Cornelia Jackson is the rector’s daughter, and hasn’t above $200 a year to spend on her clothes and to buy Christmas presents. She is a little too plump, is brown, with some warm color in her cheeks in summer, and has dark hair. Her face never would be noticed except for the jollity lurking in it, which she inherits from her father. In winter and fall, when she looks pale, she “tones up” with a morning dress of all-wool stuff, one of those brown grounds with small bunches of brilliant crimson or purple flowers—a cheery pattern that the rector likes behind the coffee urn of a cold morning—with crisp white ruffles, set off by the brown dress. Crimson or purple, in soft brilliant shades, are her colors for neck-ties. Her street dress is a dark walnut-brown cloth, trimmed with cross-cut velvet the same shade. The over-skirts of Cornelia’s dresses are always long, so that she will not look like a fishing-bob or a doll pin-cushion; and there is deep rose-color about her bonnet. Not roses, by the way—she has an unspoken feeling that it is not for every body to wear roses—but velvety mallows and double stocks, imitations of fragrant common garden flowers that are very like herself. The brown and crimson maiden is a pleasant sight of a winter’s day, when the gray of the church and white of the snow need something warm to come between them. In summer she chooses, or her cousin in New York chooses for her, not the light percales that every one else is wearing, nor the grays and stone-colors that walk to church every Sunday, but écru linens, with relief of black or brown for morning, when she goes from pantry to garden, and from sewing-machine to nursery. Afternoons she doesn’t divide herself by putting on a white blouse and colored skirt, or a buff redingote over a black train, but wears a dress of one color, that looks as if it were meant to stay at home. White nansook is her delight, its semi-transparency wonderfully suiting her clear brownness, but solid white linen or cambric she eschews. Soft violet jaconet, and the whole family of lilacs, are made for her; and she is luxurious in ruffles and flounces on her demi-trained skirts, since she makes and often irons them herself. Black grenadine, of course, she wears, with high lining to give her waist its full length, every bit of which it needs; and she is not too utilitarian to neglect the aid which a modest demi-train on a house dress gives to her height. All the other girls may wear puffed waists and pleated waists. She knows they are not for her plump shoulders, though clusters of fine tucks on a blouse give length to the waist, and lessen the width of the back. Shawls she never wears, nor short perky basques, that are considered—I don’t know why—the proper thing for stout figures. Her choice is the long polonaise, and the French jacket, which by its short shoulders and simple lines conveys a decent comeliness of figure to any one who wears it. If she had a party dress, it would be white muslin, or light silvery green silk, trimmed with pleatings of tulle, and with them she would wear her mother’s pearls, or her own fine carbuncles.
Mrs. Senator, with all her fortune and position, is doomed to hear people speak of her in under-tones at parties, “She is rich, but very plain.” Being a shrewd woman, she does not waste her efforts on trying to alter her thin features, nor does she make herself ridiculous by a false complexion of rouge and pearl-powder, though her face and her hair are about of a brownness. But on her entry into Washington society she defied criticism by appearing with her hair créped to show its soft brown lights and shades, and give the best outline to her head, her gypsy face opposed to a dead white silk, of Parisian origin, with flounce of pleated muslin, and corsage trimmings of rich lace. It is a real dress and a real woman that is described, and it is no fiction that she was the success of the evening. The colorless dress without reflets, and her ornaments of clustered pearls, were in most artistic contrast to the nut-brown hair and dusky face. A spot of color would have destroyed the charm. The dress stamped her, as she was, a woman of skill sufficient to draw from the most unlikely combination the elements of novel and complete success.
