The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-04 00:00:00

THE StTN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 4, 1864.

SPIRIT or TEE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE LONDON REVIEW ON ME. KINGSLEY AND
FATHER NEWMAN.—For the first tiara in the his=
tory of controversy good Protestants may expe
rience a lawful and profitable amusement in seeing
an English Professor soundly eliastised by a Roman
Catholic divine. Mr. Charles Kingsley has received
a most wholesome lesson, and no amount of disap-
proval of the tenets of Father Newman and of tee
Roman Catholic Church will make a single member
of the Church of England stir an inch to Mr.
Kingsley's aid. When Mr. Kingsley attacks
institutions and doctrines only,—however much
we may lament at seeing the cause of the Refor-
mation handed over to the championship of a divine
who is accustomed to look at politics and theology
from the point of view of an inspired foxhunter—we
shall all wish to see him as successful in polemics as
it is his destiny to be. On this occasion Mr. Keegs
ley was feoll,h enough to make a random personal
assault. He must take the consequences. The
Church of England's honour is not involved; the
superstitions of the Church of Rome are not in
issue ; and we leave him with as much amusement
to his fate as we should leave Christian himself to
his tate in the "Pilgrim's Progress" if we had
caught him using obscene language to the doughty
Giant Pope. At such times the Old Adam rises up
very powerfully in the breasts of the soundest lovers
of the Church. They particularly dislike the opi-
nions of Giant Pope. But they also. particularly
dislike insolence; and if Mr. Kingsley does nut
mind being insolent to a Catholic priest when
he sees him, he cannot hope to get assis-
tance by raising a tardy cry of " Protes-
tant principles to the rescue." Of all men living
Mr. Kingsley was perhaps the most certain
at some time in his literary career to provoke the
punishment he has at last received. The religion of
muscles is an admirable and certainly a healthy out-
door creed; but it is the one creed that cannot afford
to be satirical at the expense of the rest of the un-
muscular creation. After all, as the late Mr. Justice
Maule observed, we are vertebrated animals.
Muscles cannot for ever go on making merry at our
expense, without sooner or later involving them-
selves in a contest where pedestrian piety may
chance to be overmatched. But Mr. Kingsley can-
not avoid sneering at all who are not of his way, we
will not say of thinking, but of walking. A singular
instance of this may be found in a few lines which
the rector of Eversley composed in an enthusiastic
moment, as a preface to his last children's book—
" The Water Babies." They convey very accurately
the estimate formed by the author of the relative
merits of himself and of his generation
"Hence unbelieving Sadducees,
And more believing Pharisees
With dull conventionalities;
And leave a Country Muse at ease
To play at leapfrog if she please
With children and realities."
___ _

Disbelievers in the Country Muse of Mr. Kingsley
are accustomed to be relegated to the respective
classes of Pharisee and Sadducee. But it does move
the temper of the most quiet Pharisee or Sadducee
to be without the faintest provocation at once set
down as "dull." It seems a hard penalty for not
caring to play at leapfrog with realities. Mr.
Kingsley has leapt gambolling and light-
hearted across the path of Father Newman—a
Pharisee who happens to be a bit of a wag is his
way. Mr. Kingsley, catching a Pharisee of this
kind, is for all the world like the English soldier in
the story who was unfortunate enough to make a
Tartar his prisoner. The way in which Mr. Kingsley
caught the Pharisee who was not dull is as follows :
—ln the course of a review of Mr. Fronde in Mac-
qllan's Magazine he fell upon declaiming against
n•- 'quities of the Church of Rome. So tar to
the in.. ‘- just as Mr. Gladstone was rot content
good. Bu., -qurance societies without dragging
with abusing in. name of the unoffending Mr.
into his oration the . of Roman Catholicism
Sheridan, mere.denunciaL. Cambridge professor
in the abstract appeared to the _ c-og. What be
a poor and miserable kind of leapt. fo bound •
wanted was a back in the flesh over which .
