Part 3

Advocate as I am for a fine complexion, you must perceive, that it is for the _real_, and not the _spurious_. The foundation of my argument, _the skin’s power of expression_, would be entirely lost, were I to tolerate that fictitious, that dead beauty, which is composed of white paints and enamelling. In the first place, as all applications of this kind are as a mask on the skin, they can never, but at a distant glance, impose for a moment on a discerning eye. But why should I say a _discerning eye_? No eye that is of the commonest apprehension can look on a face bedaubed with white paint, pearl powder, or enamel, and be deceived for a minute into a belief that so inanimate a “whited wall” is the human skin. No flush of pleasure, no shudder of pain, no thrilling of hope, can be descried beneath the encrusted mould; all that passes within is concealed behind the mummy surface. Perhaps the painted creature may be admired by an artist as a well-executed picture; but no man will seriously consider her as a handsome woman.

White painting is, therefore, an ineffectual, as well as dangerous practice. The proposed end is not obtained; and, as poison lurks under every layer, the constitution wanes in alarming proportion as the supposed charms increase.

What is said against white paint, does not oppose, with the same force, the use of red. Merely rouging leaves three parts of the face, and the whole of the neck and arms, to their natural hues. Hence, the language of the heart, expressed by the general complexion, is not yet entirely obstructed. Besides, while _all_ white paints are ruinous to health, (occasioning paralytic affections, and premature death,) there are some red paints which may be used with perfect safety.

A little vegetable rouge tinging the cheek of a delicate woman, who, from ill health or an anxious mind, loses her roses, may be excusable; and so transparent is the texture of such rouge, (when unadulterated with lead,) that when the blood does mount to the face, it speaks through the slight covering, and enhances the fading bloom. But, though the occasional use of rouge may be tolerated, yet my fair friends must understand that it is only _tolerated_. Good sense must so preside over its application, that its tint on the cheek may always be fainter than that nature’s pallet would have painted. A violent rouged woman is one of the most disgusting objects to the eye. The excessive red on the face gives a coarseness to every feature, and a general fierceness to the countenance, which transforms the elegant lady of fashion into a vulgar harridan.

While I recommend that the rouge we sparingly permit, should be laid on with delicacy, my readers must not suppose that I intend such advice as a means of making the art a deception. It seems to me so slight and so innocent an apparel of the face, (a kind of decent veil thrown over the cheek, rendered too eloquent of grief by the pallidness of secret sorrow,) that I cannot see any shame in the most ingenuous female acknowledging that she occasionally rouges. It is often, like a cheerful smile on the face of an invalid, put on to give comfort to an anxious friend.

That our applications to this restorer of our usual looks should not feed, like a worm, on the bud it affects to brighten, no rouge must ever be admitted that is impregnated with even the smallest particle of ceruse. It is the lead which is the poison of white paint; and its mixture with the red would render that equally noxious.

There are various ways of putting on rouge. Frenchwomen in general, and those who imitate them, daub it on from the bottom of the side of the face up to the very eye, even till it meets the lower eye-lash, and creeps all over the temples. This is a hideous practice. It is obvious that it must produce deformity instead of beauty, and, as I said before, would metamorphose the gentlest-looking fair Hebe into a fierce Medusa.

For brunettes, a slight touch of simple carmine on the cheek, in its dry powder state, is amply sufficient. Taste will teach the hand to soften the color by due degrees, till it almost imperceptibly blends with the natural hue of the skin. For fairer complexions, letting down the vivid red of the carmine with a mixture of fine hair powder, till it suits the general appearance of the skin, will have the desired effect.

The article of rouge, on the grounds I have mentioned, is the only species of positive art a woman of integrity or of delicacy can permit herself to use with her face. Her motives for imitating the bloom of health, may be of the most honorable nature, and she can with candor avow them. On the reverse, nothing but selfish vanity, and falsehood of mind, could prevail on a woman to enamel her skin with white paints, to lacker her lips with vermilion, to draw the meandering vein through the fictitious alabaster with as fictitious a dye.

Penciling eye-brows, staining them, &c., are too clumsy tricks of attempted deception, for any other emotion to be excited in the mind of the beholder, than contempt for the bad taste and wilful blindness which could ever deem them passable for a moment. There is a lovely harmony in nature’s tints, which we seldom attain by our added chromatics. The exquisitely fair complexion is generally accompanied with blue eyes, light hair, and light eye-brows and lashes. So far all is right. The delicacy of one feature is preserved in effect and beauty by the corresponding softness of the other. A young creature, so formed, appears to the eye of taste like the azure heavens, seen through the fleecy clouds on which the brightness of day delights to dwell. But take this fair image of the celestial regions, draw a black line over her softly-tinctured eyes, stain their beamy fringes with a sombre hue, and what do you produce? Certainly a fair face with _dark_ eye-brows! But that feature, which is an embellishment to a brunette, when seen on the forehead of the fair beauty, becomes, if not an absolute deformity, so great a drawback from her perfections, that the harmony is gone; and, as a proof, a painter would immediately turn from the change with disgust.

