Part two! Are you excited? I’m excited. I’m starting to find it funny now that I’m sharing it with you. We’re heading into the chapter entitled “On the Female Form” and just like Hildegard of Bingen I’m wondering if our dear Lady has some repressed feelings going with the way she’s cataloguing types of female beauty. There’s also a lot of classical allusions going on. A lot.
“In one youthful figure, we see the lineaments of a wood-nymph; a form slight and elastic in all its parts. The shape,
“Small by degrees, and beautifully less,
From the soft bosom to the tender waist!”
A foot light as that of her whose flying step scarcely brushed the “unbending corn;” and limbs, whose agile grace moved in gay harmony with the turns of her swan-like neck and sparkling eyes.
Another fair one appears with the chastened dignity of a vestal. Her proportions are of a less aërial outline. As she draws near, we perceive that the contour of her figure is on a broader and less flexible scale than that of her more ethereal sister. Euphrosyne speaks in the one, Melpomene in the other.”
She goes on like this for a while.
“The general characteristics of youth, are meek dignity, chastened sportiveness, and gentle seriousness. Middle age has the privilege of preserving, unaltered, the graceful majesty and tender gravity which may have marked its earlier years. But the gay manners of the comic muse must, in the advance of life, be discreetly softened down into little more than cheerful amenity. Time marches on, and another change takes place. Amiable as the former characteristics may be, they must give way to the sober, the venerable aspect with which age, experience, and “a soul commercing with the skies,” ought to adorn the silver hairs of the Christian matron.”
Shan’t.
I mean aside from the utter pretentiousness it’s not any different from the things people say about dressing your age even now. But you can pry my glitter eye shadow from my wizened crone hands.
“Virgin, bridal Beauty, when she arrays herself with taste, obeys an end of her creation — that of increasing her charms in the eyes of some virtuous lover, or the husband of her bosom. She is approved. But when the wrinkled fair, the hoary-headed matron, attempts to equip herself for conquest, to awaken sentiments which, when the bloom on her cheek has disappeared, her rouge can never recall; and, despite of all her efforts, we can perceive “memento mori” written on her face, then we cannot but deride her folly, or, in pity, counsel her rather to seek for charms, the mental graces of Madame de Sevigné, than the meretricious arts of Ninon de l’Enclos.”
Repulsive. Culturally normative, obviously, but repulsive all the same.
“A strange kind of art, a sort of sorcery, is prescribed by tradition, and in books, in the form of cosmetics, &c., to preserve female charms in perpetual youth. But I fear that, until these composts can be concocted in Medea’s caldron, they will never have any better effect than exercising the faith and patience of the credulous dupes, who expect to find the elixir vitæ in any mixture under heaven.”
Genuinely hilarious phrasing even if it is horrible. It’s not that she’s entirely wrong; most of the anti-ageing products available in her era were actively poisonous, leaving their users with everything from horrible rashes to neurological damage and death. Just the sheer contempt for women trying to preserve the thing they’re primarily valued for, that they’ve been indoctrinated from birth to fixate on. It’s entirely on brand for her, though I’ve heard she changed her mind on makeup et al once she started ageing herself.
“The secret of preserving beauty lies in three things, — temperance, exercise, and cleanliness. — From these few heads, I hope much good instruction may be deduced. Temperance includes moderation at table, and in the enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. A young beauty, were she fair as Hebe, and elegant as the Goddess of Love herself, would soon lose these charms by a course of inordinate eating, drinking, and late hours.”
This sounds harmless enough but she’s about to dive into disordered eating 101. It’s mostly orthorexia but there’s also aspects of restriction in there too, it’s very nineties and oughts diet culture at it’s worst with elements of pleasure is sin and sin makes you ugly mixed in.
“But, when I speak of inordinate eating, &c., I do not mean feasting like a glutton, or drinking to intoxication. My objection is not more against the quantity than the quality of the dishes which constitute the usual repast of women of fashion. Their breakfasts not only set forth tea and coffee, but chocolate, and hot bread and butter.”
Not hot bread. Imagine eating an actual food for breakfast instead of just liquid caffeine. The horror. She then goes on to make a good point about how skipping lunch is a bad idea but walks back the only common sense she’s shown by scolding women for eating rich, flavoursome food and drinking anything other than plain water. That and staying up late and attending social functions will make you ugly.
“This delightful and delicate Oriental fashion is now, I am happy to say, prevalent almost all over the continent.”
Bathing. She’s talking about bathing regularly. I cannot express how embarrassed I am on behalf of my ancestors. Culturally appropriating basic hygiene. Good gods. Bad enough we weren’t doing it ourselves to begin with, now we’ve got to be weird about the people who modelled it.
“Every house of every nobleman or gentleman, in every nation under the sun, excepting Britain, possesses one of those genial friends to cleanliness and comfort. The generality of English ladies seem to be ignorant of the use of any bath larger than a wash-hand basin.”
Absolute embarrassment. For once I’m with the Lady. Rinse them ma’am. Possibly literally.
“It may be remarked, en passant, that rubbing of the skin in the bath is an excellent substitute for exercise, when that is impracticable out-of-doors.”
And we’re back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.
“I beseech you, therefore, as you value the preservation of your charms, to resist the dominion of this rude despoiler, to foster and encourage the feelings of kindliness and good-humor, and to repress every emotion of a contrary character.”
Emotions make you ugly folks. Sorry, emotions that aren’t convenient for other people, mostly men, are inconvenient. God forbid a woman experience anger, “The first emotions of anger are apparent to the most superficial observer. Every indulgence in its paroxysms, both adds strength to its authority, and engraves its history in deeper relief on the forehead of its votaries.”
Alright that’s the end of “On the Female Form.” I’m going to leave you here, with just one chapter for this instalment, because I think that’s quite enough for now. It is interesting how many modern parallels there are in her work to modern, misogynistic women’s magazine articles. Some of the things in this book read like paraphrased entries from the glossy magazines of my own oughts adolescence. Anyway until next time, when we dive into “The same subject, of female beauty, more explicitly considered.” She’s definitely going to be normal about this. Cannot wait.
Gothic Auntie 
