Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

town; and from ell the mansions of the West brilliant party to a thousand guests? Who covld End travelling-chariots and post-chaises, crowded | have fancied that the proud and brilliant Hen. with a living freightage and cumbered with | Miss Such-a-one could have possibly eloped with a luggage, were rolling away to country-seats penniless subaltern in the army? And how strange or to favourite sea-side resorts. Mapriageable | it was that another Selle of fasbion should have gone young ladies, who had been whirled and waltzed | in the very midst of the season to pass a few montis and quadrilled through the season—but who in- | at some country-seat of which no one had ever stead of picking up husbands under the auspices | heard before, and with some old aunt whose exist- of manwuvring mammas, had caught only cada- | ence was apocryphal ? And how infamously young AGNES: OB, BEAUTY AND PLEASULE. vyerous complexions — were on their way to woo back the colour to their cheeks amidst a rural atmosphere or in sea-breezes ; so that in due time hey might return, with a renovated bloom, to plunge anew into London dissipations and east the matrimonial net once more in the heated, troubled waters where gold and silver fishes were to be caught. How few of all those denizens of the fashion- eble world could look back with satisfaction upon the season which was just over! Their existence, instead of having marched with the dignified steps of conscious usefulness, had been partially whirled with feverish rapidity through exciting and wearing dissipations, and had partially dragged itself languidly through pursuits as frivolous as they were enervating. The effects upon health were felt in the fact that those who had worn rouge before, were now compelled to use a deeper tint to cover fresh wrinkles: while those who had hitherto blushed with their natural bloom, trere forced to find a substitute in an artificial hue. And with the loss of all that freshness of beauty, was there no impairing of tho freshness of the disposition likewise? With the waning of the rose upon the cheeks, was there no withering of all the loveliest flowers of the soul? While wrinkles gathered upon the brow, were there no hard lines impressing themselves upon the heart? _ Lord So-and-so had behaved in not proposing to Lady Mary after flirting with her throughout the season!—and what a thorough want of taste did the Hon. Augustus Such-a-one display in remain- ing insensible to the beauty of “ mamma’s youngest daughter,” who had just been brought out! Ah, brought out indeed! Does not the phrase,—shed what gloss upon it you will, or shroud it in phraseology as delicate and as elegantly mystical as possible;—but does it not mean, we ask, in ita naked truthfulness, that the young marriageable daughters of fashion are paraded in gilded saloons before the eyes of titled and wealthy bachelors, in the same way that a horse-dealer at his stables leads forth his animals one after another, and makes them exhibit all their best points to the flats whom he is seeking to eatch ? Ab! vo, then, to your country-seats and to the watering-places, ye votaries of fashion! Carry thither your ‘reminiscences of the season that is just over—yonr languid memory of its enjoyments and your vivid sense of its disappointments—your recollection of fétes and waltzes, and your bitter consciousness of blizhted hopes and baffled schem- ings—your gossiping, your scaudal, and your slander! Go thither, likewise, to woo from the fresh air some slight renovation of that bloom which has been lost in the heated atmosphere of crowded drawing-rooms!—-and peradventure ye Yes: for even the crow’s-feet that are traced by | may partially succeed. But ye will not win back jissipation at the corners of Beauty’s eyes, are | aught of the genuine ‘freshness of youth—none of accompanied in their growth bya corresponding | that simplicity of mind which began to depart in warping of the imagination and by a proportionate | the very first hour tbat a masculine arm encircled marring of the purity of the fancy. Beauty en-/| your waist in the voluptuous dance, and that ters into fashionable life fair and stainless as the | masculine eyes looked down with libertine hardi- alabaster statue: but after a time she emerges | hood into your own: ye will mot find either at thence like a painted waxen effigy, the picture of country-seats or watering-places’the rejuvenescing everything that is spoilt, tawdry, and meretricious. springs of those generous impulses of character When the day comes that Beauty finds herself which have been subdued ur crushed beneath the forced to shed the artificial tint of the rose upon | weight of the gems and jewels which decked her pale and jaded cheeks,—rest assured, gentle | you for the saloons of fashion;—and if you dare reader, that she has arrived at the point when her | look down deep into your own hearts, you can- mind is invested with a corresponding artificiality, | and that it is only the outward gloss which con- | ceals the hollowness of the heart within. The | Genius of Mischief—a hideous hag who conceals her ugliness under a beautiful mask, and whose spiteful sardonism is hidden beneath looks of falsest blandishmient—sits at an everlasting spin- ning-wheel, weaving her silken tissues of sin and sorrow for the female votaries of Fashion. But the season of 1829 was over ; and London was going out of town. What food was there for not shut out from yourselves the conviction that ye have been rendered altered beings by the ordeal of a London season, A mother’s pride, as false as it is. frivolous—a dandy’s idle flattery— a fop’s silly compliment—or an abigail’s hollow sycophantic aduiation, may tell you, young Beauty! that you are marvellously improved since you escaped from school-girl restraints and en- tered the great world as a lady of fashion. You may be told that in dress you have acquired a tasteful elegance—that the dance has taught you conversation and for scandal during the journey to to step with graceful ease—that you have & country-seats and to watering-places!—and how statuesque carriage of the head and bust—that much was there to gossip about until new topics your conversation has gained a captivating charm for tittle-tattle, for mysterious confidence, or for |—and that your manners have acquired an aristo- bold open «lander, should transpire! Who would | cratic polish: but pause and ask yourself whether baye thought that Lady So-and-so should have | in point of real and veritable attractiveness you been ruined, and that the bailiffs were in her | have gained by exchanging the genuine gushing house at the very time when she gave that last | freshness of the youthful feelings for the artificias COMmcooolkxs (¢ Om