Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-01-07

| OF your persons, degraded yourselves pltllul-
| ". The whole number OF fashionable female
! souls are but slaves TO the 1aolng bodies In
! which t5e7 H7s When l look in upon a
fashionable vatering-place and see how dra.s
! and personal adornment absolutely monopo-
! lie the time and the thought Of the fash
! iOnabIe women assembled there when [ wit
| ness the rivalry among them-the attempt to
| outshine each other IN diamonds and all the
tributaries to costly dress-whan | see their
iealOusies, and hear their iu-natured criti-
cisms of each other, and then realize that
these women are mothers and those of whom
mothers will be made, | have opened to me
gulf Of bacbarous seIfshness-a scene of
gilded meanness and misery-from which |
shrink back heart-sick and disguised. Good
Heaven, MADAM who and what are you p
Are you all body and no soul: Is it decent
business for a decent soul to be constantly
engaged-GbsorbingIy occupled-in orna-
menting and showing off for the qualification
of personal vanity the body it inhabits? Do
you realize how low you have fallen? Do
you realize that you are come to the small
and indecent business of getting up YOU per-
son to be looked at, admired, praised, that
the most grateful satisfactions of your life are
found in this business, and that the business
itself is but a single moral remove from pros
titutOn?
If / have succeeded in picturing YOU to
YOURSELF perhaps you will be prepared to fol-
low me into a contemplation Of a few of the
natural consequences of your infatuation up
on your character and happiness. Will you
| look among your fashionable female acquain-
tances, and find one who is making any intel
| lectual progress. The thing is impossible
| There is nothing more conducive to mental
growth and development in devotion to the
keeping and dressing Of the person of wo-
| man, than there is in the keeping and the
| grooming and Harvesting of apet horse Look
| at a man who deyotes himself to horse. He
| may be a very pleasant fellow, and ordinarily
| intelligent, but if he is enamored of his ami
NAL, and gives himself up to his care and ex-
! hibition, becoming what is known as horse
man" that ends his intellectual development.
When horse gets highest in any mans mind,
culture ceases. Now, madam, it would make
no difference, practically, whether you were
devoted to the person of horse, or the per-
sol Of a pct dog, or the person of Mrs. Royal
| Purple Jones. The mind that engages in no
| higher business or that finds its highest de-
! light III no higher pursuit than that of groom
ing and displaying beautiful body can make
no progress into a nobler life. Practically
| you will find this the case everywhere. You
| will find that your fashionable friends do not
| grow at all They move along in the same
old ruts, pirate Of the same old vanities, 20
the same old rounds of frivolity, and only
| become less sprightly and agreeable as the
| years pass by. just what you see in these
people, madam, l see in you.
There is another very sad result which
| comes naturally from this devotion to your
own person. You are already grown SUI
| premely selfish. You have permitted your
| personal vanity to control you so long chat
| you can really see nothing in the universe
| but yourself 1t seems proper and right that
| everybody should serve you. Any labor that
would soil or enlarge your small, white hands
any toll that would tax the powers of your
| pGtted body-any service for others that
would draw you away from service to your
| own PERSONS stunned. Your mother, your
| sister, your friends, are all laid under tribute
| to you, and your petulance under denial has
made them your slaves. Absorbed by these
| thoughts of YOURSELF devoted TO nothing but
| yourself, making room for no plans which do
not relate to yourself, you have come to re-
gard yourself as the worlds pivotal centre.
1t does not occur to you at all that the kind
people around you can have any interests or
plans of their own to look after. All the fish
must come to your net, or you are unhappy;
and if those around you are not made unhap-
py it is not because you do not try to make
them so. Sometimes you act like miscra-
bic, spoiled baby, and then, under the spur
of jealousy, you act like an Infatuated brute
The tendency to this shameful sclfshness is
natural and irresistible, in all who devote
themselves, as you have done, to the care
and exhibition of their persons. Others may
cover it from srht more than you do, by
more cunning art, but it is there. 1t cannot
| be otherwise and | cannot conceive of
| type OF selfshness more nearly perfect than
! that which the character of almost any fash
| ionable woman illustrates.
| There is still another resuld which natural
| ~ flows from supreme devotion to the person,
viz: vulgarity. Madam, look anywhere in
| Gods world for genuine refinement and lady
| like instincts and manners rather than to
| fashionable society. True refinement and
! gentle manners can never find their home
| in any society where selfshness reigns. True
| refinement has brains. True refinement has
| a heart. True refinement always makes room
! in the world for others. True refinement
! does not find its satisfaction in the display and
adornment of the body. True refinement re-
fuses to be governed by fashion, having with
| in itself higher and purer law. True refine
mcnt shrinks from conspicuity- and show.
True refinement engages in no unworthy and
unwomanly rivalries You know that the
| coarsest words you ever hear from the lips of
| wOmen-the harshest, meanest, worst things
the lowest expressions-you hear from the
! lips of those Of your own set. Yet mark the
! impudent hypocrisy of the thing. You and
| your set assume to be the leaders of society
| the tOn-the pattern women of nation
so far refined that all other women are count
ed vulgar My friend, (if you are not by
this time become my enemy how can you
| help becoming vulgar when you have been
nothing for years but your own groom How
can you help becoming low when you have
! thought of nothing for years but your own
person? You are vulgar. All your pursuits
are vulgar. Your rivals and associates are
vulgar and your ambitions are as vulgar as
those of horse, Jockey.
| | would not be misunderstood. | admire a
well dressed woman. | admire a beautiful
woman, and l thoroughly approve all legiti-
mate efforts to render the person both of man
and woman agreeable. Men and women owe
it to their own dignity to drape their persons
becomingly and well, and they can do this
without acquiring an absorbing passion for
dress, or giving any more than the necessary
| amount of time and thought to it. The fac t
| is that woman who is what woman should
| be has no need Of elaborate perpetual orna-
ment to make her attractive. pure, true
heart, selt-forgetful spirit, an innocent de-
light in innocent society, a wish and an eff
fort to please, ready ministry to the wants of
others, graceful accomplishments willingly
used, sprightliness and intelligence, these
are passports to personal power. Relying
upon these, there is no woman whose person
is simply and becomingly dressed who is not
well dressed. With any or all of these the
person becomes pleasing
As I write, there comes to my memory the