But fortunately The Belle of the Opera did not make herself beautiful. Those elegant proportions, those enticing charms, are the gift of Him who made human beings in his own image; and let it be confessed that half the elegance of the _dress_ is attributable to the elegance of the form which it covers, and the exquisite beauty which it is not intended to conceal. Beauty is a gift—a gift of God—like all personal or mental endowments, dangerous, it is confessed—but, like all, to be used for personal gratification and the promotion of social advantage. If it is conceded to be a means of mental melioration to dwell among the beauties of artistic skill and lofty architectural efforts, then surely it must be still more advantageous to be reared within the influence of _living_ charms; “to grow familiar day by day” with features and forms that constitute models for the representation of angels, and to pass onward through life with the sense of seeing constantly improved and gratified with objects of exquisite beauty exquisitely clothed. This is viewing The Belle of the Opera with an artist’s eye. “But,” the moralist will say, “the high office of woman is vacated by such a sacrifice to display, and such a devotion of time to amusement. That The Belle of the Opera can never be The Bonne of the Nursery, and therefore woman is out of her place when out of such an exercise of her faculties as shall minister directly to domestic advantage.” We take issue with the moralist on this question of the direct application of female faculties; and we do this because we feel that the narrow bigotry of the unenlightened, which leads them to condemn the elegant enjoyments of life, and to ground their condemnation on the demand which is constant upon human beings, “to do good and to communicate,” is founded on a want of a full appreciation of female powers, and a mistake as to what constitutes these, and their means of usefulness. There will be no space for a discussion of the measure of female duties, though it is intended to enter upon such a discussion hereafter; but we may say that however extensive or however limited they may be, their discharge will be more or less effectual and complete, as she is qualified by the elegance of education, the improvement of her mind, the cultivation and adaptation of her faculties, to impart to others the graces of life, and to fix them by constant example.