The girl who sits near me at the hotel table tries my eyes with her thin, curious features, her pale, frizzed hair, that makes her face more peaked than it is, and her oversized skirts. She ought not to wear those light dresses, for she has no color, and her thin complexion is not even clear. She has that difficult figure to dispose of, which is at once girlish and tall, without seeming so. A trained dress would make her look lean, so she should dispense with a large tournure, and let her dresses brush the floor a few inches, wearing as many small flounces below the knee as fashion and sense allow. If her mother, who is rather a strict lady, would insist on having the girl’s dresses made with puffed waists, or loose blouses of thick linen, instead of the Victoria lawns that iron so flat, and show the poor shoulder-blades frightfully, the effect would be rather delightful. She ought to wear puffed grenadines and lenos of maroon, rosy lilac, or deep green—the first lighted with pale rosy bows at the throat and in the hair, the latter with light green and white, the lilac with periwinkle knots. How one would like to dress her over again, and turn the poor thing out charming as she ought to be. Her hair-dressing would all have to be done over again. Sharp-featured people shouldn’t wear curls, which make the peaked effect still more prominent. Soft waves, drawn lightly away from the face and brushed up from the neck behind, would be better, and smooth braids best of all, with little waves peeping out under them. If the young woman could train herself not to be excitable, or to smile so overcomingly, and not be so eager to meet new acquaintances, she would make a pleasing impression, while now she gets snubbed in a tacit way, and those who take her up out of pity hardly feel as if they were paid for it. If women with hay-colored hair could be brought to believe that light brown, of all others, wasn’t the color for their style, one could afford to overlook minor deficiencies.
One is tempted to think sometimes that there is a loss in not adopting the French plan of lining houses with mirrors. If people continually caught sight of themselves, they would hardly indulge in the grimaces and gaucheries which they inflict on the world. It could hardly lead to vanity in most cases, and would settle many vexing problems of dress and demeanor. One is not always to be censured for studying the glass. The orator must use it to learn how to deliver his sentences with proper facial play and easy gesture. The public singer studies with a mirror on the music-rack to get the right position of the mouth for issuing the voice without making a face. The want of such training mars the work of some great artists with blemishes which nearly undo the effect of their talents.
The injunction that all things should be done decently and in order means that they ought to be pleasing. The study of ourselves can hardly be complete without the aid of the mirror, which shows candidly the cold smile, the vacant, bashful gaze, we give our fellow-beings, instead of the decent attention, the kind, full glance it is meet they should have from us, and which we prefer to receive from them. It shows the frown, the sour melancholy, which creep over the face in reveries, and leads us to try and feel pleasant that we may look so. How much confidence one assuring glance at a mirror has given us in going to receive a visitor, and what kindly warning of what was amiss in expression or toilet before it was too late! Is our vanity so easily excited that we are ready to fall in love with ourselves at sight? The intimate acquaintance with our appearance which the glass can give is more likely to make one genuinely humble. In a world which owns among its maxims the gay and wicked refrain of “manners for us, morals for those who like them,” good people can not afford to neglect either their toilets or their mirrors.
CHAPTER XXII.
Physical Education of Girls.—A Woman’s Value in the World.—High-bred Figures.—Antique Races.—Inspiration of Art not Vanity.—The Trying Age.—Dress, Food, and Bathing for Young Girls.—A Veto on Close Study.—Braces and Backboards.—Never Talk of Girls’ Feelings.—Exercise for the Arms.—Singing Scales with Corsets off.—Development of the Bust.—Open-work Corsets the Best.—The Bayaderes of India and their Forms.—The Delicacy due Young Girls.—A Frank but Needed Caution.—Care of the Figure after Nursing.