and in an evil hour for his comfort he bethought,

of the back of Father Newman. With that gentle-
man's name he accordingly proceeded to disport
himself. Abstracted from the Protestant world in
which he once played so dazzling a part, Father
Newman would never in all human probability have
heard of Mr. Kings:ey's attack upon him had not
some acquaintance forwarded to him in Lis
retreat the frolicsome passage, referred to
as occurring in Mr. Kicgsley's article in Mac-
Millan. The clang of professional armour
stirred the slumbering spirit of the cloistered
veteran. When be first read it he said to himself,
as he tells us, "Here is a young scribe, who is
making himself a cheap reputation by smart bits at
safe objects." But when he heard that Mr.
Kingsley was the aggressor he burnished up his
arms, and took down hie old lance from the wall.
The correspondence has been published in which he
drew the attention of Messrs. Macmillan t.' the
paragraph complained of; and in which Mr. Kings-
ley is confronted with the man upon whose quiet he
intruded. Mr. Kingsley in self-defence referred
Father Newman to his writings passim (a con-
venient and safe reply), and particularly to
one of your sermons on Subjects of the Day, No.
20 in the volume published in 184-1, and entitled,
Wisdom and Innocence.'" He could not, how-
ever, produce any passage in that celebrated sermon
to justify the personal slander of which he was the
author; and a witty epistle from Father Newman
to X. Y.," a mutual friend, extracted from Mr.
Kingsley a characteristic letter containing the fol-
lowing curious extract :
" As the tone of your letters (even more than their lan-
guage) makes me feel, to my very deep pleasure, that my
opinion of the meaning of your words was a mistaken one,
I shall send at once to _Macmillan's li gazine the few lines
which I enclose."
To the few lines enclosed, as well as to the modifi-
cation of them that appeared in the February nutn-
ber of Macmillan, Father Newman took the not
unnatural objection that they would lead the public
to beiieve that he bad been shown a definite passage
in his own writings, and had explained it away as
meaning something different from the sense assigned
to it by Mr. Kingsley. Mr. Kingsley had shown
Father Newman nothing of the kind. Father
Newman had challenged him to point out any
paragraph of the sort, and had failed to obtain even
an answer to his challenge. This being the case,
he was not unreasonably dissatisfied at the semi-
apologetic retractation published at last by the
Cambridge Professor or History, in which he
expressedewm Newman—Dr regr.et
Newman
who:
av seriouslyninghavin "by letter ex-
mistaken Dr.
N
pseseed in the strongest terms his denial of the
meaning which I have put upon his words;'
In reply :'ether Newman printed the entire
correspondence,
satire has probably 5e....4":11- in a piece
of witty criticism, which for powe.r and
beamming it all UP
beenuis
humorousrivalled.
fiegelation has been naturally
The public amusement created b; this
o
Kingsley. This week he has in hie turn prin„ a
furious answer in forty pages to Father Newman's
single sheet. After reading it we regret to be
genies, r.
obliged to come to the conclusion that it is not only
the Pharisees and Sadducees who can be dull. A
Country Muse hitting about her in a passion is not
so entertaining a companion as a Country Muse
shaking her curls bewitchingly
made " a great mistake ;" and playing in a
corner with the children. In the first place he
starts with asserting that Father Newman has
we presume in grappling
with the terrible Mr. Kingsley.
In the second place
he tells us that Father Newman has lost his tem-
per. With the healthiest Protestant sentiments
and a true wish to see the Country Muse in the
same conquering attitude over the Pope that St.
