APPENDIX II
EXTRACTS FROM "LOLA MONTEZ' LECTURES"
Beautiful Women
he last and most difficult office imposed on Psyche was to descend to the lower regions and bring back a portion of Proserpine's beauty in a box. The too inquisitive goddess, impelled by curiosity or perhaps by a desire to add to her own charms, raised the lid, and behold there issued forth—a vapour I which was all there was of that wondrous beauty.
In attempting to give a definition of beauty, I have painfully felt the force of this classic parable. If I settle upon a standard of beauty in Paris, I find it will not do when I get to Constantinople. Personal qualities, the most opposite imaginable, are each looked upon as beautiful in different countries, and even by different people of the same country. That which is deformity in New York may be beauty in Pekin. At one place the sighing lover sees "Helen" in an Egyptian brow. In China, black teeth, painted eyelids, and plucked eyebrows are beautiful; and should a woman's feet be large enough to walk upon, their owners are looked upon as monsters of ugliness.
With the modern Greeks and other nations on the shores of the Mediterranean, corpulency is the perfection of form in a woman; the very attributes which disgust the western European form the highest attractions of an Oriental fair. It was from the common and admired shape of his countrywomen that Reubens, in his pictures, delights in a vulgar and almost odious plumpness. He seems to have no idea of beauty under two hundred pounds. His very Graces are all fat.
Hair is a beautiful ornament of woman, but it has always been a disputed point as to what colour it shall be. I believe that most people nowadays look upon a red head with disfavour—but in the times of Queen Elizabeth it was in fashion. Mary of Scotland, though she had exquisite hair of her own, wore red fronts out of compliment to fashion and the red-headed Queen of England.
That famous beauty, Cleopatra, was red-haired also; and the Venetian ladies to this day counterfeit yellow hair.