A GALLERY OF DUDES
By
By 1883, the dude had evolved from a person of excessive refinement of fashion in dress to a ""fop or exquisite"" seeking new experiences in the American West. ""My dudes,"" Marshall Sprague claims grandly, ""are as comical in their foppery as only dudes can be."" They are also highly educated and well travelled, persons of sensibility who found more than Indians and scenery in the West. Captain William Drummond Stewart was ""sick to death of refinement"" when he journeyed from Scotland to that ""happy hunting ground,"" the Louisiana Purchase and Yellowstone. Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, travelled with a prospector's joy in scientific discovery. Walter Butler Cheadle found the joy of challenge in facing an ordeal over Yellowhead; sickly Isabella Lucy Bird, a virginal forty, found love with one of the West's famous figures, Jim Nugent, an experience which led to her Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, more travel and romance. The tragic young Marquis de Mores with his lovely wife Medora tried to make the Bad Lands do good by raising cattle, left a sad memory of hope destroyed. Teddy Roosevelt, the most famous dude of all, went West an invalid, returned a rough rider ready to become president.... Sprague's Gallery sports some 85 pictures (not seen here), is altogether a charmer.