The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1901-03-30
THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY.
This Century Will Perhaps. See Great
Improvement in Human Loneliness.


The artist Carolus Duran, says that
to make humanity more beautiful will
be the duty of the coming century.
Not alone woman, but man, must come,
then, under this necessity. We have
too long lived In unhygienic and
health-hampering ways: but the new
century begins with ideas of physical
perfection, and the artistic expression
of that perfection which must work out
/ to their fullest extent. 1t is not alone
the wealthy who get the benefits of
/ sanitary living and the artistic edu-
cation of the eye as to the correct mod
els in form and face, but the children
OF the poor are trained in our common
schools to demand something else from
! living besides bread and butter. The
next century will see harmonious de-
velOpnlent of the human race.
This is as it should be, from the art
lists point Of view. 1t is his business
to represent types to us, and at first
thought the picture of world where
everybody shall be beautiful is an al
Turing one. But what about old age?
Will beauty conquer that? Or will
harmonious living bring the elixir of
life with it?. Even if we all could be
young forever, and all be physically
perfect together, would the world, in
the mass, be any more likable? This
reflection might inspire the satirist to
unnumbered slashes. There is the con-
venient and ancient topic, for one,
about feminine jealousies, which would
have nothing to feed upon if all women
were beautiful; half the novelists
would lose their occupation; the poets
would have nothing unusual to get into
a frenzy over; the stage would lack it's
most exciting scenes; the pulpit would
miss the point upon which it hangs so
many morals, and as for some Of the
yellow journals-they would go into
bankruptcy.
To make all humanity beautiful is to |
make life wonderfully tame, for hand
some people, like perfect characters,
would be immaculate bores. What Is |
beauty anyway? Is it not emphatically |
in the eye Of the beholder? With the
majority Of us our knowledge OF our
best loved friends only reiterates the
old philosophers quip-and we receive
them according to their appearance it
may be-but we entertain them from
their value to US. And in a larger
scope, the men who have made the
most stir in the world, if history tells
the truth, have often been anything
but models of physical beauty.
AS to the famous beauties Of fable,
nobody knows how they actually
looked. For all we know. Helen of
Troy may have worn number eight
shoes and been cross-eyed, but so long
rs Paris thought her the queen of beau
Ly, she was indeed worthy to set world
1t odds. Doubtless Cleopatra would be
no siren to modern tastes, but whether
she had the beauty that art and poetry
have given to her or not, she had that
;harm of temperament which defies
the touch of age and the frost Of ac-
luaintance.
No, personal and universal beauty
would have no standards. Even physical
;tandaTds of form which ranged to the
deal might pail. Who cares for the
deal too near? 1t was never meant to
,e set upon the common earth, in more
senses than one; it is thing to flee
before us and taunt as it fees. And
IS in the immaterial so in the material
rhe people we like the best of all are
he ones who suit us; a delightful!
ormula, which defies standards and
ompresses all the infinite sides of
,eauty into very faulty models-Min-
leapolis Tribune.