The Penn's Grove record., 1884-05-03
Manufactured Beauty,

There is a large class which Is SO
DESTROYS of admiration that, in its pur-
SUIT, any deceit isconsidered justifable.
The climax of this theory is reached
when the old lady of So, the aged pa
troness of many charlatans, is held up
to admiration because-at a little dis
tance-she would pass for 30. Proudly
her "makers up' point out how this
effect is produced; her hair is false, her
skin is enameled-besides being slight
ened," to prevent wrinkles-her eye
lashes are stained, her figure is ''made."
She is false all over. Now, Is this adj
mirable? Would not a little honest old
age and ugliness be more agreeable?
Be this as it may, it is not very impor-
tant. When a lady has reach the ma
ture age of IS her appearance troubles
no n very much, except her grand
children.
But when it comes to the lady whom
you love, or might love if you were
quite certain that she was genuine, the
case is different 1t is bad to know
that your dear Angela must sleep in
stays, or she never, never could attain TO
the fashionable waist; 1t Is sad to think
of the inevitable result on her poor little
feet of those Louis Quinze heels which
make her pretty boots look SO bewitch-
ing. But such sins as these, such trif-
lings with the human frame divine are
things too common to complain of.
When Angela's hair slowly, hut surely
changes It's color, that, too, must be
borne in silence, even if the new shade
is nothing like so becoming as its pre-
decessor. But when you begin to fancy
Angela's nose is growing Grecian-
when at last you are positive that a
change has taken ~place-tlen it is not
nice to guess that Angela, in the sweet
hours of sleep, wears a nose machinel
The picture is not pretty or pleasant;
how much worse it must appear to the
sufferers. Figure to yourselves what
it must feel like to take your beauty
sleep with a pair OF pincers on your
nose. That pretty old-fashioned ex-
preston has now taken a new and
dreadful meaning. Any one who de-
sires topossess the 'Mrs. Langtry nose"
has but to sleep in torment for a week
or two and the great result is obtained.
If the figure of the would-be beauty
Is not as lovely as she wishes, 'the
anatomical corset-maker' will supply
her with a nocturnal sleeping apparatus
which will ''ine her down by degrees. "
If her stature is too low for beauty she
may remedy this by wearing what is
mildly called an ''appliance;' in the
days of the inquisition it would proba-
bly, have been classei as an instrument
of torture. This appliance squeezes
and stretches all the lower part of the
body, and its use is said not to inter-
fere with the comfort Of ones beauty
sleep.
1t is not, as a rule, positively ugly
women who make themselves suffer in
these various ways; 1t is the Woman
who just falls short of being a beauty.
Some blemish stands in her way; like a
heroine she resolves to remove it. She
is unconscious Of how great a step the
first is. Once having weakened her
moral sense on the subject of artificial
ity, she is ready to be the victim of the
quacks and charlatans who lives on the
proceeds of pigments and powders and
instruments of torture. Only, it is I'M
possible to disguise the fact that beauty
does not only lie in the shape of the
nose or the color of the cheeks. The
mysterious charm of expression has
more to do with 1T than all the details
Of the toilet put together. One instinc-
lively distrust the man who affects a
virtue though he has it not, so one but
doub fully admires the woman who
processes to be a beauty though she is
none.