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I 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY 
 
 HOW TO OBTAIN AND HOW TO PRESERVE IT 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE JENNESS MILLER 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAY R. KERN 
 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 
 1892 
 
Copyrighted, 1891, 
 By ANNIE JENNESS MILLER. 
 {A II rights reserved. ) 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 Jenkins & McCowan, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 What is Physical Beauty? 9 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Causes Operative For and Against Higher 
 
 Ideals, 18 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 General Aids to Beauty — Ventilation, Foods, 
 
 Sleep, Fabrics, 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Science of Bodily Expression, 49 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Skin — Its Care and Functions, 63 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Eyes, 92 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Teeth, o . . „ « 99 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Hygiene of the Hair, 106 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Care of the Hands, . 124 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Feet, ... . * « . . 142 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Dress in All Ages, . . . . . . 151 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Dress as it Should be for Health and Artistic 
 
 Effect, 168 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Practical Suggestions for Dress, 190 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Cultivation of Individuality, . . . . , 210 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Home of the Future, and its Queen, . . 226 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Man's Sphere, 240 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHAT IS PHYSICAL BEAUTY? 
 
 IHERE are, unquestionably, certain 
 positive and infallible tests of phy- 
 sical perfection; and the differ= 
 ence of opinion, which exists 
 among different races as to 
 what constitutes individual 
 beauty, does not affect those 
 absolute and fixed principles, 
 which are independent of a 
 crude and undeveloped taste. 
 The superiority of civilized 
 man is evinced by his delight 
 in refined lineaments and diverse 
 emotional expression, of which 
 his uncivilized brother has no 
 conception. The savage does not 
 accept the higher ideals because 
 he cannot understand them ; to 
 him, the coarse and brutal consti- 
 tute attractiveness, and his ambi- 
 tion is to make himself terrible to an enemy. The 
 mental development and emotional sensitiveness 
 
lO PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 which have, by degrees, caused the difference be- 
 tween superior forms and features and his own, are 
 too subtle to make any impression upon his obtuse 
 senses and crude understanding. 
 
 In tracing organic evolution through successive 
 variations, it is proved, by accurate scientific data, 
 that the highest types of mankind have been evolved 
 by gradual yet continual functional and structural 
 changes, one after another, of the different parts of 
 their organisms, modified to correspond with increas- 
 ed aesthetic sensibility. Civilized races have, there- 
 fore, the undoubted right to claim superiority oi 
 judgment concerning general standards of beauty; 
 although it must be admitted that there is something 
 yet to learn before we can reasonably demand that 
 our criteria of proportion shall be accepted as abso- 
 lute. 
 
 The practice of disfiguring the body, which nav- 
 igators report as common among savages, fills the 
 mind with loathing and disdain, because so mani- 
 festly brutal and irrational; nevertheless, the fash- 
 ionable civilized world is not above some exaggera- 
 tions which closely approximate to these same 
 degraded practices. It is only two or three years 
 ago that the higher types of women were wearing 
 an artificial substitute (the bustle) for the steatopyga, 
 a most vulgar and abnormal development of the 
 female Hottentot; and many among those who con- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 demn the Chinese custom of stunting the growth of 
 their " ladies' " feet to the extent of practical useless- 
 ness, deliberately squeeze their own into shoes too 
 small for comfort and grace of movement. Although 
 tight lacing does not obtain to such an extent as 
 formerly, the abnormal length of the waist and the 
 angle at the line of waist and hips, as shown in the 
 fashion plates and copied by fashion's devotees, 
 prove that this long-admired divergence from essen- 
 tial proportion still holds more or less sway over the 
 popular mind. Numbers of refined women, who look 
 upon nose and lip piercing as barbarous and disfig- 
 uring in the extreme, still wear rings through the 
 ears and regard them as highly ornamental. In all, 
 however, as compared with the ideals of even a half- 
 century ago, the general conception of physical 
 beauty is much higher, and I am sanguine of the es- 
 tablishment of immediate physiological and hygienic 
 improvements which will, in the near future, do away 
 with these lingering remnants of a savage tendency 
 toward the violation of harmonious proportion. 
 
