Page 56 - 1913 November - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 61

BEAUTY

A few days ago I was reading a story whose heroine was homely.
Honestly homely, homely hair, homely nose, homely mouth, in fact
she had no redeeming feature until one looked at her eyes and
they, too, were homely in color but their brightness was wonderful.
I t took clever management on the part of the observer to make the
brightness come from its hiding place for she was well aware of
her plainness from long consultations with her mirror and she was
shy. I n the midst of a conversation, however, one would be sur-
prised to find her face transformed to an animated, brilliant visage
really beautiful in its peculiar brightness. And then came the man,
the one man whom she loved and who loved her and to him she was
always beautiful whether dressed in a plain brown dress listening
to others talk or in an evening gown gazing raptly at some marvel-
ous painting or some wonder of nature. She was beautiful and
lovely to him because he saw and realized the beauty of her soul
and her lovely thoughts and he did not think of the ugly features
because he loved her.

Since reading that story I have been overwhelmed with the
amount of uncharitableness in our attitude toward outward plainness.

Our sorority teaching and belief just runs over with the idea of
charity and kindness. The charity does not mean giving a penny to
every blind man whom we see nor does kindness mean only getting
up to give our seat to an older person in a street car. I t means
to be charitable and kind in thoughts as well as in actions and to
be broad-minded enough to see the spiritual beauty in the poorly
dressed, plain-faced, toil-worn woman equally as clearly as in
the beautifully gowned, bejewelled and perfumed woman of lei-
sure. And let us in this new year of work remember that—

There is so much beauty in the plainest of us,
There is so much plainness in the most beautiful of us,

That it behooves each of us
To be charitable to the rest of us.

A I L E E N E BROWNE HOBART, Gamma ' 1 4 .