Hands are no more beautiful for being small than eyes are for being big; but many a modern girl would ask her fairy godmother, if she had one, to give her eyes as big as saucers and hands as small as those of a doll, believing that the first cannot be too large nor the last too small. Tiny hands and feet are terms constantly used by poets and novelists in a most misleading manner. It cannot be possible that they are intended by the writers to express anything but general delicacy and refinement; but a notion is encouraged that results in the destruction of one of the most beautiful of natural objects—the human foot.
This unfortunate notion, that the beauty of the foot depends upon its smallness, leads to the crippling of it, till it becomes in many cases a bunch of deformity. It is a most reprehensible practice, alike revolting to good taste and good sense, to put the foot of a growing girl into a shoe that is not only too short, crumpling the toes into a bunch, but, being pointed, turns the great toe inwards, producing deformity of general shape, and, in course of time, inevitable bunions, the only wonder being that steadiness in standing or any grace of movement at all is left.
Girls and their Mothers.—A writer in a contemporary calls attention to the very objectionable sharpness with which some girls speak to their mothers. “In a railway carriage on our journey north,” she says, “the window seats at one end were occupied by two ladies, evidently mother and daughter. The latter appeared to be out of temper. The former mildly remarked, ‘Do you not think we had better have the window up?’ the reply was, ‘Most certainly not,’ delivered in F sharp key. If I were a modern Cœlebs in search of a wife, I should very carefully observe the young lady’s manner to her mother before asking the momentous question, for a girl must be vixenish at heart and unamiable indeed, when she can address her own mother with such careless rudeness as one too often hears.”
Modesty.—Modesty is the appendage of sobriety, and is to chastity, to temperance, and to humility, as the fringes are to a garment.—Jeremy Taylor.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
EDUCATIONAL.
Macaco and F. S. D.—“Macaco” recommends a correspondence class, conducted by a Miss Macarthur, 4, Buckingham-street, Hillhead, Glasgow. We have before drawn attention to a little useful shilling manual called “A Directory of Girls’ Clubs,” chiefly educational, and including religious studies and unions for prayer (Messrs. Griffith and Farran, St. Paul’s-churchyard, E.C.). By procuring this a choice can be made, as the rules and terms of most of them are given. “F. S. D.” had better try again, by all means, when we give another competition. It will be found, as you say, to do good, even to those who do not prove winners.
Ella.—You might find the first instruction books in history, geography, and grammar at a secondhand bookstall for a mere trifle. Later on, you may have the means to obtain the more advanced.
Alta.—See our answers under the above heading, so continually repeated in reference to your questions. You are too young to be received as a nurse. See our reply to “L. N.,” page 31, vol. vi. (part for October, 1884).
Iciple.—We do not recommend teachers and Board-school mistresses to look for engagements in the colonies, however well supplied with certificates. Nevertheless, to render the matter more certain you had better obtain information and advice at the Women’s Emigration office, in Dorset-street, Portman-square, W.