“Who doth not feel, until his aching sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess
The might, the majesty of loveliness?”
BYRON.
To preserve the health of the human form, is the first object of consideration. This is of primary importance, for with its health we necessarily maintain its symmetry, and improve its beauty.
The foundation of a just proportion, in all its parts, must be laid in infancy; for, “as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” A light dress, which gives freedom to the functions of life and action, is the best adapted to permit unobstructed growth; for thence the young fibres, uninterrupted by obstacles of art, will shoot harmoniously into the form which nature drew. The garb of childhood should in all respects be easy; not to impede its movements by ligatures on the chest, the loins, the legs, or the arms. By this liberty, we shall see the muscles of the limbs gradually assume the fine swell and insertions which only unconstrained exercise can produce. The shape will sway gracefully on the firmly poised waist; the chest will rise in noble and healthy expanse; and the human figure will start forward at the blooming age of youth, maturing into the full perfection of unsophisticated nature.
The lovely form of woman, in particular, thus educated, or rather thus left to its natural bias, assumes a variety of interesting characters. In one youthful figure, we see the lineaments of a wood-nymph; a form slight and elastic in all its parts. The shape,
“Small by degrees, and beautifully less,
From the soft bosom to the tender waist!”
A foot light as that of her whose flying step scarcely brushed the “unbending corn;” and limbs, whose agile grace moved in gay harmony with the turns of her swan-like neck and sparkling eyes.
Another fair one appears with the chastened dignity of a vestal. Her proportions are of a less aërial outline. As she draws near, we perceive that the contour of her figure is on a broader and less flexible scale than that of her more ethereal sister. Euphrosyne speaks in the one, Melpomene in the other.
Between these two lies the whole range of female character in form; and, in proportion as the figure approaches the one extreme or the other, we call it grave or gay, majestic or graceful. Not but that the same person may, by a happy combination of charms, unite these qualities in different degrees, as we sometimes see graceful majesty and majestic grace. Unless the commanding figure softens the amplitude of its contour with a gentle elegance, it may possess a sort of regal consequence, but it will be that of a heavy and harsh importance; and, on the other hand, unless the slight and airy form, full of youth and animal spirits, superadds to these attractions the grace of a restraining dignity, her vivacity will be deemed levity, and her activity the romping of a wild hoyden.
Young women, therefore, when they present themselves to the world, must not implicitly fashion their demeanors according to the levelling rules of the generality of school-governesses; but, considering the character of their own figures, allow their deportment, and select their dress, to follow and correct the bias of nature.
There is a class of female contour which bears such faint marks of any positive character, that the best advice I can give to them who have it, is to assume that of the sedate. Such an appearance is unobtrusive; it is amiable, and not only secure from animadversion, but very likely to awaken respect and love. Indeed, in all cases, a modest reserve is essential to the perfection of feminine attraction.
As it has been observed, that, during the period of youth, different women wear a variety of characters, such as the gay, the grave, &c. when it is found that even this loveliest season of life places its subjects in varying lights, how necessary does it seem that women should carry this idea yet further by analogy, and recollect that she has a summer as well as a spring, an autumn, and a winter! As the aspect of the earth alters with the changes of the year, so does the appearance of a woman adapt itself to the time which passes over her. Like the rose, she buds, she blooms, she fades, she dies!
When the freshness of virgin youth vanishes—when Delia passes her teens, and approaches her thirtieth year, she may then consider her day as at the meridian; but the sun which shines so brightly on her beauties, declines while it displays them. A few short years, and the jocund step, the airy habit, the sportive manner, must all be exchanged for “faltering steps and slow.” Before this happens, it would be well for her to remember that it is wiser to throw a shadow over her yet unimpaired charms, than to hold them in the light till they are seen to decay.
Each age has an appropriate style of figure and pleasing; and it is the business of discernment and taste to discover and maintain those advantages in their due seasons.
The general characteristics of youth, are meek dignity, chastened sportiveness, and gentle seriousness. Middle age has the privilege of preserving, unaltered, the graceful majesty and tender gravity which may have marked its earlier years. But the gay manners of the comic muse must, in the advance of life, be discreetly softened down into little more than cheerful amenity. Time marches on, and another change takes place. Amiable as the former characteristics may be, they must give way to the sober, the venerable aspect with which age, experience, and “a soul commercing with the skies,” ought to adorn the silver hairs of the Christian matron.
Nature having maintained a harmony between the figure of woman and her years, it is decorous that the consistency should extend to the materials and fashion of her apparel. For youth to dress like age, is an instance of bad taste seldom seen. But age, affecting the airy garments of youth, the transparent drapery of Cos, and the sportiveness of a girl, is an anachronism as frequent as it is ridiculous.
Virgin, bridal Beauty, when she arrays herself with taste, obeys an end of her creation—that of increasing her charms in the eyes of some virtuous lover, or the husband of her bosom. She is approved. But when the wrinkled fair, the hoary-headed matron, attempts to equip herself for conquest, to awaken sentiments which, when the bloom on her cheek has disappeared, her rouge can never recall; and, despite of all her efforts, we can perceive “memento mori” written on her face, then we cannot but deride her folly, or, in pity, counsel her rather to seek for charms, the mental graces of Madame de Sevigné, than the meretricious arts of Ninon de l’Enclos.