 The human form, in its perfection, is the most ex- 
 quisite of divine creations, and it is certain that the 
 steady advance of intellectual and aesthetic culture 
 must prevail to establish that respect for form and 
 symmetry which has made Greek sculpture immor- 
 tal. In all respects except proportion we are ad- 
 vanced far beyond all the ancient nations in our 
 
12 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 13 
 
 conceptions of absolute beauty. The Greeks were 
 both colorless and unemotional in their art, which 
 was entirely of form, while we have the keenest ap- 
 preciation of subtle and delicate shadings of color 
 and expression ; and the higher the mental and 
 aesthetic training, the more varied will these visible 
 signs of superiority become. 
 
 While physical beauty, as a direct result of health, 
 may exist in a more or less crude form, entirely in- 
 dependent of refined emotions — and among semi- 
 civilized tribes some remarkable instances of individ- 
 ual animal perfection have been noted — the subtle, 
 imperceptible processes of poetic and elevating 
 thought are required to develop specialized beauty, 
 such as Mr. Ruskin undoubtedly had in mind when 
 he wrote of " the operation of the intellectual powers 
 upon the features in the fine cutting and chiseling of 
 them, and the removal from them of signs of sensual- 
 ity and sloth by which they are blunted and dead- 
 ened; and substitution of energy and intensity for 
 vacancy and insipidity (by which defect, alone, the 
 faces of many fair women are utterly spoiled and 
 rendered valueless), and by keenness given to the 
 eye, and fine moulding and development to the 
 brow." 
 
 Considered as a matter of health, physical beauty, 
 pure and simple, consists in symmetry, vital vigor, 
 and brilliant coloring; just as the beauty of wild 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 plants and flowers of the fields denotes freedom to 
 riot in the fresh air and the glorious sunshine. In 
 both men and plants there is the quality of natural, 
 vital attractiveness; but the delicacy of tinting and 
 fragrance of careful culture are needed to satisfy 
 the subtler artistic and emotional taste. 
 
 The value of aesthetic training lies in the fact that 
 it enables one to understand and enjoy the exquisite 
 variations in human expression, which, like the 
 dreamy tones of some delicious and complex work 
 of a master musician, enthrall the senses and guide 
 the soul into the realms of a loftier and more com- 
 prehensive spirituality — into the enjoyment of a grand 
 diapason of infinite harmonies. 
 
 The savage knows fierce emotions and a species 
 of wild and untutored delight; but civilized man is 
 capable of a range of sensibility which embraces 
 every shade of emotion. No limit is set to his power 
 of achievement, or to his capacity for either enjoy- 
 ment or suffering, except as reason, self-respect, re- 
 ligion, faith, and philosophy, modify and control his 
 passions. True beauty is, then, the highest form of 
 physical proportion united to profound mental and 
 spiritual faculties. 
 
 At all times, negative contemplation of the infinite 
 and complex possibilities of man's high destiny is 
 exhilarating; but the scientific study of the anatomi- 
 cal, sesthetico-intellectual distinctions of form, radia- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 15 
 
 tion and expression, and their fusion into harmonious 
 personaHty is of pecuHar and far-reaching interest. 
 
 In the present work, however, I aim no higher 
 than to emphasize the lesson which others have ably 
 and exhaustively taught, that the evolution of man 
 has been brought about through successive stages 
 and the operation of natural laws, by which crude 
 traits of form and physiognomy have slowly refined 
 into diverse and manifold attractions; and I desire 
 to point the way toward the still higher physical and 
 mental possibilities, which are ready to unfold at the 
 touch of the earnest seeker after physical and mental 
 advancement. 
 
 Without dogmatism, one may assert that the pres- 
 ent generation of civilized men and women possess 
 the data for positive tests of beauty, such as no 
 others, not even the Greeks, enjoyed. They were a 
 fine race physically, because they idealized propor- 
 tion and refused to bring up sickly and deformed in- 
 fants; but in the essentials of harmonious expression 
 all of the ancient nations were inferior to ourselves, 
 and some of the delicate shadings of mental refine- 
 ment, which give character to the faces of certain 
 women to-day, would have been incomprehensible 
 to an early Spartan or Athenian. 
 
