Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/203

Rh be seen every day among barmaids, shop girls, and milliners' mannequins. But Beauty—the divine and subtle charm which enraptures all beholders,—the perfect form, united to the perfect face in which pure and noble thought is expressed in every feature, in every glance of eye, in every smile that makes a sweet mouth sweeter,—this is what we may search for through all the Isles of Britain, ay, and through Europe and America and the whole world besides, and seldom or never find it.

Nine-tenths of the women who are styled "beautiful" by the society paragraphist, possess merely the average good looks;—the rest are generally more particularly distinguished by some single and special trait which may perchance be natural, and may equally be artificial, such as uncommon-coloured hair (which may be dyed), a brilliant complexion (which may be put on), or a marvellously "svelte" figure (which may be the happy result of carefully designed corsets, well pulled in). Most of the eulogized "beauties" of the Upper Ten to-day, have, or are able to get, sufficient money or credit supplied to them for dressing well,—and not only well, but elaborately and extravagantly, and dress is often the "beauty" instead of the woman. To judge whether the woman herself is really beautiful without the modiste's assistance, it would be necessary to see her deprived of all her fashionable clothes. Her bought hair should be taken off and only the natural remainder left. She should be content to stand sans paint, sans powder, sans back coil, sans corsets, in a plain white gown, falling from her neck and shoulders to her feet, and thus cheaply, yet decently clad, submit