Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1901-03-13
THE PURSUIT or BEAUTY.
This Century VIII, Perhaps, See Great
Improvement in Human Loneliness.
thu L

to make humanity more beaut
be the duty OF the coming
Not alone woman, but man, mu
then, under this necessity.
too long lived in unhygie!
kealth-hamparing ways; Tut
century begins with ideas Of
the wealthy who get the be-.
sanitary living and the arts
cation OF the eye as to the correct mou,
els in form and face, but the children
of the poor are trained in our common
to demand something else fror,
living besides bread and butter. The
next century will see harmonious de-
Velopmeat 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 a world where
everybody shall be beautiful is an al
Turing one. But what about old age?
VIII beauty conquer that? Or will
harmonious living bring the elixir of
life with it? Even ii 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 sl.shes. 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 its
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 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
as Paris thought her the queen of beau
ty, shewa indeed worthy to set world
at 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
charm of temperament which defes |
the touch of age and the frost of ac-
quaintance.
No, personal and universal beauty |
would have no standards. Even physical |
standards of form which ranged to the
ideal might pail. Who cares for the
ideal too near? 1t was never meant to
be set upon the common earth, in more
senses than one; it is thing to flee
before us and taunt as it fees. And
as in the immate'ial so in the material.
The people we like the best of all are
the ones who suit us; a delightful
formula, which defes standards and
all the infinite sides of
beauty into very faulty models.-Min-
neapolis Tribune.