The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-28
HLoNDHs.

db lllublIdblN6 VI DtllOu III
social history not yet passed away. The
work in question-which is from the pen of
M. Ausone de Chancel-is called ''Le Livre
des Blondes" 1t has q machinery of narra-
tive, but its object is TO place blondes in a
relation to the universe never assigned to
them before, and one which has never been
suggested even by that advanced body the
Anthropological Society.
The narrative may be soon disposed of
all, at least, except the deRoUonoont, which is
naturally reserved for the end-and with this
arrangement far be it from me to interfere.
In the first chapter we are introduced to
one Maurice de Fregeneuil, a rich young gen.
tleman inhabiting beautiful estate in An
gouleme. To him comes, with O letter of
introduction, one Albert de Revel, another
rich young gentleman, who is travelling with
an object with which we are soon made ac-
quainted. There is, it appears a skeleton in
the visitors cupboard, the nature of which
he communicates to his new friend on the
second day. Albert is rich, as has been
said but he is threatened with alb
ject poverty, for he has inherited his en-
tire fortune from an uncle upon conditions
which he has not IN the course of nearly two
years been able to fulil-and two years was
all the time allowed him. He was to marry
but he has not been hitherto able to find a
wife. A strange difficulty, you will say--as
Maurice indeed said-for a handsome men,
ber of the jCun6sse d0ree. But the difficulty
is the uncles, not the nephew's, and this is
how it arises.
Albert must, in order to retain his fortune
marry, within the time so nearly expired, a
young lady of a beauty minutely described
and Of which the chief characteristics are a
skin brilliantly white, and hair of
gold color, long and abundant
He would have found little difficulty,
as his friend suggests, in finding such a per-
son in England or Germany; but the uncle
insists that the lady shall be French, and in
France beauty of the kind is comparatively
rare. He had met with some who might have
suited, but there are always exceptional con-
ditions in the way: and what seems to be more
important than all, he did not particularly
care about blondes, his tastes inclining rather
to brunettes Still less, too, does he share
certain theories of his uncle on the subject
of race, which he truly describes as of
very extraordinary character; and in
order that Maurice may see that he is
not unreasonable, he reads to HIM a treatise
in which the eccentric testator has embodied
the said theories for the benefit of his heir.
The basis of this heterodox old gentlemans
system is this:-That white people-that is to
say, the extremely fair-were the originals of
divine creation, and that dark people, in pro-
fallen angels. In his illustrations, however
he applies this theory only to the female sex,
believing a blonde woman to be the being
most nearly allied to divinity. The blonde,
in fact, belongs to the sky, and the bruno to
the earth. In support of the principle
he ransacks history, both sacred and
profane, in order to show that all the
most illustrious and lovable ladies, from the
earliest period to the present time have
been blonde, while those who have the lesser
claims to those distinctions have invariably
been bruno. He traces them through the
poets of ancient and modern times, and
through the most celebrated works of fiction.
Beginning at the beginning, he tells us
that Eve was blonde, the bruno being a new
Eve, born out of Eden. She belongs pro-
perly only to the paradise of Mohammed,
where the houris are represented with a
specially fors black eyes. Carrying the idea
through the heather mythology, he informs
MS that the Venus Urania-the celestial
Venus was blonde, while the Venus
Melania-she of Corinth-was bruno,
MAS, the statue of Venus Urania was of gold
or of ivory, and for her attribute she had at
her feet tortoise, symbol of secluded life;
that of Venus Melania was of bronze, sitting
on q goat with gilded horns, indicative of adj
ven. ure. The sons of these goddesses-Eros
and Anteros-had the respective character
istics of their mothers.
The author guards himself, however,
against giving the Venus Melania as a symbol
OF the bruno in modern times. The mind
purifes the flesh. Sappho and Cleopatra he
cites among great women of antiquity who
were bruno, but redeemed themselves by
their sacrifices. In short, as he explains, one
may be br1ne in the body and yet have in
the soul all the delicate sensibility of a
blonde. This beautiful type, he reminds us,
has not escaped Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who
says in his Confessions:
'Madlle de Breil etait une jeune personne
peu pres de mon age: bien faite, tres belle,
rres blanche, avec des cheveux tres nOirs, ct,
qltOlQue bruno, portant sur son visage Get air
de douceur des blondes auquel mon coeur ma
jamais resiste."
And not only, says our author-writing be
it remembered, for the eccentric uncle of
Albert-never resisted, nor even tried to re-
sist, this air of sweetness of the blondes, but
the blonde was the type of his ideal of
beauty, as immortalized in his Nouvelle He
loise; and he adds, after bringing Balzac in
support of his idea, that Madame de Warens,
<'cette premiere initiatrice de Jean-Jacques,"
was blonde, while the beautiful Venetian,
~'qui, faute de mieux, le renvoyait aux
mathematiques, was bruno.
Aurora follow the author in taking the
illustrations at random--was a blonde as
well as rosy goddess, but Night was decidedly
bruno; and crowned though she we're with
diamonds, no woman would be willing to
pass for her ersonifcation-even for the
sake of her crown. The Graces, too,
were all three blondes, as must be ad-
mitted on the authority of Homer, who
makes Anchises take Venus for one of
them. And the Graces, as the author points
nnt hecoma very imnnrtant nnrsnns when