George occupies when he bestrides the Dragon, we
confess we cannot think it. _Father Newman did
nothing of the kind ; and Mr. Kingsley attributes
too much effect to his undoubted powers of aggra-
vation. Father Newman contented himself with
ridiculing the absurd position of a man who, having
made a false charge against another, tried to
shamble out of admittin that hel was
last
in the
phlwetrohnag
and does not minds.
g
But that Mr. Kin slein ju t pm
himself lost his temper,
any one who wades through it, uea
being privy to the edifying spectacle of a robust
Christian in a rage, exhausting himself in the vain
attempt to swear without standing committed to
profane language. A Country Muse! And before
the children ! And after all to be as heavy in
answer to a witty antagonist as the most conven-
tional of :Sadducees ! The point at issue, it must
be remembered, is really a simple one. Where,
in the sermon entitled " Wisdom and In-
nocence," does Father Newman inform us that
truth for its own sake is not and ought not to be a
virtue ? For neither producing a passage to justify
the charge, nor withdrawing the charge like
a man, Mr. Kingsley has received a castigation amid
the inextinguishable laughter of the literary world.
Provoked at the smile on every face, he has turned
again to attack Dr. Newman. But he does not even
now produce the passage. For not having done so
originally he gives us, indeed, an excuse that is most
remarkable, and that is worth the attention of all
persons in delicate health. He had been " in-
formed" that Dr. Newman was not well and wished
for peace and quiet. This, if true, was a reason for
not attacking Dr. Newman, but scarcely a reason
for not giving him the passage on which so serious
an attack was based. When Father Newman de-
mands an explanation of a violent onset made upon
his honour, Mr. Kingsley's line of defence seems a
curious one. First of all he likes Father Newman's
tone; secondly, he is very anxious about Father
Newman's health. But his most comical way of
evading the difficulty has yet to be told. In the
first correspondence Father Newman's nerves are
an insuperable obstacle. In the new correspon-
deuce Mr. Kingsley considers that he is precluded

from offering the justification now which he did not
I offer earlier, by hault courage—whatever virtue of
romance that term may mean.
"I am, of course, precluded from using the ser-
mon, Wisdom and Innocence,' to prove my words.
I have accepted Dr. Newman's denial that it means
what I thought it did; and Heaven forbid that I
should withdraw my word once given at whatever disad-
vantage to myself. But more—l am informed by those
from whose judgment on such points there is no appeal,
that 'en halt courage,' cr strict honour, I am also precluded
by the terms 4 my explanation from using soy other of
Dr. Newmau's past writings to prove my assertion."
Mr. Kingsley is a person who appears to be in
the habit of receiving very singular pieces of infor-
mation. Father Newman " informs" him that
truth is not for its own sake a virtue. When
the moment arrives for satisfying Father
Newman's wounded feelings, same one eke
"informs" him that Father Newman is in
weak health, and he is lastly " informed," on
the highest authority, that it is Mr. Kingsley's
solemn duty to " waive the point." The sentence
above quoted, in which. he tells us so, belongs un-
mistakeably to the Elizabethan order of architec-
ture. "Heaven," and " hault courage," and
" strict honour," are the native and chaste orna-
ments of the edifice; bat the voice, which, in
answer to all inquiries, informs us that Mr.
Kingsley is bound in honour not to be "at home,"
teasel rich Pecksniffian ring about it that seems
almost to belong to a later age. After this Father
Newman may g.ve up calling. Mr. Kingsley,
under his doctor's orders,—from whose judgment
" on such points" there is no appeal—is confined to
his room, with Sir Walter Raleigh and Spenser's
" Peery Queen." But as he leaves the door in de-
spair, Father Newman hears the familar tones of
chivalry from the window over his head, pouring
out vials of wrath upon the head of St. Januarius,
St. Alfonso da Liguori, and all the superstitions of
the Papacy. To this safe and orthodox occupation
Mr. Kingsley may be left. Another time, we dare
say, he will content himself with laughing only at
those Papists who are dead and canonised, and not
touch living fanatics. There is, however, one piece
of muscular writing in his answer to Father New.-
man, which is also of the " hatat courage' and
" Elizabethan" style, and which deserves not to be
passed by. It is illustrative of a certain manner
after studying which we feel less inclined than
ever to shout the praises of Mr. Kingsley, or to
identify the cause of Protestantism with the present
personal issue. The last few pages of Mr. Kingsley's
publication are devoted mainly to a sonorous pane-
gyric upon truth. The preceding pages are occupied
with a gross misrepresentation of Dr. Newman's
pamphlet, put in we presume for the benefit of those
who have not reau it. If Mr. Kingsley concludes
with a glorious principle, it must therefore be ad-
mitted that he begins with a little peccadillo :
"Dr. Newman has committed on the very title-page of
his pamphlet an economy which some men will consider a
very serious offence, He has there stated that the question
is ' Whether Dr. Newman teaches that Truth is no virtue.'
