f
beauty in Paris, I find it will not do when I get to Constantinople.
Personal qualities, the most opposite imaginable, are each looked upon
as beautiful in different countries, and even by different people of
the same country. That which is deformity in New York may be beauty in
Pekin. At one place the sighing lover sees "Helen" in an Egyptian
brow. In China, black teeth, painted eyelids, and plucked eyebrows are
beautiful; and should a woman's feet be large enough to walk upon,
their owners are looked upon as monsters of ugliness.

With the modern Greeks and other nations on the shores of the
Mediterranean, corpulency is the perfection of form in a woman; the
very attributes which disgust the western European form the highest
attractions of an Oriental fair. It was from the common and admired
shape of his countrywomen that Reubens, in his pictures, delights in a
vulgar and almost odious plumpness. He seems to have no idea of beauty
under two hundred pounds. His very Graces are all fat.

Hair is a beautiful ornament of woman, but it has always been a
disputed point as to what colour it shall be. I believe that most
people nowadays look upon a red head with disfavour--but in the times
of Queen Elizabeth it was in fashion. Mary of Scotland, though she had
exquisite hair of her own, wore red fronts out of compliment to
fashion and the red-headed Queen of England.

That famous beauty, Cleopatra, was red-haired also; and the Venetian
ladies to this day counterfeit yellow hair.

Yellow hair has a higher authority still. THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN
FLEECE, instituted by Philip, Duke of Burgundy, was in honour of a
frail beauty whose hair was yellow.

So, ladies and gentlemen, this thing of beauty which I come to talk
about, has a somewhat migratory and fickle standard of its own. All
the lovers of the world will have their own idea of the thing in spite
of me.

But where are we to detect this especial source of power? Often
forsooth in a dimple, sometimes beneath the shade of an eyelid or
perhaps among the tresses of a little fantastic curl!

I once knew a nobleman who used to try to make himself wise, and to
emancipate his heart from its thraldom to a celebrated beauty of the
court, by continually repeating to himself: "But it is short-lived,"
"It won't last--it won't last!"

Ah, me! that is too true--it won't last. Beauty has its date, and it
is the penalty of nature that girls must fade and become wizened as
their