Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-11-12
THE FADING BEAUTY.
Clinging 10 the Past, II Lavish with
Her Display of Charms rs They Be-
come shriEeled aud Dry.

The broken-down beauty is as melancholy
an example of having known better days as
Is the decsyed gentlewomau. She is even
more affecting to look at. The decayed gen.
uewoman is touching when one observes her
efforts to preserve some personal dignity and
command certain respect, on the strength
of having once possessed money and posi-
ton. She clings passionstely to the memory
Of the past, and fancies that the halo of
wealth and gentility still surrounds her,
even to common eyes. But the little delu-
sions and fond recollectious which gladden.
her existence sit cheerfully and with grace
upon her compared TO those which
make the broken-down beauty 30 sad spec
tacle. In going about the world one sees
this out-at-elbows queen at various stages of
her decay. She is a great theater-goer,
though she seldom understands the play, and
is generally much bored by it. Though ro-
nance is a word she cannot spell, and love
sentiHent Of very simple character to her
mind, she haunts the Iieata-a and NAV he
observed constantly at these places of amuse-
ment. She ia no longer a drawing-room
favorite; her invitations are few. Conse-
quently che regards box at the opera or a
stall at the theater as a nightly necessity of
her life; she must have something to dress
for, somewhere to go where she will find
much gas and many young men.
When she is beginning her downward
of youth about her, she always has some
staid dame with her, who neither has, nor
ever had any pretensions TO appearance.
This lady ia a part OF the toilet, as it were,
OF the overblown beauty. Her presence gives
an air of youth and innocence to her COM
panion, and her Incorporating face and
dress add to the effect OF the beauty's elab-
crate makeup. If gentleman is with
them, he must show himself, GER
tainly; but the lady who plays the Fart
of duenna in this little comedy is put well in
the front of the box, while the beauty her.
self peeps shyly round the curtain. Screened
like this, she may yet look very well, and
some o. the gay young creatures in the stalls,
gorgeous in spotless shirt-fronts and incipi-
ent mustaches, are pretty certain 10 be taken
in by her, and ogle her through their opera
glasses. This admiration is food and wine
to her; it makes her sleep that night The
friendly shadow of the box curtain gives her
deliberately made up complexion chance OF
looking like nature, and the stephanotis on
her head seems TO nestle most naturally into
the artificial coil and curls upon which it is
pinned. Her neck is young enough still,
and needs no creme when she wears the very
low-cut dress, which is her idea OF the cor
rect thing at the theater. Her day is not
quite over yet, she says to herself, when she
finds couple of very young men out of the
stalls waiting about The Iheaier steps to see
her get into her carriage. She drives home
a happy woman.
At this stage, though she is unmistakable,
she is not absolutely terrible; but as the
years pass on she becomes more and more
alarming Strange to say, as her youth
more completely vanishes from every MEM
DRY but her own, the illusions which support
her grow stronger. She begins to fancy
herself quite a giddy girl again; she gets
herself up in much more youthful style,
and she filings discretion to the winds. She
is seen out now without her duenna;; most often
we meet her leaning on the arm of some
very young man indeed. Heaven knows
how these young men are pressed into the
service; sometimes they are known to assure
their friends that she is their mother or
grandmother, even when these respected
relatives have long been laid in the grave,
or are quietly living in the coHntry. Prob
ably the ancient beauty pays her boy lovers
debts, and ties him to her heels in this way
| at all events, it is certain that young man
she will have, and does have. She makes
him take her to her beloved the.
| alter; she goes there in very, very
| low-necked dress; on her head she wear
| a golden wig, in imitation of the hair of 3
| girl Of sixteen; on the top of that pinned {
| red, red rose, which looks as old and crushed
| as its wearer. But she is happy; her Illusion
never desert her. She smirks with pleasur'
when people turn to fl amazed looks upon her
1t is certainly kind of that fate, which take
| from Us quickly all that we value most il
| life, 10 grant these happy Authorizations 4
| supplant what is gone. But the worst featur
| about the shriveled siren is that she SO stead
| lily makes it patent 10 all men that she ha
known better DAYS. The decayed gentle
woman and the ruined millionaire canno
bore us with their sorrows when we go TO BE
the play; whereas the woman who was one
| beauty not only does not conceal her fac
THAT melancholy relic of the past-but in
vsriably wears low dress, in order that W
may see for ourselves that her wealth is gon
indeed-London World