The New Hampshire Gazette

MISCELLANY.

On Female Attractions.

FLAVELLA has a multitude of charms. She is sensible, affable, modest, and good humored. She is tall, without being awkward, and as straight as an arrow. She has a clear complexion, lively eyes, a pretty mouth, and white even teeth; and will answer the description which any rhyming lover can give of the mistress of his affections, after having ransacked heaven and earth for similes and jumbled together sun, moon, stars, lilies, roses, carnations, &c. and yet I cannot admire her. She wants, in my opinion, that je ne sais quoi, that nameless something, which is far more attractive than beauty, and so extremely alluring, that few men are able to resist the Fair-one who is possessed of it. It is, in short, a peculiar manner of saying the most insignificant things, and doing the most trifling actions, which captivates us instantly, and takes our hearts by surprise. Few even celebrated toasts, have this cestus in their possession. I never met with but one who had it; and am apt to believe that she would not have been so thoroughly amiable, had she not been attacked by the small-pox at an age when admirers were beginning to buzz about her. For while the beauties of her face were obscured by that spirit-damping disorder, she ruminated seriously on the insufficiency of personal accomplishments, ceased to be proud, affected, and coquettish, and became one of the most agreeable girls in the world. Nor did her pride, affectation, and coquetry, return with her beauty. Soon after her recovery, she was addressed by a man of sense and vivacity, with whom she was highly pleased, and agreed to be his wife, before she knew that she should once more be admired by every eye which beheld her. When she was married, the sincere esteem which she had for her amiable husband, and an increasing family, prevented her from re-assuming her former airs. In this manner was one fine woman saved from destruction; and if all the handsome lovely creatures would take warning, and adore themselves less, they would be more idolized by our sex.

Though I am a strenuous advocate for a modest, decent, and unaffected deportment in the Fair Sex, I would not have a fine woman altogether insensible of her personal charms, for she would then be insipid. I would only have her conscious enough of them to behave with freedom, and converse with fluency and spirit. When a woman talks majestically into a room, with the haughty airs of a first rate beauty, and expects every man who sees her to die for her, my indignation rises, and I get away as fast as I can, in order to enjoy the conversation of a good-natured, easy creature, who is neither beautiful nor conceited enough to be troublesome, and who is as willing to give pleasure as desirous to receive it.

I once heard a very agreeable married woman, (who was always mistress of the above-mentioned charm, tho' she never had the least pretensions to beauty by the help of which she made the men prefer her to all her handsome acquaintance) thus archly address a circle of pretty girls who panted for admiration, and longed to increase the number of their danglers; "It is of no consequence whether a woman has beauty, if she can behave in such a manner as to gain admirers. For my part I had rather be homely and followed, than handsome and disregarded." The girls, who were conscious that they laid too great a stress on their outsides, and that they wanted the irresistible power of pleasing, bit their lips, and flirted their fans, but were incapable of making a reply.