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. I shall not enquire at present, whether it
is just and honest to impose in this manner on mankind: if it is
not honest, it may be allowed to be artful and politic, and
shews, at least, a desire of being agreeable. But to lay it on as
the fashion in France prescribes to all the ladies of condition,
who indeed cannot appear without this badge of distinction, is to
disguise themselves in such a manner, as to render them odious
and detestable to every spectator, who has the least relish left
for nature and propriety. As for the fard or white, with which
their necks and shoulders are plaistered, it may be in some
measure excusable, as their skins are naturally brown, or sallow;
but the rouge, which is daubed on their faces, from the chin up
to the eyes, without the least art or dexterity, not only
destroys all distinction of features, but renders the aspect
really frightful, or at best conveys nothing but ideas of disgust
and aversion. You know, that without this horrible masque no
married lady is admitted at court, or in any polite assembly; and
that it is a mark of distinction which no bourgeoise dare assume.
Ladies of fashion only have the privilege of exposing themselves
in these ungracious colours. As their faces are concealed under a
false complexion, so their heads are covered with a vast load of
false hair, which is frizzled on the forehead, so as exactly to
resemble the wooly heads of the Guinea negroes. As to the natural
hue of it, this is a matter of no consequence, for powder makes
every head of hair of the same colour; and no woman appears in
this country, from the moment she rises till night, without being
compleatly whitened. Powder or meal was first used in Europe by
the Poles, to conceal their scald heads; but the present fashion
of using it, as well as the modish method of dressing the hair,
must have been borrowed from the Hottentots, who grease their
wooly heads with mutton suet and then paste it over with the
powder called buchu.
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