Note 1 — Chapter XIX · LIMITATIONS OF BEAUTY—(continued)
Cecil N. Sidney Woolf translation
That is the advantage of being à la mode. Putting aside the defects of a face which are already familiar, and no longer have any effect upon the imagination, the public take hold of one of the three following ideas of beauty:—
(1) The people—of the idea of wealth.
(2) The upper classes—of the idea of elegance, material or moral.
(3) The Court—of the idea: "My object is to please the women."
Almost all take hold of a mixture of all three. The happiness attached to the idea of riches is linked to a refinement in the pleasure which the idea of elegance suggests, and the whole comes into touch with love. In one way or another the imagination is led on by novelty. It is possible in this way to be interested in a very ugly man without thinking of his ugliness,[*] and in good time his ugliness becomes beauty. At Vienna, in 1788, Madame Viganò, a dancer and the woman of the moment, was with child—very soon the ladies took to wearing little Ventres à la Viganò. For the same reason reversed, nothing more fearful than a fashion out of date! Bad taste is a confusion of fashion, which lives only by change, with the lasting beauty produced by such and such a government, guided by such and such a climate. A building in fashion to-day, in ten years will be out of fashion. It will be less displeasing in two hundred years, when its fashionable day will be forgotten. Lovers are quite mad to think about their dress; a woman has other things to do, when seeing the object of her love, than to bother about his get-up; we look at our lover, we do not examine him, says Rousseau. If this examination takes place, we are dealing with gallant-love and not passion-love. The brilliance of beauty is almost offensive in the object of our love; it is none of our business to see her beautiful, we want her tender and languishing. Adornment has effect in love only upon girls, who are so rigidly guarded in their parents' house, that they often lose their hearts through their eyes. (L.'s words. September 15, 1820.)
* Le petit Germain, Mémoires de Grammont.