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Of Health and Beauty in Woman.
15

her motions graceful, and her countenance expressive of love and sweetness.

Neither were those consummate artists less care­ful in their more minute delineations of the female form. The limbs are round and delicate; the knuckles of the hands and feet expressed by simple dimples; the fingers tapered, and their outline determined by a long curve; whilst over the whole is shed that indescribable grace which is beauty, fairness—endearing, agreeable, elegant; and which may be seen in perfection in the three Graces, all sisters, whose innocence is their only gar­ment, embracing each other in the gentlest manner.

It only remains to offer a few remarks on the recognition of beauty in the different stages of life. The beauty of childhood is in its simplicity and helplessness, in the utter unconsciousness of every­thing but its own feelings and desires. In youth it is the budding graces that we admire; it is the springtime of life. Womanhood is the summer and full bloom of beauty. Middle age is the autumn, when the ripe and mellow fruit of life attains per­fection. Nor is advanced life without its beauties; the icicles and snows of age have charms and glories peculiarly their own. Thus, from the cradle to the