very common article. Indeed, if we are to accept the innocent
ebullitions of the callow youths who drink beer and play skittles
in the Social-Paragraph line of journalism, and who in their soft
guilelessness are taken in and “used” by certain ladies of a type
resembling Miss Skeggs and Lady Blarney in the _Vicar of Wakefield_,
we are bound to believe that beautiful women are as common as
blackberries, only more so. In the columns devoted by newspaper editors
to the meanderings of those intelligent persons, male and female,
who sign themselves as Onlookers, Observers, Butterflies, Little
Tomtits, and what may be called “I Spys!” generally, one hardly ever
sees the name of a lady without the epithet “beautiful” tacked on to
it, especially if the lady happens to have money. This is curious,
but true. And supposing the so-called Beautiful One has not only
money, commonly speaking, but heaps of money, mines of money, she is
always stated to be “young” as well. The heavier the bullion, the
more assured the youthfulness. If unkind Time shows her to be the
mother of a family where the eldest sprout is some twenty odd years
of age, the complaisant “I Spy” is equal to the occasion and writes
of her thus--“The beautiful Mrs. Juno-Athene brought her eldest
girl, looking more like her sister than her mother.” Whereat Mrs.
Juno-Athene is satisfied,--everybody smiles, and all things are cosy
and comfortable. If any one should dare to say, especially in print,
that Mrs. Juno-Athene is not “beautiful” at all, nor “youthful” in
either looks or bearing, there would be ructions. Somebody would get
into trouble. The “I Spy” might even be dismissed from his or her post
of social paragraphist to the Daily Error. Heaven forbid that such a
catastrophe should happen through the indiscretion of a mere miserable
truth-monger! Let Mrs. Juno-Athene be beautifully and eternally young,
by all means, so long as she can afford to pay for it. The humbug of it
is at any rate kindly and chivalrous, and does nobody any harm, while
it puts money in the purse of the hardworking penster, who is compelled
to deal delicately with these little social matters sometimes, or else
ruminate on a dinner instead of eating it.
Nevertheless, despite the “I Spys,” and the perennial charms of Mrs.
Juno-Athene, beauty is as rare and choice a thing as ever it was in the
days of old when men went mad for it, and Greeks and Trojans fought for
Helen, who, so some historians say, was past forty when her bewitching
fairness set the soul of Troy on fire. A really beautiful woman is
scarcely ever seen, not even in Great Britain, where average good looks
are pleasantly paramount. Prettiness,--the prettiness which is made
up of a good skin, bright eyes, soft and abundant hair, and a supple
figure,--is quite ordinary. It can be seen every day among barmaids,
shop girls, and milliners’ _mannequins_. But Beauty--the divine and
subtle charm which enraptures all beholders,--the perfect form, united
to the perfect face in which pure and noble thought is expressed in
every feature, in every glance of eye, in every smile that makes a
sweet mouth sweeter,--this is what we may search for through all the
Isles of Britain, ay, and through Europe and America and the whole
world besides, and seldom or never find it.
Nine-tenths of the women who are styled “beautiful” by the society
paragraphist, possess merely the average good looks;--the rest are
generally more particularly distinguished by some single and special
trait which may perchance be natural, and may equally be artificial,
such as uncommon-coloured hair (which may be dyed), a brilliant
complexion (which may be put on), or a marvellously “svelte” figure
(which may be the happy result of carefully designed corsets, well
pulled in). Most of the eulogized “beauties” of the Upper Ten to-day,
have, or are able to get, sufficient money or credit supplied to
them for dressing well,--and not only well, but elaborately and
extravagantly, and dress is often the “beauty” instead of the woman.
To judge whether the woman herself is really beautiful without the
modiste’s assistance, it would be necessary to see her deprived of
all her fashionable clothes. Her bought hair should be taken off
and only the natural remainder left. She should be content to stand
_sans_ paint, _sans_ powder, _sans_ back coil, _sans_ corsets, in a
plain white gown, falling from her neck and shoulders to her feet, and
thus cheaply, yet decently clad, submit herself to the gaze of her
male flatterers in full daylight. How many of the “beautiful” Mrs.
Juno-Athenes or the “lovely” Lady Spendthrifts could stand such a test
unflinchingly? Yet the simplest draperies clothe the Greek marbles when
they are clothed at all, and jewels and fripperies on the goddess Diana
would make her grace seem vulgar and her perfection common. Beauty,
real beauty, needs no “creator of costume” to define it, but is, as the
poets say, when unadorned, adorned the most.
