The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-11-02
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 InteIII-
gent NIeD.

haps, on the whole. tits better for the
peace of mankind that they should be
in the majority But absolute downright I
uglineSS is seldom met with. Irregu-
larity, insignificance or want of har-
mony in the features is not sufficient |
to constitute ug1iness. A high fore
head is nowadays universally consid-
cred a misfortune, says the New York |
Advertiser. Our great-grandfathers
considered it quite the reverse. A
pasty complexion is, no doubt, calam-
ity; so is the long upper lip, and so is
the large chin. But a girls face may
have one of these characteristics, it
may even possess them all, without be-
ing positively ugly. An intelligent
mind and a gentle spirit may do won
ders in transforming n pale face, and
making it, if not beautiful, at least at
tractive. And the proof of this is the
often-noted fact that many plain, and
even ugly, girls are led to the altar,
while their handsomer sisters inspire
admiration without winning love. 1t
is when plain or badly-formed features
are the home of stupidity, when they
are unillumined by spark of sense or a
ray of generous feeling, that they
form a truly ugly face. Such faces
there are, and there are also faces cast
by nature in SO bad a mold that moth
ing will render them attractive, any
more than a deformed figure can be
rendered comely; but such ugliness is
almost as rare as 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 years be-
come rarer than ever. In the last cen
tllry men would imperil their lives
cheerfully for the mere privilege of be-
ing considered beauty's champion.
Men do not toast reigning bellies now;
there are no reigning bellies to toast.
Where are the love songs? Herrick
and Burns and Heine have no modern
compeers. 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 are 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 comeli-
ness as nature may have bestowed
upon them. They study, and turn
heavy eyed and sallow; or they devote
themselves to some trade and profess
sion and acquire the strenuous, thin
Tipped visage by which the worker is
known; or perhaps they adopt the
physical as well as mental develop
ment, and lose all grace of form by vi
o1ent exercise, and all delicacy of COM
TO1oviOT1 nv To ho IoT-
In a 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 a
rattle of words and a constant flow of
good spirits, is very much to be pitied.
But there are. some ill-favored damsels
who really deserve confederation
those, namely, who are too painfully
aware of their deficiency in good looks
to forget it for moment. Strange as
the observation may sound to male
ears, it is yet a 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 a dis
paraging way of their looks that they
have actually conceived dislike for
| their own personal appearance. They
are perfectly convinced that they pre-
sent an unpleasing, if not disagreeab1e,
spectacle to their fellow-men; their
highest ambition is to render them
selves as little repulsive as possible. 1t
is not an easy thing to imagine what
agonies a shy and ugly girl may have
to endure, or how sweet to her are the
marks of respect and courtesies which
are too often monopolized by the pref
ty girls of a party. It is undoubtedly
one of the distinctive marks of the
gentleman that he pays woman all
the little attentions that the usages of
society require of him, whether she is
young or old, handsome or ugly.
Men often excuse themselves for at
tendance on plain young women on the
i ground that they are not only ILL
looking, but ill-tempered. There is too
/ much truth in the charge. But the
ugly girl is not without excuse. The
consciousness that no man or woman
cares to look at her face a second time,
Joined to the sensitiveness she has ac-
quired, is apt to sour her temper; and
this, in its turn, tends to increase her
ugliness. Yet it is singular fact that
if man, for any reason, pays marked
attention to plain girl, she is apt to
hold her chin half an inch higher in
the air than a good-looking girl would
do under the same circumstances. 1t
would be futile to inquire into the rea-
sons of this tendency on the part of
ugly girls to give themselves airs; but
the fact is patent to all men.
American Idolators.