Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1863-12-26
For the Telegraph.
English Beauty.

En- TELEdRApH:--IIaving read OF late, sew
eral stringent articles published 10 the Teie-
graph, whether original or borrowed, will
not say on old England, her cupidity, her want
Of honesty, her nonntervention, her home sla-
very, aud number Of minor affairs connected
with the little sea girt Isle, and last but not
least, English Beauty, think il it is high time
that, one at least OF Briiain's true born Sous,
should defend her from the pur:le efforts Of
political sycophants on the one hand, aud the
wandering Yankee pedars on the other.
The last of these is styled Mr.. Nathaniel
Hawthorne whose. structures on English Beauty
are such as might be expected from back.
woodsman of the Western world. What does
he know of English beeutyf lie has heard q
good deal of the tenaci,y with which English
ladies retain their beauty. Doubtless an Amer
ican eye needs use, and cultivation, before it
can discover the difference between full de.
veloped figure, and the meagre sallow, emanci.
ated skeleton Of Western noudescript, called
woman; and it is no wonder that his ideas of
refinement and delicacy. should be associated
with walking ghost, rather than with well
formed woman. And the poadeerosity made
of steaks and suroin presents an awful con-
trast 10 his horror stricken vision. to the
ghastly frames fed on pork, all grilded down to
rind
No wonder that the majestic tread of an Eng
lish woman should startle Hawthorne, who
had never seen anything but mincing and tip.
toeing, with peculiar swing Of the unmention-
able. And If she covers more space on her
NJ aker's fooistool it is more OF natu,e than
crinoline, and the Western ladies lacking so
much OF the former, seem bent on filling up
the vacuum with the latter. Now is it any
wondor that her personality should inspire awe
in novice on flesh and blood, who had spent
all his life gazing on sentimental shadows and
the painted coquets Questionable Western life,
whose visage can neither be characterized with
sterness or grimnesS, but sort of vague unde-
fined emptiness which puzzles intelligence to
find its counterpart.
1t was fortunate for him that he did not assail
one Of those seventy, fours, for her plgnacity
might have taught him that he would be much
safer with his own slender haggard women.
Yet he found no reason to suppose-who that
knows anything of Fuglsh women, and have
read his version of them, ever dreamed of his
inding any reason. He must have looked in-
to some other Uranium besides his own, to find
that comodity. AS to his suspicion of her
moral fortitude, outside the routine of soci al
life and the conventionaties that surrouude d
her. be might have been less successful, had he
tried the experiment, with the fair sex OF his
own couutry..of easier virtue.
Yet be met this figure in the street and lived
to smile at the yeccoletian. Doubtless such an
Insignificant pygmy would not attract single
glance, but left him to howl at an overblown
cabbage rose. And after the fearful agita-
ton that had Inflated his skeleton frame had
subsided, 10! how his sympathy swels, and
sends out lugubrious wall of pity, to see such
early violet natures, covered with mass o
alien matter, and grown to such prodigeou'
peoneys and wandering if the middle aged hus-
band, considers he is legally married to all the
accrument that has overgrown the slendernes'
Of his bride. -..
We might remind this connoisseur OF beauty
that his sympathy is needed at home wher,
marriage is neither legal nor binding only tc
suit the caprice of the parties. Would it not be
we'll TO exercise bis sympathy for the care Worr
haggard and deserted women of America
whose brains are racked and bodies emacula
ted by the heartless cruelty of shftless hus
banda
We would not retaliate, by dsparagiDe
American beauty, but we would submit to gooc
judgment, whether the tinted rose, that mantle
the cheek of the English maiden, ,s not prefer
BILE to the chalky appearance faded by Sigh
touch of liquid enamen of American lasses
and whether the full developed form OF al
English dowager of fifty, would not be warm
er companion. than the friged frame Of a cas'
of bones, with scarcely fssh enough to cove
the yeius, Let Mr.. Naihaniel Hawthorne an
swer. AhAToR FoRMosUs, i.
SAYS an exchange , Some OF the lsdiel