The San Francisco call. [volume], July 03, 1898, Image 19

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
THE RICH fIND HIGHLY RESPECTABLE MATRON DONNED HER SWELLEST GOWN AND DID NOT DISDAIN TO COMPETE FOR ADMIRING GLANCES
WITH THE NAMELESS LADY OF THE FLOWERY CHARIOT.
PARIS ABANDONED ITSELF
TO THE FLOWER FETE
Jill the VSopld Turned Out to Join in the
Lively Scenes in the Bois de Boulogne.
Why the Californians Were Surprised.
.. . ; ■.-.' ; By Genevieve Green.
I- . Special Paris Letter to The Sunday Call.
fHTV floral 'fete on the Boia de
Boulogne is. the .last event ol the
Paris', .'season. Then society
shakes the. city dust from its
■: qyer-befrii, d petticoats and hies
away to the., country, 'caving the big
old town "desf-rtri" from the point of
vkw of: the. high-bred Parisian. The
ceaseless^ hum -oi.. the unimportant mil
lions who. remain does not alter the
desolation. ■ . .
Those who have witnessed the floral
festivals in California I think are at
first disappointed iri.the Paris fete. One
BJlßces. the splendid profusioft and the
. luxury of dec ration, that chaiu,..c.ize
the California festivals. After ail the
<\iliforpians have more of everything
than any people that 1 have seen. I
sometimes wonder if we are not a little
vulgar in our profusion.
However that may be a Californian
expects more every place than he is at
all apt to receive. •
With the true California spirit I went
;to the Paris fete and at first ex
' perienced a sensation of disappo'nt
! ment. "What I had expected I do not
: know, but the flowers seamed scarce to
Ime and the decorations meaner. My
California temperament asserted itself
j stubbornly and vigorously demanded
' "more."
THE DOGGED DOG AND THE DOG-GONE ROCKET.
THE SAX" FEA^CISCO CALX,, SUNDAY, JULY 3, 1898.
But in half an hour what a change!
The spirit of the thing pervades one's
veins like wine. One realizes that it is
not the flowers, that it is not the arches
nor the display that brings forth that
dense Parisian crowd, but that the
whole thing is simply an excuse for an
afternoon of mad, French abandon
ment. A flower there is not ,1 thing to
be 1 oke<3 at and loved and admired; it
is simply something to be torn to pieces
or thrown in the face of the woman in
t-rarlet who is quite as good as you '>n
this occasion, madam, as good as you
The Frenchman says that "tout le
monde" attends the floral fetes, wjiich
Is truer translated than not. Verily all
the world is there and all the Parisian
world which comprises more than ours.
, The rich and highly respectable matron
dunned her swellest gown and did not
disdain to compete for admiring glanr-os
. with the nameless lady of the flowery
I chariot— with her who wore a bouquet
in the top of her satin boot and left it
carefully exposed to view. And Cleb
Mirode was there looking like a flower
herself in a pale pink gown and a gor
geous hefdgear of La France roses.
She was very demure, this madonna
like Cleo and quite properly chaperoned.
! They made me think of Juliet and the
I nurse, she and her chaperon. Surely
Cleo must eventually be like Juliet, a
victim of love, for no other death %vould
ibe at all fitting for one so rare. A
j wrinkle in her face would mean as
i great a trageuy though hardly so ar
tistic as the dagger of Romeo.
Yes, all the world was there— the rich
and prosperous in the carriages, the
middle class gaping on the sidewalks,
: and underneath the horse's feet gather
! ing up the flowers that fell between
! the carriages, shrieking, grabbing
! at your purses, snatching the flowers
j from your baskets, was the rabbi'j, the
detestable French rabble that no o.e
who has not seen it can ever compre
hend. Beside it an American rabble Is
tit for the Queen's drawing-room. In
j an American crowd you tremble lest
i you lose your purse, but here it is lest
your oyes he scratched and your hair
be pulled. The Parisian rabble is some
thing to be feared as wild beasts are
feared.
At present In spite of assertions to the
contrary there is a decided feeling
against the Americans. The well-bred
French people do not express them
selves that way to Americans, but it is
in the air. fur the rabble has caught it.
And it knows us unmiKtakably, this
keen-scented rabble — it is not at all
necessary tha.* tV Ftars and stripes be
painted upon one's brow. We experi
enced several evidences of this anti-
American spirit on the afternoon of the
I fete; 'tis true that the tnunts came
from under the horse's hoofs and yet
the voice of the street is surely not a
very uncertain straw to show the di
rection of French prejudice.
