The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-05-13
WoMAN,s BEAUTY.

There is great deal said about our
beauty, great deal done to make US
beautiful. How? In spirit2 Not at
all. To be physically beautiful is our
aim. For this we don the costly bon
net, the dainty boot, friz our hair, paint
our faces: To this end we devote our
| lives.
From the cradle we are taught that
we must be beautiful. We are shut up
in the house, away from the glad sun
! light and pure air, to protect our fair
compilations; dressed in corsets and
crinoline to improve our forms; gait
cred and thinly hosed in the dead of
winter. that our feet may be petite and
attractive. Our brothers run, laugh
loud, whistle. get tanned, wear stout
boots and warm clothes-but we don't
1t isn't ..lady-like." They, grow
strong in the gymnasium or at the wood
pile, while we crctchet, practice the last
new song, behave with propriety, and
sometimes make cake" They go
to college, grow independent, go out
into the world, make their mark, while
we who are attractive, get married,
and we who are not, teach school, make
dresses, and fade out. Some of us live
IN the country. In that case we milk
cows, make butter and cheese, help send
our brothers to school, learn how to
cook, and get husband.
Sometimes we are ambitious to ac-
qaire strength of mind to study and in-
vestigate for ourselves. Twentv-three
ofus requested admittance to Wabash
| College, Indiana, but were refused be-
cause we were women. At Oberlin
they have n "Gentleman's course" and a
Ladies course" because we have moth
ing 10 do in life but get married, while
our brothers, you know, must be law
yers, doctors, ministers, sc.
Two or three of us make speeches, but
our brothers and the church members
say that we unseN ourselves, that we
are trying to be men, that we are
disappearing God for making us wo-
men.
| The majority of men admire us for
our physical beauty alone, and then
wonder why we aim at nothing else.
know young lady, living in the
vicinity of a college, who has not a sim
gle beau, because the young men twill
not go with the ugliest girl in town."
Many an intellectual man, utterly ignor-
| ing priceless soul, hid by homely
| exterior, has uncouciouslyi welded a
virago, because the adjoining was pink
and white. Many a wife and mother
! sits by her hearthstons tonight, be-
waiting the lost charms which once
held him who promised to Glove and
cherish y and there are husbands and
fathers Flooding their way from the
| solitary board to the counting room,
| without sympathy, carly and late, be-
| cause their wives and daughters will
| have the admiration which fashionable
| beauty demands.
We love admiration; we seek it, court
it; dress three times day, enter socie-
ty, spend hundred thousand, and
"toddle down Broadway we take
summer trip that we may be the ''most
! elegantly dressed lady at Saratoga" or
| the most beautiful woman at Niagara"
] We care so frail and delicate that we
must be cared for and protected, and of
course, we never marry unless fortune
| is offered us.
Our beauty lifts us up and drags us
down. 1t lifts us up by securing
wealthy and influential busband-it
drags us down by this rule, "the greater
beauty, the greater the prize, the greater
the snare" We cannot protect our
selves for various reasons. First, we
are weak. Secondly, we know nothing
| but to please and be admired. Thirdly,
we treat all men alike. Fourthly, it de-
| grades Us to entertain the slightest sus-
picion Of evil. One of us started from
st. Louis alone, few months since;
| she was bewildered by different trains,
and inquired which she should take for
! Indianapolis. She was told, and entered
| the car designated, when she found her.
self1ocked into an empty car with him
who had directed her thither. Her crids
were heard by a policeman, and she
| was saved.
a young lady went from California
to Denver City, taking with her the
highest recommendations. She COM
menccd to teach, but pupils were few
and board was high. There came one
| wearing our country's insignia, who
called himself n friend. She was alone.
No woman extended helping hand.
No fathers heart bled for her. No
Christian hand was reached out to her
healing; they passed by on the other
side. She is now an outcast. God pity
| her! H
When we fall there is none but God
to pity. Our brothers glory in like
| sins, and stand upon the high places of
earth, while we are trod upon, spit up
on, Missed at. No repentance can re-
move the stain; it is scarlet always.
| We that are pure AMI sinless tread upon
our fallen sisters. We cannot so much
as think of them in their degradation.
We forget that money and station
bought many of us; forget that God
sees behind the marriage vow; forget
that hundreds of street girls and traVia-
tas, who at this hour are selling their
virtue, were 'once as pure as the snow :"
forget Chrfst's voice, "Do unto others
as you would that they should do unto
you !''-P0ckarl's Monthly.