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The mirror of the graces; or, the English lady's costume: combining and harmonizing taste and judgment, elegance and grace, modesty, simplicity and economy, with fashion in dress; and adapting the various articles of female embellishments to different ages, forms, and complexions; to the seasons of the year, rank, and situation in life: with useful advice on female accomplishments, politeness, and manners; the cultivation of the mind and the disposition and carriage of the body: offering also the most efficacious means of preserving beauty, health, and loveliness. The whole according with the general principles of nature and rules of propriety
(1811)
Preliminary observations on the subject, pp. [9]-19
Page 17
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. of his sublunary bliss. To deny this, is to deny even more than the voice of nature; therefore, I shall not stop to answer so wil- fully blind an objection. We have all read in a work, before which kings and sages have bowed, and do now bend the knee, in due humility and deference-that "a woman's desire is unto her husband !" and for that tenderrelation, the first on earth, (for, before the bonds of relationship, man and woman became a wedded pair,) woman must leave father and mother, and cleave unto him alone. Hence, I shall not longer beg the question, whether it be not right that a chaste maid should adorn herself with the graces of youth and modesty, and, with a sober reference to the duties of her sex, present herself a can- didate for the love and protection of inanli- ness and virtue. By making the fairness of the body the sign of the mind's purity, man is imperceptibly at- tracted to the object designed for him by hea- ven as the partner of his life, the future mother of his children, and the angel which is to ac- company him into eternity. Hence, insignifi- 17
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