He has repeated this misrepresentation p. 32, where he
has ventured to represent me as saying, Dr. Newman
tells us that lying is never any harm.' He has econo-
mised the very four words of my accusation which make
it a reasonable one, namely—' For its own sake,' . .
While no one knew better than he the importance of the
omission, none knew better that the public would not do so ;
that they would never observe it. , . . So when I had
accused him and the Romish clergy of teaching that 'truth
is no virtue for its own sake,' he simply economised the last
four words, and said that I accused him and them of teach-
ing that ' truth is no virtue.'
These last four words, whatever their value, are
not omitted at all by Fatheri Newman. In the first
extract in Father Newman's pamphlet they are
printed at full length, They are printed at full
length again in thel next page which contains
Father Newman's letter to Messrs. Macmillan. In
his next letter, p. 12, they again are correctly
given. In his next letter, p. 18, they are given at
lull length again. In every single passage in which
Father Newman deals with Mr. Kingsley's words
they are to be found unabridged. Where are they
left out? In thepage of humorous epitome only which
we have given above, and in the title of the pamphlet
—" Whether Dr. Newman teaches that Truth is no
virtue "—in neither of which does Father
.I;',hlynaan profess to quote or to do more than tra-
vatie. In the face of this, and with Father New-
manoa sheets before him, Mr. Kingsley dares to tell
us that, 0 When I had accused him (Dr. Newman)
of teaching that truth is no virtue for its own sake,
he simply economised the last four words, and said
too.-:s I accused him and them of teaching that truth
is no s'rtue." These be thy gods, 0 Israel! This
is intuit courage, and robust virtue, and chivalrous
romance
THE EXAMINER ON THE SURPLUS.—There is no
beating down the revenue by fair play. Last year
Mr. Gladstone cut off sd. a pound duty on tea, and
2d. in the pound of income tax. He knew, he said,
that neither would be as much the worse for it as
some people might suppose; and that, after a cer-
tain time, the Treasury would have no cause to re-
gret these concessions. But the elasticity of the
reproductive power of the country le:filos his wisest
eaten letions. He estimated the loss ou customs at
£1,300,000, and it has proved to be no more than
4-'802,000. The income tax would yield, he. sup-
posed, ou the diminished scale, something over
£8,000,000, and, lo ! it has brought him in
£9,084,000. The nursery maxim seems to contain
all the wisdom of finance—the more you cut off the
' hair the stronger it grows. The power of cOPBlllllp-
tion, enhanced by relief from taxation, has grate-
fully shown itself in a variety of ways. We have
had less to pay the tax-gatherer on incomes and on
tea, and therefore we have had more to spend on
excisable articles. In the year ending let of April,
1863, the indirect taxes levied at home produced
£17,155,000 ; in the year ending let of April, 1864,
they have produced £18,207,000. The total figures
of the national account still show the enormous sum
of £70,208,963, the greatest amount ever raieed by
taxation under so few heads, and with so little
hardship or preeeure. Mr. Gladstone is certainly
the most fortunate of I.!hancellors of the Exchequer,
for he has fallen upon a per Lod trt only of peace
but of unexampled variety and vastriesa of eiiter-
prise. Other men have drained the soil and grubbed
up the hedgerows, and let in the air and sun, and
planted the geed aged ; while ho has entered into
their labours and reaped the goideth holt, And now
what is to be done with the new surpiun of two mil-
lions and a half? Mr. Gladstone made a bold and suc-
cessful experiment three years ago, when, having a
deficiency, the first step he took in dealing with it
was to double it. Why should he not try the coun-
Impart of the experiment now, and by wise re-
trenchment give as much more to the nation as by
industry the nation has given to him ? With a
surplus of £5,000,000 in hand, what might he not
do in the way of financial reform? For 671 mil-
lions a year of expenditure, at a time when we are
at peace with the whole world, there is and an be
no sufficient justification. We are prosperous now,
but it is impossible to suppose that prosperity will
prove everlasting. We are at peace, but who can
Itell when wo msy be driven by the madness or
wickedness of others into war The present is the
time, and by paying off debt or remitting taxation
te Provide for the evil day. It requires
we ()ugh'. - ' -•• of financial skill to go on
no effort of patriotism .
