Year: 1877

Europeans generally concede that our


American women are handsome, though


they say they are so fragile that they early


lose their freshness, and with it much Of their


beauty. They particularly remark the


tendency Of our women to grow thin with


years, while we remark the tendency Of


their women to the accumulation Of flesh


as soon as they have passed their youth,


and often even before that period, While


we must allow that our women are, for the


most part, lacking in roundness, there are


few Of US, we imagine, who would not in-


fnitely prefer the New World slenderness


to the Old World stoutness. A medium


between two might be the standard of the


becoming, and this medium we seem to be


approaching slowly perhaps but steadily.


The opinion of the thinness of the femi-


nine part of the nation is based rather on


what has been than on what is The


majority Of our women are still too lean


for beauty, but they are far less thin than


they were twenty-five or even fifteen years


ago


This fact-for fact it unquestionably is


can scarcely have escaped observation.


1t is noticeable everywhere, particularly


in large towns and cities, and is due to


different causes, all of which are easily


recognized The feshiness of a people


depends largely on the age and develop


ments of their country. Where every
thing is new and, in certain sense, raw,
as in this land, there is very little leisure or
repose. Our entire energies are directed
TO our advancement; our minds are absorb
ed by thought Of the future, and what
it promises. We hardly take time to get
flesh; we think and fret off that which we
have acquired, instead of acquiring more.
Our women do not perform so much phys
ical labor as our men, but they work
longer in their way and worry more; and
anxiety or any form Of mental disturbance
insures meagreness as nothing else does.
These live quite comfortably through the
mind to live too much through the body,
and the body suffers in consequence. Iu
the Old World everything is fixed. The
future is not likely to be different from
the present; there is small occasion for
witfulness or solicitude. Material condi-
tions are not usually so favorable there as
here; but they are permanent, and by
their permanence, especially by the clear
understanding that they are so, they beget
content, whence adipose matter Ameri-
can women neither work nor worry as they
used The republic is more developed,
things are more settled, somewhat of the
European feeling is creeping into the
national mind, and less thinness is the
result.


American women take vastly better
care of themselves than formerly. They
have more acquaintance with hygienic
and hold them in far higher esteem. The
days when they exposed themselves to
dampuess and wintry cold in thin slippers
and silk stockings; when they pinehed
their waists to semi-suffocation; when they
sacrificed comfort and health to what they
conceived to be their appearances-those
foolish and unhappy days have gone for
ever, have barely been known to the rising
generation. Our women now have mawk-
ish and morbid notions as to themselves;
they no longer think that to be unhealthy
is to be attractive; the inyalidism and
interestingness are synonymous; that pale
faces and compressed lungs are tokens of
beauty. They dress seasonably they
wear thick boots and warm clothes in bad
aud cold weather; they allow themselves
to breathe freely, and they find their looks
improved not injured, by the wholesome
change. There are exceptions, many of
them, doubtless, but the rule is as we have
described, and the expections are constant
ly diminishing. 1t may be safely said
that all sensible women are becoming, if
they have not yet become, converts to
Nature, and that they heed her behests,
recognizing the great principle that what
is not natural cannot be beautiful.


Little more than quarter Of century
ago young American women were ashamed
to show hearty appetite in public. They
were infected with the Byronic philoso-
ply; they wanted to be spiritual--as if all
true spirituality did not rest ON sound
physical conditions-and to look elegantly
wretched Many Of them had half their
wish; they looked wretched, but not ele-
CANT. They were charged with drinking
vinegar, eating slate pencils, and commit
ting other monstrous absurdities. They
may have been unjustly accused, but their
theories warranted the accusation. All
such nonsense belonge to the past. Amer
ican women to-day eat as much as they
want, and more wholesome food than they
once ate; they walk more; court the open
mir; cultivate their bodies as well as their
minds; believe in perfect digestion, un-
broken sleep, the glow and glory of
unbemished health. No wonder their
proportions are fuller, their cheeks more
blooming, their eyes brighter, their step
more elastic. The growth of the country
and their own common sense are serving
them generously. The scrawny, sallow,
peaked woman, if she be educated and
fairly placed, will ere long cease to be the
type Of the middle-aged American woman.
With the steady development of the re-
public, the increased case of circumstances,
and their complete health, American
women will be comelier and rounder, as
The are comelier and rounder, now than
hey have been External and internal
assure this. They are not like
y to become gross and obese, as SO many
'f their European sisters are, the character
Of the country, its institutions and its at
with their own temperament,
will preserve them from that Harper's
Basar,.


Keep What You've Got.