Now it is absolutely impossible to meet with any “unadorned” sort
of beauty in those circles of rank and fashion where the society
paragraphist basks at his or her pleasure. On the contrary, there is
so much over-adornment in vogue that it is sometimes difficult to
find the actual true colour and personality of certain ladies whose
charms are daily eulogized by an obliging press. Layers of pearl enamel
picked out with rouge, entirely conceal their human identity. It is
doubtful whether there was ever more face-painting and “faking up” of
beauty than there is now,--never did beauty specialists and beauty
doctors drive such a roaring trade. The profits of beauty-faking are
enormous. Some idea of it may be gained by the fact that there is a
certain shrewd and highly intelligent “doctor” in Paris, who, seeing
which way the wind of fashion blows, brews a harmless little mixture of
rose-water, eau-de-cologne, tincture of benzoin and cochineal, which
materials are quite the reverse of costly, and calling it by a pretty
_sobriquet_, sells the same at twenty-five shillings a bottle! He is
making a fortune out of women’s stupidity, is this good “doctor,” and
who shall blame him? Fools exist merely that the wise may use them.
One has only to read the ladies’ papers, especially the advertisements
therein, to grasp a faint notion of what is being done to spur on the
“beauty” craze. Yet beauty remains as rare and remote as ever, and
often when we see some of the ladies whose “exquisite loveliness”
has been praised for years in nearly every newspaper on this, or the
other side of the Atlantic, we fall back dismayed, with a sense of the
deepest disappointment and aggravation, and wonder what we have done to
be so deceived?
Taken in the majority, the women of Great Britain are supposed to
hold the palm of beauty against all other women of the nations of
the world, and if the word “beauty” be changed to prettiness, the
supposition is no doubt correct. It is somewhat unfortunate, however,
that either through the advice of their dressmakers or their own
erroneous conceptions of Form, they should appear to resent the soft
outlines and gracious curves of nature, for either by the over-excess
of their outdoor sports, or the undue compression of corsets, they are
gradually doing away with their originally intended shapes and becoming
as flat-chested as jockeys under training. No flat-chested woman is
pretty. No woman with large hands, large feet, and the coarse muscular
throat and jaw developed by constant bicycle-riding, can be called
fascinating. The bony and resolute lady whose lines of figure run
straight down without a curve anywhere from head to heel, may possibly
be a good athlete, but her looks are by no means to her advantage.
Men’s hearts are not enthralled or captured by a Something appearing
to be neither man nor woman. And there are a great many of these
Somethings about just now. I am ignorant as to whether American women
go in for mannish sports as frequently and ardently as their British
sisters, but I notice that they have daintier hands and feet, and less
pronounced “muscle.”
At the same time American women on an average, are not so pretty
as British women on the same average. The American complexion is
unfortunate. Often radiant and delicate in earliest youth, it fades
with maturity like a brilliant flower scorched by too hot a sun,
and once departed returns no more. The clear complexion of British
women is their best feature. The natural rose and white skin of an
English, Irish or Scottish girl,--especially a girl born and bred in
the country, is wonderfully fresh and lovely and lasting, and often
accompanies her right through her life to old age. That is, of course,
if she leaves it alone, and is satisfied merely to keep it clean,
without any “adornment” from the beauty doctor. And, though steadily
withholding the divine word “beauty” from the greater portion of the
“beauties” at the Court of King Edward VII. it is unquestionably the
fact that the prettiest women in the world are the British. Americans
are likely to contest this. They will, as indeed in true chivalry they
must, declare that their own “beauties” are best. But one can only
speak from personal experience, and I am bound to say that I have never
seen a pretty American woman pretty enough to beat a pretty British
woman. This, with every possible admission made for the hard-working
society paragraphist, compelled to write of numerous “beautiful”
Ladies So-and-So, and “charming” Mrs. Cashboxes, who, when one comes to
look at them are neither “beautiful” nor “charming” at all.
