but one must act and tell the whole truth.  One does not put on the shirt front and the standing collar and the knotted cravat of the other sex as a mere form; it is an act of consecration, of rigid, simple come-out-ness into the light of truth.  This noble candor will suffer no concealments.  She would not have her lover even, still more the general world of men, think she is better, or rather other, than she is.  Not that she would like to appear a man among men, far from that; but she wishes to talk with candor and be talked to candidly, without taking advantage of that false shelter of sex behind which women have been accused of dodging.  If she is nothing else, she is sincere, one might say wantonly sincere.  And this lucid, candid inner life is reflected in her dress.  This is not only simple in its form, in its lines; it is severe.  To go into the shop of a European modiste is almost to put one’s self into a truthful and candid frame of mind.  Those leave frivolous ideas behind who enter here.  The ‘modiste’ will tell the philosopher that it is now the fashion to be severe; in a word, it is ‘fesch’.  Nothing can go beyond that.  And it symbolizes the whole life, its self-examination, earnestness, utmost candor in speech and conduct.

The statesman who is busy about his tariff and his reciprocity, and his endeavor to raise money like potatoes, may little heed and much undervalue this advent of candor into the world as a social force.  But the philosopher will make no such mistake.  He knows that they who build without woman build in vain, and that she is the great regenerator, as she is the great destroyer.  He knows too much to disregard the gravity of any fashionable movement.  He knows that there is no power on earth that can prevent the return of the long skirt.  And that if the young woman has decided to be severe and candid and frank with herself and in her intercourse with others, we must submit and thank God.

And what a gift to the world is this for the Christmas season!  The clear-eyed young woman of the future, always dear and often an anxiety, will this year be an object of enthusiasm.

THE AMERICAN MAN

The American man only develops himself and spreads himself and grows “for all he is worth” in the Great West.  He is more free and limber there, and unfolds those generous peculiarities and largenesses of humanity which never blossomed before.  The “environment” has much to do with it.  The great spaces over which he roams contribute to the enlargement of his mental horizon.  There have been races before who roamed the illimitable desert, but they traveled on foot or on camelback, and were limited in their range.  There was nothing continental about them, as there is about our railway desert travelers, who swing along through thousands of miles of sand and sage-bush with a growing contempt for time and space.  But expansive and great as these people have become under the new conditions,