The Portland daily press., 1879-02-01

Where such radiant lights have shore,
| No wonder If her cheeks be grown
SunburnJ with lustre OF her own.
Cleaveland again sings:
Where lilies. in a lovely brown,
lnocuate carnation.
and he again speaks of brown woman:
She contains all bliss.
| And makes the world but her periphrasis
Il is Dryden who praises "raven glossy hair'
"whose dusk sets off the whiteness of the
skin," and to brunette he saws soThe
mighty ravage of your eyes," That is heart
felt homage from the conquered to Venus
Victrix. OF the heroine Of the Rape of the
Lock and her ravished wealth we are told
by Pope
| ruese in two sable ringlets taught to break
Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck
Gray says "And gospel light first beam'd
from Bullen's eyes," Dark eyes of course.
Prior said of the woman OF Egyptian race,
"Grace shaped her limbs and beauty decked
her face" Shakespeare apostrophizes ''Your
inky brows, your black silk hair, your cheek
| OF cream" Did he mean the same with
"rhese black masks proclaim an enshield
beauty? He again says:
L
lsstraight and slenuer and as brown in hue
AS hazel-nuts, ani sweeter than the kernels
and again:
Black brows
Become some women best, they be in a semi circle
Or "a half moon, made with pen.
| Byron's s'Her eyes dark charm 'twere vain
to tell" is familiar to all. Gay says:
| Farest blossoms drop with every b,ast
But the brown beauty will like hollies last.
What is this but the poetic expression of the
belief that blondes may pass, bat the love of
man for brunette will last forever!
There are brunettes and brunettes. We
have the indolent, heavy limbed one, with
hair like midnight, and deep-set eyes that
gloom from under inky brows-she is apt to
grow fat. Another has the quick, glttering
glances that proverbially distinguish her from
the blue'e beauty, clear olive skin, pal
lid save when dusky blush mantles the
cheek, with brow that easily becomes
stormy, and clears as easily as it clouds. As
to her shape the horsemen would saw sha
was ceal-llrnbed. This kind of woman ia
apt to be "iutense'' in emotion and express
sion both. Yet another is the brown wosAn
as distinguished from the more propTuneed
brunette, she with bronzed hair q OF the
shade of a chestnut newly faleg from the
tree and at once plucked pm its burr.
"Your chestnut was ever the only color,"
says Shakespeare, speakingof this type.
Again we have the woman fifth dark hair,
dark face and gray eyes Q clear steady
light that command confidence. And there
are hundred other charming varieties, diff
fer,ng more or less wides from those men.
toned. In fashion! you can put up your
last bag of shekels, pax your last sesterce
that our brown sister will stay in fashion as
long as men have sSes-as will our fair sisters;
for, t., -sarY tho Tlaureate's lines
Nature fulfils herself in many ways,
Lest one goo1 custom should corrupt the world.
The brunette is an old favorlte with writ
ers of fiction. How often she makes her
stately appearance in Scott and does the he
roic. He makes her TOO severe and melau-
choly for the general taste, and one is very
much inclined to prefer the sunny.haired
Brendas. Displaced tor awhile by the "wick-
ed boude' of the Braddo1 school, the bru.
nette is fast reassuming her proper place in
fiction. She comes back fron her exile more
| charming than ever. Her latest appearances
are in Howells's "Lady of the Aroostook" and
Hardy's ''Return of the Native" Hardy's
description of her is an exquisite thing, and
shall be quoted. How different the is from
the melancholy heroine of the eailier novel;
lists!
| Eustacia wye was the raw material of a
| divinity. On Olympus she would have done
well with little preparation. She had the
| pass ons and instincts which make faIltess
| goddess, that is, those that make not quite a
iaullless woman. Had it been possible for
| the earth and mankind to be entirely in her
grasp for while, had she handled the distaff,
| the spindle and the shears at her own free
will, few in the world would have noticed the
change of government. There would have
been the same inequality of lot, the same
heaping up of iavors here. of coDtumely there,
the same generosity before justice, the same
perpetual dilemmas, the same captious inter-
change of caresses and blows, as those we
endure now.
She was in person full-limbed and some-
what heavy; without ruddiness, as without a
pallor; and soft to the touch as cloud. To
see her hair was to fancy that whole winter
did not contain darkness enough to form its
shadow. It closed over her forehead like
night-fall extuguishing the western glow.
Her nerves extended into those tresses, and
her temper could always be sotened by strok-
ing them down. When her hair was brushed
she would instantly sink into stiffness, and
look like the Sphinx. If, in passing under
one of the Egdon banks, any OF its thics
skeius were caught, as they sometimes were
by prickly tuft of the large Uler europgus
which will act as sort of hairbrush-sht
!. would 90 back few steps, and pass agains
it a second time.
She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mys
teries Their light, as it came and went
aud came again, was partially hampered b!
their oppressive lids and lashes, and of thes'
the under lid was much fuller than it usual,
is with English women. This enabled her t
indulge in revory without seeming to do so
she might have been believed capable O
. sleeping without closing them up. Assuming
that the souls OF men and women we're visibl
essences, you could fancy the color of Eusta
cia's soul to be flame-like. The sparks iron
it that rose into her dark eyes conduced L
the same impression.
The mouth seemed formed less to spea
than to culver, less to quiver than to kiss
Some might have added less to kiss than t
9 curl. Viewed sideways, the closing line c
: her lips formed, with almost geometric prec
sion, the curve so well known in the arts {
7 design, as the cyma recta, or ogee. Th
! sight of such flexible beUd as that on grit
J, Egdon was quite an apparltiOn. 1t was fe
at once that the mouth did not come fro,
, Sleswic with band of Saxon pirates, who's
lips met like the two halves of mufio. On
, had tanced that such lip-curv-s were mostl
q lurking underground in the South as frss
Q neuts of forgotten marbles; yet behold |!
, specimen was here; so fine were the lines
her lips that, though full each corner OF ht
mouth was as clearly cut as the point of
u spear. This keenness of coruer was oDl
/ bunied ~heu she was given over to sudde
q fits of gloom -one OF the phases OF the nigt
side OF sentiment which she knew toe we
for her years.
0 Her presence brought memories of Bou
n J bon roses, jacinths and rubies, a tropic