Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-03-27
BETWEEN OURSELVES,

There is nv ''beauty." Now it is to be
b oped that no literalist will take it up as The
Scotchman did Charles Lamb when he showed
him the print of a graceful female after Leon
ardo da Vinci. al ventured to ask him how
he liked Ny Beauty "a foolish namo it goes by
among my friends), when he very gravely as
sured me that he had considerable respect for
my character and talents, $50 he was pleased
to say, but had not given himself much
thought about the degree of my personal pre-
tensions" By way of parenthesis, if anything
could make one dislike rugged, crusty old
Carlyle it would be his captious and even cruel
estimate of gentle Ella as given in the auto
biography edited by Froude. Just listen to
him: "His talk contemptibly small, indicat-
ing wondrous Ignorance and shauowneBs,
even when 1T was serious and good hammered,
which it seldom was, unusually illmannered
Ito a degree), screwed into frosty artificial
ties, CHASTITY make-belieye of wit, in fact
more like diluted insanity las ] defined it)
than anything of real jocosity, humor or gent
ality. A most slender fibre of actual worth
in that poor Charles, abundantly recognizable
to me as to others, in his better times and
moods; but he was Cockney to the marrow.
In the eyes kind of smoky
brightness or confused sharpness; spoke with
stutter; in walking tottered and shufied;
emblem of imbecllity bodily and spiritual,
(something of real insanity Ihaye understood,
and yet something, too, of human ingenious,
pathetic. sportfully, much enduring.''
Aye, Sage of Chelsea, you seem to have a
glimmer of the truth In those final words.
When You dismiss Lamb and his hapless
sister as ia very sorry pair of phenomena
the question rises whether in you would be
apparent "a most slender Abre of actual worth
as in that poor Charles" which would impe3
you to similar heroism of lifelong devotion.
You, with all your inferential greatness, who
were anything but 'sportfully much endur-
ing" over the burnt manuscript of your
French revolution, lent to John Stuart
Mill and used by his laundering servant to
kindle fire.
1t required all the sympathy, wordy and
actual, ofdarling JEANNE, " condoling and en-
couraging like nobler second self-and O,
penitently liberal, much macerated, changed,
and fantlcised John Stuart Mill" who sent him
s2o0.
All this pow WOW about the loss of a manu-
script which had reasonable hope of reproduc-
Ing as good as ever land did) against the cheer.
full resignation of Charles Lamb to the mos,
woeful lot that could be given a man. He did
not write of his inevitable misery as Carlyle
did his of reparable task" tried cautious
cautiously, as on ice, paper thin, once more,
and in short, had a job more like breaking my
heart than any other in my experience" Then
hink of that poor Charles with hissleuder fibre
of actual worth" taking his sister to the mad
house IN her recurring symptoms Of insanity,
and parting sorrowfully with her at the stile,
where some one once saw them mournfully
separating. Working patiently-pathetic,
| sportfully much enduring, that poor Charles
stands better chance of immortality through
that slender fibre of actual worth than Thomas
Carlyle, with all his massive and iconoclastic
verities.
Now, then, as we were about to say, our
beauty, too, IS print. Yonder on the wall is
the picture of an Englshwoman of rank, which
is striking for the unmistakable stamp of high
breeding, her than for any remarkable
beauty of face. There Is chiseled finish OF
outlines, a confguration of chin and brow ia.
dicative Of such inherent and inherited refine
ment as to make it a study in tracing the ia
fuences which brought about the admirable
result.
There is nothing 80 variable as peoples
ideas of beauty, and the instances are fairly
historic where circle, and community, viii
recognize by acclaim alton, as it were, the beau
ty of some woman, such az Recamier's, Pauline
Bonaparte's, Betsey Patterson's and, eheu,
Mrs. Langtry's, which is too much on the
professional and self-asserting or self-obtrud-
ing sort to rank with the others.
In sooth, any beauty which is a perpetual
challenge to thepublic gaze, is despoiled of its
chief attraction. What is oftentimes the
charms of loneliness is the glimpse, the 1ntima.
ton, the swift and shifting suggestion OF
finer lights and shadows-rather than the un-
varying target OF good looks for every rowing
eye to master the secret of, which is set out
for the admiration of every vulgar regard, and
liz on constant Photographic dnty.
This is the commonplace beauty which al
Wdto lOOh5 tIC S1luCS duu ntituS Luc Same ~
the average anlooker. Nothing is left to the
imagination, and there Is no margin for any
idealizing.
It may be described as the chubby dimpled
and the heavy full-faced ford plebeian
stages of good looks, when the color is al
ways threatening red in youth, and SO pro-
nounced in maturity that it is coarse and
veinous. The nose will have the turn, the
pinch, or the depression which will always
give the owner away even in palace,
and compromise the innocent and as
piring offshoots-that is when Maud Muller
by some passing freak of the judge, gets law
fully transplanted to his home and exchanges
one rake for another.
Ills beauty which never fades; the world
is full of it. It grows rank, and there is no
preserve for it. 1t is in the kitchen, and anon
it is promoted by Swinburnean sort of elec-
ton to the parlor. Right or left hand it is en-
couraged and propagated.
Romola Is the typical woman standing end
lessly in grand loneliness, while Tito, the typi-
cal man in fckleness, treachery, and insensibil-
ity, runs after Tessa with eurls, dimples, red
cheeks and childish wistfulness, about getting
her first taste of the hidden or forbidden fruit.
;o4n hx, k,h;