-.mint et revenue hy
rising the same extravagant P.L.
diffusing the incidence of taxation over a greater,
number of transactions than before, The rate of
each tax may be lessened ; but if the acitisalSuig
it
yields be the same or nearly the same, though toe
painful sensation in paying it may doubtless be
mitigated, the fund, out of which industry is em-
ployed, and wages paid, and provision laid bo for
old age or infirmity, is eaten into as much as ever.
We do not grudge Mr. Gladstone his good luck—
on the contrary we are heartily glad of it, But as
the praise is really due to the untiring toil and
energy of the people, we are entitled to claim for
them the reward which they have earned. Let us
at, least have Retrenchment if we are not to have
Reform.
THE SATURDAY REVIEW ON FEDERAL WAR•
PARE.—The proverbial fact that degeneracy is
always gradual is consoling to humanity as an ab-
stract proposition, but it is certainly irritating to
the bystanders in any particular case. It is during
that easy but slow descent that the world lavishes
its censure most liberally upon the traveller who
is m iking the journey. Few people ate at the
trouble of abusing offenders who have formally
taken leave of their character. It is commonplace
and dull to fling epithets at the head of politicians
who are avowedly professional, or of women who
are quite abandoned. It is only the politician who,
having once been high-minded, becomes dirtier and
dirtier in his tricks, or the woman who was once
religious and is now visibly " friskifying," that
provokes spectators into saying bitter things. The
same rule applies to the system of warfare which
the Federals are pursuing. A good deal of very
genuine horror is excited in this country by the ac-
counts we receive of it, and very strong epithets
are freely applied to it. There can be no question
that it thoroughly deserves them all. All war is
systematised destruction, and that is bad enough.
But in civilised countries war is made as it were
mechanically, and without passion. The Govern-
ment which makes war determines upon the mea
sures that will bring its enemy to terms, and then
employs its machines, its army and navy, to execute
those measures. But both the combatants them-
selves and the Government which directs them are
careful to avoid any destruction which does not
evidently promote the attainment of their chief ob-
ject, or which tends to assume the form of vulgar
robbery or murder. Having, on the whole, attained
to this grade of humanity ourselves, we have a right
to stigmatise as savage and barbarous any warfare
conducted upon different principles. But it is only
a small portion of the human race that has adopted
this more refined plan, and it the Federals choose to
depart from it they have the majority 9f ths species 1

on their side. Ail the bieck races io Africa, all tee
Chinese and Jepanese, all the naiives of India, es
we learned to our cot during the mutiny,
and probably the Russians rind Turks, when
they get a chance of doing so unobserved—aii
practise warfare upon the uneivilis.ed plan. They
give full rein to their evil passions, and look upon
war es mere murder and malicious mischief on a
large scale, The more murder and the more mis-
chief, therefore, that can be committed, the more
successful the war has been. The result for which
the combatants fight is not to arrive at a permanent
and peaceful settlement, but merely to indulge their
minds with the grateful reflection that they have
inflicted a large amount of exquisite pain and misery
upon their antagonists. The pangs of those whom
they have killed and wounded, the privations of
those whom they have made destitute, the mental
agony of those whom they have dishonoured, these
are the trophies their valour carries off and the
prizes for which they risk their lives. The exploits
which the Federais are performing on this system
of warfare would not have attracted much notice if
if they had begun by being the sort of people from
whom such things were to be expected. But they
began upon the European, not upon the Red Indian
principle, and they still use the language of civilised
belligerents. They only descended gradually to
their present ferocity, though the gradations have
undoubtedly followed each other quickly. At first,
outrages were disavowed or explained away. Col.
