But the influence of this habit on beauty is far less to be deprecated than its effects upon health. That pulmonary disease, affections of the heart, and insanity, are in its train, and that it leads some of our fairest and dearest to Fashion's shrine to die, is placed beyond a doubt by strong medical testimony.
Dr. Mussey, whose "Lectures on Intemperance" have so forcibly arrested the attention of the public, asserts that "greater numbers annually die among the female sex, in consequence of tight-lacing, than are destroyed among the other sex by the use of spirituous liquors in the same time." Is it possible that thousands of our own sex, in our own native land, lay, with their own hand, the foundation of diseases that destroy life!—and are willing, for fashion's sake, to commit suicide!
Dr. Todd, the late Principal of the Retreat for the Insane, in Connecticut, to whom science and philanthropy are indebted, adduces many instances of the fearful effects of obstructed circulation on the brain. Being requested by the instructress of a large female seminary to enforce on her pupils the evils of compression in dress, he said, with that eloquence of eye and soul, which none, who once felt their influence, can ever forget: "The whole course of your studies, my dear young ladies, conspires to impress you with reverence for antiquity. Especially do you turn to Greece for the purest models in the fine arts, and the loftiest precepts of philosophy. While sitting, as disciples, at the feet of her men of august minds, you may have sometimes doubted how to balance, or where to bestow your admiration. The acuteness of Aristotle—the purity of Plato—the calm, unrepented satisfaction of Socrates—the varied lore of Epicurus, and the lofty teachings of Zeno, have alternately attracted or absorbed your attention. Permit me to suppose, that the high-toned ethics of the Stoics, and their elevation of mind, which could teach its frail companion, the body, the proud lesson of insensibility to pain, have won your peculiar complaisance. Yet, while meting out to them the full measure of your applause, have you ever recollected that modern times—that your own country came in competition for a share of fame! Has it occurred to you that your own sex—even the most delicate and tender part of it—exceeded the ancient Stoics in the voluntary infliction of pain, and extinction of pity? Yes; some of the timid and beautiful members of this seminary may enter the lists with Zeno, Cleanthus, and Chrysippus, and cherish no slight hope of victory. I trust to prove to you that the ancient and sublime Stoics were very tyros in comparison with many a lady of our own times. In degree of suffering, extent of endurance, and in perfection of concealment, they must yield the palm. I do assure you, that, its most illustrious masters—fruitful as they were in tests to try the body—never invented, imagined, nor would have been able to sustain that torture of tight-lacing which the modern belle steadily inflicts without shrinking, and bears without repining sometimes to her very grave. True, they might sometimes have broken a bone, or plucked out an eye, and been silent; but they never grappled iron and whalebone into the very nerves and life-blood of their system. They might possibly have passed a dagger too deeply info the heart, and died; but they never drew a ligature of suffocation around it, and expected to live! They never tied up the mouths of the millions of air-vessels in the lungs, and then taxed them to the full measure of action and respiration. Even Pharaoh only demanded bricks without straw for a short time; but the fashionable lady asks to live without breathing for many years!
"The ancient Stoics taught that the nearest approach to apathy was the perfection of their doctrine. They prudently rested in utter indifference; they did not attempt to go beyond it; they did not claim absolute denial of all suffering; still less did they enjoin to persist and rejoice in it, even to the 'dividing asunder of soul and body.' In this, too, you will perceive the tight-laced lady taking a flight beyond the sublime philosopher. She will not admit that she feels the slightest inconvenience. Though she has fairly won laurels to which no Stoic dared aspire, yet she studiously disclaims the distinction which she faced death to earn—yea, denies that she has either part of lot in the matter; surpassing in modesty, as well as in desert, all that antiquity can boast or history record."
We quote the following from Miss Sedgwick: "One word as to these small waists: Symmetry is essential to beauty of form. A waist disproportionately small is a deformity to an instructed eye. Women must have received their notions of small waists from ignorant dress-makers. If young ladies could hear the remarks made on these small waists by men generally, and especially men of taste, they would never again show themselves till they had loosened their corset-laces and enlarged their belts."
