Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-15

S$frgDMp the charming lips that
p tremble, the sweet rose
tint that pales and fushes upon the rounded
cheek
Out of school the pretty girl has her little
beaux long before her skirts reach the tops
of her boots, and at all the juvenile parties
and other devices for teaching children the
follies of their elders, the beauty carries off
the desirable partners and the prettiest
favors. learns to distribute her smiles as
carefully as ber elder sisters, and enjoys the
triumph of filling the hearts of all the
palmer girls with jealousy and miserable
envy.
Older grown, the girl or woman of un-
doubted beauty cannot walk the streets, or
90 to a theater, or even to church, without
hearing and seeing at every step the admi-
ration she evokes. From the laborer, who
rivals in feeling, if not in wit, him who
begged the beautiful Countess to pause a
moment that he might light his pipe at her
upon her with benlgnant smile, every man
pays her homage-yes, and very many
women do so, too.
CHARMING OBJECT.
For my own part, know no more charm
ing object in all this charming world than
beautiful girl, radiant with the dewy fresh
ness of her youth. and glorious in the PAN
oply of her loveliness. When she appears
in society, the spelling process of the nur-
sery is intensified and amplifed. Partners
politely elbow each other to reach her card
before it is filled, the incest men in the room
a1 4ha
gracious welcome upon so decided an at
traction, and the host exhausts himself in
grateful panegyric. Artists beg the privilege
of reproducing that charming face and form,
in marble, in clay, in paint, in crayon, upon
the Photographic plate; poets write verses
whole volumes OF them-and stately essay
lists beg permission to dedicate to her, works
that they know she will never read. She
may marry every week in the year if she
mas not already bound herself and the most
Brutus-like of senators will undertake any
thing she wishes if she will only do her own
lobbying.
Is all this success? A hasty assent rises
from the serried ranks of the great sister
hood of unattractive women-they who have
worn out their youth in humiliating loneli-
ness and neglect, who have tried to satisfy
a craving appetite with the crumbs that fell
from an overloaded table of the beauty, and
who have cried their poor, pale little eyes
red and ugly at seeing Adonis. turn from
them with hasty bow to run after Aurelia,
already surrounded with admirers.
LOOKING AHEAD.
But stop minute. Look forward, my
child, some 20 or 80 years, when Aurelia
and you shall be climbing together the
steep path of middle life. Listen to the
voice of the world about you then; listen to
Adonis, himself a middle-aged man with
waistcoats, gloves and shoes a good deal
roomler than he wears to-day. "That the
former Miss Blank Why, she is hardly
more than good-looking. How she must
have gone off, ''They say she has de-
veloped temper since she is not so much
surrounded as she used to be-" "Poor
thing! 1 am glad che has developed some
thing, for 1 always found her nonentity."
come spiteful FOOL ETC., etc.
Poor Aurelia, spoiled in the nursery,
never learned to put aside her own whims
or plans, or to listen to those of others.
Never reproved for selfshness and passion,
those i'll weeds grew apace in her nature;
and, unlike virtues, these vices grow
stronger in the weakness of our failing
strength of body and mind.
INDUCED at school, Aurelia never studied
more than she felt like doing, and as her
mind was full of last nights conquests and
to-day's amusement, she felt like studying
very little, and consequently graduated
from school in ravishingly beautiful gown
and flowers, and was therein photographed
as the beauty of her class, but with a vague
idea that Athens is the capital of Italy. and
that Burgoyne was French admiral.
TASTE FOR READING
is not to be cultivated in the life beauty
lives, even if the root is in her nature; and
the consequence is that at 40 years old
Aurelia has neither exact information nor
brilliant gleanings to make her conversa-
tion interesting, and the chance is that she
talks mostly of herself and nextly
of her neighbors, treating these topics
in a manner neither interesting nor
amiable.
And now comes In the question of wealth;
and with the faded beauty this is very i'm
portant question, for if beauty in its bloom
is sure of admiration, wealth at every stage
of life is sure of attention and Difference
Aurelia, however gone off," however
stupid, however spitetul, is sure of a place
in society if she is only rich enough to pay
for it. and will find her little platitudes
Adonis, Jr. if he wants an invitation to her
Aurifera at her villa in Newport.
Mounted upon her golden chariot, Au-
relia drives gayly on through life, and no.
body but her maid hears the means or sees
the bitter tears of impotent rage with which
she bewails her lost youth and beauty, and
marks the progress of some fresh young
Bonnibel who pays to her all innocently the
respect due to her years instead of the hon.
age all used, to pay to her charms.
For time is 10 respecter either of beauty /
or of wealth, and has with grim smile |
robbed Aurelia of her hair, her teeth. her |
complexion, the light of her eyes, and the !
arch of their lids; ne has spoiled her figure,
the elastic grace of her movements, the flash |
of her smile, and her unwearied capacity |
for amusement and interest. One by one |
he takes them all, and the wealth of For |
tunatus can only very lamely repair or hide |
his ravages. Better, perhaps, if the wealth |
is not there, and Aurelia is forced to stand |
confessed beauty who has lost her beauty |
and her charm, and who is forced in self |
defense to cultivate some other mode of at
traction. For wealth, although. it will buy
attention and Difference and many other
pleasant things, will not buy love or SYM
pathy.
And, worst of all, as age creeps on, there
comes creeping with it the suspicion which |
is in itself con iession of defeat-the dread |
lest those who appear most desirous of pleas
ing or serving the rich woman do it for
their own advantage. While she was young
and fair, Aurelia never dreamed that money
could be more of an attraction than her own
bright self; and when she begins to suspect
that this may be the fact, she ceases to be-
lieve in herself, and this is the most miser-
able loss the heart of man or woman can en-
counter.
BOTH ARE GOOD THINGS.
Do I, then, mean to say that beauty and
wealth are not good things and not to be