The Wichita city eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1872-1883, 1873-06-05
TOP Knots. Come Down."

There is hardly anything in the world
SO beautiful as the head Of a beautiful
woman, or even of pretty woman, or
fine, well-formed woman. The firm,
pure curves, the poise upon the neck
the gentle sweep of check and chin, the
fine air of womanhood that there is in
IL almost always, even in those cases
i'm which the face and the figure. the
limbs and the cxtremities are not beau
tiful-all these make il one of the most
truly admirable things in nature. And
yet 1T seems to be one Of the prime OBJ
jects of woman in dressing, one of the
chief ends Of her existence, to destroy
all that she can of the beauty of her
form, to conceal the grace of its move
ment, and TO deprive il of all that
characteristic expression which is its
indefinabie glory. Ii is one of those
things the simple and absolute beauty
of which cannot be enhanced by any
addition, and any modification of which
is deterioration. Yet Except during
the best days of Greece. since the dis
pcrsion at Babel, she has been beset
with the desire to put some monstrous
or ridiculous things upon il, or SO TO
arrange her hair that, for all its beauty
OF form aad movement, her head might
as well be cocoanut. She regards il
merely as block upon which she can
put something that will attract atten-
tion, not TO her head, but to itself.
Heaven has made her head crown of
beauty. If not of glory, and she, i'm her
miserable vanity, covers it with
bushcl OF false hair or of finerv. One
chief beauty of her head is that it is
small whereupOn she does all that she
can TO make il look as large as possible.
Its outlines. from the forehead back
ward, whether over the crown or from
The temples, are among the most beau
tiitll curves in nature. and they are
distinctive of her sex; whereupon she.
with Perverse and ineA haustible inge-
nuity, hides these lines by a chaotic
aud formless mass of ringlets and
twists and friZZes and rats and switch
CO, and namelcss denominations. ANY
thing but to have her head look simply
like a woman's head. What could be
more beautiful than the mingled daint-
mess and dignity of its pOise upon the |
neck, what more graceful than the |
curves by which the junction is imper- |
ccptibly effected? But all this il seems |
the cherished purpose Of her life to
hide.
For years past sack Of hair has |
hung down between her ears upon her
shoulders, making her look as if she |
were carrying burden, not upon her
head, as she might with grace, but |
hitchcd on behind il. Walking behind
woman for "A considerable part of the
last decade, one could not be sure
whether she had any neck, or whether
there were not some hidcous reason for
its concealinent. To the great JOY of
all who take delight in woman's beau
ty. II was announced that the fiat had
gone forth in Paris that this monstros-
ity was 10 be abated. and that artificial
chlgnons were To be consigned to dust
heaps and oblivion. And when we
were told that the hair was to be drawn
together i'm knot, we rcjoiced i'm the
hope of seeing a woman's head again.
Vain hope! We did not know the sex
that is not content TO have even its
own beauty admired for its own sake.
We looked for change from extrava-
gance to simplicity, from artifice to ma
turc. When il came, il was merely a
change from one extravaganza to an
other; the substitution of a monstrous
thing upon the head for monstrous
thing behind it, Whereas before a
load was carried upon the nape of the
neck. now a bundle is carried upon the
top Of the head. Where before the
back hair" was ali violently dragged
down, il is now all violently dragged
up, strained in tight. straight lines to
he top of the head, and there, by such
fiendish continuance as hair-dressers
f,uictnI int q,
that looks like cannon
vad or demoralized mop; and, when
'he has accomplished this, every wo-
nan goes about with a virtuous air,
'xhaling an odor of irreproachability.
The result is that the end so much de-
sired of woman-the destruction and
utter adjustment of the natural beau
y of her heads again perfectly at
aimed. :
There is but one way TO dress full
crown woman's hair without destroy
ng some of the beauty Of her head
hat is, TO part it i'm front and draw il
imply, and without ornament or tor I
.urc of any kind, i'm knot behind the
,ars, and just above the napc of the
ieck. Were ! autocrat. that would be 9
he one sumptuary law that | would
,nact: and thercupon all the men i'm I,
he country would rise up and call me =
blessed But if the penalty for a viola a
ion of the law were that the woman 4
hould be beheaded. fear that | should !
Don reign over a nation of headless :
women. For do verify believe that !
woman would rather be without a !
lead than forego the privilege of max II
ng ii look like something other and
Iglicr than il is.-Cor. ". y. Graphic. a