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UGLY WOMEN.

"Un homme rencontre une femme, et est choqué de sa laideur; bientôt, si elle n'a pas de prétentions, sa physionomie lui fait oublier les défauts de ses traits, il la trouve aimable, et conçoit qu'on puisse l'aimer; huit jours après il a des espérances, huit jours après on les lui retire, huit jours après il est fou."

DE L'AMOUR.

THE ancient inhabitants of Amathus, in the island of Cyprus, were the most celebrated statuaries in the world, which they almost exclusively supplied with gods and goddesses. Every one who had a mind to be in the vogue ordered his deity from those fashionable artists: even Jupiter himself was hardly considered orthodox and worshipworthy, unless emanating from the established Pantheon of the Cypriots; and as to Juno, Venus, Minerva, and Diana, it was admitted that they had a peculiar knack in their manufacture, and it need hardly be added that they drove a thriving trade in those popular goddesses. But this monopoly was more favourable to the fortunes than to the happiness of the parties. By constantly straining above humanity and aspiring to the representation of celestial beauty; by fostering the enthusiasm of their imaginations in the pursuit of the beau idéal, they acquired a distaste, or at least an indifference, for mortal attractions, and turned up their noses at their fair countrywomen for not being Junos and Minervas. Not one of them equalled the model which had been conjured up in their minds, and not one of them, consequently, would they deign to notice. At the public games, the women were all huddled together, whispering and looking glum, while the men congregated as far from them as possible, discussing the beau idéal. Had they been prosing upon politics, you might have sworn it was an English party. Dancing was extinct unless the ladies chose to lead out one another; the priests waxed lank and woe-begone for want of the marriage offerings: Hymen's altar was covered with as many cobwebs as a poor's box; successive moons rose and set without a single honeymoon, and the whole island threatened to become an antinuptial colony of bachelors and old maids.

In this emergency, Pygmalion, the most eminent statuary of the place, falling in love with one of his own works, a figure of Diana, which happened to possess the beau idéal in perfection, implored Venus to animate the marble; and she, as is well known to every person conversant with authentic history, immediately granted his request. So far as this couple were concerned, one would have imagined that the evil was remedied; but alas! the remedy was worse than the disease. The model of excellence was now among them, alivé and breathing; the men were perfectly mad, beleaguering the house from morn to night to get a peep at her; all other women were treated with positive insult, and of course the whole female population was possessed by all the Furies. Marmorea (such was the name of the animated statue) was no Diana in the flesh, whatever she might have been in the marble; if the scandalous chronicles of those days may be believed, she had more than one favoured lover; certain it is that she was the cause of constant feuds and battles in which many lives were lost, and Pygmalion himself was at last found murdered in the neighbourhood of his own house. The whole island was now on the point of a civil war on account of this philanthropical Helen, when one of her disappointed

wooers, in a fit of jealousy, stabbed her to the heart, and immediately after threw himself from a high rock into the sea.

Such is the tragedy which would probably be enacting at the present moment in every country of the world, but for the fortunate circumstance that we have no longer any fixed standard of beauty, real or imaginary, and by a necessary and happy consequence no determinate rule of ugliness. In fact there are no such animals as ugly women, though we still continue to talk of them as we do of Harpies, Gorgons, and Chimeras. There is no deformity that does not find admirers, and no loveliness that is not deemed defective. Anamaboo, the African prince, received so many attentions from a celebrated belle of London, that, in a moment of tenderness, he could not refrain from laying his hand on his heart and exclaiming, "Ah! madam, if Heaven had only made you a negress, you would have been irresistible!" And the same beauty, when travelling among the Swiss Cretins, heard several of the men ejaculating, "How handsome she is! what a pity that she wants a Goitre!" Plain women were formerly so common that they were termed ordinary, to signify the frequency of their occurrence; in these happier days the phrase extraordinary would be more applicable. However parsimonious, or even cruel, Nature may have been in other respects, they all cling to admiration by some solitary tenure that redeems them from the unqualified imputation of unattractiveness. One has an eye that, like Charity, covers a multitude of sins; another is a female Sampson, whose strength consists in her hair; a third holds your affections by her teeth; a fourth is a Cinderella, who wins hearts by her pretty little foot; a fifth makes an irresistible appeal from her face to her figure, and so on to the end of the catalogue. An expressive countenance may always be claimed in the absence of any definite charm; if even this be questionable, the party generally contrives to get a reputation for great cleverness; and if that too be inhumanly disputed, envy itself must allow that she is "excessively amiable."