Nature, in almost every case, is our best guide. Hence the native color of our own hair is, in general, better adapted to our own complexions than a wig of a contrary hue. A thing may be beautiful in itself, which, with certain combinations, may be rendered hideous. For instance, a golden-tressed wig on the head of a brown woman, makes both ridiculous. By the same rule, all fantastic tricks played with the mouth or eyes, or motions of the head, are absurd, and ruinous to beauty. They are solecisms in the works of nature.

In Turkey, it happened to be the taste of one of its great monarchs, to esteem large and dark-lashed eyes as the most lovely. From that time, all the fair slaves of that voluptuous region, when nature has not bestowed “the wild-stag eye in sable ringlets rolling,” supply the deficiency with circles of antimony; and so, instead of a real charm, they impart a strange artificial ghastliness to their appearance.

Our countrywomen, in like manner, when a celebrated _belle_ came under the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, who exhibited to her emulative rivals the sweet peculiarities of her long and languishing eye, they must needs all have the same; and not a lady could appear in public, be her visual orbs large or small, bright or dull, but she must affect the soft sleepiness, the tender and slowly-moving roll of her subduing exemplar. But though Sir Peter’s gallant pencil deigned to compliment his numerous sitters by drowning their strained aspects after the model of the peerless _belle_, yet, in place of the nature-stamped look of modest languishment, he could not but often recognize the disgraceful leer and hideous squint. Let every woman be content to leave her eyes as she found them, and to make that use of them which was their design. They were intended to see with, and artlessly express the feelings of a chaste and benevolent heart. Let them speak this unsophisticated language, and beauty will beam from the orb which affectation would have rendered odious.

Analogy of reasoning will bring forward similar remarks with regard to the movements of the mouth, which many ladies use, not to speak with or to admit food, but to show dimples and display white teeth. Wherever a desire for exhibition is discovered, a disposition to disapprove and ridicule arises in the spectator. The pretensions of the vain are a sort of assumption over others, which arms the whole world against them. But, after all, “What are the honors of a painted skin?” I hope it will be distinctly understood by my fair friends, that I do not, by any means, give a general license to painting; on the contrary, that even rouge should only be resorted to in cases of absolute necessity.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON DRESS AND PERSONAL DECORATION.

“Costly your habit as your purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy, For the apparel oft proclaims the woman.”

SHAKSPEARE.

Every person of just observation, who looks back on the fashions of our immediate ancestors, and compares their style of dress with that of the present times, will not hesitate to acknowledge the evident improvement in ease and gracefulness. When I say this, I mean to eulogize the taste which yet prevails with persons of real judgment, to maintain the _ease and gracefulness_ of our assumed Grecian mode, against a new race of stay-makers, corset-inventors, &c., who have just armed themselves with whalebone, steel, and buckram, to the utter destruction of all the naturally-elegant shapes which fall into their hands.

Just before this attempted counter-revolution in the world of fashion, we found that our _belles_ had gradually exploded the stiffness and formality which distinguished the brocaded dame of 1700, from the lawn-robed fair of the nineteenth century. In former ages it seemed requisite that every lady should cut out her garments by a certain erected standard. All seemed in a livery. One mode for gown, cap, and hat prevailed; and though the materials might be more costly in one than another, the outline was the same; and thus peculiar taste and fine form were lost, in the general prescription of one reigning costume.

But in our days, an Englishwoman has the extensive privilege of arraying herself in whatever garb may best suit her figure or her fancy. The fashions of every nation and of every era are open to her choice. One day she may appear as the Egyptian Cleopatra, then a Grecian Helen; next morning, the Roman Cornelia; or, if these styles be too august for her taste, there are sylphs, goddesses, nymphs of every region, in earth or air, ready to lend her their wardrobe. In short, no land or age is permitted to withhold its costume from the adoption of an Englishwoman of fashion.

“Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here The various offsprings of the world appear; This casket India’s glowing gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.”

With such a variety to choose from, she has no excuse, if she unite not the excellences of them all. It was so that the sculptor of Paphos formed the “beauteous statue that enchanted the world.” And in like manner female taste accomplishes its object. A judicious dresser will select from each mode that which is most distinguishable for utility and grace, and, combining, adopt them to advantage. This is the art which every woman who casts a thought on these subjects, ought to endeavor to attain.

