The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

‘Handsome is that handsome does,—hold up your heads, girls!’ was the language of Primrose in the play when addressing her daughters. The worthy matron was right. Would that all my female readers who are sorrowing foolishly because they are not in all respects like Dubufe's Eve, or that statue of the Venus ‘which enchants the world,’ could be persuaded to listen to her. What is good looking, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking good? Be good, be womanly, be gentle, —generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration. Loving and pleasant associations will gather about you. Never mind the ugly reflection which your glass may give you. That mirror has no heart. But quite another picture is yours on the retina of human sympathy. There the beauty of holiness, of purity, of that inward grace which passeth show, rests over it, softening and mellowing its features just as the full calm moonlight melts those of a rough landscape into harmonious loveliness. ‘Hold up your heads, girls!’ I repeat after Primrose. Why should you not? Every mother's daughter of you can be beautiful. You can envelop yourselves in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual beauty, through which your otherwise plain faces will look forth like those of angels. Beautiful to Ledyard, stiffening in the cold of a northern winter, seemed the diminutive, smoke-stained women of Lapland, who wrapped him in their furs and ministered to his necessities with kindness and gentle words of compassion. Lovely