active 19th century Lady of distinction

“ The morning robe should cover the arms and the bosom, nay even the neck. And if it be made tight to the shape, every symmetrical line is discovered with a grace so decent, that vestals, without a blush, might adopt the chaste apparel. This simple garb leaves to beauty all her empire; no furbelows, no heavy ornaments, load the figure, warp the outlines, and distract the attention. All is light, easy, and elegant; and the lovely wearer, “with her glossy ringlets loosely bound,” moves with the Zephyrs on the airy wing of youth and innocence. ”

“ Ornaments and trimmings of silver are to be preferred to gold, when intended for the fair beauty. The white lustre of the first of these costly metals harmonizes better with delicacy of skin than the glaring effulgence of the gold. By a parity of reasoning, gold agrees better with the brunette, as its yellow and flaming hue lights up the fire of her eyes, and exhibits her complexion in the brightest contrast. ”

“ But in our days, an Englishwoman has the extensive privilege of arraying herself in whatever garb may best suit her figure or her fancy. The fashions of every nation and of every era are open to her choice. One day she may appear as the Egyptian Cleopatra, then a Grecian Helen; next morning, the Roman Cornelia; or, if these styles be too august for her taste, there are sylphs, goddesses, nymphs of every region, in earth or air, ready to lend her their wardrobe. In short, no land or age is permitted to withhold its costume from the adoption of an Englishwoman of fashion. ”

“ We enjoy, not only the pleasures of the senses, but the delights which shoot from mind to mind, in the pressure of a hand, the glance of an eye, and the whisper of the heart. Shall we then despise this ready and obedient vehicle of all that passes within the invisible soul? Shall we contemn it as a lump of encumbering clay—as a piece of corruption, fitter for the charnel-house than the bosom of affection? ”

“ When good-humor and vivacity reign within, the face is lighted up with benignant smiles; where peace and gentleness are the tenants of the bosom, the countenance beams with mildness and complacency. Evil temper has, with truth, been called a more terrible enemy to beauty than the small-pox. I beseech you, therefore, as you value the preservation of your charms, to resist the dominion of this rude despoiler, to foster and encourage the feelings of kindliness and good-humor, and to repress every emotion of a contrary character. ”

“ Penciling eye-brows, staining them, &c., are too clumsy tricks of attempted deception, for any other emotion to be excited in the mind of the beholder, than contempt for the bad taste and wilful blindness which could ever deem them passable for a moment. There is a lovely harmony in nature’s tints, which we seldom attain by our added chromatics. The exquisitely fair complexion is generally accompanied with blue eyes, light hair, and light eye-brows and lashes. So far all is right. The delicacy of one feature is preserved in effect and beauty by the corresponding softness of the other. ”

“ Having been a traveller in my youth, whilst visiting foreign courts with my husband, on an errand connected with the general welfare of nations, I could not overlook the influence which the women of every country hold over the morals and happiness of the opposite sex in every rank and degree.
Fine taste in apparel I have ever seen the companion of pure morals, whilst a licentious style of dress was as certainly the token of the like laxity in manners and conduct. To correct this dangerous fashion, ought to be the study and attempt of every mother—of every daughter—of every woman. ”

“ The Mall, the gardens, and playhouses, are filled with ladies in uniform; and their whole appearance shows as little variety of taste as if their clothes were bespoke by the colonel of a marching regiment, or fancied by the artist who dresses the three battalions of guards.
But not only the ladies of every shape and complexion, but of every age too, are possessed of this unaccountable passion for levelling all distinction in dress. The lady of no quality travels first behind the lady of some quality; and a woman of sixty is as gaudy as her grand-daughter. ”

“ Where is delicacy? where is policy? we mentally exclaim, when we see the fair inconsiderate votary of fashion exposing, unseemly, that bosom which good men delight to imagine the abode of innocence and truth. Can the gaze of the voluptuous, the unlicensed admiration of the profligate, compensate to the woman of sentiment and purity for what she loses in the estimation of the moral and the just? ”

“ But that feature, which is an embellishment to a brunette, when seen on the forehead of the fair beauty, becomes, if not an absolute deformity, so great a drawback from her perfections, that the harmony is gone; and, as a proof, a painter would immediately turn from the change with disgust.
Nature, in almost every case, is our best guide. Hence the native color of our own hair is, in general, better adapted to our own complexions than a wig of a contrary hue. A thing may be beautiful in itself, which, with certain combinations, may be rendered hideous. ”

“ Some ladies, to whom nature has given a good sight, and lovely orbs to look through, must needs pretend a kind of half-blindness, and they go peeping about through an eye-glass, dangling at the end of a long gold chain, hanging at their necks. Not content with this affectation of one defect, they assume another, and lisp so inarticulately, that hardly three words in a sentence are intelligible. All such follies as these are not more a death-blow to all respect for the novice that plays them off, than they are sure antidotes to any charms she may possess. Simplicity is the perfection of form ”

“ The timid, the retreating step; the downcast eye; the varying complexion, “blushing at the deep regard she draws!” all these belong to this class of females; and they are charms so truly feminine, so exquisitely lovely, that I cannot but place them with their counterpart, the ethereal form, as the perfection of female beauty.
The woman whose figure bears nature’s own stamp of majesty, is generally of a stately make; her person is squarer, and has more of embonpoint than the foregoing. The very muscles of her neck are so formed as to show their adaptation to an erect posture. ”

“ Without dress a handsome person is a gem, but a gem that is not set.’ Dress, however, must be subject to certain rules; be consistent with the graces, and with nature. By attention to these particulars, is produced that agreeable exterior which pleases, we know not why,—which charms, even without that first and powerful attraction, beauty.
“Fashion, in her various flights, frequently soars beyond the reach of propriety. Good sense, taste, and delicacy, then make their appeal in vain. ”

