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 BeautyLady of distinction, active 19th century
History
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
Lady of distinction, active 19th century
Beauty, Personal; Clothing and dress -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century; Etiquette -- Great Britain
The seasons of life should be arrayed like those of the year. In
the spring of youth, when all is lovely and gay, then, as the soft
green, sparkling in freshness, bedecks the earth; so, light and
transparent robes, of tender colors, should adorn the limbs of the
young beauty. If she be of the Hebe form, warm weather should find her
veiled in fine muslin, lawn, gauzes, and other lucid materials. To
suit the character of her figure, and to accord with the prevailing
mode and just taste together, her morning robes should be of a length
sufficiently circumscribed as not to impede her walking; but on no
account must they be too short; for, when any design is betrayed of
showing the foot or ankle, the idea of beauty is lost in that of the
wearer’s odious indelicacy. On the reverse, when no show of vanity is
apparent in the dress--when the lightly-flowing drapery, by unsought
accident, discovers the pretty buskined foot or taper ankle, a sense of
virgin timidity, and of exquisite loveliness together, strikes upon the
senses; and Admiration, with a tender sigh, softly whispers, “The most
resistless charm is modesty!”
In Thomson’s exquisite portrait of Lavinia, the prominent feature is
modesty. “She was beauty’s self,” indeed, but-then she was “thoughtless
of beauty;” and though her eyes were sparkling, “bashful modesty”
directed them
“Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers.”
The morning robe should cover the arms and the bosom, nay even the
neck. And if it be made tight to the shape, every symmetrical line is
discovered with a grace so decent, that vestals, without a blush, might
adopt the chaste apparel. This simple garb leaves to beauty all her
empire; no furbelows, no heavy ornaments, load the figure, warp the
outlines, and distract the attention. All is light, easy, and elegant;
and the lovely wearer, “with her glossy ringlets loosely bound,” moves
with the Zephyrs on the airy wing of youth and innocence.
Her summer evening dress may be of a still more gossamer texture;
but it must still preserve the same simplicity, though its
gracefully-diverging folds may fall like the mantle of Juno, in
clustering drapery about her steps. There they should meet the white
slipper
“--of the fairy foot,
Which shines like snow, and falls on earth as mute.”
In this dress, her arms, and part of her neck and bosom may be
unveiled; but only _part_. The eye of maternal decorum should draw the
virgin zone to the limit where modesty would bid it rest.
Where beauty is, ornaments are unnecessary; and where it is not, they
are unavailing. But as gems and flowers are handsome in themselves, and
when tastefully disposed doubly so, a beautiful young woman, if she
chooses to share her empire with the jeweller and the florist, may,
not inelegantly, decorate her neck, arms, and head, with a string of
pearls, and a band of flowers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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