Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1876-01-28
SMALL WAISTS.

There is no doubt but that a "small
waist'' is admired by all men and women.
No matter how the psychologists or physi-
clans may talk, women always have COM
pressed their waists and expanded their
skirts, and they always will, until public
opinion pronounces for a heavy figure. 1t
has never influenced fashionable woman
yet to hear that the Venus de Medicis had
large waist; she has been told so ever
since that fauitless image of female beauty
was disinterred. She merely shrugs her
shoulders and draws her laces tighter.
She knows very well that, if she went to
ball with that figure of Venus, no man
would ask her to dance. So important
matter is it to have small waist that it
has become matter of pride to the Aus
trian people, and is often mentioned in the
Court journals, that the Empress of Aus
tria is celebrated for the possession of a
waist which only measures sixteen inches.
! possession of sixteen quarterings on your
shield, without which you cannot be adj
mitted to the best society of Vienna. "Six-
teen," therefore, is magic number at vi
emma. There are many persons, to be sure,
who have as small a waist, but they have
not got the height, and contour, and be-
coming fullness which the Empress has.
| Nor is the "small waist tarore" alone
confined to the women of civilized lands,
so-called. The smallfoot of the Chinese
woman is local popularity; the small
waist, or the striving for it, is universal.
Even the grave Humboldt describes the
beauties OF Java as eating sort O. clay
called a'apo, by which they become very
much reduced in size. 1t kills them finally,
but what of that?
| - Undoubtedly there will always be fool
ISL mothers who make their daughters
| sleep in their corsets, and many foolish
| women who always draw their laces too
tight; but the golden mean remains; fig
| ure well but not stiffiy supported, a waist
slender, round, but not too small for the
adjacent figure, is the grand desideratum
of female beauty.
Nothing is SO unbecoming as a too tight
garment A shoe that is too small spoils
a pretty foot, a glove which squeeZes the
hand ruins the effect, and waist injudi-
ciously compressed, ruins the figure and
the face. The blood is forced into the
hands and arms, the figure is pressed out
of proportion, and the whole effect is sim
gularly unpleasant. A large woman in
France, where women have a taste for the
becoming in dress conferred upon them by
Providence, wears ample draperies, loose
ly-6tting garments, and corset which
does her the best possible service, for it
makes her look and feel at her ease-no
labored breathing, no unnatural redness,
no fear of suffocation; she is simply a
large, beautiful object, instead of pillow
tied in the middle, with general air OF
sasphyxia.
Large women should remember that no
tight lacing makes them look any smaller.
The size is like all other matters-it must
GO somewhere, and the effect of squeezing
the figure is never good. Every woman
cannot rejoice in the "willow pattern"
which is so beautiful in young girls. Age,
which reduces everything else, is apt to
add on to the figure of woman, and time
brings an undesirable stoutness. This
cannot be better treated than it was by
the late Duchess of Devonshire, one Of the
most beautiful of women, " no grew, at
forty, as English women are apt to, very
stout.
elbow have you kept your complexion so
pure, my dear Duchess?" said one of her
fellow-ladies in waiting at the Court of
Queen Victoria.
''By dressing at ease and keeping my
temper said the handsome Duchess.