Turchin's proceedings at Athens were rebuked at
the time, and after the lapse of a few months the
tale was contradicted altogether and treated as a
myth. General Butler's proclamation was ex-
plained away, and a sense put upon it which it
could not possibly bear. The horrible murder per-
petrated by General M'Neill was apologised for, and
the Washington Government was excused for ne-
glecting to take notice of it on the plea that Gen.
INPNeilt was serving his own State, and not the
general Government. The next step was to inflict
unnecessary devastation, but to do so under the
plea of military necessity—as where a district as
large as Scotland was laid under water by cutting
the banks of the Mississippi. Now we have ad-
vanced a step further still, The wanton outrages
which are committed are no longer denied, or ex-
plained away, or excused as inevitable—they are
claimed as a triumph, and reported as a sufficient
result of a costly expedition. Sherman and
Kilpatrick count up, not merely the roads or rail-
ways or enemy's stores they have destroyed—but
the corn they have burnt, the fields they have laid
waste, the farmhouses and mills and villages they
have reduced to ashes; and they do this without a
word of rebuke from their government or from the
party that supports their Government. It is argued
that the destruction of food and of the means of
raising it has the effect of weakening the Confede-
racy by diminishing its resources. The same argu-
ment would justify any kind of barbarity practised
under the pretence of war. The slaughter of un-
armed peasants tends to lessen the resources of the
enemy's conscription. The ill-treatment or the
slaughter of women tends to prevent the increase
of the enemy's population—in other words, the
resources of his conscription seventeen or eighteen
years hence. Even the fearful crimes for which
Cipriano and Giona La Gala have recently been
condemned to death in Southern Italy might be
defended with perfect consistency by persons war-
ring on the principle of the Yankees. If it is to be
once assumed that the object of inconveniencing an
enemy will justify wanton devastation of private
property and the slaughter of non-combatants, it is
difficult to deny the right of terrfying a population
from aiding an enemy by the infliction of appalling
punishments. The proclamations teat are reported
to have been found upon Colonel Deblgren would
seem to show that the Yankees have themselves dis-
covered the logical deduction. The order to burn
Richmond was bad enough—worthy of the Govern-
ment that did its best to set fire to the commercial
part of the town of Charleston, because the fortified
part refused to capitulate. But the order to kill
Sefferson Davis is something more than detestable.
It strikes the reader as much with amazement as it
does with horror. If we are to believe in the
authenticity of a story which has not, we
regret to say, yet received any satisfactory
disproof, it is a marking-point in the his.
tory of the degradation of public opinion in the
Northern States, showing how far they have
drifted from the landmarks of civilised morality.
