Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-07-09
Plair Women.

a writer in the Strand Magazine rails
es \paean in praise of plain women. =
They exist" says he-or is it she?-
they exist and form a definite factor
in our social economy" The statement
is undeniable. Starting from this solid
ground, the writer proceeds:
Not all of us are blessed with good feat
ures, soft eyes, fine figure, and a clear
complexion. Some of us are born with dull
skins wide mouths, and snub noses and
not all the arts of dress and toilet can
make us pretty, or even presentable. But
all the same plain women live and thrive
and now and then make brilliant marriages
In fact one has only to use ones eyes to
see that some ugly women have for men
quite a weird power of attraction His
tory teaches us this; for we are told in
several instances, of uncomely women who
have ruled the destinies of men and ma
tons. Catherine of Russia and Mime de
Maintenon had no looks; and Mary Queen
of Scots, who has gone down to fame as Il
beauty. appears in her pictures as thin,
small-eyed, and hard featured. Indeed only
one portrait is said to exist in which she is
shown as fair haired and lovely and this
hangs in Dalkeith Palace, and belongs TO
the Duke of Buccleuch.
1t may not be so difficult to account
for the success of plain women if one
stops to think. Regularity of feature and
freshness of color do not make up all
that is interesting in a face. Some
countenances homely enough in repose
are relieved by so much animation and
irradiated by so much goodness, shining
through them like lamp set in a win
dow, that they become positively beauti-
full in the eyes of beholders. One who
has acquired this grace can hardly be
classified among the plain women" any
more.
Physical LONELINESS is often associated
with beauty of moral character perhaps
for the reason that q plain girl has
~ from
beautiful sister, and is therefore more
likely to devote herself to her books
and her needle, and the care of her lit
tie brother and sisters.
To a certain extent beauty is in the
eye of the beholder and a woman ap-
pearing plain to one man may seem the
perfection of loneliness to another. There
are some who judge beauty not by what
they see but by what they hear of a
person. There are those who are ant
to appraise their feminine acquaintance
in the spirit of the old proverb that
handsome is that handsome does"
There is a law of compensation which
affects women as well as men, and gives
personableness to different people at diff
ferent ages. How many glowingly beau
tiful children have grown up very com
monplace-appearing women and meni
Silver hair sometimes softens and beau
titles face which was not especially
iii'eA eStihs NHSh Ai1iHeu an bfoWn- Inefe
are even now some women who never
learned how to dress becomingly until
their children were grown up and they
secured a respite from the duties Of
the household. 1t is probably safe
statement that there are not so many
people now as there used
to be. In Hogarth's time there were
more bottle-noses and facial disfgure-
ments of other kinds than there are now
Smallpox, moreover. had marked q
large proportion of the population. Per
haps an era is approaching when there
viii be no more plain women or plain
men,