Asheville daily citizen., 1894-10-27
THE VALUE OF BEAUTY.
1t Is Lessened by the Growing
Respect for Education.
Plain Girls Are Plentiful But When They
Are Clever Their Plainness Is Not
So Much Noticed by Intelli-
gent Men.


Holy girls, IIappilv they are rare
Plain girls they are in plenty: and per.
haps, on the whole, it is better for the
peace of mankind that they should be
in the majority. But absolute downright
urliness is seldom met with. Irreru-
lari,v. insipnificance or want of har-
monv in the feotprcs Is NOT sufficient
to constitute holiness A hiph fore
head is NOWADAYS universally consid-
cred misfortune. saws the New York
Advertiser. Our rreat-rrandfathers
considered il quite the reverse. A
nasty complexion is, no doubt, calam-
ity; SO is the long upper lin, and so is
the large chin. But a girls face may
have one of these characteristics, it
may even possess them all, without be-
inr positively ugly. An intelligent
mind and gentle spirit NAV do won
ders in Transforming pale face, and
maxine il if not beautiful. at least at
tr,c,;vr And the proof of this is the
of,en.notad foct that many nlo;n. ,nd
,v,n urlv GIRLS ore led tn tbe altar.
xb;l, tboir bopdsomer s;sters ;nsnire
| admiration vithout WINNING love II
is when nloin or bodlv.formed features
are ,hc home Of stuniditv. when they
are unillumined bv n shark of sense or a
raw of generous feeling. that they
form n truly ugly face. Such faces
there are, and there are also faces east
bv naturc in so bad mold that moth.
| iur will render them attractive. anv
more than a deformed figure can be
rendered comely; but such ugliness is
almost as rare ns beauty itself,
A curious change has come over the
minds of men in respect to the beauty
of women; they seem to value it less
than they did; and this in spite of the
fact that beauty has of late wears be-
come rarer than ever. In the last cen
tury men would imperil their lives
cheerfullv for the mere privilege Of be-
ing considered beauty's champion,
Men do not toast rcigning bellies now;
there are no reignng bellies to toast.
Where are the love songs? llerrick
and Burns and licinc have no modern
compccrs. The chief reason for the
decline In the value men put upon
beauty is, no doubt, the superior edu-
cation of the nineteenth century girl.
Men have, by slow degrees, learned to
take pleasure in the society of women
who arc mentally their equals,
whether they are fair to look upon or
not, Many clever women really do
not seem to care two straws whether
they are good looking or i'll looking.
Their lives do not tend even to the
preservation Of such traces of comcli-
ness us nature may have bestowed
upon them. They study, and turn
heavy eyed and sallow; or they devote
themselves to some trade and profcs-
sion and acquire the strenuous, thin
Tipped visage by which the worker is
known; or perhaps they adopt the
physical as we'll as mental develop
ment, and ,se all grace Of form by vi
olent excr. Ise, and all delicacy of COM
plexion by exposure to the weather.
In word they become ugly girls, and
they do not mind it.
We do not know that the plain girl,
who can carry off her ugliness under
rattle of words and constant flow of
good spirits, is very much to be pitied.
But there are some ill-favored damsels
who really deserve commiseration-
those, namely, who are too painfully
aware of their deficiency in good looks
to forget it for moment. Strange as
the observation NAV sound to male
ears it is vet fact that there are
plenty of girls who, so far from feeling
vain of their personal appearance.
would not complain if fashion ordained
that they should veil their faces after
the manner of the east. Very likely
their mothers, from mistaken notion
of guarding them against feelings of
vanity, have spoken SO often in dis
paraging way Of their looks that they
have actually conceived a dislike for
their own personal appearance. They
are perfectly convinced that they pre-
sent an unpleasing, if not disagrceable,
spectacle to their fcllow-men; their
highest ambition is to render them
selves as little rcpulsive as possible. 1t
is not an easy thing to Imagine what
agonies shy and ugly girl may have
to endure, or how sweet to her arc the
marks Of respect and courtesies which
are too often monopolized by the prct-
ty girls Of n party, 1t Is undoubtedly
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