FEMALE INFLUENCE.
A "woman should be elegant, not only in manner but in mind. Without mental taste, the fairest form disappoints and wearies. It is the radiance that sets off every other charm, and sheds on each its appropriate hue. It is tint and proportion. Yet it is more easily understood than defined, and better felt than expressed. It is a great mistake to suppose that fashion is a criterion of elegance. The modes of fashion are entirely conven- 1 tional, and are often as ungraceful as they are capricious. But breeding is quite a different thing. It is without affectation and without constraining. It is unobtrusive and unpretending. It is always self-possessed and at ease ; for it knows its own place and its own relations. Its courtesy is • not officious, nor are its attentions ever troublesome. Yet this quiet and ladylike deportment, though it seems to employ no effort, is by no means an easy or common attainment. On the contrary, we often see women who have lived much in society very deficient in this criterion of grace. \
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 1191, 26 September 1874, Page 21
Word Count
179FEMALE INFLUENCE. Otago Witness, Issue 1191, 26 September 1874, Page 21
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