FASHION-Vanities of. Without depth of thought, or earnestness of feeling, or strength of purpose, living an unreal life, sacrificing substance to show, substituting the fictitious for the natural, mistaking a crowd for society, finding its chief pleasure in ridicule, and exhausting its ingenuity in expedients for killing time, fashion is among the last influences under which a human being who respects himself, or who comprehends the great end of life, would desire to be placed. W. Ellery Channing. FASHION-Variableness of. Middleton. Our dress, still varying, nor to forms confined, Shifts like the sands, the sport of every wind. Propertius. FASHIONABLE LIFE-Stiff Formalities of. There is a set of people whom I cannot bear-the pinks of fashionable propriety,whose every word is precise, and whose every movement is unexceptionable; but who, though versed in all the categories of polite behaviour, have not a particle of soul or cordiality about them. We allow that their manners may be abundantly correct. There may be elegance in every gesture, and gracefulness in every position; not a smile out of place, and not a step that would not bear the measurement of the severest scrutiny. This is all very fine; but what I want is the heart and gaiety of social intercourse; the frankness that spreads ease and animation around it; the eye that speaks affability to all, that chases timidity from every bosom, and tells every man in the company to be confident and happy. This is what I conceive to be the virtue of the text, and Dot the sickening formality of those who walk by rule, and would reduce the whole of human life to a wire-bound system of misery and constraint. Chalmers. FASTIDIOUSNESS-Definition of. Fastidiousness is the envelope of indelicacy. Haliburton. FASTIDIOUSNESS-Inconsistency in. Like other things spurious, fastidiousness is often inconsistent with itself: the coarsest things are done, the cruellest things said, by the most fastidious people. Horace Walpole was a proverb of epicurean particularity of taste; yet none of the vulgarians whom he vilified had a keener relish for a coarse allusion or a malicious falsehood. Beckford, of Fonthill, demanded that life should be thrice winnowed for his use; but what was his life? Louis XIV. was "insolently nice" in some things; what was he in others? If we observe a person proud of a reputation for fastidiousness, we shall always find that the egotism which is its life will at times lead him to say or do something disgusting. We need expect from such people no delicate, silent self-sacrifice, no tender watching for others' tastes or needs, no graceful yielding up of privileges in unconsidered trifles, on which wait no "flowing thanks." They may be kind and obliging to a certain extent, but when the service required involves anything disagreeable, anything offensive to the taste on which they pride themselves, we must apply elsewhere. Their fineness of nature sifts common duties, selecting for practice only those which will pass the test; and conscience is not hurt, for unsuspected pride has given her a Mrs. Kirkland. bribe. FEAR-cast out by Love. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. St. John. FEAR-Painfulness of. Fear is far more painful to cowardice, than death to true courage. Sir Philip Sidney. FEATURES. Jagellon, whence it came. In our own royal family a certain fulness of the lower and lateral parts of the face is conspicuous in the portraits of the whole series of sovereigns from George I. to Victoria, and has been equally marked in other members of the family. The females of the ducal house of Gordon have long been remarkable for a peculiar elegant conformation of the neck. The Clackmannanshire Bruces, who are descended from a common stock with the famous Robert Bruce of Scotland, are said to have that strongly-marked form of the cheekbones and jaws which appears on the coins of that heroic monarch, as it did in his actual face when his bones were disinterred at Dunfermline, about thirty years ago. The prevalent tallness of the inhabitants of Potsdam, many of whom are descended from the guards of Frederick I.; the Spanish features observable in the people of the county of Galway, in which, some centuries ago, several Spanish settlements were made; and the hereditary beauty of the women of Prague-are well-known facts which have frequently attracted the attention of chronologists. The burgesses of Rome (the most invariable portion of every population) exhibit at the present day precisely the same type of face and form as their ancestors, whose busts may be seen carved in relief on the ancient sarcophagi; and the Jewish physiognomies portrayed upon the sepulchral monuments of Egypt are identical with those which may be observed among modern Jews in the streets of any of our great cities. FEELING-Debasing. Mantell. Who can all sense of others' ills escape, FEELING-Over-sensibility of. To feel is amiable; but to feel too keenly is injurious both to mind and body; and a habit of giving way to sensibility, which we should endeavour to regulate, though not to eradicate, may end in a morbid weakness of mind, which may appear to romantic persons very gentle and very interesting, but will undoubtedly render its victims very useless in society. Our feelings were given us to excite to action, and when they end in themselves, they are impressed to no one good purpose that I know of. Bishop Sandford. FEELING-Transiency of. Feeling is in its very nature transient. It is at best the meteor's blaze, shedding strong but momentary day; while principle, the true principle, be it faint at first, as the star whose ray hath newly reached our earth, is yet the FEELINGS. living light of a higher heaven, which never more will leave us in utter darkness, but lend a steady beam to guide our path. Miss Austin. FEELINGS-Inexplicability of the. language has yet been found for them. They Some feelings are quite untranslatable; no gleam upon us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy, and yet when we bring them close to us, and hold them up to the light of reason, lose their beauty all at once, as glowworms, which gleam with such a spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in where the candles are lighted, are found to be only worms, like so many others. Longfellow. FEELINGS-Influence of the. There are, certainly, moments in life when, though we may wish, may labour, to be common-place in our sensations, and matterof-fact in our conduct, we cannot succeed. A tide of feeling will rush upon us, too powerful for the dikes and mounds raised up by reason and philosophy. Our minds sink under the flood of weakness, if it be so, which flows; warmly over, impregnating, and probably | purifying, every thought; for these moments may surely be considered as our best, the true intervals of enjoyment, when we throw off the thraldom of social restrictions, and revel alone in a boundless realm of freedom and romance. It is at such times that the imagination fixes on some object with an interest more than real,-an exaggerated intensity, creating an atmosphere around, and giving to the meanest things within its influence a character not properly their own, as the fragrance of the rose, envelops, and might seem to breathe from, the veriest weed that crawls beneath it. Grattan. The kind heart speaks with words so kindly sweet, That kindred hearts the catching tones repeat; And love, therewith, his soft sigh gently blending, Makes pleasing harmony; thus softly sending Who from the lofty deck hail their own land Fine feelings, without vigour of reason, are in the situation of the extreme feathers of a peacock's tail-dragging in the mud. Foster. |