THE DANDY CHASTISED.
In this metropolis a real, downright exquisite is rarely to be seen. Curiosity may be gratified by a good description of the animal as exhibited in other places. The following communication is from one residing in a city much more fashionable than ours. Its author seems well informed in the science of æsthetics; and it is to be hoped that he will exert himself to correct mistaken impressions as to the beautiful. Further notices by him may be beneficial.
C.
Among the follies and vices of mankind, there is nothing more remarkable or ridiculous than the continual effort, among all classes and kinds of people—savage, civilized, and pseudo-civilized—to increase or impart beauty and comeliness to their forms and features. Through what various and opposite means is this cherished object pursued! This savage tattoos his cheeks—that smooths and oils them, and would esteem the gratuitous tattoonry of the small-pox a graver misfortune than all the pain attendant on the disease.
The Indians on our Western border are wont to assume the character of the bear, the panther, or some "other interesting beast of prey," and place their ambition in enacting the look and conduct of such beast to the life—and "to the death."
The belle of that age is surrounded by a vast circumvallation of hoop—of this, is pinched into a narrow breastwork of steel and whale-bone.
To cramp the feet into unnatural littleness is now the sad task of those who, to be beautiful, are willing to suffer the tortures of the thumb-screw—or the toe-screw, (it matters not.) The fashion changes, and long pointed shapeless boots deform the human foot.
In no age—in no condition, can men and women be persuaded that God Almighty has made them well,—albeit he hath "made man after his own image," and woman much better than man.
They must fall to reforming their forms by some fanciful deformity.