The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-15
FOR FEMININE READERS
SHOULD A MOTHER TALK TO HER
DAUGHTER ABOUT HER BEAUTY.
The Typical Southern Woman Is a
Truly Feminine Creature--The
Jersey" Coming Again.

With what anxious solicitude do these
mothers teach the art of graceful carriage
of the young figure, and due Difference by
degree to the great ones of the earth, the
etiquette and conventional proper thing
at all the varying forms of social gather
ings, says 'Idler," in the New York Post
What minute directions are given as to
minor social duties, and what care of the
lesser sources of personal beauty, the hair
and hands etc. Should string of lovely
pearls come to her by inheritance, she is
taught their value told how to wear them,
and she learns how to compare them with
the more or less costly necklaces of her
friends; but the dover of her own personal
beauty is passed over in silence, and the
responsibility of her personal endowments
of every character lie there untouched and
unexplained.
1t is not often that she hears from her
mother that she has had the unmeasurable
gift of attraction which a lovely face i'm
parts intrusted to her nor learns that with
it she has received the power to make or
mar many lives, and that to win by it love
and admiration entails relative result for
which she is answerable. Seldom, indeed,
is she directed to fear that she will wound
mems hearts toward her, and yet more
rarely is she hidden so to use her influence
as to require that he who is received into
the nearest circle of her friends must bring
a clean record of manly life as his entrance
title.
From whom except a mother can she
learn what she is, what she possesses, and
what she is meant to accomplish with her
Her cir
eyed public, the lorgnette of the staring
opera-goer, the fervid compliments of the
world she mingles in, and, if she is the child
of man of Importance, alas! even the pub
lie prints, tell her broadly enough that she
is beautiful; yet constantly you hear moth
ers say that they fear to make their daugh-
tiers vain by speaking to them of their beau
~. You cannot hide even from child that
she has this rare possession; surely then
it is the plainest duty to dignity and emo
bic the dangerous gift, to purify and up
lift it by trying to make the owner use it
with the unselfiSh sincerity which cannot
deceive, with the modesty which banishes
coquetry, and to live up her endowment, so
that men must feel that her loneliness only
symbolizes her goodness, and that only he
can win who is worthy.
L earnestly believe that to the lack of ma
ternal counsel-counsel which is not for oc
casons but which realizes that attaining
maturity has transformed her child into a
woman who has to encounter the problems
of life, not as a spectator or passively but
as an active participant in the effort to
solve them aright-are owing half of the
miserable failures of modern married life
1t seems a clearly implied duty to make
plain TO the untried, unknoWing girl that
betrothals mean more than the receiving
of costly rings, many congratulations, and
Increased freedom, and that marriages are
not made up and defined by beautiful
trousseaux, elaborate wedding festivities
and a gay honeymoon.
Why should not this entrance into the
world be treated as a thing which, how
ever great its interest may be as an episode
in her life, is far more Accordingly interest
ing as the opening of the door through
which her mind and heart are TO find their
place and work? Why should not her
mother make her comprehend her possibili-
ties, her dangers, her duties? Why should
she not be made to realize what she Is
capable of for good evil, as fully as she
would be warned and guided if the world
were a wilderness and her dangers physi-
cal? Let her know that her liberation
from school and schoolmasters is not meant
to give her leave to live like a butterfly
and without rule, but that life is to be to
her q new educator, and that she has du-
ties and limitations under the new regime
far more severe and defined than those she
has left behind.
Her heart will not be heavier for the
higher hope her thoughts will not brood
over the exposed dangers; but she will de-
Velop a nobler, stronger character and inn
bibe a wholesome pride in her own Inn
portance in the great drama in which she
is to take part.
l have spoken as if beauty alone was to
be the mothers ground for counsel, but
wit, charm, the sorcery and magic of fas-
cination, all lie waiting for the wise words
and tender hand which are to guide them
to ennObling use. The mothers heart needs
little tutoring to find an inspiring, eleVat-
ing way to advise the use of all the vary
ing powers, half developed or sometimes
yet latent in her daughters character, and
only she is rightfully their guide.