The Somerset reporter., 1894-02-15
WOMAN'S WITCHERY.
1T WAS POSSESSED BY NOTED CHAR
AcTeRS IN HISTORY.

The Paradox of Fascina ion Over Men With
out the slightest Traces of Beauty-The
Age at which wo nan Reaches Her Fail
est Powers.
What. asks Walter Besant, is wom-
ans greatest charm? Sweet looks,
sweet speech, sweet smiles, sweet voice,
lovely eyes, a comely head, a graceful
tigure-all these are gifts and graces to
be ardently desired. Yet there Is enc
gift that surpasses all the rest AT the
ROYAL academy in London there are the
portraits of three women, Lady Ham1l-
ton, Mrs. Jordan and Sophie Arnould.
The lovely Emma is a type of rustic
beauty at its best-not refined-likely
to become coarse. Mrs. Jordan shows,
behind charming face, intellect, wit,
cleveruess and gentle heart Sophie
Arnuuld shows greater wit, greater cleV-
erness aud heart not SO gentle per
hans. On each of the faces there Is IN
addition Enthusiastically the same quail
ity. rare and wonderful. It 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 wynne-they were all
witches, and they all possessed the Won
derful, indescribab 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 bewltch
one man alone out of all the earth.
And what is the secret of this gift?
1t is certainly not faultless beauty, for
it is "A perfectly comprehensive para
dox that as IA rule the women who have
been noted for the fascination of their
beauty We're 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 Mime. de Mainte-
non, had "a goitrous neck and decayed
front teeth, yet she was proclaimed a
beauty Marguerite de Valois, with
whom most of the prominent French
men Of her day were at some time or
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 Tuile1ies chapel, wrote III
his diary that she was plain, and that
her eyes were not fellows.
AT what age is this charm most sub
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-sx,
proves a sharp contrast to the more
modern writer, George Lewes, who in
his Life of Goethe speaks Of 33 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