Still it must be acknowledged, that however men may differ as to details, they agree as to results, and crowd about an acknowledged beauty, influenced by some secret attraction of which they are themselves unconscious, and of which the source has never been clearly explained. It would seem impossible that it should originate in any sexual sympathies, since we feel the impulsion without carrying ourselves, even in idea, beyond the present pleasure of gazing, and are even sensibly affected by the sight of beautiful children: yet it cannot be an abstract admiration, for it is incontestable that neither men nor women are so vehemently impressed by the contemplation of beauty in their own as in the opposite sex. This injustice towards our own half of humanity might be assigned to a latent envy, but that the same remark applies to the pleasure we derive from statues, of the proportions of which we could hardly be jealous. Ugly statues may be left to their fate without any compunctious visitings of nature; but our conduct towards women, whom we conceive to be in a similar predicament, is by no means entitled to the same indulgence. We shuffle away from them at parties, and sneak to the other end of the dinner-table as if their features were catching; and as to their falling in love and possessing the common feelings of their sex, we laugh at the very idea. And yet these Parias

of the drawing-room generally atone, by interior talent, for what they want in exterior charms; as if the Medusa's head were still destined to be carried by Minerva. Nature seldom lavishes her gifts upon one subject: the peacock has no voice; the beautiful Camellia Japonica has no odour; and belles, generally speaking, have no great share of intellect. Some visionaries amuse themselves with imagining that the complacency occasioned by the possession of physical charms conduces to moral perfection.

Why doth not beauty, then, refine the wit,

And good complexion rectify the will?"

This is a fond conceit, unwarranted by earthly test, though destined perhaps to be realized in a happier state of existence.

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What a blessing for these unhandsome damsels, whom we treat still more unhandsomely by our fastidious neglect, that some of us are less squeamish in our tastes, and more impartial in our attentions. Solomon proves the antiquity of the adage-" De gustibus nil disputandum," for he compares the hair of his beloved to a flock of goats appearing from Mount Gilead, and in a strain of enamoured flattery exclaims, Thy eyes are like the fish-pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim thy nose like the tower of Lebanon looking towards Damascus." Now I deem it as becoming to see a woman standing behind a good roomy nose, as to contemplate a fair temple with a majestic portico; but it may be questioned whether a nose like the tower of Lebanon be not somewhat too elephantine and bordering on the proboscis. The nez retroussé is smart and piquant; the button-nose, like all other diminutives, is endearing; and even the snub absolute has its admirers. Cupid can get over it, though it have no bridge, and jumps through a wall-eye like a harlequin. As to the latter feature my taste may be singular, perhaps bad, but I confess that I have a penchant for that captivating cast, sometimes invidiously termed a squint. Its advantages are neither few nor unimportant. Like a bowl, its very bias makes it sure of hitting the jack, while it seems to be running out of the course; and it has, moreover, the invaluable property of doing execution without exciting suspicion, like the Irish guns with crooked barrels, made for shooting round a corner. Common observers admire the sun in his common state, but philosophers find it a thousand times more interesting when suffering a partial eclipse; while the lovers of the picturesque are more smitten with its rising and setting than with its meridian splendour. Such men must be enchanted with a strabismus or squint, where they may behold the ball of sight gracefully emerging from the nasal East, or setting in its Occidental depths, presenting every variety of obscuration. With regard to teeth, also, a very erroneous taste prevails. Nothing can be more stiff and barrack-like than that uniformity of shape and hue which is so highly vaunted, for the merest tyro in landscape will tell us that castellated and jagged outlines, with a pleasing variety of tints, are infinitely more pictorial and pleasing. Patches of bile in the face are by no means to be deprecated; they impart to it a rich mellow tone of autumnal colouring, which we should in vain seek in less gifted complexions: and I am most happy to vindicate the claims of a moderate beard upon the upper lip, which is as necessary to the perfect beauty of the mouth as are the thorns and moss to a rose, or the leaves

to a cherry. If there be any old maids still extant, while mysogonists are so rare, the fault must be attributable to themselves, and they must incur all the responsibility of their single blessedness.

