New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-07-02

I
| Shall We BIT hold her lace.
And tborgh at times, impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,
TIE swelling heart leaves moaning like the ocea
That eau not be at rest
We will be pate Mt and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;
| By silence ssnctfyi not concealng,
| The grief that must haze way.
A Love of Display and Luxary in Older
Times.
1t is one of the reproaches often filing u,
the chinks in the column of paragraphs O
the daily papers, when other items are
wanting, that the present age outstrips al
that have gone before in its love Of splendO,
and gorgeous apparel, and that Americans
in this passion out-H erod Herod.
That there is quite as much love of splen
dor today as is good for US is probably true
but that there is any more than there as
always been, and that the taste is not much
more chastened and refined than it has ever
been, we see reason positively to DENY.
Let US glance into history one moment,
! and bring its incohtestible witnesses to our
support on the question. Our earliest He
brew records give testimony to the point.
The Jews, some 1000 years before Christ,
wrought in gold and silver and jewels with
great nicely. That there was an extraor-
binary love of decoration among them is
apparent from the mere dress OF the priest
hood, in which scarlet and blue and purple
and fine linen, embroidered lavishly, were
combined with precious stones mounted
and engraved, and with golden bells tink
ling with the step. When the man servant
won the heart of Rebekah for Isaac, it was
| with handfuls OF ornaments, among which
was gold earring weighing q quarter of
an ounce, and o pair of bracelets weighing
five ounces, allowing half an ounce to the
shekel, the weight Of which speaks eutti-
GENTLY for the exceeding love of splendor in
that era, which love nothing of the sort
in this can eclipse. Nor was it mere
~ in jewels and in the raimenr that this
love of splendor exhibited irself-the arts
| of the toilette were quite as much in re-
| quest. Jezebel, We are told, nearly 900
| years before Christ, put her eyes in paint
ing" and with her modern namesake's an
timOny, too, and to this day we speak in
! opprObrium of "a painted Jezebel" NG
quite 100 years after that wonderful wo-
mans career the Prophet Isaiah describes
the toilette of the daughters of Zion, with
the "bravery of their tinkling ornaments
about their feet and their cauls, and their
round tires like the moon. the chains, and
the bracelets, and the mutilars, the bonnets,
and the ornaments of their legs, and the
head bands, and the tablets, and the ear
rings, the rings, and the nose Jewels, the
change able suits of apparel, and the nantes,
and the wimples. and the crisping pins. the
glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods,
and the walls" And some fifty years later,
jeremiah declares, Though thou deckest
thee with ornaments of gold, though thou
renteet thy face with painting, in vain shalt
thou make thyself fair"
But long before the Jewish era of mag.
niticence was the Egytian, with luxury,
and refined luxury, that nothing since
has dreamed OF equaling. From him we
receive the use of the wedding ring; with
him our greatest comforts and most won
drous inventions are supposed to have been
cOmmOnplacee; and an em5almment and
burial where, in each instance, it required
the expenditure OF what would now be a |
great fortune, was practiced by him for |
5000 years-an expenditure before which !
the paltry $500 or $780, which simple |
burial from New York costs, sink out of !
sight. Yet the Egyptian was, in turn.
eclipsed by the Assyrian. The robes of |
the Assylian kings were richly dyed and |
equisitely embroidered with floral and she'll |
and other designs that can only be copied, |
and lot at all improved. Layard found |
that they wore many costly necklaces |
at once, many armlets and bracelets. |
too, all their clasps Stimulating lions's |
heads and objects of that nature, and |
their ornaments were mounted with pre-
ciOus stones and set with them in stars and |
bands. Among these people even the men
braided and curled and sometimes dyed |
their hair, braids were worn in rows and |
ringlets, and mustache curled over and |
over at the ends; the cheeks were tirged |
with deeper rose the eyebrows and lasnes
were dyed black, and the antimony pencil
was drawn across the edge of the lid, to
enhance the dyes lustre, with az much pre-
cieion as when in the hands of the modern |
belle.
In the meantime. the neighboring nations
of the East rivaled the Assyrian in volup-
tuOus expenditure, both as to person,
dwelling and equipage. The Persian was
30 vain as to the length of his hair that he
had artificial head dresses of great value;
the horses had brides of gold; the beauti-
full Panthea brought to her husband, an ally
Of Cyrus, a golden helmet and arm
pieces, broad bracelets for his wrists, q
purple habit that reached to his feet and
hung in folds at the bottom, and crest dyed
If violet cOlor;' and Cyrus himself |
made principle OF all his luxury aud
'plendor. "He chose" says Xsnophon, "to
wear the Median robe, and persuade his as
Ociates to put it on, for in case man had |
hat this concealed it and made those that
wore it appear the handsomest and tallest.
md they have a sort of shoe where they
nay mt in something under their feet with
tut Its being seen, 80 as to make them. |
ewes appear taller than they really are.
1e allowed them also to color their eyes,
hat they might seem to have finer ewes
han they really had, and to pal at them !
elves, that they might appear to be of : .
etter complex;ons than they naturally -.
7ere. All these things, he thought, CON :
ributed something to their appearing the
lore awful to the people who were subject
D his dominion" Aud as the Persians
dopted the Median voluptuousnese, so the
.Omans,. at last, fell heir to that of the a
ersians. and the wondrousness of it may 3
onjectured from the conduct of Cato, who .
'fused to retain the Babylonian garment
lat was bequeathcd him, regarding it as
,mething too sumptuous for the apparel
Roman citizen.
Far back too, beyond any of these civil h
ations, the old Indian knew what the dis =,
ay of magniicence was, in his buildings, a.
9 garments, his chariots and horses. "All r
iHgs hang on me, ",says Kreeshna, in the n
hograh Gtta, "evenas precious gems upon st
string" a.
This love of display, as Wa have said, did II
It end with the destructIOa Of Babylon; q,
.eece and Rome received it only to hand hs
further on. In Greece, indeed, it reached P,
height of apOtheOsis, and became sort til
worship of beauty itself, rather than q nj
ide OF appearance. But even in its early
ys we read of articles Of luxury and of vi
IGNITION to the small details of make up in
ices where we would least expect to find de
sm. Thus the band that bound the he'll ct