of the aesthetic artist was nearly always tall, usually
willowy, not to say undulating and serpentine.
These forms of feminine loveliness and commanding
height have been for many years before the eyes of
the women of England in paintings and drawings, and
it is unavoidable that this pattern should not have
its effect upon the new and plastic generation.
Never has there been another generation so open to
new ideas; and if the ideal of womanhood held up was
that of length and gracious slenderness, it would
be very odd if women should not aspire to it.
We know very well the influence that the heroines
of the novelists have had from time to time upon the
women of a given period. The heroine of Scott
was, no doubt, once common in society—the
delicate creature who promptly fainted on the reminiscence
of the scent of a rose, but could stand any amount
of dragging by the hair through underground passages,
and midnight rides on lonely moors behind mailed and
black-mantled knights, and a run or two of hair-removing
typhoid fever, and come out at the end of the story
as fresh as a daisy. She could not be found now,
so changed are the requirements of fiction. We
may assume, too, that the full-blown aesthetic girl
of that recent period—the girl all soul
and faded harmonies—would be hard to find,
but the fascination of the height and slenderness
of that girl remains something more than a tradition,
and is, no doubt, to some extent copied by the maiden
just coming into her kingdom.
Those who would belittle this matter may say that
the appearance of which we speak is due largely to
the fashion of dress—the long unbroken lines
which add to the height and encourage the appearance
of slenderness. But this argument gives away
the case. Why do women wear the present fascinating
gowns, in which the lithe figure is suggested in all
its womanly dignity? In order that they may appear
to be tall. That is to say, because it is the
fashion to be tall; women born in the mode are tall,
and those caught in a hereditary shortness endeavor
to conform to the stature of the come and coming woman.
There is another theory, that must be put forward
with some hesitation, for the so-called emancipation
of woman is a delicate subject to deal with, for while
all the sex doubtless feel the impulse of the new time,
there are still many who indignantly reject the implication
in the struggle for the rights of women. To say,
therefore, that women are becoming tall as a part
of their outfit for taking the place of men in this
world would be to many an affront, so that this theory
can only be suggested. Yet probably physiology
would bear us out in saying that the truly emancipated
woman, taking at last the place in affairs which men
have flown in the face of Providence by denying her,
would be likely to expand physically as well as mentally,
and that as she is beginning to look down upon man
intellectually, she is likely to have a corresponding
physical standard.