Elegant dressing is not found in expense; money without judgment may load, but never can adorn. You may show profusion without grace: You may cover a neck with pearls, a head with jewels, hands and arms with rings, bracelets, and trinkets, and yet produce no effect, but having emptied some merchant’s counter upon your person. The best chosen dress is that which so harmonizes with the figure as to make the raiment pass unobserved. The result of the finest toilet should be an _elegant woman_, not an elegantly dressed woman. Where a perfect whole is intended, it is a sign of defect in the execution, when the details first present themselves to observation.

In short, the secret of dressing lies in simplicity, and a certain adaptation to your figure, your rank, your circumstances. To dress well on these principles--and they are the only just ones--does not require that extravagant attention to so trivial an object, as is usually exhibited by persons who make the toilet a study. When ladies place the spell of their attraction in their clothes, we generally see them arrayed in robes of a thousand makes and dyes, and curiously constructed of materials brought from, Heaven knows where. Thus, much time, thought, and wealth, are wasted on a comparatively worthless object. To lavish many of the precious hours of life in the invention and arrangement of dress, is as criminal an offence as to exhaust the finances of your husband or parents by a thriftless expenditure on its component parts.

The taste I wish to inculcate, is that nicely-poised estimation of things, which shows it “worth our while to do _well_, what it is ever worth our while _to do_.” This disposition originates in a correct and delicate mind, and forms a judgment which makes elegance inseparable from propriety; and extending itself from great objects to small, reaches the most apparently insignificant; and thus, even in the change of the morning and evening attire, displays to the considerate observer a very intelligible index of the wearer’s well-regulated mind.

“Show me a lady’s dressing-room,” says a certain writer, “and I will tell you what manner of woman she is.” Chesterfield, also, is of opinion, that a sympathy goes through every action of our lives: he declares, that he could not help conceiving some idea of people’s sense and character from the dress in which they appeared when introduced to him. He was so great an advocate for pleasing externals, that he often said, he would rather see a young person too much than too little dressed, excess, on the fopish side, wearing off with time and reflection; but if a youth be negligent at twenty, it is probable he will be a sloven at forty, and disgustingly dirty at fifty. However this may be with the other sex, I beg leave to observe, that I never yet met with a woman whose general style of dress was chaste, elegant, and appropriate, that I did not find, on further acquaintance, to be, in disposition and mind, an object to admire and love.

This correspondence between the thoughts and the raiment being established, what was before insignificant becomes of consequence; and, being rightly understood, good sense will be as careful not to disparage her discretion, by extravagant dress, as she would to evince a sordid mind, by dirt and rags.

I think I see you, my friends, smile, incredulous, at the last sentence. What gentlewoman, you exclaim, who is above the most abject pecuniary embarrassments, can ever have chance of being so apparelled? A desire of singularity is a sufficient answer. There is a race of women, who, priding themselves on their superior rank, or wealth, or talents, affect to despise what they deem the adventitious aids of dress. Their appearance, in consequence, is frequently as ridiculous as disgusting. When this folly is seen in female authors, or what is much the same thing, ladies professing a particularly literary taste, we can at once trace its motives,--a conceited negligence of outward attractions, and a determination to raise themselves in the opinions of men, by displaying a contempt for what they deem the vain occupations of meaner souls. Wishing to be thought superior to founding any regard on external ornament, they forget external decency; and by slatternliness and affectation, render what is called a learned woman, a kind of scare-crow to her own sex, and a laughing-stock to the other. This error is not so common now with bookish ladies as it was in the beginning of the last century. Then our sex did, indeed, show that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” They did not imbibe sufficient to imbue them with a sense of its real properties, to show them causes and effects, to make them understand themselves, and close the book in humility. They, poor short-sighted creatures! exchanged the innocent ignorance of Eve for the empoisoned apple, which, under the cheat of displaying knowledge, fills the eater with a vain self-conceit, while it more openly exposes her mental nakedness to every eye.

The absurdity of their deductions is so obvious, that one wonders how any woman could fall into such an error. Who among them but would think it the height of folly to place over the door of a museum, to which the proprietor wished to attract visitors, the effigy of a monster, so disgusting as to deter men from entering to see what might otherwise have afforded them much pleasure? Such effigies might the slip-shod muses of the days of Anne have given of themselves; but most of the modern female votaries of Minerva, aware of the advantages of a prepossessing appearance, mingle with their incense to the Goddess a few flowers to the Paphian Graces; and, that they gain by the devotion, none who have been admitted to the acquaintance of our British Sapphos and Corinnas, can deny.

