Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1875-01-01

full confidence in that wealth of face
with which nature has gifted her. But
no man, unless he be an extraordinary
great fool, condones that lavish applica-
ton of Lubin and Gourard which top
dresses the features with an aromatic
alluvium. The reason that Hebe is so
very sweet is that the shadow of rose
is on her cheek, and no paint is on her
lips Psyche would cease to be peren-
nially charming if she once made up her
eyebrows or bought the color of her hair
at an apothecary's. How different from
the Aldabella of to-day, whose only
charms are those on her watch-chain
Aldabella, like Janus, is double-faced;
but, unlike that divinity, never shows
both-faces at once One is known only
to herself, her Maker, and her
night-cap; the other is evolved, for
| the admiration of the world, from va
| rious little bottles Aldabella keeps under
lock and key. If the mouth of one of
these bottles could speak, what tail it
| would have to tell! The attitude which
a woman who habitually paints and pow
ders assumes toward herself is an inter
esting point in psychological study and
we venture to commend it to Mr.. Lewes
| as subject for one of his foot-notes in
his " Problems of Life and Mind" We
suppose that, like drinking, the addiction
to cosmetics increases by insensible pro-
portions. We can imagine the beauty of
sixteen tinging her young lips for the
first time, with fear and trembling. How
brilliant the white background of the
| teeth looks in contrast with the deepened
crimson OF the laughing mouth. Fair is
that complexion as a magnolia-leaf, but
here is Prof. Canker's Extract of
Lilies" the constituents of which are
purely vegetable, and which sells at the
ridiculously-low rate of $3.50 per bottle.
So the poor little fool goes on, pitmark-
ing up her features, then making up her
form, destroying the soft bloom and ten
der outlines of youth, mincing along
| Broadway, mistaking the chances of
| compassion and disgust and the oglings
of impudence for admiration and eulogy.
| If girls like this understood the contempt
with which men regard them if they knew
| how utterly such resources fail to awaken
| the admiration desired, possibly the sale
of cosmetics would cease, and we should
have the opportunity of contemplating
| form, face and hair as nature made
them. AS you pass down Broadway you
see faces literally blue from the chemical
action of paste and lotions. Perhaps the
worst symptom in the young girls who
employ makeup is the unblush-
ingness with which they brazen
the thing out. AS you walk be-
side Lulu you can detect, through
| her veil, and without an eye-glass, the
powder hanging in pearly spangles be-
meath her eyes and ON the contour of her
cheeks. If your chances have any intel,
ligence she knows that you see it, and
she remains blushless in the virtuous
consciousness that it is there as means
of extorting admiration from manhood!
We acknowledge with shame and con-
fusion of face that there are men, young
and old, who do not disdain the use of
cosmetics. Has not Tennyson himself
written poem satirizing this weakness
of Bulwer's, and is nothing to be said in
favor of practice to which, if there is
any truth in report, the author of
"Kenelm Chillingly' was addicted? At
long intervals we have met with woman
liberal enough to admit that men had as
much right as women to the rouge-pot
and powder-puff, and that if a male
| chose to make his face up no woman was
justified in blaming him, SO that he
| did it artistically. Now this is just the
point we are struggling for in regard to
the ladies. We have no objection to
their softening tint here or deepening
shadow there, provided they do not
employ too lavish hand. Oh, ladies,
lightly use the powder-puff! be sure you
finish when you've had enough. Come
| not into our presence with the odorifer-
Gus dust upon your forehead as thick
as dewdrops on David's sandals. Yes
| terday afternoon my friend Verdict
and I walked down Broadway from the
Fifth Avenue Hotel to Union Square and
back again. During the promenade the
| only natural female face we saw was that
belonging to poor sewing girl, so badly
| scanned with the smallpox as to be
beyond the redemption of the dermatolo-
| gist. Even the dowagers wore eye
brows preternaturally larched, and the
spinsters Chow easy they were of detec-
tiOnD were hilarious with Bloom of
| Youth. Is there not something innately
meretricious in all these arts? If a
beauty has henna on her inger-tips, don't
we expect to find gehenna in her heart?
| can't tell. [ only know that liquid car
mine is much prettier to me in a bottle
| than on a cheek. Is the recklessness
with which an old belle plies sponge, and
puff, and pencil solely attributable to
habit? You find yourself wondering how
deep you would have to explore through
those various strata of white and red be-
fore you reach the tertiary period of the
| pleocene formation. You may depend
upon it that, long before she comes down
stairs and trusts her complexion to the
deceiving witchery of gaslight, she has
contemplated herself from various points
of view, in hand glass and mirror, and
calculates to a hairs breadth the effect
she wants to produce in each. You may
depend, too, that in the privacy of her
own apartment she colors herself, for her
own delectation, with much greater vivid
ness than that in which she presumes to
appear at the table d'hote. You may
have seen her blush, but you have never
seen her turn red and white with the fa-
cility which marks the fluctuations of
her complexion when she is alone with
her toilet table. Narcissa adores her
shadow in the looking glass. Don't tell
me she doesn't paint for the love of it.
| You might as we'll attempt to prove that
the only cup drunkard cares for is a
| buttercup.
Actresses may perhaps be forgiven for
| clinging to their rouge-pots and powder
boxes, even when an impatient audience is
not waiting to applaud. The woman who
has been accustomed to make up her
face every night from her youth up, in
order to add to the Establishments of the
footlights, finds it well-nigh impossible
to trust to natures simplicity, even when
she goes out in the broad light of day to
do little shopping. She puts no conf
dence in her face as God made it, and
the consequence is that you never see
her (unless she happens to be your wife)
without countenance for which M
Lubin or DR.. Gouraud is more to be
thanked than Providence. Nay, she