Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1875-10-02
wOMAN,s POWER or FASCINA-
TKON.


TION.
For the encouragement of those
of the fair sex who fear that time
will rob them of their destinations
some kind soul has ransacked his
tory to find accounts of women
who have charmed when no longer
yeung. The list is long one, be-
ginning with Helen OF Troy, who
Is said to have been over forty
when she eloped with Paris and
thus set all Greece by the cars, and
gave us two of the greatest epics
ever written. She could not plead
youth as an excuse, although we
submit that the accounts of her
age, like everything else in her
story, are rather apocryphal. More
reliable records come to us of AS
pasta whom Pericles welded when
She was thirty-six, and who for
thirty years more maintained an
undiminished reputation for beau
ty and fascination. Cleopatra also
charmed Marc Antony when she
was past thirty, and maintained
her empire for nearly ten years
longer, and Livia at thirty-three
won the heart of Augustus and
kept it to the last. In modern his
tory the famous Diana of Poitiers
was thirty-six when she won the
heart of Henry II. Duke of Or
leans, and just half her age), and
she was considered the first lady
and most beautiful woman Of the
court to the day of his death.
Then came Anne Of Austria,
Ninon dc l'Enclos, Blanca Capello,
Madame de Maintenon, Catharine
II. of Russia, Mile. Mars, the fam
GUS French tragic actress, and last
and perhaps most beautiful of all,
Madame Recamier. All of these
were admired and loved long after
they had passed what is generally
considered as the hey-day Of wo-
mans charms.
It is a noteworthy fact that a
majority Of these women were Ell
Their French or lived in France,
and conformed to French manners
and customs. 1t is not probable
that this is because the women of
France are any more beautiful, or
retain their beauty any longer
than those OF other countries. In
deed, some travellers have profess
ed themselves utterly unable to
see the beauty of the French wo-
men, about which they had heard
so much. The custom in France,
which opens the world and all it's
pleasures-the opportunity for con-
quest included--to a woman only
after she is married, has caused
French women to cultivate with
care their charms, both of mind
and person, and to preserve them
as long as preservation is possible.
Fascination becomes an art wor-
thy of most careful study.
To degenerate into the house
hold drudge uncultivated, unit
dy and unlovely, which seems to
many of the women of the Teuto-
mic races to be the type of woman
hood after marriage, is furthest
from their thoughts. The state of
affairs which this custom produces
and of which it is an indication, is
neither to be envied nor initiated;
but could American women learn
from their French sisters the art of
being charming, nay, fascinating,
up to and beyond middle age, they
would be happier for it. To- win
hearts is the easiest thing in the
world; to hold them, one of the
hardest. The French woman de-
sires to win and hold many; her
American sister is, or ought to be,
satisfied to win and hold one. Ii
is just as hard to do the latter as
the former of these things, but
upon doing the latter depends the
happiness of every woman and
her family. She who does not put
forth her best efforts to do it must
be content to look upon her life a:
failure.