Female Scripture Biography, Volume I

by F. A. Cox

The most effectual means of correcting this error, is in early life to commence the important business of moral discipline by a solid education. If a greater degree of attention be paid to showy, than to substantial acquirements; if young ladies be systematically prepared to shine and attract, instead of being assiduously formed to be useful in the stations to which Providence has assigned them; it may be expected that they should become solicitous of courting admiration, rather than of winning esteem. They will necessarily be unfitted for domestic management, and disqualified for the sober realities of life. If the matrimonial connexion be founded upon no better pretensions, and no superior reasons for attachment, it is incapable of securing solid happiness. It is, in fact, at the mercy of every breeze. The wind of adversity may blow upon the fair flower, wither its exterior charms, and leave nothing but prickles and thorns. A consciousness of insignificance on the one hand, and a perception of it on the other, will produce disappointment, and generate dissatisfaction; and it will be found, too late perhaps, that the mind, instead of the face, ought to have been principally regarded.

There is a species of parental vanity against which we would loudly appeal. Some persons are extremely anxious that their daughters should possess all the attractions of beauty; and from their earliest infancy, a concern for appearances is instilled into them, as of the first importance. If young persons, so unhappily circumstanced, should receive a wrong bias, we cannot feel surprised; and it will require a long course of salutary discipline, combined with the inculcation of religious principles, effectually to teach them that to see, and to be seen, are not the great purposes of human existence; that they must live for nobler ends, and secure the approbation of the wise and good by other accomplishments than a taste for the arrangement of a ribbon, or the harmony of a tune. Unless they should be unfortunate enough to meet with none but flippant and vacant admirers, to whose flattering nothings they are induced to listen, they will find, that persons of real worth are not to be attracted by tinsel decorations, nor a butterfly exterior, but that

"Man has a relish more refined;"

and will rather breathe the following sentiments, as the appropriate language of a noble enthusiasm, connected with rationality and religion;

"Souls are for social bliss designed--
Give me a blessing fit to match my mind;
A kindred soul to double and to share my joys."

That which constitutes the source of attraction to well regulated minds, does not depend upon the disposition of the features, nor the colour of the skin. It is possible to every kind of exterior form. "This beauty," it has been well observed, "does not always consist in smiles, but varies as expressions of meekness and kindness vary with their objects: it is extremely forcible in the silent complaint of patient sufferance, the tender solicitude of friendship, and the glow of filial obedience; and in tears, whether of joy, of pity, or of grief, it is almost irresistible.

"This is the charm which captivates without the aid of nature, and without which her utmost bounty is ineffectual. But it cannot be assumed as a mask to conceal insensibility or malevolence: it must be the effect of corresponding sentiments, or it will impress upon the countenance a new and more disgusting deformity--AFFECTATION. Looks, which do not correspond with the heart, cannot be assumed without labour, nor continued without pain: the motive to relinquish them must, therefore, soon preponderate, and the aspect and apparel of the visit will be laid by together: the smiles and the languishments of art will vanish, and the fierceness of rage, or the gloom of discontent, will either obscure or destroy all the elegance of symmetry and complexion.

"The artificial aspect is, indeed, as wretched a substitute for the expression of sentiment, as the smear of paint for the blushes of health: it is not only equally transient, and equally liable to detection; but, as paint leaves the countenance yet more withered and ghastly, the passions burst out with more violence after restraint, the features become more distorted, and excite more determined aversion.

"Beauty, therefore, depends principally upon the mind, and consequently may be influenced by education. It has been remarked, that the predominent passion may generally be discovered in the countenance; because the muscles by which it is expressed, being almost perpetually contracted, lose their tone, and never totally relax; so that the expression remains when the passion is suspended: thus, an angry, a disdainful, a subtle, and a suspicious temper, is displayed in characters that are almost universally understood. It is equally true of the pleasing and the softer passions, that they leave their signatures upon the countenance when they cease to act. The prevalence of these passions, therefore, produces a mechanical effect upon the aspect, and gives a turn and cast to the features, which make a more favourable and forcible impression upon the mind of others, than any charm produced by mere external causes.

"Neither does the beauty which depends upon temper and sentiment, equally endanger the possessor: it is, to use an eastern metaphor, 'like the towers of a city--not only an ornament, but a defence:' if it excite desire, it at once controls and refines it; it represses with awe, it softens with delicacy, and it wins to imitation. The love of reason and of virtue is mingled with the love of beauty; because this beauty is little more than the emanation of intellectual excellence, which is not an object of corporeal appetite. As it excites a purer passion, it also more forcibly engages to fidelity: every man finds himself more powerfully restrained from giving pain to goodness than to beauty; and every look of a countenance in which they are blended, in which beauty is the expression of goodness, is a silent reproach to the first irregular wish; and the purpose immediately appears to be disingenuous and cruel, by which the tender hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed, the placid confidence of unsuspecting simplicity abused, and the peace even of virtue endangered, by the most sordid infidelity, and the breach of the strongest obligations.