The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1870-07-14


Pretty WoMEN, After eli, is the
world so,very absurd in its 1oye Sf pretty
lWomepp Is woman 30 very dicnlols in
Eher sphaa6 after beauty2EA pretty wo-
Emanssis dpinE work In the world,
lnot making kspeeches nor. making puds
(dings, but making life aunnief and more
beautiful. Man has forsworn beauty
altogether. 1t is hopeless to recall the
Periolean idea Of manhood, to insist on
the development of personal beauty as
not less manly than that of personal vir-
tue, to demand the grace of Canning
from our statesmen or the dignity of
Robertson from our divinos. The world of
action is a world of uglincss, and the
good-looking fellow who starts for the
prizes soon discovers what Madame de
Girardin calls le ndlteur d'et,e beau He
is guessed to be frivolous, he is assumed
to be poetic, there are whispers that his
morals are no better than they should he.
In society resolute to be ugly there is
no post for an Adonis but that of n
model or Guardsman. But woman
does for mankind what nun has censed
to do. She clings to tho Periclean ideal
Her aim from very childhood is to be
beautiful. Even as schoolgirl she
notes the progress of her charms, the
deepening color of her hair, the growing
symmentry of her arm, the ripening con-
tour of her check. We watch with a
silent interest the mysterious reveries of
the maiden; she is dreaming of coming
beauty, and painting for the glories Of
eighteen. Insensibly she becomes mn
artist. her room IL studio, her glass an
academy. The hours work with her,
but she works with the hours
What silent musings before her mir
ror, what dreams, what discoveries, what
dlsappointments, what careful gleamings
of experience, whnt sudden flashes Of in-
vention! The JOY of her toilet is the JOY
OF Raphaelle over his canvas, of Michael
Angelo before his marble. She is Great
ing beauty in the silence and loneliness
OF her chamber; she grows like any great
urt-creation, the result of patience. of
hope, of thousand delicate touchings
and retouchings. But even to the
Gloconda, the moment of perfectness, of
completion, comes at last; the master
takes his work from the easel and gives it
to the nges. Woman is never perfect,
never complete. A restless night undoes
the beauty of tho day; sunshine blurs
the evanescent coloring of her check
frost nips the tender outlines of her face
into sudden harshness. Hor pencil has
ever to be at work even while tho hours
work for her, and the hours work against
her ut last. Care ploughs it's lines across
her brow; motherhood destroys the
elastic lightness of her form; the bloom
of her cheek; the quick flash OF her eye,
fade and vanish Us tho years go by. But
woman is still true to her ideal. She
won't know when she is beaten, and she
manages to steal fresh victories even in
her defeat. She invents new concep-
tions of womanly grace; sue rallies at
thirty. and fronts us with the beauty of
womanhood; she makes q last stand ut
sixty with tho beauty of nge. It is the
same great artist who exhibits year after
year, but whose style ranges from the
girish innocence of II Fra Angelica to
the severe mntronage of q Znrbaran.
She fulls, like Caesar, wrapping her
mantle round hcr-''buried in woolen!
'twould a saint provoked" Death listens
pitifnlly to the longings of lifetime,
and the wrinkled face smiles back its last
cold smilo with something of the pretti-
ness of eighteen.