THE VANITIES OF FAMOUS WOMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2667, 26 April 1905, Page 64

THE VANITIES OF FAMOUS WOMEN.

Can any woman, even those of the biggest brain, rise wholly snperior to the small personal vanities or remain indifferent to the coquettish importance of some particularly nice feature? If we are .to judge by the foibles of many of the world's most gifted women they cannot.

Mrs Browning always arrayed herself in "whatever decent gown came to hand without regard to style or colour, and she never bothered over wrinkles, or envied any woman her beauty ; but it is an odd fact that her ringlets were never allowed to grow grey, , and. to the dressing of her curls nearly half an hour was devoted every morning. Very early in life Queen Victoria recognised that her hands were her only feature that .could lay any claim to true beauty, and as they were small and soft, and white, and very womanly hands, she took, until the day almost of her death, the greatest interest in and care of them. Her manicurist treated them once, and sometimes "twice, a day. The pretty pink nails glittered at the ends of her pointed little fingers almost as brightly as her rings, and whenever her photograph was taken one hand, if not two, was always conspicuously displayed and loaded with diamonds. The Queen, as a rule, hated jewels, except earrings, and for her fingers and her wrists, and though she was thoroughly content to grow old, she took infinite satisfaction in the fact that her hands remained plump and white and exceedingly firm and youthful always.

Not the most careless observer can fail" to note, on meeting the widow of Robert .Louis Stevenson, who was a rather famous beauty in her youth, that she assumes none of the airs of a faded debutante. She is an elderly, dignified, grey-haired woman, who dresses for confort, and not for style, and cherishes no vanity whatsoever except for her tiny and most exquisite feet. At all times she wears the daintiest of high-heeled black satin slippers with ornamented toes, and silken hose of the most expensive quality. But* Mrs Stevenson's charming little feet give her no- more innocent pleasure than that eminent and stately novelist, Mrs Humphry Ward, derives from her wonderful complexion. -Mrs Ward is a fairly handsome woman —her photographs do not do her justice^ — and not Bouguereau himself could paint her dazzling skin of milk-and-rose tints, ■which, despite her matronly years, is still innocent of wrinkles. Mrs Ward is as considerate of her complexion as the great Eleanora Duse is of her hair. She writes •winter and summer, in fair weather and stormy, beside an open window, for she well knows that oxygen and moisture are life to the human cuticle. When a bignovel is on, Mrs Ward lives a good part of the time on bread and milk only, and those of the freshest quality.