloped flounces; her happiness in being admired at balls and parties and receptions, you may know that she has thrown off the care of her children, that they are looking after themselves, that they are being brought up by machinery instead of loving hands in a word, that there is in her home a "patented self-rocker!"
The courtyard is irreproachably Japanese, with its lanterns and dwarf trees. But the studio where one sits might be in Paris or Pontoise; the self-same chair in "old oak," the same faded "poufs," plaster columns and pasteboard rocks.
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