 Any close student of human science arrives at the 
 important conclusion that positive beauty belongs to 
 the superior races by reason of the variations fur- 
 
i6 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 nished through physiological care and refined mental 
 processes, and, further, that the higher development 
 and permanence of physical beauty depend upon the 
 intelligent application and maintenance of the prin- 
 ciples of correct living and lofty thinking. Allowing 
 for race idiosyncrasies among the different civilized 
 nations of the world, there still remain positive tests 
 of beauty common to all, viz., proportion, gradation, 
 curvature, symmetry, color, smoothness, delicacy, 
 and expression. 
 
 In all true proportion, the unity of the object pleases 
 the eye without suggestive exaggeration in any part, 
 therefore absolute proportion is not a metaphysical 
 abstraction, but rather the natural and harmonious 
 relation of separate and distinct members. 
 
 In curvature, gradation, and color reside the subt- 
 ler distinctions of physical grace and expression, 
 positive and indisputable tests of beauty revealed in 
 rounded and tapering limbs, exquisite curves and 
 warm flesh tints. Curvature is the aesthetic quality 
 of graceful moment, just as gradation is the poetic 
 reflection of an infinite variety of lights and shadows 
 in the human physiology, while delicacy differen- 
 tiates the refined from the coarse in form and features, 
 and smoothness sets the seal of attractiveness upon 
 the unequal surfaces of the body in contour and fine- 
 ness to touch and sight. 
 
 Regarding smoothness, delicacy, coloring, and 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 17 
 
 lustre, all cultivated people hold positive views quite 
 in accordance with the opinions of the best art critics, 
 and we are just beginning to comprehend the im- 
 portance of individuality to give wider range and 
 variety to human attractiveness. 
 
 In positive beauty, monotony is impossible, for the 
 human creation is susceptible of such infinite shad- 
 ings in color and expression when uniting all of the 
 recognized tests of beauty, that one man will differ 
 from his fellow, and especially one woman from an- 
 other, because of the finer mould, as the delicate and 
 exquisite orchids differ from their kind in shape, color, 
 and bewildering variety. 
 
 The physical beauty of the future will be the 
 beauty of perfect bodily and moral integrity, united 
 to superb physical proportion and far-reaching men- 
 tal perceptions. Perfect physical beauty admits of 
 no mawkish sentimentalism and affected indifference 
 toward the fixed laws of cause and effect crovernine 
 romantic love and sexual attraction. Splendid phys- 
 ical passions, when splendidly controlled, are like 
 the luminous bodies in space, giving light and 
 warmth to character. Without these glowing, vital 
 passions, the mind, however logical, the form, how- 
 ever symmetrical, the features, however faultlessly 
 chiseled, lack that magnetic quality of radiation 
 which is the perfection of attractiveness, the very 
 exaltation of human beauty and power. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CAUSES OPERATIVE FOR AND 
 AGAINST HIGHER IDEALS. 
 
 T was, I think, Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes who said, with char- 
 acteristic humor, that it 
 is impossible to make 
 a perfect human be- 
 ing without be- 
 ; ginning sev- 
 eral genera- 
 tions before he 
 r is born; but poor human- 
 ity, being denied the priv- 
 ilege of choosing its own 
 prenatal conditions, it 
 behooves men and 
 women who recognize 
 the limitations imposed 
 by this unalterable law 
 of nature, to consider the 
 rights and possibilities of 
 the unborn, whose future 
 physical, mental and 
 moral attributes will cor- 
 respond, in greater or 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 19 
 
 less degree, with the conditions instituted by them- 
 selves. It is most important to the establishment 
 of sound hereditary direction, that we should admit, 
 without qualification, that disease is ugliness, and 
 health, beauty; we are then prepared to meet the 
 vital question of how to rid the world of disease. 
 
