I miss Ophelia, and the others, but lately I have been thinking specially of Ophelia. She has possibly the strongest personality of my dolls. She is what I make her in a sense, tragic and death-like, but what makes her so real is her tolerance to the persona I give her, and her additional true personality, which is considerably more free-spirited, even wild. Really an opposite to the other. It comes out in the photographs I take of her, which never have turned out perfectly. The last set particularly exemplified this. She was far easier swinging on the barbed wire fence than wilting tragically against the post.
I finished Marion Harland's guide tonight and I wonder ceaselessly at two things. 1. She is so down on America! Even more than I am. She complains of things in which I am so well-steeped I could not see them for what they were. In particular, American style and cookery. It is true that our food, which we count as so much more generous in portion than the overseas counterpart, is as coarse and indecorous as it is plentiful, but as an American woman I cast up my hands and declare I would rather spend my time on something else. She makes an interesting point about American women's fashions. In France women wear what looks good on them, and in America women wears what comes off the manufacturing line in the latest style. It is very conformist, and I have to admit I feel it in myself, for I would be embarrassed to wear something that is "out" even if it flattered me better. 2. Harland's other point I feel clearly from last night's experiences. I looked in my journ...