Without being learned in costumes des dames, we believe, we may say, that the shape and cut of some of these dresses, and the patterns of the embroidery (old as they are) might be copied with advantage by Parisian modistes; the more we study these old patterns, the more we cannot cease to regret that the Deae ex machina, the arbiters of fashion in the city where Fashion is Queen, have not managed to infuse into the costume of the time more character and purity of design—conditions not inconsistent with splendour, and affording scope, if need be, for any amount of extravagance.
We are led irresistibly into this digression, if it be a digression, because the statuesque figure before us displays so many lines of grace and beauty that have the additional charm of novelty. We know, for instance, that the pattern of this embroidery is unique, that the artificer of that curiously twined chain of gold has been dead perhaps for ages, that the rings on her fingers and the coins suspended from her hair are many of them real art treasures. *
* The 'jewels turned out to be paste on close inspection,
but the gold filagree work, and the other ornaments, were
old, and some very valuable and rare.
The result of our studies, as far as regards Moorish women, we must admit to have been after all, rather limited and unsatisfactory. We never once lighted upon a Moorish face that moved us much by its beauty, for the simple reason that it nearly always lacked expression; anything like emotion seemed inharmonious and out of place, and to disturb the uniformity of its lines. Even those dark lustrous eyes, when lighted by passion, had more of the tiger in them, than the tragedy queen.
The perfection of beauty, according to the Moorish ideal, seems to depend principally upon symmetry of feature, and is nothing without roundness of limb and a certain flabbiness of texture. It is an ideal of repose, not to say of dulness and insipidity; a heavy type of beauty of which we obtain some idea in the illustration before us, of a young girl, about thirteen years old, of one of the tribes from the interior. The drawing is by a Frenchman, and pretends to no particular artistic excellence, but it attempts to render (and we think succeeds in rendering) the style of a Mahommedan beauty in bridal array; one who is about to fulfil her destiny, and who appears to have as little animation or intelligence as the Prophet ordained for her, being perfectly fitted (according to the Koran) to fill her place in this world or in the next. *
* It detracts a little from the romance of these things to
learn from Mrs. Evans (who witnessed, what only ladies, of
course, could witness, the robing and decorating of the
bride before marriage) the manner in which the face of a
Moorish lady is prepared on the day of marriage:
'An old woman having carefully washed the bride's face with
water, proceeded to whiten it all over with a milky-looking
preparation, and after touching up the cheeks with rouge
(and, her eyes with antimony black), bound an amulet round
the head; then with a fine camel-hair pencil, she passed a
line of liquid glue over the eyebrows, and taking from a
folded paper a strip of gold-leaf fixed it across them both,
forming one long gilt bar, and then proceeded to give a few
finishing touches to the poor lay figure before her, by
fastening two or three tiny gold spangles on the forehead!'
We cannot help thinking that this might have been an
exceptional case, especially in the matter of gilding, but
we have seen both patches and paint on Moorish features—as
indeed we have seen them in England.
[Original]
Thus decked with her brightest jewels and adorned with a crown of gold, she waits to meet her lord, to be his 'light of the harem,' his 'sun and moon.' What if we, with our refined aesthetic tastes, what if disinterested spectators, vote her altogether the dullest and most uninteresting of beings? what if she seem to us more like some young animal, magnificently harnessed, waiting to be trotted out to the highest bidder? She shakes the coins and beads on her head sometimes, with a slight impatient gesture, and takes chocolate from her little sister, and is petted and pacified just as we should soothe and pacify an impatient steed; there is clearly no other way to treat her, it is the will of Allah that she should be so debased! *