Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-01-17
BLONDES.
womnn,s OpInion Of Them.

Mrs. E. Lynn Linton writes in Cas-.
sells Magazine about Fair Women,
She says:
The tall dark, formidable looking wo-
man of fiction, who is equal to any
crime you like to name, and whose very
presence inspires all bsholders with fear
or repulsion, has had her day. When
we open one. Of the books wherein our
youths and maidens learned their frat
lessons of life--as it is not-7and we
come upon heroine with yellow hair,
marvellous eyes of greenish. hue, small
waist, shapely hand, and stunted of sym
metrical growth, we may settle ourselves
comfortably to an after-naratiye OF hor-
rors; to a case or two of secret poison
| ing, or holder murder, with the chances
of exposure by full grown whiteness
hidden where only an owl could hide;
while bigamy will be thrown in to give
the right favor of improperly, or per-
haps, for diversion, a marriage of that
kind known to the French as "of the
thirteenth ACCOMPLISHMENT"
The fair-haired he-oines of modern
novels have now the monopoly Of all
the vices, crimes = and diamonds in
volved; the former typical brigandess is
shelved; while the chestnut-headed girls
are relegated to virtue, and patience,
and mildness and despair, and the loss
Of their lovers through the Vaccinations
Of the too-fascinating and immoral
blondes. II is all the difference, say the
analytical novel writer's, between iron
and carbon, electricity and brute mat
ter; and they give the preference to the
former for that queer manifestation of
character they call Force.
Well, perhaps, there is something in
the theory; though it may be carried too
far. Given a fair woman, with dark, or
even light hazel eyes, aequiline features,
a narrow forehead, and great width be-
tween her ears, all enhanced by Q ner-
vous temperament--which is different
thing from nervousness--and we have
the type Of the Borgis; whence we may
reasonably expect something more than
would be possible to the lymphatic ma
tron, whose worst sins are peevlsh hu-
mors, and whose widest pleasure is
box at the theater at Christmas time,
with allher little ones about her. Socie-
ty gees pretty smoothly between its or
dained banks so far as we can see; but we
are all aware Of the difference between
reality and appearance, and if we do
not know the precise strength of the
under-current, we all know that there is
an under-current and that many lives
which look quite calm and respectable
on the outside are turbulent and unre-
strained enough below.
So it is with your fair women Of GER
tain type; creatures who might have sat
to Guido for his angels, but whose souls
are as the soul of Lilith and Melusine;
the Borgias and the Brinvilliers Of his
toric crimes, the +" modern Messalinas
of present life. Who does not acknowl-
edge these women2-whose secret doings
are whispered about from friend to friend
for all there is no Asmodeus, happily
fer them, to render roofs transparent
who go about wellhghted drawingrooms
looking much like other people, save
that they are, perhaps, more careful OF
obseryances and when they give utter
ance to their opinions, express an edity-
ing strictness of morality which puts the
very matron herself on the list of the
careless encouragers of vice. Wea k as
their rootlets are, they still keep their
place among the honest and the honora-
BILE; perhaps because of their father s
name perhaps because Of their husbands 6
place; people all silently combining to
so much kindly hypocrisy as includes
their formal acceptance; though none of
the better sort care for more than this.
In society, as it is called, these frail,
fair women are always surrounded by
men; and by men only. They are both
disliked and dreaded by other women;
and they return the feeling. Between
them and the rest in that dreadful hour
of upstairs retirement from the glass of
clsret to the first cup Of tea, there is a
visible but unspoken enmity. They are
left alone in their blonde beauty to prac-
tice glances and gestures till the men
come up; or if any one goes over to
speak to them it is a woman of like ma
ture but Of less daring than themselves,
or an innocent who does not know the
goats of the drawing room from its
sheep. . To be sure, all fair
women are not Of this intense kind, and
there are the doves of old time romance
yet extant; blue-eyed, tender, timid, vir-
ginal; who blush much, hold the creed
of shocking and who would be as in
capable of the sins to which their more
electrical sisters are prone as a child
would be incapable Of carrying the
weight of a man. But we are bound to
say that these doves are comparatively
rare, while the hawks with golden wings |
are more abounding, and blondes " with
out salt less numerous than blondes
with too much.