The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-07-10
The Fashionable Women of the Period.

/ Is Il thoroughly amazing spectacle, ana l.
we take human life in any earnestness al
all, whether individually, as the passage
to an eternal existence, the condition OF
which depends on what we are here, or col
/ lectively, as the highest thing we know, We
can only look in blank ACCOMPLISHMENT at
the fashionable woman and her career
She is the one sole capable member of the
human family without duties and without
useful occupation; the one sole being who
might be swept out of existence altogether
without deranging the nice arrangement OF
We know of no other organic creation OF
which this could be said but the fashion
able woman is not as other creatures, being,
fortunately, sal geReris, and Of type not
existing elsewhere. If we take the mere
ordering of her days and the employment
of her time as the sign of her mental state,
we may perhaps measure to certain ex-
tent, but not fully, the depth of inanity
into which she has fallen, and the immen-
sity of her folly. Considering her as a be-
ing with the potentiality of reason, of use
fulness, and of thought, the actual result
is surely the saddest and strangcst thing
under heaven.
She goes to bed at dawn, and does not
attempt to rise till about noon. For the
most part she breakfasts in bed, and then
amuses herself with a cursory glance at the
morning paper if she has sufficient energy
for so great a mental exertion; if she has
not she lies for another hour or two in that
Instantaneous state which is so destruc-
tive to mind and body weakening both
fibre and resolution, both muscle and good
principle. At last she rises languitly, to
be dressed i'll time for luncheon and her
visitors, if she receives generally; or for
the one or two intimates, if she is at home
only to the favored. Somewhere about
four she dresses again for her drive,-for
the first part of the day serious business !;
for paying visits and leaving cards for
buying jewelry dresses, and ordering all
sorts of unnecessary things at her MILL
ner's; for this grand lady's afternoon tea,
and that grand lady's afternoon at home,
with music for her final slow parade in
the Park, where she sees her friends as in
an open-air drawing room, makes private
appointments, and carries on tiirtations,
and hears and retails gossip and scandal of
a fuller flavor. Then home, to dress again
for dinner to be followed by the opera or
a concert, a s0iree, or perhaps ball or two,
whence she returns towards morning, flush
ed with excitement or worn out with IA
tigue, feverish or nervous as she has had
pleasure and success or disappointment and
annoyance. This is her outside life, and
this is no fancy picture and no exaggera-
ton. After a certain time of such an eX-
istence, can we wonder if her complexion
fades and her eyes grow dim? and if that
inexpressible air of haggard WEAKNESS
creeps over her, which ages even a young
girl, and makes mature woman substan-
TALLY an old one? 1t is then that she has
recourse to those foul and fatal expedients
of which we have heard more than enough
in these latter days. She will not try SIM
plicity Of living, natural hours, wholesome
occupation, unselfish cndeavor, but rushes
off for help to paints and cosmetics, to
stimulants and drugs, and attempts to re-
store the furnished freshness of her beauty
by the very means which further corrode
it. Every now and then, for very idleness,
clio fairuS barSa1f ciol onI hoe fho f,,.or;fo
physician to attend her. In fact, the fun
niest thing about her is the ease with which
she takes to her bed on the slightest pro-
vocation, and the strange pleasure she seems
to find in what is a penancc to most women.
You meet her in a heated, crowded, noisy
room, looking just as she always looks,
whatever her normal state of health may
be; and i'll answer to your inquiries she
tells you she has only two hours ago left
her bed to come here, having been confined
to her room for week, or so many days,
with DR.. Blank in close attendance. If
you are an intimate female friend she will
whisper you the name of her malady, which
is sure to be something terrific, and which,
if true, would have kept a real invalid for
weeks instead Of days; but if you are only
a man, she will make herself out to have
been very i'll indeed in 4 more mysterious
way, and leave you to wonder at the extra
ordinary physique of fashionable women,
friendly touch-and-go terms with death,
and to overcome mortal maladies by an eff
fort of the will and the delights of ducal
ball. The favorite physician has u hard
time of it with these ladies'; and, the more
popular he is, the harder his work. 1t is
well for his generation when he is man of
honor and integrity, and knows how to add
self-respect and moral power to the quail
ties which have made him the general ia
vorite. For his influence over that idle
woman is for the time almost unlimited
like nothing so much as that of the hand
some Able, and the facinating Director of
Catholic countries and if he chooses to
abuse it, and to turn it to evil issues, he
can. And, however great the merit i'll him
that he does not, it does not lessen the de-
merit of the woman that he could. Some
times the fashionable woman takes up with
the clergyman instead of the physician, and
coquets with religious exercises rather than
with drugs; but neither clergymen nor
physician can really change her mode of
life. or give her truth or common-sense.-
Sometimes there is a auttering show of art
patronage, and the fashionable woman has
handsome painter OF well-bred musician
in her train, whom she pets publicly and
patronizes graciously. Sometimes it is a
young poet or rising novelist considerably
honored by the association, who dedicates
his next novel to her, or writes verses in
her praise. with such a fervency of graft
tude us sets the base Philistines on the
scent of the secret, and perhaps guessing
not far amiss For the fashionable woman
has always some love affair on hand, more
or less platonic according to her own tenn
permanent, or the boldncss of the MANA
love affair in which the least ingredient is
love in any real or wholesome sense Il love
affair which Is vanity, idleness Il d ssolute