BUXOM BUTTERFLIES.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1096, 3 January 1878, Page 3

BUXOM BUTTERFLIES.

[From “Truth.”] The buxom butterflies are women, frequently, to whom somewhat late in life has come the agitating idea that they have submitted too meekly to the audacious years ; that they have been somewhat balked of the precious little joys and privileges of youth. They have not been duly foolish in “the season made for folly,” nor shown to the fullest extent (as they think) how sweetly buoyant, how divinely butterfly like they can be. It is hard to think thus, and at the same time feel in all the bubbling spirits of eighteen, without indulging in some juvenile flutters, regardless of increasing girth and matronly years; and this indulgence constitutes the buxom butterfly. Naively believing in the endurance of a girlish charm, that refines and beautifies the girlish giddiness, she abandons the ease and dignity that should appertain to motherhood, and a style of figure that polite euphemism of the lower orders described as “ comfortable,” for the whirl, the worry and sometimes the positive hard labor of butterfly existence. She revives all the little interests of the newly-emancipated school-girl, the babbling laughter that is anything but a giggle in the best educated young ladies, the maidenly and somewhat meaningless gossip that Alfred de Musset, better than anyone, has described in “ A quoi revent les Jeunes Filles.” She takes to gossamer tissues, and perches on music-stools, and the prosperous proportions of her figure improve by neither of these methods of exhibiting them. She is the “ up to ” gamesome schemes ; nay, she is the chief originator, the heartiest promoter, of anything that involves a fluttering frenzy of madcap enjoyment, an overflow of high spirits, and indulgence in fun pur et simple. She is the suggester and directress of extemporised picnics, of the carpet dances organised on the spur of the moment; she is tlio giddy creature who pleads for one more waltz, and has a captivating pout to rebuke the first sour inspector of clocks and utterers of the dreaded “ time to go home.” And it is not in any way as a bland and benevolent elder that she plays a leading part in such spontaneous festivities ; it is, on the contrary, with a very clear and tacit understanding, that she is emphatically one of “ the girls ’ ’ to be danced with, talked to, flirted with, exactly as they are. It is as essential for her as I for the maiden with the slenderest chance of ; matrimonial success, that she could not drop behind fashion the length of a shoe-buckle or i the width of a shoulder-strap. It is part of her butterilydom that she should have the very newest tuft of fruit or vegetables in her hat, the last patent in the way of parasols in her hand, the most recent appliance for rendering a lady’s skirt more like a mummy’s bandages than ever. It matters little whether the forms, the tissues, and ornaments, that, on a young girl are gracefully piquant, on her become unmistakably “loud;” it is to no purpose that the veetimentary traditions of all time teach her that the trimming which suits the virginal zone maybe garish and grotesque on the matronly oestus; she is a butterfly, if a buxom one, and must be radiant with the freshest tints, powdered with the must effective powder. There arc absurdities in the role of butterfly past the proper limit s of butterfly existence, which are wholly unconnected with questions of bearing and costume. In the orthodox flutter from flower to flower, portly butterflies, somewhat ripe in years, do not always alight on blossoms sufficiently stolid and mature to bear them. The majority of very young men have a proverbial tendency for the butterfly whoso form is not too etherial, and. who has had some experience in the art of fluttering. Their enjoyment of the unequal flirtation is frank and boyish, and not unpleasant to behold ; but their simplicity and good faith do. not invariably add to the grace or dignity of their partners in the play,, who are apt at timesto approach a position bordering on the grotesque. Nor, as the years pass over her, and the effort to flutter and look delightfully spring-like becomes limper and lamer, doesone feel any sort of esteem for the r?.d less materfamihas, eager s? ever for a plunge into the whirlwind of poudre a la Marshals she has always called “life.” The wings of the ; butterfly hang flabby and feeble, but the soul !of. the butterfly is tliere. She is hunting for a seat in a box on a first night, an invitation to ■line a ball-room for five hours, a card for a dinner, a ticket for a show, when the poor old figure ought to be healthy,, graceful, perhaps ■ happy, in an arm chair by. the fireside, and l busy with her knitting needles, if those i instruments are not obsolete.