BEAUTY.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 65, 10 December 1881, Page 200

BEAUTY.

" A thing of beauty is a joy for evcr."| A trite quotation, but like many such, open to argument. In the first place, no physical benuf v Lists many years, putting eternity out oi" the question. But lam not going to improvise an involved problem on the subject, so shall therefore proceed to speak of the beautiful quality of beauty, as we sec it in the people and things around us. The most refined and cultured people are keenly alive to its influence. (Suppose we divide beauty into two forms — that of expressed or unexpressed; or, to put it less -vaguely, physical and mental beauty. The first can be discovered and described by a ploughman, without any detraction from its sweetness. Tlie second is seldom discovered except by minds equally constituted ; and to attempt its description would be to mar the beauty of the unexpressed. We may say that physical beauty depends (l) on symmetry of shape, (2) grace of carriage, (3) beauty of colouring. To lay down any particular type of beauty as an arbitrary model would be presumptuous in this advanced era, when every painter and sculptor, as well as nearly every man of education and taste, has a style of his own. The present fashion of cutting the hair •on the forehead is said to destroy the proportions of the face ; yet one has bitt to go into our Museum and look at those heads (the type of which is considered the perfection of beauty) to notice that the hair, though not cut, is brought so low on the forehead as almost to cover the temples. As to grace of carriage, it is well for the Auckland girls that their claim to beauty does not depend solely on this quality, for it is a well-known fact that colonial girls, though well able to hold their own, as regards facial charms, with the beauties of the home country, are lamentably in want of drilling. I think there is a good opening in Auckland far a ladies' gymnasium. Bacon says : '• A beautiful face is a silent recommendation." Most of us have felt at some period of our lives the force of his assertion, and the subtle power of beauty. Tt is a great mistake to think that the generality of women are instinctively jealous of women more beautiful than themselves. For them to be so is the exception. It is only when the "beauty" renders herself obnoxious by " airs " that she is disliked, then it is the woman, not the beauty, that becomes unpopular. I have met people in my time, both men and women, who, being artists by nature, and therefore passionate admirers of beauty, were quite as ready to deeply admire those of their own sex that were handsome as those of the opposite. Both physical and mental beauty may be cultivated to a great extent. The first by clue regard to the "Laws of Health," the second by generosity of heart and culture of intellect. — Gtßaftoit .