But one does not philosophize for
many continuous peconds at the fete;
! the spirit of th° thins is to forget, to
! abandon oneself to the enchantment
jof the hour. It is really an experience
lin one's life, this Parisian fete— it is re
| eeiving a smile and a flower from the
man or the woman whom you have
never seen before and will never see
again; it is once in your life when it is
quite conime il faut to neglect the lit
tle proprieties on -which you have been
reared. It is a grand frolic in which
there is no choice but participation
after one is there.
I think this thing could not exist in
any other place in the world, for it is
most essentially Parisian— it is the
spirit of Paris unfettered.
Among the Americans whom I no
ticed at the fete were Senator McAl
lister and wife and Mrs. Woodward
and daughter of San Francisco; also
Mr. and Mrs. William Hunt and Miss
Helen Lindley of Sacramento.
On Pentecost Sunday the students of
the Latin quarter celebrated the Feast
of Fools, and the Ass, a revival of a
medieval custom. Naturally the cele
bration was unique in the extreme. The
idea was to reproduce exactly the pro
cession of the fools and the ass as con
ducted in the fifteenth century. The
procession, which consisted of the theo
logians, the woman on the ass, the
prophets, the- vagrants, etc., finally
made a triumphant entry at the ker
messe, which had been installed on the
Place dv Pantheon. Here was repro
duced the drama of the "Mystery of
Adam," comprising the expulsion of
Adam and Eve from Paradise, the
death of Abel, and finally a procession
of prophets predicting the coming of
Christ. Numerous devils and angels
made the thing complete.
CURIOUS STUDIES
OF BRAIN PROCESSES
<Not£blß ; Instances* Whepe .Men Went
. Though the World Jill Right With Onlj
Papt of Their , Brains in Working Order.
WITHOUT the connecting struc
ture there can be no exact co
operative action of the double
brain. Now, there is ample
evidence to show that defi
ciency of the corpus callosum has not
necessarily been attended with the ef
fects which, on the theory of the sin
gle nature of the brain, we should have
expected. In instances in which it was
discovered after death that the con
necting bridge between the hemispheres
was entirely wanting, neither derange
ment in intellect was observed, nor any
other abnormality of life in the way
of movement or sensation.
Thus, in the notable case of Bichat,
one of the foremost anatomists of his
day, one lobe of his brain was found
markedly smaller than the other. He
was, in fact, deficient in one-half of his
brain, and yet his mental and physical
life was in its way notably of a high
order. In another case, reported by
Cruveilhier, a man died in the hospital
at the age of 42 years from heart dis- j
ease. H> exhibited no lack of intelli
gence, yet after his death it was dis
covered that his left brain was practi
cally destroyed and replaced by a wat
ery substance. Another case, reported
by Andral, was of a man who died at
the age of 2S. He had suffered from
a fall when three years old, and as a
result waa paralyzed on his left side.
The right half of his brain had practi
cally disappear. d. so that the parts be
low this half constituted the floor for
an empty space. Andral says of this
man that he "had received a good edu
cation, and had profited by it; he had
;a good. memory; his speech was free
! and easy; his intelligence was such as
„ we should expect to find in an ordinary
] man."
In the ordinary working of the brain
one half is more active than the other,
and exercises a superiority on its neigh
bor lobe. This lobe — in ordinary per
sons the left, of course — is the cere
bral master. Heredity, education or
what we will— all the combined influ
ences, in short, which mold human Ufa
— have tended, by some process of.phys
iological selection, to place . one lobe
over the other in point of importance.
The other (right) lobe is the servant
of the left in a measure. Ita educa
tion has been neglected, and it re
quires the control of its better cultured
neighbor in order that life may be con
ducted in a sensible and sane fashion.
: The most hopeless cases of insanity,
j TVigan would have held, would be thosa
in which both hemispheres were af
fected. If one was alone ailing, the
other might exert more or less control
over it, and the extent of the control
would depend on which lobe exhibited
the liseased action. All degrees of
insanity or menta.l derangement could
thus be accounted for on this suppo
| sition of the relative .control of one
| hemisphere by the other.. The perfect
life is that in which the better and
higher half controls the weaker and
less responsible. * * * In our courts
of law the question of double conscious
ness occasionally forms the subject of
legal deliberations. For a man in his
second self may commit a crime of
which he has no recollection whatever
lin his natural state. He is. in other
j words, at one time the Jekyll • of. his
: household, and may be a loving father,
a responsible citizen, and a respecta
ble friend. Then, when he lapses, he
I becomes the Hyde of the romance real-
I ized to the full.