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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)
On the peculiarities of dress, with reference to the station of the wearer, pp. 85-105
Page 105
ON THE PECULIARITIES OF DRESS. 1,05
grace of the female form, and which the artist,
enamoured of beauty, delights to delineate
with the nicest accuracy-are, by the con-
stant pressure of these stays, rendered in-
distinct, and in a short time are entirely
destroyed.
Let then the long stay be restricted to the
too abundant mass of fattening matron-
hood: so may art restrain the excesses, not of
nature, but of disease. Unwieldy flesh was
never yet seen in a perfectly healthy person:
it generally arises either from intemperance
overloading the functions of life, or dissipation
decomposing them.
Let the padded corset rectify the defects of
the deformed. But where nature has given
the outline of a well-constructed form, for-
bear to traverse her designs. Youth should
be left to spring up unconifined like the young
cedar; and when the hand of man, or acci-
dent, does not distort the pliant stem, it will
grow erect and firm, spreading its beautiful
and cheerful shade over the heads of its
planters.
K
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