“ As the aspect of the earth alters with the changes of the year, so does the appearance of a woman adapt itself to the time which passes over her. Like the rose, she buds, she blooms, she fades, she dies!
When the freshness of virgin youth vanishes—when Delia passes her teens, and approaches her thirtieth year, she may then consider her day as at the meridian; but the sun which shines so brightly on her beauties, declines while it displays them. ”

“ A living instance of what beauty and grace, elegance and propriety combined, can do, has always been admired in the Marchioness of D—— by all those who ever had the felicity to see and hear her at the piano; an engraving of her portrait, in that attitude, would teach every female lover of the art unaffected elegance, much more effectually than all that the advices and ability of masters can ever be able to perform. ”

“ When a girl is instructed on the great purposes of her existence,—that she is an immortal being, as well as a mortal woman,—you may, without fearing ill impressions, show her, that as we admire the beauty of the rose, as well as esteem its medicinal power, so her personal charms will be dear in the eyes of him whose heart is occupied by the graces of her yet more estimable mind. We may safely teach a well-educated girl, that virtue ought to wear an inviting aspect—that it is due to her excellence to decorate her comely apparel. ”

“ The blind directress of the luxuriant imagination gives grace to solidity, and consequence to trifles. Her magic spirit breathes in the laurels of the hero, dwells on the lip of oratory, and sparkles in the gem that decorates the fair!
To women of the most exalted as well as of the more humble ranks, we recommend a moderate, rather than a profuse, display of conspicuous and showy ornaments. A well-educated taste ought to open the eyes of a woman to be a tolerably correct judge of the perfections or imperfections of her own person ”

“ As the beauty of form and complexion is different in different women, and is still more varied, according to the ages of the fair subjects of investigation; so the styles in dress, while simplicity is the soul of all, must assume a character corresponding with the wearer.
The seasons of life should be arrayed like those of the year. In the spring of youth, when all is [Pg 58] lovely and gay, then, as the soft green, sparkling in freshness, bedecks the earth; so, light and transparent robes, of tender colors, should adorn the limbs of the young beauty. ”

“ Temperance includes moderation at table, and in the enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. A young beauty, were she fair as Hebe, and elegant as the Goddess of Love herself, would soon lose these charms by a course of inordinate eating, drinking, and late hours. ”

“ When we consider that it required the famous sculptor of Greece to collect the most beautiful virgins from every part of his country before he could find a living model for every part of his projected statue of perfect beauty; when we consider this, that the very native land of female charms could not produce one woman completely faultless in her form—how can we be so unreasonable as to demand such perfection in a daughter of Britain? ”

“ We have frequently, in our observations, found occasion to lament, in the present style of female dress, a want of that proper distinction which should ever be attended to in the several degrees of costume. For instance, the short gown, so appropriate and convenient for walking, and pursuing morning avocations or exercises, intrudes beyond its sphere when seen in the evening or full dress. It is in the splendid drawing-room that the train robe appears with all that superiority which gives pre-eminence to grace, and dignity to beauty. ”

“ Should the woman of moderate fortune be so ignorant of the principles of real elegance as to sigh for the splendid apparels of the court, let her receive as an undeniable truth, that mediocrity of circumstances being able to afford clean and simple raiment, furnishes all that is essential for taste to improve into perfect elegance. Riches and splendor will attract notice, and may often excite admiration; but it is the privilege of propriety and sweet retiring grace alone to rivet the eye, and take captive the heart. ”

“ Therefore, as all times and nations have deemed dancing a salubrious, decorous, and beautiful exercise, or rather happy pastime and celebration of festivity, I cannot but regard it with particular complacency. Dancing carries with it a banquet, alike for taste and feeling. The spectator of a well-ordered English ball sees, at one view, in a number of elegant young women, every species of female loveliness. He beholds the perfection of personal proportion. They are attired with all the gay habiliments of fashion and of fancy ”

“ On the one side, I have seen a finely-proportioned figure transform herself [Pg 116] into a perfect fright by this awkward neglect of all propriety and grace; and, on the other, I am acquainted with a lady, whose beauty, taken in the common acceptation of the word, would not obtain her a second look, but in the elegance of her manners, in the dignity of her carriage, in the taste and disposition of her attire, and in the thousand inexpressible charms which distinguish the gentlewoman, she is so powerful that none can behold her without captivation. ”

“ I feel it my duty to admonish the general race of my female contemporaries. To the rising generation I especially address myself; and when the young belle in her teens listens to the suggestions of experience, perhaps the advice may not be quite so unpalatable, when she understands that it comes from one who has studied the graces at more than one of the courts of the Bourbons; and, since their dispersion, has followed the flight of elegance wherever it was to be found. ”

“ Let me, then, in one short sentence, in one tender adieu, my fair readers and endeared friends! enforce upon your minds, that if Beauty be woman’s weapon, it must be feathered by the Graces, pointed by the eye of Discretion, and shot by the hand of Virtue! ”

“ We wish to lead to conviction, not to awaken resentment.—Fashion must, in these instances, have borrowed the bondage of fortune, and so blinded her votaries against the sober dictates of reason, the mild dignity of self-respect.
“There is a mediocrity which bounds all things, and even fixes the standard which divides virtue from bombast. Let us, therefore, in every concern, endeavor to observe this happy temperature. Let the youthful female exhibit, without shade, as much of her bust as shall come within the limits of fashion, without infringing on the borders of immodesty. ”

“ For my entertainment, the beauty had, all that morning, been improving her charms: the beau had put on lace, and the young doctor a big wig, merely to please me. But quite different were the sentiments of cousin Hannah: she regarded every well-dressed woman as a victorious rival; hated every face that seemed dressed in good humor, or wore the appearance of greater happiness than her own. ”