By Madame Lola Montez,
COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD
A Beautiful Face
f it be true "that the face is the index of the mind," the recipe for a beautiful face must be something that reaches the soul. What can be done for a human face that has a sluggish, sullen, arrogant, angry mind looking out of every feature? An habitually ill-natured, discontented mind ploughs the face with inevitable marks of its own vice. However well shaped, or however bright its complexion, no such face can ever become really beautiful. If a woman's soul is without cultivation, without taste, without refinement, without the sweetness of a happy mind, not all the mysteries of art can ever make her face beautiful. And, on the other hand, it is impossible to dim the brightness of an elegant and polished intellect. The radiance of a charming mind strikes through all deformity of features, and still asserts its sway over the world of the affections. It has been my privilege to see the most celebrated beauties that shine in all the gilded courts of fashion throughout the world, from St. James's to St. Petersburgh, from Paris to Hindostan, and yet I have found no art which can atone for an unpolished mind, and an unlovely heart. That chastened and delightful activity of soul, that spiritual energy which gives animation, grace, and living light to the animal frame, is, after all, the real source of beauty in a woman. It is that which gives eloquence to the language of her eyes, which sends the sweetest vermilion mantling to the cheek, and lights up the whole personnel as if her very body thought. That, ladies, is the ensign of beauty, and the herald of charms, which are sure to fill the beholder with answering emotion and irrepressible delight.
Paints and Powders
If Satan has ever had any direct agency in inducing woman to spoil or deform her own beauty, it must have been in tempting her to use paints and enamelling. Nothing so effectually writes memento mori! on the cheek of beauty as this ridiculous and culpable practice. Ladies ought to know that it is a sure spoiler of the skin, and good taste ought to teach them that it is a frightful distorter and deformer of the natural beauty of the "human face divine." The greatest charm of beauty is in the expression of a lovely face; in those divine flashes of joy, and good-nature, and love, which beam in the human countenance. But what expression can there be in a face bedaubed with white paint and enamelled? No flush of pleasure, no thrill of hope, no light of love can shine through the incrusted mould. Her face is as expressionless as that of a painted mummy. And let no woman imagine that the men do not readily detect this poisonous mask upon the skin. Many a time have I seen a gentleman shrink from saluting a brilliant lady, as though it was a death's head he were compelled to kiss. The secret was that her face and lips were bedaubed with paints.
A violently rouged woman is a disgusting sight. The excessive red on the face gives a coarseness to every feature, and a general fierceness to the countenance, which transforms the elegant lady of fashion into a vulgar harridan. But, in no case, can even rouge be used by ladies who have passed the age of life when roses are natural to the cheek. A rouged old woman is a horrible sight—a distortion of nature's harmony!
Paints are not only destructive to the skin, but they are ruinous to the health. I have known paralytic affections and premature death to be traced to their use. But alas! I am afraid that there never was a time when many of the gay and fashionable of my sex did not make themselves both contemptible and ridiculous by this disgusting trick.
Let every woman at once understand that paint can do nothing for the mouth and lips. The advantage gained by the artificial red is a thousand times more than lost by the sure destruction of that delicate charm associated with the idea of "nature's dewy lip." There can be no dew on a painted lip. And there is no man who does not shrink back with disgust from the idea of kissing a pair of painted lips. Nor let any woman deceive herself with the idea that the men do not instantly detect paint on the lips.