Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1894-05-09

WOMAN'S WITCHERY.
1T WAS POSSESSED BY NOTED CHAR
ACTERS IN HISTORY.

The Paradox of Fascination Over Men With
out the Slightest Traces of Beauty-The
Age at Which Woman Reaches Her Full
est Powers.
What, asks Walter Besant, is wom-
ans greatest charm? Sweet looks,
sweet speech, sweet smiles, sweet voice,
lovely eyes, comely head, graceful
figure-all these are gifts and graces to
be ardently desired. Yet there is one
gift that surpasses all the rest. At the
Royal academy in London there are the
portraits of three women, Lady Hamil
ton, Mrs. Jordan and Sophie Arnould.
The lovely Emma is a type of rustic
beauty at its best-not refned-likely
to become coarse Mrs. Jordan shows,
behind charming face, intellect, wit,
cleverness and gentle heart. Sophie
Arnould shows greater wit, greater clev-
erness and heart not so gentle per-
haps. On each of the faces there is i'll
addition Enthusiastically the same quail
ity, rare and wonderful. 1t is the quail
ity for which there is no other word
than witchery. These were all three
witches, but instead of being burned at
the stake they set fire to every mascu-
line heart that approached them. And
the noble procession of fair women
Delilah, Bathsheba, and her contem-
porary, Helen of Troy; Aspasia, Cleo
patra, Diane de Poitiers; Mary, queen
of Scots; Nell Gwynne-they were all
witches, and they all possessed the Won
derful, understandable look which pro-
claims their mysterious power of fas-
cination. Many there are who have
this fairy's gift in a greater or less de-
gree. Providentially few know their
own power and are content to bewitch
one man alone out of all the earth.
And what is the secret of this giftf
1t is certainly not faultless beauty, for
it is perfectly comprehensive para
dox that as a rule the women who have
been noted for the fascination of their
beauty were not pretty women at all.
Anne Boleyn had many PLASTIC defects.
The Duchess of Burgundy, who lit up
in the old age of Louis XIV and the
court of Versailles and neutralized the
morose influence of Nine. de Mainte-
non, had goitrous neck and decayed
front teeth, yet she was proclaimed a
beauty. Marguerite de Valois, with
men of her day were at some time OF
another desperately in love, had heavy
cheeks, too prominent eyes and thick,
hanging under lip. The last Duchess
de Berri would not have been allowed
to so much as compete at beauty show
had she presented herself incognito. Sir
Walter Scott, who was close to her at
mass in the Tuileries chapel, wrote in
his diary that she was plain, and that
her eyes were not fellows.
At what age is this charm most SUBJ
tie? Swift wrote with cruel candor of
Stella's fading charms and sent her as
a birthday gift rhymed Receipt to
Restore Her Lost Youth at period
that we should consider the prime Of
life. The caustic dean of st. Pat
rick's wondering
How angels look at thirty-siX.
proves a sharp contrast to the more
modern writer, George Lewes, wig in
his Life of Goethe" speaks of 80 as
the fascinating period in woman's
life, being that in which he considered
her to have reached the full develop
ment of her powers of mind and body.
And 33 was the age at which Frau Won
Stein proved dangerous to the heart of
the poet who had survived the more
youthful charms of Gretchen, Char
lotte and Lii. The line between
jeune file and vieille file is, in the po-
lite land of the French, drawn with a
sharper and more merciless hand than
in our own; yet it is the glory of that
French lite, with its clear and practi-
cal limitations and its alteration of
youthful beauty, to have presented the
finest flower of courtesy that the world
has ever know to women who had lost
the charms of early youth and ruled the
minds and even the hearts of men by
their wit and their wisdom, their vi
vacity and their grace. 1t is impossible
to read the descriptions of salon life in
Paris without realizing the immense
power of such women as Nine. de Ram
bouillet, Nine. Deffand, who could toll
crate anything but the commonplace;
Nine. Necker, her brilliant daughter,
Nine. de Stael, and her cherished friend,
Nine. d'Houdetot, exercised in literary,
social and political matters.
1t is interesting to see how the age Of
the heroine of the modern novel differs
from that of older writers. Out of 80
of Scott's heroines 16 are described as
under 20, three are over 20, and only
one, Amy Robsart, is heroine "of an
uncertain age, since she is historical
ly a middle aged matron and fictitious
ly youthful bride. But the conspicu-
GUS character of the modern novel is a
woman, not girl, who has lived and
experienced much, and not infrequently
ismarried before the story introduces her
as its central figure.-New York Sun.
Welded Bliss.
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