The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-22 00:00:00

SENTIMENT IN BEAUTY.

We find beauty itself a very poor thing unless beauti-
fied by sentiment. The reader may take the confession
as he pleases, either as an instance of abundance of sen-
timent on our part, or of an evidence of want of proper
ardour and impartiality. But we cannot, and that is the
plain truth, think the most beautiful creature beautiful,
or be at all affected by her, or long to sit next her, or go
to a theatre with her, or listen to a concert with tier, or
walk in a field or a forest with her, or call her by her
Christian name, or ask her if she likes poetry, or tie
(with any satisfaction) her gown for her, or be asked
whether we admire her shoe, or take her arm even into
a dining-room, or kiss her at Christmas, or on April-
fool day, or on May day, or any other day, or dream of
her, or wake thinking of her, or feel a want in the room
when she has gone, or a pleasure the more when she
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appears, unless she has a heart as well as a face, and is a
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self-reference and the wish to be admired. Her face
would pall upon us in the course of a week, or even be-
come disagreeable. We should prefer an enamelled tea
cup, for we should expect nothing from it. 'We remem-
ber the impression made on us by a female plaster cast
hand sold in the shops as a model. It was beautifully
turned, though we thought it somewhat too plump and
well-fed. The finger, however are delicately tapered ;
the outline flowing and graceful. We fancied it to have
belonged to some jovial beauty, a little too fat and fes-
tive, but laughing withal, and as full of good-nature.
The possessor told us that it was the hand of Madame
Brinvilliers, the famous poisoner.
The wordord was no
i
sooner spoken than we shrank from t as if it had been
a toad. It was now literally hideous; the fat seemed
sweltering
'and full of poison. The beauty added to the
deformity. You resented the grace, you shrank from
the smoothness as from a snake. This woman went to
the scaffold with as much indifference as she distributed
her poisons. The character of her mind was insensibility.
The strongest of excitements was to her what a cup of
tea is to other people. And such is the character more
or less of all mere beauty. Nature, if one may so speak,
does not seem to intend it to be beautiful. It looks as if
it were created in order to show what a nothing the
formal part of beauty is without the spirit slit. We have
been so used to it with reference to considerations of
this kind, that we have met with women generally pro-
nounced beautiful, and spoken of with transport, who
took a sort of ghastly and witch-like aspect in our eyes,
as if they had been things walking the earth without a
soul or with some evil intention. The woman who
supped with the Goule in the " Arabian Nights" must
have been a beauty of this species.—Leigh Hunt's Men,
Women, and Books.

RAILWAY SHARES BY PUBLIC SALE.
MESSRS. LAMOND and Co., RAILWAY
SHARE AUCTIONEERS, beg to thank their Friends
*ld the Public for their continued support and patronage, and
to announce that their Public Sales of Railway Shares, &c.,
tAe place every Ttrasnair and FRIDAY, at One o'clock, at the
Hall of Commerce, Threadneedle-street, Loudon, to which place,
f ,vours, containing instructions (with a reference), are respectfully
sAuestcd to be addressed.
All Scrip and Share Certificates must be deposited, the day
reilous to their being offered ; and advices of results will be
f a-warded by the first post after the sale, and the proceeds Mime-
d atgly disposed of according to instructions.
Clitices, Hall of Commerce, Threadneedle-street. London.

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.
THIS EVENING, Tuesday, will be performed Bellini's opera
NORHA.
rogaa, 3ldlle. Jenny Lind ; Adalgisa, Mdme. BOrani ; Pollione,
Byppr Fraschtni ; Oroveso, Signor Lablache.
To be followed by the Second Act of the admired ballet of
15118 ELLE. Giselle, Mdlle. Carlotta Grisi. Pas de deux, by Mdlle.
Cariptta Grist and M. Louis Dor. Pas de Wiles by Mdlle. Bancorril
and the Ladies of the Corps de Ballet.
To conclude with the Ball Scene from
ALMA, ou, LA FILLE DE FEU.

Polka General by the Corps de Rallet. Pas de Trois by Mdlle.
Mdlle. Y. Stephan, and M. St. Leon.
l'as de Deux by 3ldlle. Rosati and M. Louis Dor.

The Doom will be opened at half-past Seven o'clock, and the per-
ibrmance commence at Eight o'clock.

The Free List is Suspended, the Public Press excepted.
Pit Tickets may be obtained, as usual, at the Office of the Theatre,
pi ice 103. 6d. each.
The Nobility, Subscribers to the Opera, and the Public, are re-
spectfully informed, that there will be a grand EXTRA NIGHT
THUBSDA.Y NEXT, June 24, when will be presented Bellini's
opera of