It would be hard to find a parallel in the history of
Europe. The most brutal and bloody generals that
have cursed the world have never attempted to
carry on war by murdering the Sovereign of their
enemies. Sawarrow, Davoust, were unscrupulous
enough, and cared little how far they stretched the
laws of war, or trampled upon the feelings of hu-
manity. But no such crime as this was ever laid
to their charge. We must go back to the massacre
of St. Bartholomew or the murder of William
the Silent in order to find a parallel in the history
of Europe. And even in these cases the black task
was entrusted to conspirators or assassins. The
very darkness in which the principal actors were
shrouded was a concession of the turpitude of their
act--a homage to the moral sense of mankind. It
has been reserved for a Yankee commander to pre-
scribe the aseaeeinetien oi a rival ruler as a mili-
tary duty, and to give directions for its effective
execution in a general order. In three years the Fe-
dare's have parted so far from the ways of thought
which are foil(twel in the red of Curistendoth that
they not only do what other men deem monstrous
and horrible, but they have ceased to recogeise in
such conduct anything that is blarneweethy or even
exceptional,
TifE SPECTATOR ON ROUGE AND PEARL Pow -
DER,--Au odd little bock has fallen in our way
suggesting a curious difficulty in our modern social
ethics. The work, or rather pamphlet, calls itself
a hand hook for ladies' maids, but is really, we
suspect, intended for a 'eery different class—for the
fec:ory girls, and servant girls, and girls in the
country weose passion it is to look like ladies, and
who do not quite know how. The compiler, who
saya he is much indebted to some French original,
is apparently honest enough, really understands
the virtue of clean water, and plenty of it, and has
acquired some distant idea of the value of strong
rough towelling. We might take him for an
apothecary but that he seems to be afflicted with a
sort of ladiea'-maid conscience, and to feel a neces-
sity for apologising for some of his own recipes.
He expatiates upon the advantages of different
methods of dressing the hair with a gusto which
suggests the perfumer, and ia positively subtle in
the distinctions he draws between " Bertha's plaits"
and the " style Marie Antoinettt," the " Alex-
andra" and " Solferino" clustering, the " trellis
coiffure" and a marvellous arrangement which, as
he says, "suits only a very merked style of coun-
tenance," and would injure a very open face," and
which is called the "Charlemagne." He is placidly
cheerful about the removal of wrinkles by a nasty
process of " filling in" with a mixture of white wax,
spermaceti, rose water, and "balm of Tole,;' and gives
without prefece er coMmeat a recipe for remov-
ing freckles, which, we venture to say, by the way,
is entirely delusive; but he is distressed at the ap-
plication of beer to the hair, a practice which, he
says, is very common and very dirty, and is posi-
tevely vexed with himself for suggesting the, hest
kinds of rouge and pearl powder. tie ire careful to
prem.* that health is the beat cosmetic, and that
cold water clears the skin better than any prepara-
tion, and is extremely anxious that cosmetics should
be ased only dttrinf4 the day, His' patrons," he
fears, may sleep iu trivw, and that will injure their
" transpiration." He even warns all readers that
the use of " pearl white" may lead to paralysis, as
its basis is white lead ; but, having satisfied his con-
science ley these remarks, he proceeds to give ail the
receipts, including the dangerous one, with most
painstaking minuteness. As a further salvo, how-
ever, he places in front of his long list a prepae
ration which he declares to be absolutely
safe, and which we quote for the final
line, a delicious specimen of would be artistic
reasoning. " One of the safest plans .for colouring
the cheeks, and which is effected without either
deadening the skin or impeding the necessary trans-
piration, is to take a fragment of bright crimson
silk, and having dipped it in strong spirits of wine.
to rub it over the cheeks till a moderate title is
apparent on the skin. The great value of this com-
plexion aid is its transparency, for it admits of the
increase of colour by the natural mode of blushing."
Clearly the writer believes that though a decoction
of ribbon is justifiable and rouge and pearl powder
are used, and perhaps must be used, by people of
every grade,there is something a little wrong in
using them, something which though not exactly
wicked has a flavour of immorality about it, and
requires defence or apology. Middle class society,
in Europe at least, pretty much agrees with him,
and though it buys cosmetics every day, and uses
them every night, thinks it necessary to deny their
propriety, and blame under its breath the people
who visibly employ them. There is a dislike of
41 paint" in all European nations, more especially
among the lower classes, which seems as strong as
an instinct, and the presumption in favour of in-
stincts is almost always great. Yet it is very hard to
prove that there is any moral or social reason against
the use of cosmetics, or any reason at all stronger
than the disrepute brought on the practice by its
prevalence among the disreputable classes of society.
