Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1863-11-07
miscellaneous.
English Beauty.
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

I have heard good deal of the tenacity
with which English ladies retain their per.
sonal beauty to a late period of life bnt
(not 10 suggest that an American eye uceds
use aud cultivation before it can quite ap.
preciate the charm of English beauty al
any age it strikes me that an English lady
of fifty is apt TO become n creature less re.
fined and delicate, so far as her physique
goes, han anything we western people
class under the name Of woman. She has
an awful ponderosiiy of frame. not pulpy
like the looser development of our few fat
women, bnt massive wi h solid beef and
yireaky tallow. so that (th1ugh struggling
mnnfuly against the idea) yon invariably
think of her as made of steaks and sulloin
When she walks her advance is elephan
line. When she sits down il is upon q
great round space of her Mixers foo,stool,
where she looks as if nothing could ever
move her. She imposes awe and respect
by the muchness of her personality, to such
degree that you probably credit her with
tnr greater moral and intellectual force than
she can fairly claim. Her visage Is usually
grim and stern, seldom positively forbid.
ding. yet calmly terrible, not merely by its
hreadtk and weight Of feature, INT because
it seems to express so much we'll founded
selr.reIiance, such acquaintance with The
world its t. lis, troubles aud dangers, aud
such sturdy capacity for trampling down a
foe. Without anything positively salient
or actively offensive. or indeed unjnS,lv Tor
midable 10 her neghhorS, she has the cfftct
Of a seventy tou' gun ship in time Of peace; /;
for. bile you assure Yourself that there l.
no real danger, yon cannot help thinking
how Tremendous would be her onset, ii she
were pugnac onsly inclined, and how futile
the fort TO iufict any counter irjury. She
certainly looks ten fold--yoa, n hundred
foId-het er ahe 10 take care of herself
than our slender framed. haggnrd woman.
kind; but have not found reason to sup
pose that the English dowager of fifty has
actually greater courage, fortitude aud
strength of character, than our women Of
Similar age, or even tongher physical en-.
durnnce than they. Morally. she is strong,
suspect, onlv in society, and in the com
mon routine of social affairs, and would he
found powerless and limid in any excep-
tonul strait that may call for energy out
side OF The couventoualilies amid which she
has grown up,
You meet this figure in the street. and
live, and even smile at the recoleelion.-
But conceive Of her in ball Dom, with
the bare hrawny arms that she invariably
displays there, and all the other CORE.
pondOg developments. such as are bennti-
fnl IN the maiden h!ossom, but spectacle
to howl at in an over.bown cabbage.rose
like this.
Yet, somewhere in this enormous bulk,
is hidden The modest, slender, violet nature
of girl, whom an alien mass Of earthlineSS
has unkindly overgrown; for an English
maiden in her teens, though very seldom so
pretty as our own damsels, possesses, to say
the truth, certain charm of half blossom,
and delicately folded leaves, and tender
womanhood. shielded 10y maiden'y reserve,
with which, somehow or other, our Amer
ican girls often fail to adorn themselves
during an appreciable moment. 1t is q
pity that an English violet should grow
into such an outrageousy developed peony
as have attempted 10 describe. wonder
whether middle aged husband onght TO be
considered as legally married to all the &C.
crument that has oyergrown the slender
ness of the bride, since he led her to the
altar, and which makes her so much more
than he ever bargained forl Is it not
sonnder view of the ease that the matrimo-
nial bond cannot be held to include the
three fourths of The wife that had no exist.
encc when the ceremony was performed 7
And as a matter of conscience and good
morals ought not an English married pair
TO insist upon the celebration OF a silver
wedding at the end Of twenty FIVE years,
10 order TO legalize aud mutually appropri'
ate that corporeal growth OF which both
parties have individually come into possess
ion since they were pronounced one flesh 7
The English Registrar Generals recent re-
port shows that nearly one 10 eleven deaths in
London occur 10 workhouses and that every
sixth person dies either pauper or criminal