But that, in some cases, wrinkles may be long warded off, and auburn locks preserve a lengthened freshness, is not to be denied; and, where nature prolongs the youth of a Helen or a Sarah, it is not for man to see her otherwise. These are rare instances; and, in the minds of rational women, ought rather to excite wonder, than desire to emulate their extended reign. But what ought to be, we know is not always adopted. St. Evremond has told us, that “a woman’s last sighs are for her beauty;” and what this wit has advanced, the sex has ever been too ready to confirm. A strange kind of art, a sort of sorcery, is prescribed by tradition, and in books, in the form of cosmetics, &c., to preserve female charms in perpetual youth. But I fear that, until these composts can be concocted in Medea’s caldron, they will never have any better effect than exercising the faith and patience of the credulous dupes, who expect to find the elixir vitæ in any mixture under heaven.
The rules which I would lay down for the preservation of the bloom of beauty, during its natural life, are few, and easy of access. And, besides having advantage of speaking from my own wide and minute observation, I have the authorities of the most eminent physicians of every age, to support my argument.
The secret of preserving beauty lies in three things,—temperance, exercise, and cleanliness.—From these few heads, I hope much good instruction may be deduced. Temperance includes moderation at table, and in the enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. A young beauty, were she fair as Hebe, and elegant as the Goddess of Love herself, would soon lose these charms by a course of inordinate eating, drinking, and late hours.
I guess that my delicate young readers will start at this last sentence, and wonder how it can be that any well-bred woman should think it possible that pretty ladies could be guilty of either of the two first-mentioned excesses. But, when I speak of inordinate eating, &c., I do not mean feasting like a glutton, or drinking to intoxication. My objection is not more against the quantity than the quality of the dishes which constitute the usual repast of women of fashion. Their breakfasts not only set forth tea and coffee, but chocolate, and hot bread and butter. Both of these latter articles, when taken constantly, are hostile to health and female delicacy. The heated grease, which is their principal ingredient, deranges the stomach; and, by creating or increasing bilious disorders, gradually overspreads the fair skin with a wan or yellow hue. After this meal, a long and exhausting fast not unfrequently succeeds, from ten in the morning till six or seven in the evening, when dinner is served up; and the half-famished beauty sits down to sate a keen appetite with Cayenne soups, fish, French patées steaming with garlic, roast and boiled meat, game, tarts, sweetmeats, ices, fruits, &c. &c. &c. How must the constitution suffer under the digestion of this melange! How does the heated complexion bear witness to the combustion within! And, when we consider that the beverage she takes to dilute this mass of food, and assuage the consequent fever in her stomach, is not merely water from the spring, but champagne, madeira, and other wines, foreign and domestic, you cannot wonder that I should warn the inexperienced creature against intemperance. The superabundance of aliment which she takes in at this time, is not only destructive of beauty, but the period of such repletion is full of other dangers. Long fasting wastes the powers of digestion, and weakens the springs of life. In this enfeebled state, at the hour when nature intends we should prepare for general repose, we put our stomach and animal spirits to extraordinary exertion. Our vital functions are overtasked and overloaded;—we become hectic—for observation strongly declares that invalid and delicate persons should rarely eat solids after three o’clock in the day, as fever is generally the consequence; and thus, almost every complaint that distresses and destroys the human frame, may be engendered.
“When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait
Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain;
For the keen appetite will feast beyond
What nature well can bear; and one extreme
Ne’er without danger meets its own reverse.”
Besides, when we add to this evil the present mode of bracing the digestive part of the body, in what is called long stays, to what an extent must reach the baneful effects of a protracted and abundant repast? Indeed, I am fully persuaded that long fasting, late dining, and the excessive repletion then taken into the exhausted stomach, with the tight pressure of steel and whalebone on the most susceptible parts of the frame then called into action, and the midnight, nay, morning hours, of lingering pleasure, are the positive causes of colds taken, bilious fevers, consumptions, and atrophies. By the means enumerated, the firm texture of the constitution is broken, and the principles of health being in a manner decomposed, the finest parts fly off, and the dregs maintain the poor survivor of herself, in a sad kind of artificial existence. Delicate proportion gives place either to miserable leanness or shapeless fat. The once fair skin assumes a pallid rigidity, or a bloated redness, which the vain possessor would still regard as the roses of health and beauty.
To repair these ravages, comes the aid of padding, to give shape where there is none; long stays, to compress into form the chaos of flesh; and paints of all hues, to rectify the disorder of the complexion. But useless are these attempts. If dissipation, disease, and immoderation, have wrecked the fair vessel of female charms, it is not in the power of Esculapius himself to refit the shattered bark; or of the Syrens, with all their songs and wiles, to conjure its battered sides from the rocks, and make it ride the seas in gallant trim again.
It is with pleasure that I turn from this ruin of all that is beauteous and lovely, to the cheering hope of preserving every charm unimpaired; and by means which the most ingenuous mind need not blush to acknowledge.
