Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1857-11-04
MISCELLAN A N Y.

Across the sands of Dee
MISCELLANY.
From the Boston Bee.
Interesting Lecture on Beautiful Women.
The world renowned Madame Lola Montez,
gave lecture last evening at the Melodeon, on
/" Beautiful Women"
In commencing she remarked that the last
and most difficult office imposed on Psyche was
to descend to the lower regions and bring back
q portion of Proserpine's beauty in box The
too curious goddess, impelled BY curiosity, raised
the lid, and behold there issued forth vapor,
which was all there was of that wonderful beau
ty. To define what was beauty was matter of
no little difficulty, for if she selected beauty in
Paris, when she reached Constantinople the
standard would fail That which was beauty
in New York was deformity at Pekin. In China,
painted faces and plucked eyebrows were consi-
dered traits of beauty and if the foot was large
enough to walk upon, it was looked upon as q
great deforlnity. Said Voltaire, task the toad
what is beauty, and he will tell you it was his
female, with two large eyes projecting out Of q
small head" With the modern Greeks, corpu-
lency was the perfection oftemale beauty. Hair
is beautiful ornament of woman, but it is dis
puted point what color it should be. Most peo-
pie look upon red hair as not to be endured, but
in the time of Queen Elizabeth it was tashiona-
BILE, aud many who had black hair were in the
habit of wearing red fronts so as to be in fashion
Cleopatra, that great beauty, had red hair, and
the Venetian ladies to the present day counter
felt yellow hair 30 it would be seen that beauty
was tickle subject to deal with, and she was
sure all the lovers of the present day would have
their own views concerning it, in spite OF her.
In China, to be beauty, q woman must have
thin lips, so thin that they were no lips at ALL
In Circassia, fiat noses, tawny skin, and eyes
three inches apart, were the very acme to settle
upon one uniform standard of beauty, yet there
could be no doubt about its influences upon the
institutions of mankind. 1t has settled the dis
putes of nations, when both the sword and dl-
plomacy have failed. Beauty and grace, it is
said, are the arms of woman. But where are
we to detect it perhaps in little dinple, a
smile, or fantastic little curl. Many times in
her own life, when in the company of kings and
nobles she had been forced to reflect upon the
words of the sublime Milton:
For what admirest thou?
What transports thee sog
Fair, no doubt, and worthy well,
Thy cherishing, thy honor, and thy love,
Not thy Su9Jection.
But it is a settled fact that beauty is short
lived--it won't last-wrinkles must COME
Beauty has its date and it is penalty, that all
girls must become wizzened, as their grandmoth-
ers did before them. But for this they should
not be less interesting old oaks when in their
old age, are more admired than when young;
and when the wave of the ocean is about to
break itself upon the shore, it is more deserving
of attention. Everything must have its day
but for the woman there is NO maid. The wear
ers OF thousand hearts, when in the bud of
beauty, cannot obtain patent for her charms,
for they all must fade and wither as the leaf
Even while the beautiful lady stands at the mir
ror com5ing her hair it is growing grey, and the
fuller the rose blooms the sooner is it she'd
But she need not try to preach beauty down. 1t
has been 50 tried for centuries, and not an item
OF its potent sway destroyed. AS general rule,
she said, to see beautiful woman we had to
look at the nobility of England. 1t was admit
ted that for beautiful women England carried
with in the course of her life. The Duchess of
was, when she saw her, large, mag
niticent woman-a perfect queen, with light
she was the paragon of beauties in
England Lady Blessingtou was, to her mind,
her feet She was very voluptuOus, with neck
that sat on her shoulders like that of goddess.
She had beautiful hand, and was very proud of
it, and eyes that captivated every one. In Italy
they called her La Diva, the goddess.
The present Duchess of Wellington was also q
remarkably lovely woman, but possessed of little
animation-exactly like piece of sculpture, and
as cold The Sheridan family was generally ad-
mitted to be the most beautiful in EDgand.-
Two of the sons were universally acknowledged
to be the handsomest men in England. Hon.
Mrs. Norton, well known on this side of the
Atlantic on account of her poetry and misfor.
tunes, and Lady Blackwood, were both members
of this family, and lovely women. The ladies
of France were not so beautiful, as charming
They possess, in remarkable degree, what is
called tact, and if all the ladies only possessed
this, they would actually govern the world. The
art of pleasing, and Of refined manners, was the
first study of young French girl. Still, France
is not without her beautiful women. The Mar
chouess de La Grange was the most lovely wo-
man met in Paris, and was tit study for an ar
tist. Eugene, the present Empress is handsomer
still. When she last saw her she was one of the
liveliest little things she ever saw. All
the portraits of her she had ever seen made her
too tall. When she knew her in Madrid, before
her marriage with the Emperor, she was much
captvated with Louis Gottschalk, the celebrated
pianist. She knew not if he had been in this
city, but in the United States he had carried off
the hearts of million of young girls, without
the poor fellow being aware OF it. TIE women
Of Russia are also beautiful. In Turkey she saw
but very little beauty. The criterion of a beau
iful woman there, was that she would be a good
oad for oamel When young they are pretty,
,ut feeding on powdered rose-lesves and fats,
made them fat. She would advise all fat women
o 90 to Oonstantinople where they will find q
market for their charms. BY u letter which she
received from the English Ambassador at Con-
,tantinople she was enabled to visit the Sultan's
larem where are kept what they style "the
lights of the world.n None of them were pret-
~, but they We're all fat, and they wondered at
ny leanness and wanted to stuff me with pow
Tered rose-leaf aud butter. They paid me CON-
oliments to my face, my hands, DC, but We're
lisgusted at my want of fat. In the East Indies
here are some handsome women but the young
iris of twenty look as old as do our grardlnoth-
.rs at sixty.
Italy has style of beauty peculiarly its own.
true Italian woman is all vivacity, and there
8 no life for her without love and intrigue and
when old age puts out her fire, they engage in
Platonic intrigue. But Italians have the excuse