Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-12-09
pretty and Ugly women.

No woman can say truthfully that she
does not care whether she is pretty or
not Every woman does care. The i'm
mutable laws of her being have made
physical attractiveness as much n pa
tural glory to her as strength is to a
man.
Here | may be told that what l am
saying is sHperhuous, for perfect beauty
has no need of art to enhance it, and
that those who have been born with hard,
or worse, with perfectly uninteresting
features, do not want to be told that ply
steal attractiveness is indispensable to
them. But it is especially to the plain,
and to the generally ill-favored that l
address these words of advice and warn
ing, and should Beauty S sell find few
useful hints, / see no reason why she
should not avail herself of them. |
know that there are people who look
we'll anywhere and anyhow-no vulgar
ity, no carelessness of speech, dress or
attitude seems able to disenchant them.
But these rarely gifted persons are but
the exceptions that prove the rule, and
even in their case what Sir Philip Sid
ney spake is true-he says there is in
that well.chosen surroundings
(which does even beauty beautify.
And most bewitched the captived eye"
and Herrick, too in his Poetry Of
Dress" seems to have had an astute ap-
probation of how beauty may be beauti-
fed. These men lived in the sixteenth
century, time when color in dress was
an understood and valued adjunct, and
before we had learned to make our dwell
ings intolerable to the eye.
An immense number of ill-tempered,
ugly women are ill-tempered because
they are ugly. They do not know it;
their friends don understand, and make
no allowance; but heavy, indeed, is the
burden upon these poor women, and per
nicious iE its effect upon their moral
character very often. / have heard it
said that ugly women are always bad
tempered. This is an r-statement;
but there is a certain degree of truth in
the saying, cruel as it is. An ugly child
cares nothing for its ugliness; but
when it grows older, and peroeives
that it lacks something which is
priced and honored, and is twitted
with the deficiency, and neglected
through it, and is reminded of it every
time it looks in the glass or in another
face; the constant disappointment be-
gins very early to embitter the whole
nature, and creates melancholy shy
ness. And when the desire to attract
awakss with years, and the young girl
finds her fairer friends preferred before
her, the vain endeavors to please by
other means dishearten her, and she
grows sarcastic, ill-natured, enviops of
everybody, though half uuconsciously; |
many other faults follow, aud she be-
comes unhappy and morose. No one
ever knows what she SUFFERS but she
does suffer very acutely.
am certain that however laudable |
the efforts of ugliness to attract by |
learning, by accomplishments, by gene
raj usefulness, or by satire, nothing |
really compensates for the want of per
sonal beauty. The best that an ugly |
woman can do is to make you forget
that she is ugly for the time being she |
cannot compensate And while | should |
advise all women to bacome as intelll |
gent and clever as they can, whether
they be plain or pretty, still | wish mere
beauty we're made more an acknowl-
edged aud honorable art than 1t is by |
ali those to whom God has given eyes |
and an intelligent brain. 1t is not SIN
nor folly 10 long, as every woman
longs, to be lovely. She is so constl-
tuted, and her beauty is o glory to
her" I'D |