The rules, I repeat, are few. First, Temperance: a well-timed use of the table, and so moderate a pursuit of pleasure, that the midnight ball, assembly, and theatre, shall not too frequently recur.
My next specific is that of gentle and daily Exercise in the open air. Nature teaches us, in the gambols and sportiveness of the young of the lower animals, that bodily exertion is necessary for the growth, vigor, and symmetry of the animal frame; while the too studious scholar, and the indolent man of luxury, exhibit in themselves the pernicious consequences of the want of exercise.
This may be almost always obtained, either on horseback or on foot, in fine weather; and when that is denied, in a carriage. Country air in the fields, or in gardens, when breathed at proper hours, is an excellent bracer of the nerves, and a sure brightener of the complexion. But these hours are neither under the mid-day sun in summer, when its beams scorch the skin and ferment the blood; nor beneath the dews of evening, when the imperceptible damps, saturating the thinly-clad body, send the wanderer home infected with the disease that is to lay her, ere a returning spring, in the silent tomb! Both these periods are pregnant with danger to delicacy and carelessness.
The morning, about two or three hours after sunrise, is the most salubrious time for a vigorous walk. But, as the day advances, if you choose to prolong the sweet enjoyment of the open air, then the thick wood or shady lane will afford refreshing shelter from the too intense heat of the sun. In short, the morning and evening dew, and the unrepelled blaze of a summer noon, must alike be ever avoided as the enemies of health and beauty.
“Fly, if you can, these violent extremes
Of air; the wholesome is nor moist nor dry.”
ARMSTRONG.
Cleanliness, my last recipe, (and which is, like the others, applicable to all ages,) is of most powerful efficacy. It maintains the limbs in their pliancy, the skin in its softness, the complexion in its lustre, the eyes in their brightness, the teeth in their purity, and the constitution in its fairest vigor. To promote cleanliness, I can recommend nothing preferable to bathing.
The frequent use of tepid baths is not more grateful to the sense than it is salutary to the health, and to beauty. By such ablution, all accidental corporeal impurities are thrown off; cutaneous obstructions removed; and while the surface of the body is preserved in its original brightness, many threatening disorders are removed or prevented. Colds in the young, and rheumatic and paralytic affections in the old, are all dispersed by this simple and delightful antidote. By such means the women of the East render their skins softer than that of the tenderest babes in this climate, and preserve that health which sedentary confinement would otherwise destroy.
This delightful and delicate Oriental fashion is now, I am happy to say, prevalent almost all over the continent. From the Villas of Italy, to the Chateaux of France; from the Castles of Germany, to the Palaces of Muscovy; we may everywhere find the marble bath under the vaulted portico or the sheltering shade. Every house of every nobleman or gentleman, in every nation under the sun, excepting Britain, possesses one of those genial friends to cleanliness and comfort. The generality of English ladies seem to be ignorant of the use of any bath larger than a wash-hand basin. This is the more extraordinary to me, when I contemplate the changeable temperature of the climate, and consider the corresponding alterations in the bodily feelings of the people. By abruptly checking the secretions, it produces those chronic and cutaneous diseases so peculiar to our nation, and so heavy a cause of complaint.
This very circumstance renders baths more necessary in England than anywhere else; for as this is the climate most subject to sudden heats and colds, rains and fogs, tepid immersion is the only sovereign remedy against their usual morbific effects. Indeed, so impressed am I with the consequence of their regimen, that I strongly recommend to every lady to make a bath as indispensable an article in her house as a looking-glass:
“This is the purest exercise of health,
The kind refresher of the summer heats;
Even from the body’s purity, the mind
Receives a secret sympathetic aid.”
It may be remarked, en passant, that rubbing of the skin in the bath is an excellent substitute for exercise, when that is impracticable out-of-doors.
I must not draw this chapter to a close without offering my fair readers a few remarks on the malignant influence exercised on the features by an ill-regulated temper. The face is the index of the mind. On its expressive page are recorded in characters lasting as life itself, the gloom of sullenness, the arrogance of pride, the withering of envy, or the storm of anger; for, even after the fury of the tempest has subsided, its fearful devastations remain behind.
“From anger she may then be freed,
But peevishness and spleen succeed.”
The first emotions of anger are apparent to the most superficial observer. Every indulgence in its paroxysms, both adds strength to its authority, and engraves its history in deeper relief on the forehead of its votaries. What a pity it is that antiquity provides us with no authentic portrait of the illustrious Xantippe! for I am sure the features of that lady would lend their ready testimony to the value of my admonitions.
When good-humor and vivacity reign within, the face is lighted up with benignant smiles; where peace and gentleness are the tenants of the bosom, the countenance beams with mildness and complacency. Evil temper has, with truth, been called a more terrible enemy to beauty than the small-pox. I beseech you, therefore, as you value the preservation of your charms, to resist the dominion of this rude despoiler, to foster and encourage the feelings of kindliness and good-humor, and to repress every emotion of a contrary character.
I shall conclude this important subject by remarking with the Spectator, that “no woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more than she can be witty only by the gift of speech.”