THE MIRROR OF THE GRACES. CONTAINING GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMBINING ELEGANCE, SIMPLICITY, AND ECONOMY WITH FASHION IN DRESS; HINTS ON FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND MANNERS; AND DIRECTIONS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH AND BEAUTY. BY A LADY OF DISTINCTION. “If Beauty be woman’s weapon, it must be feathered by the Graces, pointed by the eye of Discretion, and shot by the hand of Virtue.” FROM THE LONDON EDITION. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY FREDERIC S. HILL, NO. 7, WATER STREET. 1831. CONTENTS. Preliminary Observations on the Subject 5 General Remarks on the Manners and Fashions of the Past and Present Times 14 On the Female Form 19 The same Subject, of Female Beauty, more explicitly considered 34 General Thoughts on Dress and Personal Decoration 48 On the Peculiarities of Dress, with reference to the Station of the Wearer 68 Of the Detail of Dress 82 On Deportment 105 Peculiarities in Carriage and Demeanor 110 On the Management of the Person in Dancing, and in the exercise of other Female Accomplishments 126 Continuation of the same Subject 149 Conclusion 156 APPENDIX. On the Use of Corsets 163 On the Ladies’ Passion for Levelling all Distinction of Dress 173 Recipes 183 MIRROR OF THE GRACES. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE SUBJECT. “Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed; For contemplation he, and valor formed; For softness she, and sweet attractive grace; He for God only, she for God in him.” MILTON. In discoursing on the degree of consequence, in the scale of creation, that may be allowed to the human body, two extremes are generally adopted. Epicureans, for obvious reasons, exalt our corporeal part to the first rank; and Stoics, by opposite deductions, degrade it to the last. But to neither of these opinions can the writer of these pages concede. The body is as much a part of the human creature as the mind; by its outward expression, we convey to others a sense of our opinions, hopes, fears, and affections--we communicate love, and we excite it. We enjoy, not only the pleasures of the senses, but the delights which shoot from mind to mind, in the pressure of a hand, the glance of an eye, and the whisper of the heart. Shall we then despise this ready and obedient vehicle of all that passes within the invisible soul? Shall we contemn it as a lump of encumbering clay--as a piece of corruption, fitter for the charnel-house than the bosom of affection?