But British feminine prettiness would be infinitely more captivating
than it is, if it were associated with a little extra additional
touch of vivacity and intelligence. When it is put in the shade, (as
frequently happens,) by the sparkling allurements of the Viennese
coquette, the graceful _savoir faire_ of the French _mondaine_, or
the enticing charm of lustrous-eyed sirens from southern Italy, it
is merely because of its lack of wit. It is a good thing to have a
pretty face; but if the face be only like a wax mask, moveless and
expressionless, it soon ceases to attract. The loveliest picture
would bore us if we had to stare at it dumbly all day. And there is
undeniably a stiffness, a formality, and often a most repellent and
unsympathetic coldness about the British fair sex, which re-acts upon
the men and women of other more warm-hearted and impulsive nations,
in a manner highly disadvantageous to the ladies of our Fortunate
Isles. For it is not _real_ stiffness, or _real_ formality after
all,--nor is it the snowy chill of a touch-me-not chastity, by any
means,--it is merely a most painful, and in many cases, most absurd
self-consciousness. British women are always more or less wondering
what their sister women are thinking about them. They can manage their
men all right; but they put on curious and unbecoming airs directly
other feminine influences than their own come into play. They invite
the comment of the opposite sex, but they dread the criticism of their
own. The awkward girl who sits on the edge of a chair with her feet
scraping the carpet and her hands twiddling uneasily in her lap, is
awkward simply because she has, by some means or other, been made
self-conscious,--and because, in the excess of this self-consciousness
she stupidly imagines every one in the room must be staring at her.
The average London woman, dressed like a fashion-plate, who rustles
in at afternoon tea, with her card-case well in evidence, and her
face carefully set in proper “visiting lines,” offers herself up in
this way as a subject for the satirist, out of the same disfiguring
self-consciousness, which robs her entirely of the indifferent ease
and careless grace which should,--to quote the greatest of American
philosophers, Emerson,--cause her to “repel interference by a decided
and proud choice of influences,” and to “inspire every beholder with
something of her own nobleness.” She is probably not _naturally_
formal,--she is no doubt exceedingly constrained and uncomfortable
in her fashionable attire,--and one may take it for granted that
she would rather be herself than try to be a Something which is a
Nothing. But Custom and Convention are her bogie men, always guarding
her on either side, and investing her too often with such deplorable
self-consciousness that her eye becomes furtive, her mouth hard and
secretive, her conversation inane, and her whole personality an
uncomfortable exhalation of stupidity and dullness.
Nevertheless, setting Custom and Convention apart for the nonce, and
bidding them descend into the shadows of hypocrisy which are their
native atmosphere, the British woman remains the prettiest in the
world. What a galaxy of feminine charms can be gathered under the word
“British”! England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland offer all together such
countless examples of woman’s loveliness, that it would be difficult,
if not impossible, to give the prize for good looks to one portion of
Britain more than to the other. America, so far as her samples have
been, and are, seen in Europe, cannot outrival the “Old Country” in the
prettiness of its women. But it is prettiness only; not Beauty. Beauty
remains intrinsically where it was first born and first admitted into
the annals of Art and Literature. Its home is still in “the Isles of
Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung.”
Nothing that was ever created in the way of female loveliness can
surpass the beauty of a beautiful Greek woman. True, she is as rare as
a butterfly in a snow storm. True, the women of Athens and of Greece
generally, taken in the rough majority, are not on an average, even
pretty. Nevertheless the palm of beauty remains with them--because
there are always two,--or may be three of them, who dawn year by year
upon the world in all the old perfection of the classic models, and
who may truly be taken for newly-descended goddesses, so faultlessly
formed, so exquisitely featured are they. They are not famed by the
paragraphist, and they probably will never get the chance of moving in
the circles of the British “Upper Ten” or the American “Four Hundred.”
But they are the daughters of Aphrodite still, and hold fast their
heavenly mother’s attributes. It is easy to find a hundred or more
pretty British and American women for one beautiful Greek--but when
found, the beautiful Greek eclipses them all. She is still the wonder
of the world,--the crown of womanly beauty at its best. She shows the
heritage of her race in her regal step and freedom of movement,--in
the lovely curves of her figure, in the classic perfection of her face
with its broad brows, lustrous eyes, arched sweet lips and delicate
contour of chin and throat, and perhaps more than all in the queenly
indifference she bears towards her own loveliness. So,
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine,
On Suli’s bank and Parga’s shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there perhaps some seed is sown
The Heracleidan blood might own!
And there still, may be found the perfection of womanhood--the one rare
Greek lily, which blossoming at few and far intervals shows in its
exquisite form and colouring what Woman should be at her fairest. To
her, therefore, must be given the Palm of Beauty. But after the lily,
then the rose!--or rather the roses, multitudinous, varied, and always
sweet--of the Fortunate Isles of Britain.
