THE PRESENT ESTHETIC CRAZE IN LONDON.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3088, 20 May 1881, Page 3

THE PRESENT ESTHETIC CRAZE IN LONDON.

[the truth.]

Mosfc amusing accounts are given of the new craze which has seized on a certain section of London society. In seems, for some time past, sundry young men and women have betaken themselves to the " showing of their shapes," as Jack Tar calls it, in the most fantastical costumes of the medieval ages, and playing such tricks before high heaven as make the angels weep. The women exhibit themselves in tight-fitting garments, devoid of all shape and color, clinging to the form and showing the contour of the figure with quite as much jwecision as the fleshings of the ballet girl; the hair cut short and frizzed over the eyes and dyed of a deep orange brown ; the throat encircled by a double row of large amber beads, from which depends a medieval ornament; and a looking-glass hanging to the side, as in the pictures of the Venetian ladies by Paul Veronese. The female esthete is in general sallow and half-starved, woe-begone in expression, dry lipped, and always looking thirsty and exhausted. Sho affects the colorless raiment as beheld in the preKaphaelite pictures—olive green skirt, long and trailing on the ground, but so tight as to show the angles of the knee-joints when she is seated; the bodice is of deep, dull orange color, laced with the palest blue ; the sleeves, tight fitting to the elbow, hang to the feet, and are made of different color and. material from the rest of the attire. A pale, dim fawn-color is in general most patronised, and is lined with brownish green seldom beheld in nature save on the back of the toad. Tho beautiful esthete has in general a dingy look, which is attributed to the efforts made to attain to that dulness of coloring in which alone resides perfection according to her ideas, and which in some cases has to be procured by artificial means. She sighs and looks vacantly around from beneath the shock of stiff frizzed hair, dyed of a reddish brown, according to the law she has made unto herself of having no defined color on any portion of her frame.

She scarce can open her lips to speak, so tightly arc they pressed together, and never smiles save when the male esthete approaches, and then they whisper together, and sometimes disappear locked arm-in-arm toward the supper room, were they are not more backward than the vulgar herd in the enjoyment of the creature comforts provided. But while the female esthete is simply ridiculous, the male of the species is absolutely offensive. He lisps and ambles ; his locks flow uncombed over his collar; but, when no one is by, he is not above investigating the contents of a tankard of Bass's alo, of which he partakes freely. He generally carries an artificial lily in his hand, at which he sniffs- pathetically now and then. He has been caricatured unmercifully in the illustrated [papers, and even on the stage, but he heeds it not. He goes on lisping and sniffing, well aware that his new method of getting into notice and emerging from the ranks of obscurity to which his own capacity has hitherto confined him is the easiest and cheapest of all. To show the extent to which the esthetes have encroached upon the domains of common sense and propriety, it is only necessary to mention one or two of the vagaries to winch they have givon vent of late. A lady of high repute, and much beloved and respected, but who has gone in for the esthetic phase, determined to act up to the character she had assumed, and at ii soiree given at her house, after having treated her friends to a few melodious twangs upon the ancient lyre kept in her husband's studio to assist him in painting his antique groups, she disappeard from the room. Presently she returned with a crystal platter, on which was an antique goblet turned upside down. Going round to each guest she whispered in a hollow tone, " Supper is ready," at which announcement the guest who accepted the invitation to decend to the supper room was expected to turn the goblet. The male esthete, on his side keeps a taper burning before the portrait of the lady who pleases him best ; never owns his love but goes on sighing and moaning and dining and supping at the same time, with the most self-satisfied calm imaginable. An effort is now being made by tho leaders of fashion to

cvush this affectation, which is eneveroting some of the salons of London into tlio semblance of the mortuary chapels of Campofc Santo at Pisa.