American girls begin to make much of physical culture. As they advance in refinement they see how much of their value in society depends on the nerve and spirit which accompanies thorough development. It is not enough that they know how to dance languidly, and carry themselves in company. To distinguish herself, a young belle must row, swim, skate, ride, and even shoot, to say nothing of lessons in fencing, which noble ladies in Germany, and some of foreign family here, take to develop sureness of hand and agility. The heavy, flat-footed creature who can not walk across a room without betraying the bad terms her joints are on with each other, must have a splendid face and fortune to keep any place in the world, no matter how good her family, or how varied her acquirements, though she speaks seven languages like a native, and has played sonatas since she was eight years old. A woman’s value depends entirely on her use to the world and to that person who happens to have the most of her society. A man likes the society of a woman who can walk a mile or two to see an interesting view, and can take long journeys without being laid up by them. He likes smooth motions, round arms and throat, head held straight, and shoulders that do not bow out. When you see that a fine figure must be a straight line from the roots of the hair to the base of the shoulder-blade, you will realize how few women approach this high-bred ideal. Special culture, indeed, is discerned where such excellence of line meets the eye. The polished races of the East, who, untutored and degraded, yet have the entail of antique subtlety and art, inherit such figures along with the proverbs of sages and palace mosaics. The best-born of all countries have this noble set of head, this lance-like figure, and easy play of limb. As surely as one can be educated to right thoughts and manners, so the motions and poise of limb can be trained to correctness. The work must begin early. A girl should be put in training as soon as she passes from the plumpness of childhood into the ugly age of development. The mother should inspect her dressing to see what improvement is needed, and stimulate the child by the desire to possess beautiful limbs and figure. The senses are early awake to the sense of grace. There is no better way to inspire a girl with it than to take her to picture-galleries, show the faces of historical beauties, or the figures of Italian sculpture, and ask her if she would not like to have the same fine points herself. This substitutes the love of art for that of admiration, and makes self-cultivation too deep a thing for vanity.
There is a time when girls are awkward, indolent, and capricious. Their boisterous spirits at one time, their sickly minauderies at another, are very trying to mothers and teachers. The cause is often set down as depravity, when it is only nature. Girls are lapsided and indolent because they are weak or languid, between which and being lazy there is a vast difference. They have demanding appetites that strike grown people with wonder. They go frantic on short notice when their wishes are crossed. Mother, if such is the case, your growing girl is weak. The nursery bath Saturday night is not enough. Encourage her to take a sponge-bath every day. When she comes in heated from a long walk or play, see that she bathes her knees, elbows, and feet in cold water, to prevent her growing nervous with fatigue when the excitement is over. See that she does not suffer from cold, and that she is not too warmly dressed, remembering a plump, active child will suffer with heat under the clothes it takes to keep you comfortable. If she is thin and sensitive, care must be taken against sudden chills. Keep her on very simple but well-flavored diet, with plenty of sour fruit, if she crave it, for the young have a facility for growing bilious, which acids correct. Sweet-pickles not too highly spiced are favorites with children, and better than sweetmeats. Nuts and raisins are more wholesome than candies. New cheese and cream are to be preferred to butter with bread and vegetables. Soup and a little of the best and juiciest meat should be given at dinner. But the miscellaneous stuffing that half-grown girls are allowed to indulge in ruins their complexion, temper, and digestion. No coffee nor tea should be taken by any human being till it is full-grown. The excitement of young nerves by these drinks is ruinous. Besides, the luxury and the stimulus is greater to the adult when debarred from these things through childhood. Neither mind nor body should be worked till maturity. Children will do all they ought in study and work without much urging; and they will learn more and remember more in two hours of study to five of play, than if the order is inverted. Say to a child, Get this lesson and you may go to play—and you will be astonished to see how rapidly it learns; but if one lesson is to succeed another till six dreary hours have dragged away, it loses heart, and learns merely what can not well be helped. A girl under eighteen ought not to practice at the piano or sit at a desk more than three quarters of an hour at a time. Then she should run out-of-doors ten minutes, or exercise, to relieve the nerves. An adult never ought to study or sit more than an hour without brief change before passing to the next. This keeps the head clearer, the limbs fresher, and carries one through a day with less fatigue than if one worked eight hours and then rested four.
Thoughtful teachers do not share the prejudice against braces and backboards for keeping the figure straight, especially when young. It is the instinct of barbarous nations to use such aids in compelling erectness in their children. These appliances need not be painful in the least, but rather relieve tender muscles and bones. Languid girls should take cool sitz-baths to strengthen the muscles of the back and hips, which are more than ordinarily susceptible of fatigue when childhood is over. But never talk of a girl’s feelings in mind or body before her, or suffer her to dwell on them. The effect is bad physically and mentally. See that these injunctions are obeyed implicitly; spare her the whys and wherefores. It is enough for her to know that she will feel better for them. Of all things, deliver us from valetudinarians of fifteen. Never laugh at them; never sneer; never indulge them in self-condolings. Be pitiful and sympathetic, but steadily turn their attention to something interesting outside of themselves.