THE MADNESS OF CLOTHES
To dress well is a social duty. Every educated self-respecting woman
is bound to clothe her person as neatly, as tastefully and becomingly
as she can. But just as a virtue when carried to excess develops into
a vice, so the art of dressing well, when allowed to overstep its
legitimate uses and expenditure, easily runs into folly and madness.
The reckless extravagance of women’s dress at the present day is little
short of criminal insanity. A feverish desire to outvie one another in
the manner and make of their garments appears to possess every feminine
creature whose lot in life places her outside positive penury. The
inordinately wealthy, the normally rich, the well-to-do middle class
and the shabby genteel are all equally infected by the same hysterical
frenzy. And it is a frenzy which is humoured and encouraged on all
sides by those who should have the sense, the intelligence and the
foresight to realize the danger of such a tendency, and the misery to
which in many cases it is surely bound to lead.
Latterly there have been certain growlings and mutterings of discontent
from husbands who have had to pay certain unexpectedly long bills for
their wives’ “creations in costume”--but, as a matter of fact, it is
really the men who are chiefly to blame for the wicked waste of money
they afterwards resent and deplore. They are the principal instigators
of the mischief,--the aiders and abettors of the destruction of their
own credit and good name. For they openly show their admiration for
women’s clothes more than for the women clothed,--that is to say,
they are more easily captured by art than by nature. No group of male
flatterers is ever seen round a woman whose dress is un-stylish or
otherwise “out-of-date.” She may have the sweetest face in the world,
the purest nature and the truest heart, but the “dressed” woman, the
dyed, the artistically “faked” woman will nearly always score a triumph
over her so far as masculine appreciation and attention are concerned.
The “faked” woman has everything on her side. The Drama supports her.
The Press encourages her. Whole columns in seemingly sane journals are
devoted to the description of her attire. Very little space is given to
the actual criticism of a new play _as_ a play, but any amount of room
is awarded to glorified “gushers” concerning the actresses’ gowns. Of
course it has to be borne in mind that the “writing up” of actresses’
gowns serves a double purpose. First, the “creators” of the gowns are
advertised, and may in their turn advertise,--which in these days of
multitudinous rival newspapers, is a point not to be lost sight of.
Secondly, the actresses themselves are advertised and certain gentlemen
with big noses who move “behind the scenes,” and are the lineal
descendants of Moses and Aaron, may thereby be encouraged to speculate
in theatrical “shares.” Whereas criticism of the play itself does no
good to anybody nowadays, not even to the dramatic author. For if such
criticism be unfavourable, the public say it is written by a spiteful
enemy,--if eulogistic, by a “friend at court,” and they accept neither
verdict. They go to see the thing for themselves, and if they like it
they keep on going. If not, they stay away, and there’s an end.
But to the gowns there is no end. The gowns, even in an _un_-successful
play, are continuously talked of, continuously written about,
continuously sketched in every sort of pictorial, small and great,
fashionable or merely provincial. And the florid language,--or shall
we say the ‘fine writing’?--used to describe clothes generally, on and
off the stage, is so ravingly sentimental, so bewilderingly turgid,
that it can only compare with the fervid verbosity of the early
eighteenth century romancists, or the biting sarcasm of Thackeray’s
_Book of Snobs_, from which the following passage, descriptive of ‘Miss
Snobky’s’ presentation gown, may be aptly quoted:--
“_Habit de Cour_ composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress, over a
slip of rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed _en tablier_ with bouquets
of Brussels sprouts, the body and sleeves handsomely trimmed with
calimanco, and festooned with a pink train and white radishes.
Head-dress, carrots and lappets.”
By way of a modern pendant to the above grotesque suggestion, one
extract from a lengthy “clothes” article recently published in a daily
paper will suffice:
“Among the numerous evening and dinner gowns that the young lady has
in her _corbeille_, one, _a l’Impératrice Eugénie_, is very lovely.
The foundation is of white Liberty, with a tulle overdress on which
are four flounces of Chantilly lace arranged in zig-zags, connected
together with shaded pink _gloria_ ribbons arranged in waves and
wreaths. This is repeated on the low corsage and on the long drooping
sleeves of the high bodice.
“A richer toilette is of white Liberty silk, with a flounce of
magnificent Brussels lace festooned by leaves of the chestnut, formed
of white satin wrought in iris beads and silver on white tulle. The
whole gown is strewn with like leaves of graduating sizes, and the
low corsage has a _berthe_ of Brussels lace ornamented with smaller
chestnut leaves as are also the sleeves.” And so on, in unlimited
bursts of enthusiasm.