Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1890-02-01
Beauty is Not Essential.

coula ever De other than blessing is due, as much
as anything else, to those old supersttions of the
Middle Ages, by means of which every lovely
woman was liable to the suspicion of being devil
IN disguise Much of the treatment of women in
those dark days sprang from the ideas born largely
OF monkish dreams and the forms of temptation
which those dreams assumed, when chapters were
written in holy books TO prove why women were
especially fit for the business of sorceresses, YAM
pires and witches. ''The wise Solomon" saws the
gist of one of these chapters, 'has often in his
writings given the feminine sex a sad but true tes
timonial; and the holy Chrysostom says What
is woman but an enemy of friendship, an unavoid-
able punishment, necessary evil, natural temp
taton, a desirable afflcton, constantly flowing
source OF tears, wicked work of nature covered
with shining varnish"
"Already had the first woman entered into
sort OF compact with the DEVIL should not then
her daughters do it also? The very word femina
(woman) means one wanting in faith, for fe
means faith and minus less Since she was
formed of crooked rib, her entire spiritual nature
has been distorted and inclined more towards sin
than virtue. If we here compare the words of
Seneca woman either loves or hates; there is no
third possibility, it is easy to see that when she
extreme and hate him. 1t is thus clear why women
are especially addicted to the practice of sorcery"
But monkish dreams are not facts: thew diss-
pate into thin air in the light of today, and we
know that beauty is no other than perfection in its
own type. Can the possession of perfection, then
be anything but blessing and is it not something
In its very essence apart from all conception of
evil? Beauty, says Anne Whitney,
Is friend
And darling of the universe; and day by day
She comes and goes but dies,
So precious is she in the eternal eyes,
and shall she be less precious in our own?
Yet, in plain everyday experience, many in the
world do well enough with but small share of
special blessings, contented with small share of all
blessing; and The blessing of beauty, according to
an arbitrary and abstract standard seems to be
vital necessity to none. But if not according to
an abstract Standard yet beauty of some sort,
it is evident, is a necessity to those who
love If not to those who are loved, else
would not every eye make its own beauty, and the
faculty of making it render its absolute possession
OF little consequence, the lover seeing Helens
beauty in'the brow of Egypt, finding any other
beauty unessential
the type Of the italian Aphrodite who
Fresh as the foam, new bathed in Paphan wells,
With rosy slender fingers backward drew
From her own brows and bosom her deep hair
Ambrosal golden round her lucid throat
And shoulders,
or of as great departure from that or any other
type as that of the bride of Sir Gawaine was,
Then there as should have stood her mouth
Then there was set her eye,
The other was in her forehead fast
The way that she might see
yet Aphrodite was no fairer to the shepherd of
Mount Ida than Sir Gawaine's BRIDE whatever she
was to others, became to him, for the face that is
pleasant to loving eyes is to all intents and pur-
poses beautiful. For all this, whenever the civil
lied world speaks of beauty, it has fixed idea
and standard of comparison; it may be neither Of
dark nor fair, Greek nor Jew, but of something