These You Are Much Better Acquainted With
Than I Can Pretend To Be:
But this I will be bold to affirm, that
France is the general reservoir from which all the absurdities of
false taste, luxury, and extravagance have overflowed the
different kingdoms and states of Europe.
The springs that fill
this reservoir, are no other than vanity and ignorance. It would
be superfluous to attempt proving from the nature of things, from
the first principles and use of dress, as well as from the
consideration of natural beauty, and the practice of the
ancients, who certainly understood it as well as the connoisseurs
of these days, that nothing can be more monstrous, inconvenient,
and contemptible, than the fashion of modern drapery. You
yourself are well aware of all its defects, and have often
ridiculed them in my hearing. I shall only mention one particular
of dress essential to the fashion in this country, which seems to
me to carry human affectation to the very farthest verge of folly
and extravagance; that is, the manner in which the faces of the
ladies are primed and painted. When the Indian chiefs were in
England every body ridiculed their preposterous method of
painting their cheeks and eye-lids; but this ridicule was wrong
placed. Those critics ought to have considered, that the Indians
do not use paint to make themselves agreeable; but in order to be
the more terrible to their enemies. It is generally supposed, I
think, that your sex make use of fard and vermillion for very
different purposes; namely, to help a bad or faded complexion, to
heighten the graces, or conceal the defects of nature, as well as
the ravages of time.
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