 The optimist declares that progressive sanitary 
 science is doing all that can be done for disease in 
 the aggregate; while the pessimist meets the glow- 
 ing accounts of the wonders being accomplished by 
 a better system of sewerage, compulsory sanitary 
 plumbing, improvements at the quarantine stations, 
 and the appointment ofcommissioners to investigate 
 the origin and progress of epidemics, with a perfect 
 flood-tide of facts concerning the filth and squalor 
 of the over-populated districts in our large cities, 
 the crowding and misery in tenement-houses, and 
 the imperfect ventilation of workshops and fac- 
 tories, even of churches and other public places 
 where the poorer classes congregate. If the former 
 suggests that hundreds of children are sent into the 
 country each summer by private philanthropy, to 
 enjoy a breath of fresh air, or a dip into the sea, the 
 latter immediately draws comparisons between the 
 ridiculously small numbers who benefit by these 
 well-meant efforts of the rich and fortunate, and 
 the appallingly large numbers who not only do not 
 enjoy these superior advantages, but are denied even 
 
20 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 the means for properly bathing during the heated 
 term, when the free use of water is such a prevent- 
 ive of disease. Neither of these two extremists sees 
 what hes beyond his own horizon, and each is right 
 from his own point of view. 
 
 In our large cities, health and beauty of the high- 
 est known type jostles elbows with disease and de- 
 formity so repulsive that one wonders if these two 
 opposing conditions can possibly be the outcome of 
 the same glorious civilization. " All men are born 
 free and equal," says our Constitution. "Alas ! there 
 is no equality anywhere," is the evidence of unprej- 
 udiced reasoning. Upon one side is heard the enthu- 
 siasm of hopes fulfilled and material wants supplied; 
 upon the other, the groans of suffering and discon- 
 tent; each one bringing his own identity and expe- 
 riences to bear in testimony for and against the 
 higher ideals. Nevertheless, the profound logic of 
 all life lies in the fact that there is evidence of mate- 
 rial progress upon every hand, and the unremitting 
 workings of a universal law which looks to the ulti- 
 mate welfare of mankind, whatever the individual 
 destiny may be upon this onward march of progress- 
 ive human science. 
 
 Those who seek to correct constitutional evils by 
 pulling down existing social and national structures, 
 in order to rebuild them in accordance with untried 
 Utopian plans, are children playing with blocks at 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 building habitable houses. Whatever causes are 
 now operative against individual well-being, we 
 must remember that evolution is an unceasing pro- 
 cess, and embraces the general welfare according 
 to natural and established principles, and any im- 
 provements that are possible to the present genera- 
 tion must come through the intelligent application 
 of this unrelenting law. Some of the ablest minds 
 of the day are at work formulating measures for the 
 relief of sickness, sin and suffering in the aggregate, 
 with the results that knowledge of anatomy, physi- 
 ology, chemistry and sanitary subjects is being more 
 generally diffused among the masses. This will, I 
 believe, lead, in time, to the more general establish- 
 ment of free baths and gymnasiums for the poor, 
 and, finally, to systematic physical development as 
 a compulsory part of a common-school education. 
 
 It is through the public schools, and other free 
 public mediums for the dissemination of knowledge 
 upon subjects of health and hygiene, that we may 
 hope, in a measure, to overcome inherited disease, 
 and those vicious traits of character which fill our 
 jails and reformatories, our workshops and prisons 
 with wretched, degraded specimens of humanity. 
 Crime is quite as much a disease as insanity. I have 
 always believed it: since visiting the jails and court- 
 rooms of our cities, and watching the progress of 
 the trials of men and women accused of all manner 
 
22 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 of heinous crimes, I know it. There is not a head, 
 not a face, and scarcely a body among these crimi- 
 nals which does not carry the evidence of unfortu- 
 nate prenatal conditions, and unmistakable signs of 
 morbid and diseased minds; and there is profound 
 wisdom, rather than sentimentalism, in the advocacy 
 of the few who have dared to speak in behalf of 
 scientific corrective treatment, rather than punish- 
 ment, for criminals. 
 
 When we have exterminated an offender by the 
 strong arm of the law, we have taken an easy, if not 
 wholly consistent and civilized, method for relieving 
 the world of a single moral pest, but we have done 
 nothing for criminals nor crime in the aggregate. 
 When, upon the other hand, we have put the means 
 of physiological and mental correction within reach 
 of those who are morally certain, from unfortunate 
 parental influences and unhappy surroundings, to 
 become the criminal class, we have done something 
 for humanity and the triumph of higher ideals. 
 Crime cannot be suppressed: it must be eradicated. 
 Evil influences lose their force when one enjoys 
 physical and mental health. 
 
