THE DUTY OF COMELINESS.
"So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair."
We are not at all sure that we need to write the present section. Is it necessary for us to defend the thesis, that it is the duty of every woman to look as pretty as she possibly can, consistently with her other duties? It may be, for there are still some among us whose minds, obscured by some lingering mist of the Dark Ages, cannot cease imagining that the beauty of the body is the snare of the Devil, and the cultivation of that beauty little better than burning incense on his altar. They do not remember, poor souls, that this body of ours is the counterpart of divinity, but only then, when it is maintained with perfect form and feature.