In the connubial lottery ugly women possess an advantage to which sufficient importance has not been attached. It is a common observation that husband and wife frequently resemble one another, and many ingenious theorists, attempting to solve the problem by attributing it to sympathy, contemplation of one another's features, congeniality of habits and modes of life, &c., have fallen into the very common error of substituting the cause for the effect. This mutual likeness is the occasion, not the result of marriage. Every man, like Narcissus, becomes enamoured of the reflection of himself, only choosing a substance instead of a shadow. His love for any particular woman is self-love at second hand, vanity reflected, compound egotism. When he sees himself in the mirror of a female face, he exclaims, "How intelligent, how amiable, how interesting!--how admirably adapted for a wife!" and forthwith makes his proposals to the personage so expressly and literally calculated to keep him in countenance. The uglier he is, the more need he has of this consolation; he forms a romantic attachment to the "fascinating creature with the snub nose," or the "betwitching girl with the roguish leer" (Anglice-squint,) without once suspecting that he is paying his addresses to himself, and playing the innamorato before a looking-glass. Take self-love from love, and very little remains it is taking the flame from Hymen's torch and leaving the smoke. The same feeling extends to his progeny: he would rather see them resemble himself, particularly in his defects, than be modelled after the chubbiest Cherubs or Cupids that ever emanated from the studio of Canova. One sometimes encounters a man of a most unqualified hideousness, who obviously considers himself an Adonis; and when such a one has to seek a congenial Venus, it is evident that her value will be in the inverse ratio of her charms. Upon this principle ugly women will be converted into belles, perfect frights will become irresistible, and none need despair of conquests if they have but the happiness to be sufficiently plain.

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The best part of beauty, says Bacon, is that which a statue or painting cannot express. As to symmetry of form and superficial grace, sculpture is exquisitely perfect, but the countenance is of too subtle and intangible a character to be arrested by any modification of marble. Busts, especially where the pupil of the eye is unmarked, have appearance of mere masks, and are representations of little more than blindness and death. Painting supplies by colouring and shade much that sculpture wants; but, on the other hand, it is deficient in what its rival possesses-fidelity of superficial form. Nothing can compensate for our inability to walk round a picture, and choose various points of view. Facility of production, meanness of material, and vulgarity of association, have induced us to look down with unmerited contempt upon those waxen busts in the perfumers' shops, which, as simple representations of female nature, have attained a perfection that positively amounts to the kissable. That delicacy of tint and material, which so admirably adapts itself to female beauty, forms, however, but a milk-maidish representation of virility, and the men have, consequently, as epicene and androgynous an aspect as if they had just been bathing in the Salmacian fountain.

Countenance, however, is not within the reach of any of these substances or combinations. It is a species of moral beauty, as superior to mere charm of surface as mind is to matter. It is, in fact, visible spirit, legible intellect, diffusing itself over the features, and enabling minds to commune with each other by some secret sympathy unconnected with the senses. The heart has a silent echo in the face, which frequently carries to us a conviction diametrically opposite to the audible expressions of the mouth; and we see, through the eyes, into the understanding of the man, long before it can communicate with us by utterance. This emanation of character is the light of a soul destined to the skies, shining through its tegument of clay, and irradiating the countenance, as the sun illuminates the face of nature before it rises above the earth to commence its heavenly career. Of this indefinable charm, all women are alike susceptible: it is to them what gunpowder is to warriors, it levels all distinctions, and gives to the plain and the pretty, to the timid and the brave, an equal chance of making conquests. It is, in fine, one among a thousand proofs of that system of compensation, both physical and moral, by which a Superior Power is perpetually evincing his benignity; affording to every human being a commensurate chance of happiness, and inculcating upon all, that when they turn their faces towards heaven, they should reflect the light from above, and be animated by one uniform expression of love, resignation, and gratitude.

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

I COME, I come! ye have call'd me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chesnut-flowers

By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers,
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains.
-But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have pass'd o'er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,

And the rein-deer bounds through the pasture free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright where my step has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh,
And call'd out each voice of the deep blue sky,
From the night-bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-bough into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,

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