Question

The one American industry unaffected by the general depression of trade is beauty industry. American women continue to spend on their faces and bodies as much as they spent before—about three million pounds a week. These facts and figures are official and significant. To what is it due? In part, I suppose, to the increase in wealth. But this is, clearly, not the whole story. The cult of beauty must therefore be symptomatic of changes that have taken place outside the economic field. Of what changes? Of the changes, I suggest, in the social position of women; of the changes in our attitude towards “the merely physical”.

Women, it is obvious, are freer than in the past. Freer not only to perform the social functions reserved to the male, but also freer to exercise the right of being more attractive. They have the right, if not to be less virtuous(有品德的) than their grandmothers, at any rate to look less virtuous. The British housewife, a creature of severe and even terrifying aspect not long since, now does her best to achieve and preserve the appearance, which was strongly opposed to in the previous time. For we have now come to admit that the body has its rights. It has, for example, a right to do the best it can for itself in the way of strength and beauty. We demand justice for the body as well for the soul.

What are the practical results of this modern cult of beauty? Are women more beautiful than they were? Do they get something for the enormous amount of energy, time and money demanded of them by the beauty-cult? These are questions which are difficult to answer, for the facts seem to be in conflict. The campaign for more physical beauty seems to be both a great success and a terrifying failure. It depends on how you look at the results.

It is a success as more women keep their youthful appearance to a greater age than in the past. This desirable consummation will be due in part to skin foods, facial surgery, and paints, in part to improved health, due in its turn to a more reasonable way of life. Ugliness is one of the symptoms of disease, beauty of health. In so far as the campaign for more beauty is also a campaign for more health, it is, up to a point, really successful. When that happy moment comes, will every woman beautiful—as beautiful as the natural shape of her futures, with or without surgical and chemical aid, permits?

The answer is definitely: No. The beauty of a porcelain(陶瓷) jar is a matter of shape, of color of surface texturing. The jar may be empty or tenanted by spiders, full of honey or stinking slime—it makes no different to its beauty or ugliness. But a woman is alive, and her beauty is therefore not skin keep. For real beauty is as much an affair of the inner as of the outer self. The women’s beauty is therefore more than skin deep. The surface of a human is affected by the nature of its spiritual contents. I have seen women who were truly lovely. Their shape, their color, their surface were perfect. And yet they were not beautiful for spiritual emptiness or ugliness shows through. But on the contrary, there is an inside light that can change forms that are regarded imperfect or ugly. Most importantly, the cult of beauty is supposed to touch the deepest source of beauty --- the experiencing soul. It is not by improving skin goods, by cheapening health equipment and electrical hair-removers, that the human race will be made beautiful; it is not even by improving health. All men and women will be beautiful only when the social arrangements give to every one of them an opportunity to live completely and harmoniously.

1.The most significant reason for women’s cult of beauty is _____________.

A. the changes in their status and attitude to physical beauty

B. the build-up of wealth in the economic field

C. the decrease of other fields influenced by the general depression

D. the new privilege in fulfilling social functions

2.From paragraph 3-4 we can learn that ____________________.

A. the beauty industry deserves energy and money

B. the surgical and chemical aid free women from aging

C. the healthier way of life leads to women’s staying young

D. the beauty campaign has achieved great success

3.The example of the porcelain jar illustrates __________________.

A. the importance of shape and surface

B. the gap between appearance and contents

C. the connection between inner and outer self

D. the ugliness of appearance and spirits

4.According to the author, the cult of beauty should focus on ________________.

A. giving people a good knowledge of health and disease

B. increasing people’s awareness of health problems

C. promoting the development of the body and the soul

D. encouraging people to live in harmony with nature

5.What is the real concern of the writer of this article?

A. The promising future of beauty industry

B. The praise of beauty-cult as a success

C. The understanding of physical beauty

D. The importance of inner qualities

Answer 1