FEMININE FIGURES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 141, 3 October 1876, Page 2

FEMININE FIGURES.

The womei% of the United States are generallyspo much slighter than the women of other civilised nations that they are remarkable and distinct from this fact alone. "As thin aa»ah American " is a simile in Europe, and its fitness is seen as our women are compared with those of the other hemisphere, or even of parts of thii, Europeans are constantly commenting upon the fragility of American women, and are surprised that they can have so much nervous force and endurance. This fragility, far more apparent than real, naturally strikes a foreigner, who, accustomed to see such ample proportions, not to say more redundant contours, in his own land, is disposed at first, to think our women confirmed invalids. Pale complexions, rather sharp features, and slender figures, are to him palpable evidences of disease ; for he has learned to associate robust health with high color, full face, and unmistateable stoutness. Outward signs are likely to be deceptive. American women are not of the firmest, but they are much firmer than they look, while many women of the Old World, pictures of superabundant health, are the opposite of what they show. But man in general is more in the habit of judging the other sex aesthetically than physiologically. He asks himself about their comeliness, grace, elegance, or manner, without thinking or caring overmuch, whether they have sound constitution or freedom from ailments. The foreigner frequently criticises the American woman for her meagreness, her angularity, her pallor, while conceding her grace, flexibility, mobile expression, ease of carriage, intellectual flavor. She would, no doubt, be a gainer by an increase of flesh —she does lack roundness, as a rule, though there are innumerable exceptions—likewise a certain physical, not less than spiritual, toning-down. She is not ideal in her proportions, what woman is 1 for Nature has not fully discharged the duty of beauty to her, nor indeed to any of the daughters of the earth. But Nature is improving; with our help she is slowly, tlioug.i steadily, advancing to rarer execution.

The English girl is frequently so fresh and wholesome —has such clear, bright eyes, such a wealth of blonde hair, such a delicate pink-and-white complexion, that it is impossible not to admire her. One is excusable for enthusiasm, which, if lie would keep it, he should express betimes, reading, as he has sound reason to, the metamorphosis of coming years. Not long after she has been married, she is apt to change ; her complexion loses its bloom and deepens in hue ; iier plumpness degenerates into stoutness ; she becomes a gross exaggeration of her former self. Sue may still be good-looking ; but she ii so large that her quondam suggestion of delicacy, sweetness, and proportion, is swallowed up in a sense of colour, redundancy, and vastness. So with the French woman, notably with the Parisienne. From eighteen to twenty-five, though less regularly handsome than her English sister, Ker *„juLnette type, with her dark eyes and h'air,~her clear, dark skin, her mellow roundnessverging on, perhaps urging, over ripeness, —are sensuously inviting, and mentally also, coupled with her vivacity, sparkle, and finesse. But presently she expands beyond the repressing power of corset and mantuan art; the image of her elegance is rudely and eternally dispelled. The young Italian reminds you of the Correggio, Guido, and Bellini pictures in face and form —why should she not, since those are but idealized copies?—but as she grows older she ceases to be a subject of, or study for, art. Her graceful out» lines are obliterated by expansion; the pigment of nature is too thickly laid on; the tone of the model is totally lost. The black-eyed, olive complexioned, voluptuous Spanish maiden spreads into bounteous wifehood and maternity ; you no longer look for her supergenerous counterparts on the canvass or panel of Murillo or Velasquez.

Alas, alas, all the Old World runs to flesh with added years ; the Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic, Latin, and Sclavonic races are unwilling that their daughters shall stop within boundaries of grace. The Republic, aged a century, alone prescribes limitations to the material growth of her women ; keeping them, it may be, within their best development, their loveliest blossoming. Nature were wise, perchance, to strike an average, and so benefit both hemispheres. But since she does not, be content with our spareness and our angularity, especially since these are sensibly growing less. We are much nearer the ideal and the classic than the rest of. the globe is. Let our women rejoice that they are not fat ; that they can approach middle life without accumulating an overplus of flesh. If they need consolation, they should remember that adipose matter is not given with discrimination; that Nature ordains that it should be too much or too little, and tha'/, all things considered, the latter is far preferable. The Greek statues, still regarded as a perfection of form, as archetypes of beauty, are more like American than like other women ; the old masters, barring Rubens and his reproductions of his two huge flabby wives, painted goddesses, saints and madonnas without leading to stoutness. The great beauties of history, the fascinating heroines of poetry and 1 fiction, were slender, lissome creatures, whose glorious bodies seemed capable of reflection. There can be no real grace, no elegance, no untold charm, in 200 lbs. avoirdupois; while she whose thinness itself may be enchanting, may inspire poetry, may make men mad for the love ■ of her, and set the world in arms.—New York Times. : -S~y