The flappers, consider them well, for they differ in caliber.
First of all there is the flippant creature with the bobbed hair, short skirts, and nothing else, unless a passion for attention is considered. F. Scott Fitzgerald has nothing to do with this species.
Then there is the superior flapper, the super-type, with spiritual courage and intellectual intrepidity. She is the genuine and not the “ultra” modern woman.
So said Mr Fitzgerald in drawing the subtle distinction between flappers in his address at the open table luncheon of the Women's City club at noon Thursday.
Popular young authors have another mission in life, it seems, beside fashioning fiction. The speaker read an amusing letter over a feminine signature, asking him for a “recipe” on “how to be popular like the heroines in present day novels.”
Mr. Fitzgerald discussed some popular fiction and writers, among them H. L. Mencken, whom he regards as one of the greatest of American critics. He said he believed that Mencken had done much in the past few years for the American novel.
English writers have told him. Mr. Fitzgerald said, that they believed a tremendous renaissance has taken place in the past few years in the American novel.
The luncheon was attended by more than 100 men and women, the capacity of the dining room being overtaxed. Miss Alice O'Brien presided. Others at the speakers' table were Mrs. Fitzgerald, wife of the writer: Mrs. C. O. Kalman, Mrs. L. P. Ordway, Jr., and Miss Katherine Ordway.
Published in unlocated newspaper (1921).