But it seems her early work is now getting too obvious, so she is in the throes of a later phase. In her "Portrait of Miss Dodge" she has eliminated verbs and sentence structure entirely, flinging a succession of image-nouns at the reader. One can surely not accuse her of "prettiness."
The craze for colored wigs is, of course, an outgrowth of futurism. Why should a man be any color except that which his will dictates? This has long (a few months) been the cry of the painter, and the smart set has echoed: Why should he? Women in green and blue wigs have been seen in New York already. But, of course, it would be senseless to stop there; if one has an orange toupé he should surely have a mauve face. Yellow complexions are worn with indigo hair. We have long been accustomed to blue powdered noses on Fifth Avenue, and the setting of diamonds in the teeth is an old story. The only trouble with this epoch-making idea is that it is old. Phoenician women did it! And wasn't it Edward Lear who wrote of _The Jumblies_:
"Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a sieve"?
Of course, if one doesn't believe in this new development of art, but is naturalistic, he should be brave enough to chase his idea to its lair and act upon it, like Lady Constance Stewart Richardson, who is now tripping about the homes of the rich in New York with nothing at all on--or worse than nothing.
Forgive my preposterosities! But the ridiculous seriousness with which everything unfamiliar is taken by a sensation-sated _haute monde_ is such a brilliant target for satire. I think with immense relief of a wonderful bit of sky, and a long stretch of beach, and of all things tangible and--yes, though it may be bourgeois--_healthy_.
Across the tide of years you come to me, You whom I knew so long ago. A poignant letter kept half carelessly, A faded likeness, dull and gray to see.... And now I know.
Strange that I knew not then,--that when you stood In warm, sweet flesh beneath my hand, Your soul tumultuous as a spring-time flood And life's new wonder pulsing in your blood, I could not understand.
I could not see your soul like thin red fire Flash downward to my gaze, Nor guess the strange, half-understood desire, The tumult and the question and the ire Of those far days.