The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1870-06-28
PRETTY WOMEN.
From the Saturday Revlew.]


After all, is the world so very absurd in it's
love ofpretty women Is woman SO very ridic-
ulous in her chase after beauty! Apretty wo-
man is doing woman's work In the world, not
making speeches nor making puddings, but
making lie SUMMER and more beautiful. Man
has foresworn beauty altogether. ills hopeless
to recall the Periclean idea of manhood, to In
sist on the development of personal beauty as
not less manly than that of personal virtue, to
demand the grace OF Canning from our states
men, or the dignity of Robertson from our d.
vines. The world of action Is world Of ugli-
ness, and the good-looking fellow who starts
for the prizes soon discovers what Madame de
Girardin calls le mdlheur detre beau. He is
guessed to be frivolous, he is assumed to be
no better than they should he. In society
fesolute to be ugly. there is no post for an
Adonis, but that Of model, or guards
man. But woman does for mankind what
man has ceased to do. She clings to the
Periclean ideal. Her aim from very childhood
is to be beautiful Even as schoolgirl she
notes the progress OF her charms, the deepen
ing color OF her hair, the growing symmetry of
her arm, the ripening contour OF her cheek.
We watch with silent interest the mysterious
reveries of the maiden; she Is dreaming of
coming beauty, and painting for the glorles OF
eighteen Insensibly she becomes an artist.
her room a studio. her glass an academy. The
hours What silent musings before her mir
ror, what dreams, what discoveries, W hat dis
appointments, what careful cleaning of eXpe-
rience, what sudden flashes OF invention ! The
Joy of her toilet is the Joy of Raffaelle over his
canvas of Michael Angelo before his marble.
She is creating beauty in the silence and the
loneliness OF her chamber; she grows Ike any
great art-creation, the result OF patience, OF
hope, of a thousand delicate touchlngs and re-
touchings. But even to the Gioconda the mo-
ment of perfectness, of completion, comes at
last: the master takes his work from the
easel and gives 1t to the ages. Woman
Is never perfect, never complete. rest
less night undoes the beauty OF the day;
sunshine blurs the evanescent coloring OF her
cheek; frost nips the tender outlines Of her
face into sudden harshness. Her pencil has
ever to be at work, even while the hours work
for her. and the hours work against her at last.
Care ploughs its lines across her brow; moth
erhood destroys the elastic nghtness OF ner
form; the bloom OF her cheek, the quick flash
of her eye, fade and vanish as the years 60 by.
But woman is still true to her IDEAL She
won't know when she Is beaten, and she man
ages to steal fresh victories even In her defeat.
She lnvents new conceptions of womanly
grace; she rallies at thirty, and fronts US with
the beauty OF womanhood; she makes last
stand at sixty with the beauty OF age. 1t is
the same great artist who exhibits year after
Innocence of Fra Angelica to the severe
matronage of Zurbaran. She falls, like
Cesar, wrapping her mantle round her
| "buried in woOllen 'twOuld saint provoke y
Death listens pltifully to the longings of life
time, and the wrinked face smiles back Its
last cold smile with something Of the prettiness
Of eighteen.
from the absurd connection which men have
established between the enjoyment OF it and
love. We fancy it impossible to care much
about pretty face unless we can hang 1t In
our own gallery. "What care hcw fair she
be, so she is not fair to me I" 1t Is perhaps
truer to say that nine-tenths OF our enjoyment
of beauty disappears with possession. the
lover dwells on his mistress face till he loses
all sense of the world of beauty without it. He
is like the connolsseur who so dotes on the
little Correggio he has picked up for O song
that he ceases to care for the larger range OF
art. The real way Of enjoying pretty women
would be never to fall in love with pretty
woman at all. The true joys of life are Its I'M
conscious j0ys-the pleasure we derive from
the laughter of children, from the landscape
that we drive dreamily through. from the mu-
sic which we have not listened to. And so
the truesC enjoyment of beauty lies, not In the
observation or analysis Of this face or that,
but In the sense Of pretty forms and pretty
faces about one. The joy Of variety the
beautiful, comes to the admirer OF pretty
women, never to the lover Of pretty
women. We are not quarrelng with the
| instinct which leads us through pretty faces
into paths Of domestic peace. 1t is often nec-
essary to restrict ones sphere of enjoyment;
and II one is absolutely obliged to marry, one
had far better marry pretty wife than an
ugly one. The refinement which the student
of art gains from constant contact with beauty
of color and form every one gains In some de-
| gree from daily contact with the beautiful In
| fesh and blood Woman Is the art Of home,
| the Giorgione whose brillancy flashes through
| the quiet parsonage, the Perugno whose grace
| tempers the roughness Of every day, the Rll-
| bens whose largeness and abundance filings q
| glow of comfort and ease over the most un-
genial career. Life becomes more harmonious,
| It beats with keener pulse Of enjoyment, In
the presence of pretty women. After all,
charming little figure, piquant little face,
is the best remedy for half the ills of existence,
| its worries, its veXatons, its duADess its dis
more placid types of beauty, In the beauty OF
Lady Dumbtllo, ii there Is tinge OF
stupidity, there is at any rate an at
mosphere of rep0se, genial Influence
moulding o,r social converse and hab-
its into gentler shapes. 1t is amusing to
see how the prettiness Of women tells on ner
dress, how the order and propriety OF her
uTeS5 lCIl Uu lue 1HC phi VI
the habit OF prettiness, gives an Ideal dignity
to the very arrangement of her rbonnet-strings.
In every movement, In the very sweep OF her
ample folds. in the pose of her languor. in the
gay start of her excitement, one feels the soft
ening, harmonlzing influence OF her last look
in the glass. She may be gay Or sorrowtu,
or quiet or energetic, but she must be pretty.
Beauty exercises On imperceptbe compulsion
over her, which moulds her whole life Into
graceful and harmonious forms. Her dress
rises out of the mere clothing of man into
regions Of science, Of poetry, of art. A thous-
and considerations of taste, harmonies OF
color, contrasts, correspondencies, delicate
adjustments of light and Shade, dictate the
choice of shawl or the tint of a glove. And
as prettincss tells on dress, it tells on
the home. Flowers, pictures, the gay
notes of sonotas the coolest couches,
gorgeous hues of Indian tapestry, glass
work of Murano, hundred exquisite
something's and nothings. are the natural set
ting of pretty women. The art of the boudoir
tells on all but the chaos Of the husbands stu
dy. Around that last refuge Of barbarism floats
an atmosphere of taste and refinement In which
the pretty little wife lives and moves and has
her being. And from this tone of the home
grows the tone of society, the social laws Of
good-humor, Of propriety, Of selt-restraint, OF
Consideration for others, of gentleness, Of Vi
vacity. Tie very hush of the rough tones that
have thnndered over Peloponnese as Pericles
bends over Aspasia, the little turns and deca-
cies Of phrase, the joyous serfdoms and idle
ness of the manifest and most energetic OF
men, tell Of the triumph of pretty woman.