 We are still far from the fulfillment of the grandest 
 ideals of correct living; but every free bath and 
 gymnasium given to the public are added factors in 
 the general improvement of the race. Our national 
 game of base-ball forms an important interest in the 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 23 
 
 lives of thousands of humble people, and the open- 
 ing of parks and museums upon the Sabbath, not- 
 withstanding popular prejudice, is certainly a pro- 
 foundly progressive movement, which will accomplish 
 more physiological and spiritual good for humanity 
 than hundreds of abstruse sermons preached within 
 the walls of poorly ventilated churches. At best, 
 the influences surrounding the poorer classes are 
 deplorable; but one day of rest and recreation for 
 tired and overworked mothers and fathers is better 
 than none, and a regular seventh-day change from 
 the dreary treadmill of stern necessity into pure air 
 and inspiriting surroundings cannot fail to leave 
 some impress upon the physical and mental condi- 
 tion of the children born to these parents. 
 
 These are, to*be sure, slight gains; but they are 
 gains in the grand total .of human life; they are the 
 first steps toward improved living and higher think- 
 ing, which must eventually lead to the general 
 establishment of better conditions for all"; they are 
 the natural and logical application of sound princi- 
 ples for the eradication of disease, and, through 
 disease, vice. Nowhere could this profound work 
 of human elevation be more hopefully inaugurated 
 than among Americans; for nowhere else in the 
 world does woman, upon whom so much depends, 
 enjoy the respect which is accorded her in this 
 country.^ I do not speak of the favored few who are 
 
24 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 known by the gentle and complimentary term la- 
 dies,!' but woman," because of her womanhood. 
 Many burdens imposed upon her among other na- 
 tions would be regarded as brutal and impossible with 
 us; and who would presume to say that this under- 
 lying spirit of deference to the sex will not event- 
 ually lead to such recognition of what is woman's 
 natural right, as not only to give her entire protec- 
 tion in whatever she may undertake, but, what is of 
 vastly more importance to the race, secure to moth- 
 erhood the privilege of being set apart froip the 
 other wearing duties of life, in order that natural 
 obligations toward the unborn may be fulfilled in 
 the interests, first of the individual, and afterward 
 of a generally better moral and physical status ? 
 
 I have sometimes wondered wlfether the great 
 excess of women over men in populous districts was 
 not nature's own argument in favor of the observ- 
 ance of this high physical law — an argument that 
 enough practical woman workers would still be left 
 in all of the necessary fields of human activity, were 
 these higher laws of maternity accepted. I am cer- 
 tain that the rapid unfolding of the grandest possi- 
 bilities of the race would prove the wisdom of guard- 
 ing motherhood as sacred. 
 
 Disease and deformity, and, consequently, sin, could 
 not fail to diminish rapidly under conditions which 
 permitted women to live in conformity with the 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 25 
 
 higher laws of life during the child-bearing period; 
 laws which led to bathing, exercise and thought in 
 accordance with progressive physiology, and to the 
 methods of dress which would give all of the 
 vital organs freedom to fulfill the nobler functions of 
 maternity with integrity. It is by no means beyond 
 the possibilities of the future that men and women 
 of the humble and hard-working class may be led 
 to take an interest in proper prenatal and other 
 progressive influences, which will bring sounder 
 health, better looks, purer appetites, and propor- 
 tionately greater happiness to their offspring. 
 
 In considering the phenomena of human destiny, 
 we wonder at the men and women who seem to be 
 endowed with talents and abilities out of kith and 
 kin, because we So not study the source of genius; 
 but, almost without exception, these men correspond 
 to the quality of the generative force which animated 
 the parents prior to their birth. It is not remarkable 
 in our own country that humble people, when pos- 
 sessed of sound bodies, and keen, although undis- 
 ciplined intelligence, should, under the stimulus of 
 an absorbing ambition for their children, transmit 
 certain directions which will, through the friction of 
 life under democratic conditions, develop into supe- 
 rior characteristics. Upon the other hand, we have 
 the explanation of the failure which many really 
 great men, intellectually, make [of paternity. Ab- 
 
26 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 sorbed in their personal interests, ambitious for 
 themselves, and, very probably, mentally over- 
 worked and physically weakened by the continued 
 nervous strain under which they live, it is scarcely 
 possible for these men to transmit the finer qualities 
 which are their own characteristics. The force 
 which is operative to establish and develop the 
 highest elements of mind and body, through the 
 mysteries of the procreative laws, has been dissi- 
 sipated in the channels of personal activity, and they 
 are not in a condition to contribute sufficient organic 
 capacity to offspring. 
 
