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Justine is a genuine maid for an actress, a woman of thirty stamped by the small-pox with innumerable dimples, in which the loves are far from sporting: she is as brown as opium, has a good deal of leg and not much body, gummy eyes, and a tournure to match. She would like to have Benoit marry her, but at this unexpected suggestion, Benoit asked for his discharge.
Heavy silks and satins are out of place. It is more a question of colour and make than material. How often a bright green and white muslin, or even cotton, well made and well put on, worn by a pretty girl with a good complexion and graceful "tournure," puts to shame and thoroughly eclipses a more costly and elaborate "toilette!"
Charmond's carriages, released from the obstruction up the lane, came bowling along, and the two girls turned to regard the spectacle. Mrs. Charmond did not see them, but there was sufficient light for them to discern her outline between the carriage windows. A noticeable feature in her tournure was a magnificent mass of braided locks.
You want nothing now, thank God, but exterior advantages, that last polish, that 'tournure du monde', and those graces, which are so necessary to adorn, and give efficacy to, the most solid merit. They are only to be acquired in the best companies, and better in the best French companies than in any other.
Caroline walks like Fanny Elssler, communicating the most Andalusian little motions to her tournure. "Do you feel a sensation of heaviness in your knees?" "Well, no " she returns to her place. "Ah, no that I think of it, it seems to me that I do." "Good. Have you been in the house a good deal lately?" "Oh, yes, sir, a great deal too much and alone." "Good. I thought so.
Her tall, well-rounded form struggled through a painful compression into slimness; her whole attire had that peculiar tournure which we islanders term Frenchified. Nay, there was something in the very tie of her neck-ribbon which showed it never could have been done by English fingers. She appeared, all over, "a young lady from abroad."
Fashion understands itself; good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure.
Make them therefore habitual to you; and resolve never to say the most common things, even to your footman, but in the best words you can find, and with the best utterance. This, with 'les manieres, la tournure, et les usages du beau monde', are the only two things you want; fortunately, they are both in your power; may you have them both! Adieu. LONDON, April 15, O. S. 1751
'A large, bare room, so runs his description, 'with a bad floor, and ropes round it, like the space in an Arab camp parted off for horses; two or three badly-furnished rooms at the side, in which the most wretched refreshments are served, and a company into which, in spite of all the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many nobodies had wriggled; in which the dress was as tasteless as the tournure was bad this was all.
I think it but fair to inform you beforehand, where I suspect that my criticisms are likely to fall; and that is more upon the outward, than upon the inward man; I neither suspect your heart nor your head; but to be plain with you, I have a strange distrust of your air, your address, your manners, your 'tournure', and particularly of your ENUNCIATION and elegance of style.
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