have more of that vivacious dramatic
power which is called "setting out a thing to the life." With all these
advantages, and all the world open to them in newspapers and in books,
they ought to be the leaders and stimulators of the best conversation.
With them it should never drop down to the too-common flatness and
banality. Women have made this world one of the most beautiful places of
residence to be conceived. They might make it one of the most
interesting.

THE TALL GIRL

It is the fashion for girls to be tall. This is much more than saying
that tall girls are the fashion. It means not only that the tall girl has
come in, but that girls are tall, and are becoming tall, because it is
the fashion, and because there is a demand for that sort of girl. There
is no hint of stoutness, indeed the willowy pattern is preferred, but
neither is leanness suggested; the women of the period have got hold of
the poet's idea, "tall and most divinely fair," and are living up to it.
Perhaps this change in fashion is more noticeable in England and on the
Continent than in America, but that may be because there is less room for
change in America, our girls being always of an aspiring turn. Very
marked the phenomenon is in England; on the street, at any concert or
reception, the number of tall girls is so large as to occasion remark,
especially among the young girls just coming into the conspicuousness of
womanhood. The tendency of the new generation is towards unusual height
and gracious slimness. The situation would be embarrassing to thousands
of men who have been too busy to think about growing upward, were it not
for the fact that the tall girl, who must be looked up to, is almost
invariably benignant, and bears her height with a sweet timidity that
disarms fear. Besides, the tall girl has now come on in such force that
confidence is infused into the growing army, and there is a sense of
support in this survival of the tallest that is very encouraging to the
young.

Many theories have been put forward to account for this phenomenon. It is
known that delicate plants in dark places struggle up towards the light
in a frail slenderness, and it is said that in England, which seems to
have increasing cloudiness, and in the capital more and more months of
deeper darkness and blackness, it is natural that the British girl should
grow towards the light. But this is a fanciful view of the case, for it
cannot be proved that English m