The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1907-03-21
HUMAN BEAUTY.
Individual Taste and Racial Tradi.
ton Determine II.

tne continent mas discovered the ba-
clllus Of beauty. All you have to do
is to get inoculated, or infected, and
then But the suggestion is per-
haps not polite. 1t is kind to assume
that you are already sick of this dis
ease, and to express hope that you
will never recover. There is some
humor in the notion: imagine the
conversation: "Oh, have you heard ?
Mary is III again" Good gracious,
what is it?" "Oh, another attack OF
beauty" Terribly catching. isn't It?
How did she get 1t this time? / hope
she'll get over 1t safely"
But fancies of such fascinating
conversation must not beguile us
from a sternly scientific treatment
OF the subject. II is difficult to be-
lieve that beauty is one with only
one bacillus. "The crimes of Clap
ham," as Mr.. Kipling has informed
us, are "chaste in Martaban," and
similarly the beauties of Clapham
would be howled at by the Martaban
smart set The beauty of China has
feet on which she cannot walk. The
beauty of the Orient is apt to weigh
twenty stone. Not to proceed to
horrid details concerning the nose
rings and chignons a la bone of
African Venuses, we have only to
look at home to see that one mans
beauty is another mans carlcature.
The typical English fair is made in
different mould from the beauty of
France, and the charms of Gretchen
are of another pattern still. Can one
poor bacillus produce such different
effects?
Beauty, in fact, is not definite
quality at ALL When Paris under
took to decide which of the three
goddesses was the most beautiful he
was fatuous beyond reasonable al
lowance for young men. No person
of sanity, even male, would under
take to arrange beauty in an order of
merit. So many marks for the nose,
so many for the mouth, and points
deducted for smirk-to that sort of
thing no one could be expected to
submit with any self-respect. God
desses in a fairy tale are, of course,
allowed conduct which would be i'm
possible to mortals in q world OF sin
and strife and influenza. We, who
are not goddesses, and lack alike abil-
ity and inclination for the part. may
do well to remember that there are
a thousand and one ways of being
beautiful and that there is sure to be
some misguided creature who thinks
the ugliest of us Is Helen of Troy.
Beauty is just as much in the eye
as in the object. There was Brown
ing, who professed that from any
Venus OF the sculptor 1--WE turn to
yonder girl that fords the burn" and
my Lord Byron, being of the same
mind, professed to have seen much
finer women ripe and real than all
their nonsense of stone IDEAL" but
then a man of letters of our own
day has publicly proclaimed his belief
that the Psyche In the museum at
Naples is more beautiful than any
walking woman. 1t is not only a
question of statues, either. How
many of us have been permitted
vision of loveliness only to wonder
what in the world people can see in
her."
These things are a mystery, but
they are mystery of comfortable
kind. If beauty were a quality which
could be estimated exactly like our
weight, some of us would be very
miserable. And the beautiful heavy
weights would be abominably con-
ceited. AS 1t is, everybody is per-
mitted II she so please to consider
herself a heavyweight, and think
lightly of everyone else. There gen.
orally are people, not always women,
who think lightly of the great beau
ties. If we had contemporary docu-
ments, we should probably find that
Andromache thought Helen of Troy
had a big mouth and q humpback.
We know that there were those who
sneered at Mary Queen of Scots and
Margot of Navarro. Just as one per.
son at least thought Mrs. Samuel
Johnson beautiful. So no one need
be discouraged.
All these questions of beauty are
like the application of condiments,
questions for the Individual And.
of course, all individuals make diff.
ferent answers. What is the use OF
being an individual If you agree with
somebody else? e?-London Telegraph.