Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1884 — Value of Beauty. [ARTICLE]

Value of Beauty.

The most lasting and valuable species of beauty is that which is least cultivated. The young and capricious miss, with an elegant person and finely modeled face, illuminated by brilliant orbs and splendidly bedecked with dark, shining locks, very often destroys the moral beauty of her nature merely to humor the perverseness of her physical attractions. She trusts in the power of her bodily charms, and she even refuses to provide herself with those of a less perishable nature, which are not only servicable while the bodily beauty remains, but especially so when it is fled forever. She prides herself in her wardrobe of silk and satin, and would encounter any species of pain or hardship to increase it and to furnish herself with gold and with diamonds r but the wardrobe of the mind and the heart she takes little care to replenish, as if a young beauty were independent of this, and, if she played her cards well, might make her so tune without it. It is time enough to begin to be amiable when you begin to be ugly, say some young ladies, or they seem to say it. But nature punishes this perversity in a very striking and remarkable manner. They who refuse to cultivate the moral beauty during the reign of the season of physical beauty lose the opportunity of possessing themselves of it, and moreover, they destroy their favorite species of beauty by their independence and neglect of the other. The temper imprints its mark upon the countenance, which very speedily reveals the character of the disposition which lurks behind it. Being a growing power and a vigorous power, which is even strongest at death, it g aduallv overoomes every obstacle which stands in the way of its own escape into outward obse vation. It wrinkles the brow, lowers the eyebrows, bends down the cuive of the mouth and pouts the lips whenever it happens to be of a disagreeable nature; and it gives life and animation to all the lines of the face whenever its course of feeling happens to be of a kind and generous character. It comes out at last and shows itself, and once shown and impressed upon the face, it is there so long as it continues to act from within, and that is generally for life. It is no easy matter to begin to be amiable with an unamiable expression of countenance and an unamiable and fixed habit of behavior. lew have strength of will sufficient to make such a change in their mode of life. It is not by a mere moral resolution that such a conversion can take place. We are far more likely to become worse than better when we find attraction of the person to cease after a heartless and imperious reign of saucy beauty. It is no easy task, indeed, to resign ourselves to our fate when our attractions have disappeared, and all at once to correct the scowl and the frown, and the haughty air and the satirical grin, and the heartless sneer, which have already left their imprints on the face and made themselves quite at home in the very citadel of expression. Philadelphia Call.