Blandford Weekly News. — 1886-08-07 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

THE MAGIC OF COMMON MIRRORS. Tux luxuries of one generation becanae, in not a few instances, the necessaries of the generations that succeed. In contra tin', the advantages now enjoyed by mankind in all civilised c.nintries with the meagre state of things in former times, people are apt to OW; on'y of the great chaages brought about by the introduction of ra;lasys, steamboats, and telegraphs, the use of steam as the propelieg power of machinery in factories, the aide diffusion of neaspapers and cheap literature, the perfecting of the postal system, or improvements.ni the lighting of houses, streets, and public buildings, while taking little account of the numerous household articles, considered indispensable to comfort, that were quite unknown .to. our forefathers, or the great nations of antiquity. Even the humbler Iticifer match-box is a priceless boon in comparison with the wretched old tinder-box over which our long-suffering grandmothers often lost their patience in attempting to strike effective sparks from flint and steel, and the sewing machine, which now oocupies the place of the antique spinningwheel, is highly prized by all industrious and thrifty housewives. With the looking-glass everyone has been so familiar from earliest childhood, and has got so accustomed to deem it a necessary article of household furniture, that there is sonic difficulty in realising how the operations of the toilet were ever carried on without its aid. Yet, though glass was known in this country in the third century, it was not till the thirteenth that glass mirrors, • with their backing of tinfoil and quicksilver, or fluid mercury, were invented, and it took a century or two more to bring them into anything like general use. Previous to that period the greatest beauties had to content themselves with metallic mirrors, by means of which they could only obtain a dium reflection of their charms. There is.an obvious anachronism in the employment of the word 4. looking-glasses," instead of metallic mirrors, by the translators of the Bible, when the material is described out of which Moses made the brass laver of the altar of burnt-offering, as the Jewish women who a&embled at the doer of the Tabernacle were much in the same position, in this respect, as the Roman women when the empire was in its glory. Tho metals chiefly used in Rome for the making of mirrors, a filch apprar to have been carried about in the hand like fans at a later epoch, were brass, kited, and silver, and an agate stone, susceptible of high polish, seems also to have been employed for the same pin pose. Pliny and Seneca, who were the censors of their age, made special reforeuce to the silver mirrors which Roman ladies carried about with them, as indicating the height of vanity and extravagance. Thu active servant-girl, who boasts of having scoured and polished some kitchen utensil till she can see herself in it, may alas lay claim to having extemporised a mirror equal in reflecting power to any that were possessed by the Chioes and Noieras of eluraical fame. It is truly sad to think that the queens of beauty in olden times—including the captivating Cleopatra, who led conquerors captive in silken chains, only got dim glimpses of their own personal attractions, and never really saw the full lustre of the eyes that bewitched the world. The fabled fountain in which Narcissus, seeing his own image reflected, be-came enamoured of it, and committed suicide because he could not kiss it, must have formed a clearer mirror than the steel or silver ones which were used by Grecian and Roman coquettes. In the Middle Ages, when plate-glass mirrors were still rarities, prieetcraft utilized them for engepdering superstitious fears by making thent the media of revealing to appalled eyes the apparitions of saints, and visions of a kind still more calculated to impress and terrify credulous minds. If glass mirrors • had been the invention of our own age, their superiority over metallic ones, in giving a clear reflection of the face and figure, would have brought them into universal use with a celerity quite impossible under the different conditions in which mankind lived in mediaeval timw. It is not to be denied that our modern mirrors, with all their advantages, may have aided somewhat in the development of vanity, and may likewise have contributed in no small degree to the spending of more time at the toilet than was customary in the remote peat. But the vainest, fortunately, cannot carry away with them anything more than a dim recollection of their own looks when they pass from before the mirror, into which they are too fond of gazing with undisguised self-admiration. The eurious circumstance that everybody identifies his or her own face in a looking-glass, but straightway forgets what it is precisely like, may help to accourt to some extent for the run that is made upon photographic saloons, portraits in oil being luxuries reserved for the rich or well-todo. Babies in arms feel the mystery of the mirror, showing symptoms of wonderment and uneasiness when they see only one small faco advancing and retiring, or bobbing up and down in it, but getting gradually reconciled to it when a larger, smiling, familiar face suddenfy appears beside what, they begin at last to fancy, must be the reflection of their own. Savages, after they get over their first astonishment, are quite delighted with hand-mirrors, which please the female portion of them infinitely better than trinkets or beads. David Livingstone, in the first narrative of his missionary travels and labours in South Africa, has given an amusing account of the ectasics into which a young Makololo woman was thrown when a haind-,oirror came accidentally in her way. Her thick-ripped mouth grinned from ear to ear, and the contrast between her ebony skin and two large rows of ivories evidently made her feel that she belonged to the highest type of Ethiopian beauty. She prized the glass so highly that she would have bartered her freedom for it at once. The lover animals are affected in different degrees by seeing their own images reflected in mirrors. In some instances pugnacious birds, fancying they saw a rival, have dashed against the glass, shivering it to pieces. Cats are not at all sure what to make of the retiectioll of themselves, until their curiosity leads them to go behind the looking-glass, inquiringly sniffing about, and when nothing can be discovered they jump down to the floor and leave the room in discontent or disgust.