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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)
General thoughts on dress and personal decoration, pp. 59-84
Page 82
82 MIRROR OF THE GRACE. drapery which enfolds it, harmonizes with the modest elegance, the buoyant health, which gives elasticity and grace to every limb.: here then you see yourselves from twenty to thirty. At that majestic age, when the woman of mind looks round upon the world; back on the evcnts which have past, and calmly forward to those which may be to come; all within ought to be settled on the firm basis of religion and sound judgment; and either as a Juno or a Minerva she stands forth in the power of beauty and of wisdom. At this period she lays aside the flowers of youth, and arrays herself in the ma- jesty of sobriety, or in the grandeur of simple magnificence. Contradictory as the two last terms may at first appear, they are consistent; and a glance on the works of Phidias, and of his best imita- tors, will sufficiently prove their beautiful union. Long is the reign of this commanding epoch of a woman's age; for from thirty to fifty she may most respectably maintain her station on this throne of matron excellence. But at that period, when she has numbered
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