The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-04
BLONDES.


Paris, where it was set by ladies of q GLASS
whose very existence would have been ig-
nored not only by our grandmothers and
great t-grandmothers, but by the bevy of
beauties who attended the first drawing-room
of Queen Victoria. And yet it might be
traced far back to q classic, romantic, picto-
rial, or poetic source; il was equally irresisti-
BILE in Rome when Rome was tho mis-
tress of the world, and in Venice when
Venice was the recognized Queen of the
Adriatic; we find it illustrated or recorded
by the pens of Ovid and Catullus, and the
pencils of Titan and Giorgione. The Chloes,
Pyrrhas and Cynthias, as well as the Lauras,
Lucretias and Leonoras, were blondes; aud
the manner in which they acquired or in-
creased their indispen sable attractiveness in
this respect has supplied materials for many
q curious chapter in the history Of morals and
manners.
When the Able de Bernis arrived at
Venice to fulfill his functions as ambassador
he Immediately set about looking and inquir-
ing for the famous blondes, SO warmly and
variously tinted, of the Venetian school of
= painters from Carpaccio down nwards, a type
q differing widely from what passes under the
q designation of 'fair" in this country. Judg-
ing from the portraits and historical master
! pieces of this school, he expected to fud
Venice vast paradise of blondes, from the
lightest shade of gold or faxen to those little
removed from auburn, chesnut, or red. To
HIS lntudDlS ulSdppOlublll6uJ anu PRISE, u0
found living blondes as rare as gardens and
flowers at Venice; and instead of them he was
everywhere encountered by brunettes, with
glossy ebon tresses and complexions en-
Drowned and enriched by their sun. ''In
vain," says M. Feuillet de Conenes,
t'did he frequent the popular fairs of
the Parishes in vain did he attend with the
1 discriminating glance of a connoisseur those
exciting religious solemnities, those fetes,
which reused the whole population, and
l brought forth from the old quarters of Cas-
tello and Canareggio these types preserved
as it were under glass, of antique Venice
no Lavinia neither in the churches, nor in
4 the circles, nor under the mysteries of the
gondola, nor in the Place st. Marc, where
j beauty manifested itself in the good old time
as traditional product of the sun. Hardly
anywhere living sample of those ancient
masses of yellow hair (HageSceHteS) with
! which every one of the women of the Supper
of Paul Veronese (now in the Louvre) was
adorned, as well as the other feminine crea-
tions of the master"
The same lively writer whom we have
rather paraphrased than translated goes on
to ask whether this seeming change or trans
nf was owing to an exceptional nal
cause must be sought in the variations of
fashion in which women delight, in their
levity and mutability-' Vdrium ct nputd6He
6emper.' In the sixteenth century those who
were not naturally blondes became so arti-
fcialy The Venetian painters of the period
did no more than reproduce what they had
constantly before their eyes The general
agreement among them to paint only blondes
is q sufficient proof that in this country of
brunettes there were no longer brunettes.
| To be blonde had become an art; and what at
first, under Carpaccio, at the end of the fif-
teenth century, was still but a caprice of CO.
quetry, had become later, under Titan and
anl VpTnnaCn fhn md ha nv
of the generality of Venetian women. ''Every
traveller learned in art, arriving for the first
time at Venice, must have felt the same sur
prise as the Able de Bernis. We ourselves,
Venetians, in order to explain for you the
past in comparison with the present, were
naturally led to the study of the origin, the
means and the results of this episode in our
manners; and the documents, the evidences
: of all sorts that we then collected on this
subject are calculated, we think, especially at
this time, to interest public curiosity in
France and we might well add in England,
where the fashion has been revived in its
most eXtrayagant and mischievous form, to
the terror of husbands aud fathers whose
purses are laid under heavy contribution to
pay for what offends their notions of pro-
priety and their taste.
single extract from the many curious
books cited to throw light on this topic will
suffice to show how the danes of Venice set
4 4 and what dangers they incurred, what pri-
vations they endured in the attainment of it..
The Strasburg goose, fastened to the floor
before the fire to enlarge its liver, affords
the closest parallel to the fair, would-be
fair Venetian, with her dripping head ex-
!, posed to the sun, as Cesare Vecellio, writing
in 1889 pictures her:-"H The houses of Venice
are commonly crowned with little construc-
tions III wood, resembling a turret without a
roof. On the ground these lodges or boxes
are formed of masonry, hoored like what are
called terGzzt at Florence and Naples, and
covered with cement of sand and lime to
protect them from the rain. 1t is in these
that the Venetian women may be seen as
often, and, indeed, oftener than in theil
chambers; it is there that, with their heads
exposed to the full ardor of the sun during
whole days, they strain every nerve to aug
ment their charms, as if they needed it, as il
the constant use of so many methods knowI
to all did not expose their natural beauty t.
pass for no better than artificial During
the hours when the sun darts it's most verti
cal and scorchiDg rays they repair to these
boxes and condemn themselves to broil il
them unattended. Seated there, they kee
on wetting their hair with sponge dipped il
some elixir of youth prepared with their owl
hands or purchased They moisten their hal
afresh as fast as it is dried by the sun, and
- is by the unceasng renewal OF this op 9ratio
that they become what you see them, blondes
CHARLIE SING. The correspondent of tn