The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 1000, February 25, 1899Various
General
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 1000, February 25, 1899
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
Picture to yourself a curiously invertebrate-looking person of some
prettiness of that distinctive type to which the name pre-Raphaelite
is a little vaguely applied, a girl with lips habitually parted and
her tongue much shown, this giving her a foolish look, as the same
thing gave Coleridge a foolish look. Just as Coleridge had, however,
a fine brain, so has this girl. Among a thousand and one affectations
under which she hides her very real cleverness, a leading one is that
which distinguishes her speech. She favours adjectives with the suffix
_some_. “Lovesome” is in high vogue with her. This word found favour
with Chaucer, so it may pass. “Dovesome” is less pleasing, though
it is handy as a rhyme. Other two adjectives in “some” favoured by
the girl who shares Norma’s studio are “oilsome” and “weepsome.” She
apologises for extending an “oilsome” hand; she describes a kindly act
as “weepsome.”
Altogether this girl’s use of descriptive words is very remarkable. She
more rarely has recourse to the French language than her ancestresses
had. The words _recherché_ and _distingué_ are never heard from her;
but, so far from its being true that she taboos French altogether, she
prefers _banal_ to “trite,” and _bourgeois_ to “vulgar.” This thing
is the more regrettable that she pronounces French less well than her
predecessors did.
The vein of censure of the girl who goes in for art is, it is only fair
to say, on the whole mild. Her abomination is the cheap and the shoddy,
but she rarely uses these words because, she says, they pain her
mouth. For _old-fashioned_ she uses preferably “suburban” (pronounced
_s’burban_), or “early-Victorian,” or “rococo.” These words are not
synonymous, but she uses them as synonyms. Finally, her use of the word
“elementary” is interesting. A symmetrical arrangement of wall-pictures
is objected to by her as “elementary.” Symmetry is a thing very
abominable to her.
This girl’s name is Margaret, and she is called in her circle “the
Meg.” The girl who goes in for art is rarely called by her name. This
thing was so ten years ago, when some of us knew a girl whose initials
were W. P., and whose nickname was Willow Pattern.
This girl was lovely and was loved. Her lover was woefully poor, but
that troubled Willow Pattern not at all. He had, she said, “a rich
chin.” They married, and they are to this day as happy as happy can
be. _Nota bene:_ They are still poor, the world says; for the world is
so blind that it has never noticed that Willow Pattern’s husband has a
rich chin.
They manage to eke out a living by picture-painting. If they would
paint portraits they would be somewhat less poor, but they will not do
that. A British matron tells how she once in this matter fared with
Willow Pattern.
“I want you,” said the British matron, “to paint my portrait.”
Said Willow Pattern, “Sorry I can’t do that; but I will make a picture
of you if you like; I shall put a swan in it, and call it ‘Woman and
Swan.’ Do you mind?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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