There is no vanity, necessarily, in making the best of ourselves; and a desire to please others in our appearance, as well as in our actions, has nothing about it reprehensible. What good thing may not be applied to some ignoble end? There is nothing blameworthy in the love of beauty, nor in its cultivation; nothing contrary to purity or religious faith.
It has been well said by a genial writer, Mr. James Bruce: "All the arguments against women using every art to heighten and preserve their charms resolve themselves into the hateful belief of the ascetic, that everything that is offensive to man is agreeable to heaven, and all that is agreeable to man is offensive to God—a belief that has characterized all false religions from the beginning of time to the present hour." Did we think differently, no word of ours should be spoken in favor of personal beauty and its enhancement.
These cares and arts will enable many a wife to recover and to retain the affections of her husband, and many an unmarried woman to obtain that attention and courtesy the want of which gives her now unhappy moments.
That, as some have said, these arts encourage deceitfulness, is not to be accepted. For the same reason we should discard wigs, false curls, false teeth, and a host of other devices to conceal deformity, which are now in universal use.
What results may not flow from this self-cultivation?
