We transform dowdies into goddesses.
We here quote a passage from a popular writer merely to indicate our utter disapprobation of the author and of his sentiments:
“The solicitude of parents, especially of mothers to make their daughters fine ladies is truly ridiculous. How often soever the poor child has occasion to look at anything below the parallel of the horizon, and a little relax the muscles of the neck, it can hardly ever escape the notice of her mamma or her governess, and she is bid with more than common poignancy of expression, to hold up her head, perhaps more than a thousand times in a day. If one of her shoulders should be thought to rise but an hair’s breadth higher than the other, she is immediately bound and braced, twisted and screwed, in a most unmerciful manner, and tortured almost to death, in order to correct the supposed irregularity. And lest the dear creature, in the natural play and free use of her limbs, should contract any ungenteel habits, the dancing master must be called in at least three times a week to put every part of the body into its due place and attitude, and teach her to sit, stand and walk according to the exact rules of his art, which, to be sure, must infinitely exceed all the simplicity of untutored nature. Should the least pimple appear on any part of the face, or what is still more alarming, should the milk-maid’s flush begin to betray itself in the color of the cheeks, all possible means must be used, physic and diet must do their part, nay, health itself must be endangered or destroyed to suppress the vulgar complexion.
“Health and beauty have been frequently destroyed by a solicitous care to preserve them, deformity induced, and a thousand ill habits contracted by the very means that were intended to prevent them.”—Ash’s Sentiments on Education.
See additional note No. 1, at the end of the volume.
They might as well have none at all.
The process by which this fabrication is effected is copied from Nature; and her manipulations in similar performances have been thus described in some of our heretofore publications: