The Mirror of the Graces - Containing General Instructions for Combining Elegance, Simplicity, and Economy with Fashion in Dress; Hints on Female Accomplishments and Manners; and Directions for the Preservation of Health and Beauty

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The body is as much a part of the human creature as the mind; by its outward expression, we convey to others a sense of our opinions, hopes,

fears, and affections-we communicate love, and we excite it. We enjoy, not only the pleasures of the senses, but the delights which shoot from mind to mind, in the pressure of a hand, the glance of an eye, and the whisper of the heart. Shall we then despise this ready and obedient vehicle of all that passes within the invisible soul? Shall we contemn it as a lump of encumbering clay-as a piece of corruption, fitter for the charnel-house than the bosom of affection? These ascetic ideas may be consistent with the thankless superstition of the ancient Zenos, or the modern fanatics, who see neither beauty nor joyfulness in the works of the bounteous Lord of Nature; but the rational and fair-judging mind, which acknowledges "use and decency" in all the Creator's works, while it turns from the pagan devotion which the libertine pays to his own body, regards that inferior part of himself with the respect which is due to it in consideration of its Maker and its purpose.