Birmingham age-herald., 1895-07-28
DANES BEAUTY TALKS.
THE FOOT AND THE FOOT APPAREL
Cramped Feet and Tight, High-Heeled Shoes
 Are Unfashonable reatment for I '.a... Corns and Bunions.
BY DIANE DE MoRNY.

(CopyrIghted, 1895, by Diane de Morny)
 The Cinderella foot is passe de mode, and,if we have cause occasionally to re- gret a vagary or freak of the new woman she deserves to be eternally blessed for having made it the fashion of our feet to bear some harmonious pro- portion to the frame they are to support, and to have made it no longer true, as cleverly stated by a well-known author, that the length of woman's skirts IS directly proportional to the size of her feet and that women with large feet are always greatly shocked at the immodesty of those who have small pedal extreml- ties and are always trying to show them"
 Smallness alone was, in my girlhood. the test of beauty in feet, as 1 recollect it. l remember perfectly my mothers look of surprise and stern disapproval when I had to succumb to No. shoe, and how we were brought up on tradi- tion that our maternal grandmother had such tiny feet she always wore chil- dren's shoes in size and had her satin gaiters sewed on-her little feet each day that not even a silken lace might inter- fere with the lines of beauty and sym metry
 It Is really astonishing that we should have so long submitted to the tyranny of French heels and vice-ike foot-gear. I look at my Mo- flat-heeled, broad-Soled shoes in which I walk many and many a mile without fatigue, and try to recol- lect the time when 1 first required the services of a chiropodist. Simultane- ously with my adoption of proper shoes he disappeared from my acquaintanceS.
 Big Feet of Famous Women.
 It is true that small feet are consid- cred by many mark of aristocracy, but they certainly do not indicate su- periority of intellect for many brainy women of supreme intelligence have had la roo fpaf ay1 a 1f11- pie; and Mime. de Stael the most bril- liant woman intellectually of her day, had such large and ungainly feet that she was made miserable by the conscious ness of their undue proportions. Mime. de Stael once Ventured to assume the role of Greek statue in some tableaux vivants and was grievously offended by the witty Talleyrands bon mot that he recognized the impersonator at once by the pied de Stael."
 long hand and foot are said to in- dicate mental superiority and capacity for a larger grasp and a greater tenac- ity of purpose than smaller members. The proper size of a womans foot varies from 5a to inches-this is the foot which has been unrestricted from in fancy. and permitted to grow as freely as the head, without strcture of any kind The fashionable Chinese foot is about 31a inches in length, and l have seen the feet of women in modern Flu
  squeezing to almost Chinese proportions. Characteristics of @ Handsome Foot.
 A truly beautiful foot must first be free of all blemishes, and in perfect propor- tion to the leg and statue The instep should be high, or moderately high, and the portion under the instep hollow and we'll raised above the level of the sole, the toes regular and well developed, the heel narrow and non-projecting-the gen. eral outline of the perfect foot is long, slender and graceful. The toes of the beautiful foot, according to Flaxman. should follow each other imperceptibly in a graceful curve from the first to the fifth, and in the Greek foot, according to the most famous statues, the second toe was made longer than the great toe. The beauty of the longer second toe is dis puted. The skin of the main part of the foot should be of an almost marble whiteness and the toes and heels alone rosy pink.
 The present genera tions of girls should at least have feet free from all defects and bemishes, if not perfect in shape, for all daughters of sensible mothers have been shod for twenty years back with flat common sense heelless shoes No girl whose feet are thus attired ever has been known to suffer from corn, dis torted nail or even from callous spot.
 Sins of HigI Heels.
 The high French Feel is accountable not only for distortion of the first joint of the great toe. but for innumerable feminine internal complaints-besides which it is utterly impossible for any woman alive to walk or dance gracefully in high French heels. It is said that a fashionable French woman once asked famous artist how to acquire a grace ful carriage, and was told to take off her high-heeed shoes, place them on the top of her head and prac- tice walking until she could do so with out the little shoes showing the slight est culver of motion. When you can walk he said, with those shoes per- fectly balanced you will have the gait of a goddess, and for the first time since French heels were invented, they will really have served to help and not to dsfgure a woman"
 The Old and the New Foot.
 Du Maurier's description of Trilby's feet has done effective missionary work among us. I give it even though you all may have read it, for it is very perti- nent to this paper.
 Poor Trilby.'
 ",rhe shape of those lovely slender feet Ohat were neither large nor smalD, fac-similed in dusty pale, plaster of paris, survives on the shelves and walls of many a studio throughout the world, and many sculptor yet unborn has