There is another class of persons, who neglect their exterior on account of the consequence they derive from their rank; but instances on such a plea are few, in comparison with the insolent slovenliness of the opposite sex, when, springing from the lower degrees in society, they amass or acquire large fortunes. They aim at notoriety; and common means, such as expense and show, not raising them into an _eclat_ beyond their equally rich contemporaries, ambition leads them to seek notice by the assumption of a garb of almost pauper negligence. I remember, some years since, when on a visit at a large seaport town in the north of England, to have been attracted by seeing at the door of a handsome house in one of the principal streets an elegant modern chariot. I stopped, and, to my surprise, saw step into it an old man of the meanest and most dirty appearance. A few days afterwards, while viewing the docks with a gentleman who was an inhabitant of the place, I observed the same wretched-looking person conversing familiarly with a man of the first consequence in the town. I inquired of my friend the name and business of the shabby old fellow, and received the following brief answer. He had been taken, when a boy, from very indigent parents residing in a northern village; and, being a smart lad, was employed in the drudgery of a banking-house belonging to his benefactors. By assiduous application, and a deep cunning, aided by what is vulgarly called _good luck_, he gradually advanced himself to be one of the firm. Of course, his fortune then rose with the house, and his wealth, at the time I saw him, was computed at upwards of a hundred thousand pounds. Yet I am sure that an old-clothesman would not have given half-a-crown for the whole of the apparel (or rather rags) upon his back.

Now, as it is too often the custom with people, in forming an opinion, seldom to go beyond the surface, this modern AVARO was, by many, termed _a man without pride_! Few gave a guess at the real motive of all this studied negligence; but those who investigate the human character, and trace actions to the secret springs of the heart, saw, in this inattention to personal decency, the very acmé of personal pride. I shall prove my position by repeating the usual reply of this old man, when any of his acquaintance ventured to inquire why he wore such tattered garments. “Why,” he would answer, “were I to dress as smart as other people, no one would know T. W. from another man.”

Men may fall into this mistaken road to distinction, but women who have suddenly become wealthy seldom do. A passion for dress is so common with the sex, that it ought not to be very surprising, when opulence, vanity, and bad taste meet, that we should find extravagance and tawdry profusion the fruits of the union. And it would be well if a humor for expensive dress were always confined to the fortunate daughters of Plutus; but we too often find this ruinous spirit in women of slender means, and then, what ought to be one of the embellishments of life is turned into a splendid mischief. Alas! my friends, it must come under your own observations, that often does the foolish virgin, or infatuated matron, sell her peace or honor for a ring or a scarf!

A woman of principle and prudence must be consistent in the style and quality of her attire; she must be careful that her expenditure does not exceed the limits of her allowance; she must be aware, that it is not the girl who lavishes the most money on her apparel that is the best arrayed. Frequent instances have I known, where young women, with a little good taste, ingenuity, and economy, have maintained a much better appearance than ladies of three times their fortune. No treasury is large enough to supply indiscriminate profusion; and scarcely any purse is too scanty for the uses of life, when managed by a careful hand. Few are the situations in which a woman can be placed, whether she be married or single, where some attention to thrift is not expected. High rank requires adequate means to support its consequence--ostentatious wealth, a superabundance to maintain its domineering pretensions; and the middle class, when virtue is its companion, looks to economy to allow it to throw its mite into the lap of charity.

Hence we see, that hardly any woman, however related, can have a right to independent, uncontrolled expenditure; and that, to do her duty in every sense of the word, she must learn to understand and exercise the graces of economy. This quality will be a gem in her husband’s eyes; for, though most of the money-getting sex like to see their wives well dressed, yet, trust me, my fair friends, they would rather owe that pleasure to your taste than to their pockets!

Costliness being, then, no essential principle in real elegance, I shall proceed to give you a few hints on what are the distinguishing circumstances of a well-ordered toilet.

As the beauty of form and complexion is different in different women, and is still more varied, according to the ages of the fair subjects of investigation; so the styles in dress, while simplicity is the soul of all, must assume a character corresponding with the wearer.

The seasons of life should be arrayed like those of the year. In the spring of youth, when all is lovely and gay, then, as the soft green, sparkling in freshness, bedecks the earth; so, light and transparent robes, of tender colors, should adorn the limbs of the young beauty. If she be of the Hebe form, warm weather should find her veiled in fine muslin, lawn, gauzes, and other lucid materials. To suit the character of her figure, and to accord with the prevailing mode and just taste together, her morning robes should be of a length sufficiently circumscribed as not to impede her walking; but on no account must they be too short; for, when any design is betrayed of showing the foot or ankle, the idea of beauty is lost in that of the wearer’s odious indelicacy. On the reverse, when no show of vanity is apparent in the dress--when the lightly-flowing drapery, by unsought accident, discovers the pretty buskined foot or taper ankle, a sense of virgin timidity, and of exquisite loveliness together, strikes upon the senses; and Admiration, with a tender sigh, softly whispers, “The most resistless charm is modesty!”

In Thomson’s exquisite portrait of Lavinia, the prominent feature is modesty. “She was beauty’s self,” indeed, but-then she was “thoughtless of beauty;” and though her eyes were sparkling, “bashful modesty” directed them