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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)
The same subject, of female beauty, more explicity [sic] considered, pp. 42-58 ff.
Page 43
FEMALE BEAUTY. blood in the mantling cheek ; the ever,-vary- ing hues of nature glowing in the face, '" as if her very body thought;" these are alike the ensigns of beauty and the heralds of the mind; and the efrect is, an impression of loveliness, an attraction, which fills the be- holder with answering animation and the liveliest delight. As a Juno-featured maid with a dull skin, by most people, will only be coldly pro. nounced critically handsome; so a young woman with very indifferent features, but a fine complexion, will, from ten persons out of twelve, receive spontaneous and warm ad- miration. This experience (when once we admit the proposition that it is right to keep the casket bright which contains so precious a gem as the soul) must induce us to take precautions against, the injuries continually threatening the tender surface of the skin. It may be next to an impossibility, to change the colour of an eye, to alter the form of the nose, or the turn of the mouth; but, though heaven has given us a complexion which vies with 0' 43
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