Why should a woman who may wear purchased
hair without reproach, or fill up gaps in her teeth,
or use almost any conceivable device in the way ee
dress, be ashamed to admit that she brigh+- -
colour on her cheek or smoothe a" nets the
. -otherwise fur-
rowed forehead ? Yet there
ashamed, and as little .8 no doubt that she is
..e that the feeling is not alto-
to 1-
they conyeo.',until• It is not because of the injury
wealth, for though men may one day learn to con-
eider the habitual disregard of sanitary laws as

cr.aie eppreeching to ze.icide, opinion h s not yet
been cultivated up to that point of refinement or
precaution. Nor is it because of the physical non-
ness of all these modes of adornment, ior the recipe
we have given is riot nasty, and those who use it
would be just as ashamed of acknowledging its 110
us of di-cussing the merits of their pearl powder'
Nor does it spring from the idea suggested by the
handbook which has been the occasion of these re-
marks that cosmetics are " unfashionable," for they
are fashionable or otherwise by fits and starts, While
the discredit attached to their use is permanent--
has hardly varied even in intensity since the days
of Charles the First. The only apparent reason for
a condemnation so exceptional is that cosmetics are
deceits, that they involve an acted falsehood, end
ought, therefore, to be avoided as strictly as attY
other lie. That rule, however sound enough in
itself, is rather capriciously applied, for nobody
objects to a wig, though a gentle ridicule attaches
to its concealment, and people talk readily about
false teeth, even when they are employed for " de'
ception," and not simply to preserve the health.
Nobody either rebukes devices in dress which involve
far more of deceit, thinks of condemning tight lacing
except as a stupid practice, or feels morally indig-
nant because tailors and milliners alike know the
use and abuse of padding. Nor can the feeling
spring from an old religious belief, a relic of
Citholic teaching and Puritan opinion, for the old
divines blamed extravagant shapes for the hair, end
low dresses, and vanity generally, quite as bitterly
as they condemned rouge ; yet all their rules oh
these points are broken without a thought of shame,
Yet there must be a principle somewhere at the
bottom of this as of every other prejudice, and tae
unconscious feeling of society seems to be something
like this:—All men and women are bound to
conceal any deformity, and have a right to look
as well as they can, provided they keep within
the law which tacitly enforces honesty even
upon the toilette. Everybody has a right to glass
eyes, for an empty socket gives pain, or to conceal
baldness, because baldness in some men and all
women is a deformity, and deformities are un-
pleasant, and unpleasant things are never to be
paraded. Everybody has a right also to-day to
wear false hair, because everybody knows that with
existing coiffures there must be falsity, and so there
is no deception. So there exits a claim to supply'
a wanting tooth, for that does but maintain the
appearance nature had originally given. But no
one has a right to add a totally new quality, to
assert, as it were, a beauty which nature had not
given, and for a man to wear stays, or a brunette
pearl powder, is equally objectionable, the covering
in both cases involving the social guilt of deception,
and in a greater or less degree the moral guilt of
falsehood. Nobody objects to an actress wearing
rouge, because all actresses wear it, and there is no
deception, but worn in a room it involves a false-
hood both as to appearance and to age-
It is a weak explanation that, when all is
said, but it is the only one which meets the
visible ethical difficulty. Men of the modern
school all reject the old notion of mortifying personal
vanity, they all admit that it is the business of
women to look as well as ever they can, and yet they
all instinctively feel that even if pearl powder makes
them look better pearl powder ought not to be worn.
Even a hairdresser writing for ladies' maids on the
art of suppressing pimples, and therefore in the
position best allows a cynical regard for his " art,"
and his art only, still acknowledges that the instinct
somehow worries his mind. Why ?