A FEW FRIENDS. 53
length sufficiently circumscribed as not to impede her walking; but on no account must they be too short: for, when any design is betrayed of showing the foot or ancle, tne idea of beauty is lost in that of the wearer's odious indelicacy. On the reverse, when no show of vanity is apparent in the dress when the lightly flowing drapery, by unsought accident, discovers the pretty buskined foot or taper ankle, a sense of virgin timidity, and of exquisite loveliness together, strikes upon the senses; and admiration, with a tender sigh, softly whispers, “the most resistless charm is modesty! "
In Thomson's exquisite portrait of Lavinia, the prominent feature is modesty. “She was beauty's self, “indeed, but then she was “thoughtless of beauty; “and though her eyes were sparkling, “bashful modesty “directed them
“Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers. “The morning robe should cover the arms and the bosom, nay, even the neck. And if it be made tight to the shape, every symmetrical line is discovered, with a grace so decent, that vestals, without a blush, might adopt the chaste apparel. This simple garb leaves to beauty all her empire; no furbelows, no heavy ornaments, load the figure, warp the outlines, and distract the attention. All is light, easy, and elegant; and the lovely wearer, “with her glossy ringlets loosely bound, “moves with the zephyrs on the airy wing of youth and innocence.
Her summer evening dress may be of a still more gossamer texture; but it must still preserve the same simplicity, though its gracefully diverging folds may fall, like the mantle of Juno, in clustering drapery about her steps. There they should meet the white slipper
“-of the fairy foot,
Which shines like snow, and falls on earth as mute. “Female youth, of airy forms and fair complexions, ought to reject, as too heavy for their style of figure, the use of gems. Their ornaments should hardly ever exceed the natural or imitated flowers of the most delicate tribes. The snow drop, lily of the valley, violet, primrose, myrtle, Provence rose these and their resemblances, are embellishments which harmonize with their gaiety and blooming years. The colours of their garments, when not white, should be the most tender shades of green, yellow, pink, blue, and lilac. These, when judiciously selected, or mingled, array the graceful wearer, like another Iris, breathing youth and loveliness.
While fine taste, as well as fashion, decrees that the beautiful outline of a well proportioned form shall be seen in the contour of a nicely adapted dress, the divisions of that dress must be few and simple. But, though the hoop and quilted petticoat are no longer suffered to shroud in hideous obscurity one of the loveliest works in nature, yet all intermediate covering is not to be banished. Modesty, on one hand, and health on the other, still maintain the law of “fold on fold. "
During the chilling airs of spring and autumn,
the cotton petticoat should give place to fine flannel; and in the rigid season of winter, another addition must be made, by rendering the outer garments warmer in their original texture: for instance, substituting satins, velvets, and rich stuffs, for the lighter materials of summer. And besides these, the use of fur is not only a salutary, but a magnificent and graceful appendage to dress.
Having laid it down as a general principle, that the fashion of the raiment must correspond with that of the figure, and that every sort of woman will not look equally well in the same style of apparel, it will not be difficult to make you understand, that a handsome person may make a freer use of fancy in her ornaments than an ordinary one. Beauty gives effect to all things; it is the universal embellisher, the setting which makes common crystal shine as diamonds. In short, fashion does not adorn beauty, but beauty fashion. Hence, I must warn Delia, that if she be not cast in so perfect a mould as Celia, she must not flatter herself that she can supply the deficiency by gayer or more sumptuous attire.
A FEW FRIENDS.
“And what is friendship but a name? "
EVERY thing that Cicero has said in his Treatise De Amicitia is very fine, and very good, and very true; but he does not seem to have been altogether aware of the fulness of meaning contained in the word friends.
A man invites a few friends to dine with him. They come, they eat, they drink, they talk, they criticise, they depart. They have praise and blame for the cook, and they speak learnedly of the wine; and, in nine cases out of ten, somewhat censoriously of the host. For either he has been too ostentatious in his liberality, or too niggardly in hospitality; and he seems almost required to ask pardon of those whom he has fed for the manner in which he has fed them. Then the entertainer becomes, in his turn, the entertained, and takes his turn also in the delights of culinary criticism and friendly censoriousness. These are friends by the table, cemented by the various combinations of fish, flesh, and fowl, closely adhering so long as that lasts which holds them together; but that failing, they fail, and depart, and separate. A man writes a book, prose or poetry, as the case may be. He, of course, thinks it very fine, but he is not quite satisfied that all the world must of necessity be of the same opinion; therefore, he shows it to his friends, and asks their candid opinion — and they read it, and give him ( excuse the pun, gentle reader ) their candied opinion. They advise him, by all means, to publish it they are sure it must succeed. It is published, and it does not succeed; and then these friends wonder that any man could be so simple as to imagine that such a thing ever could succeed; and they wonder that he did not see that what they had said was not their real opinion;
