“To the opposite, her sister relied on her beauty for a place among her sex, and was at no pains to cultivate conversation, letters, or any branch of the art of pleasing except the setting forth of her personal charms. Had her manner and her talk been what she might easily have made them, she would have shone out as a beauty in the prime of her womanhood. She had no lack of sense nor of education, either; but proudly reposing on her incontestable loveliness, she rather withdrew than put forward her attractions.
“I wish to convince women that it is a great mistake on their part to suppose that their power to please departs with youth. At all times I have noticed that men of sense seldom admire—or grow enamored of—women for beauty alone, but for character, manner, taste, and conversation. Now, while beauty, we must admit, lessens with time, character, manner, taste, and conversation may each be refined and enriched.... Mere beauty is but one bright unchanging beam: it will even grow wearisome; but wit, sense, courtesy, and humanity are forever casting forth new and unexpected rays and enlivening intercourse with agreeable surprises.
“She was the best dresser I ever knew. Her appearance pleased numbers of people before they saw her face.... She managed through all the changes of fashion to respect herself and her own figure and face: in the fashion she would always be; but still she would modulate it so as to be the queen and not the slave.
“Her manners in society were captivating. With what graceful attention she heard what you had to say. How modestly she gave her own opinion.... She tried to please. She knew that a woman ought to be an object of admiration and affection, and she ruled her whole life with a view to this fact. Her religion gave a richness, a sweetness, a seriousness to all her charms.
“You will laugh when I tell you that Lady Beauty at the age of fifty-three had a new lover.”
“Beauty Rules.”
“Rule One.—A woman’s power in the world is measured by her power to please. Whatever she will wish to accomplish, she will manage it best by pleasing. A woman’s grand social aim should be to please.
“Rule Two.—Modesty is the ground on which all a woman’s charms appear to the best advantage. In manner, dress, conversation, remember always that modesty must not be forgotten.... Not prudery. Modesty is of the soul. Prudery is on the surface.
“Rule Three.—So the woman’s aim is to please, and modesty is the first principle.
“Rule Four.—Always dress up to your age or a little beyond it. Let your face be the youngest thing about you, not the oldest.