 This is more conspicuously true where both par- 
 ents are splendidly endowed mentally — and given, 
 in consequence, to great personal achievements — 
 than where the mother is of a less active type, intel- 
 lectually; yet these are the men and women who 
 should, by virtue of their own endowments, become 
 the parents of gods. Fine racers and prize brutes 
 are developed from the best blood, according to ac- 
 curate and scientific principles; only men and wom- 
 en are left to the haphazard chance. 
 
 I believe that the philosopher of the future will be 
 called upon to deal with the question of the rights 
 of the unborn, and I am convinced that fewer and 
 better offspring will be endorsed by the wisdom of 
 coming generations. 
 
 Women who look forward to marriage should pre- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 27 
 
 pare themselves with profound seriousness, and, 
 finally, enter upon the duties and pleasures involved, 
 with the unalterable determination to fulfill these 
 sacred offices through intelligent understanding and 
 direction of their own mental and physical forces 
 toward systematic and scientific maternity. Neither 
 is this an indelicate subject, to be avoided, or dis- 
 cussed with closed doors: some of the weightiest 
 problems of social and political economy are in- 
 volved; and the solution of many evils which con- 
 front the statesman and national reformer lies in a 
 thorough understanding of how to deal with the per- 
 sonal rights and possibilities of individuals in their 
 relation to the masses, to national prosperity, and 
 the perpetuity of free institutions. While much may 
 undoubtedly be accomplished with individuals in the 
 way of overcoming and correcting defects of hered- 
 ity and early influences, the permanent cure for 
 vicious and abnormal qualities will be found in es- 
 tablishing sounder prenatal conditions. 
 
 A difficult task ! Yet centuries ago the Greeks 
 understood this far-reaching law, and the women 
 who anticipated motherhood were rationally pro- 
 tected, in order that the fulfillment of their personal 
 hopes should contribute worthy citizens to national 
 greatness. These ancients were a patriotic people; 
 so are we, theoretically, at least; but we trust to the 
 ballot to correct evils which they corrected by nat- 
 
28 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ural law. A singular spectacle this — of an intelli- 
 gent people substituting the ballot, in the hands of 
 ignorance, for the practical application of progressive 
 science. Mrs. Partington sweeping off the Atlantic 
 Ocean with a broom is not nearly so hopeless a 
 spectacle as the modern legislators making laws 
 against public sentiment to control appetites born 
 and bred in the blood. The subject is, however, far 
 too wide for the limits of such a work as this; my 
 purpose beginning and ending with directing 
 thought toward sounder, better bodily conditions in 
 the interest of physical beauty and higher morality. 
 If I succeed in giving some practical suggestions 
 which will arouse individual effort toward these no- 
 bler ideals, my work in this instance will have been 
 accomplished. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 GENERAL AIDS TO BEAUTY — VENTILATION, FOODS, 
 SLEEP, FABRICS. 
 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 HERE are certain gen- 
 eral aids to beauty which 
 I shall cursorily men- 
 tion, believing that " a 
 word to the wise will 
 prove sufficient." 
 
 After the 
 cleanliness of 
 bathing ■ — 
 which will be 
 
 given due 
 
 consideration 
 in the chapter 
 upon the skin — 
 omes the equal- 
 ly important clean- 
 liness of ventilation; 
 for the impurity from a 
 badly ventilated room 
 
30 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 finds its way into the life forces of the body through 
 the breath and lungs, inducing lassitude and dis- 
 ease. A great many persons who are scrupulous 
 about a daily walk, for an hour, for health, will con- 
 tentedly breathe the same vitiated air over and over 
 again in their close, badly ventilated rooms the 
 other twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four, if 
 duties keep them indoors, and wonder at headaches 
 and that feeble, " tired feeling," because they do not 
 give a thought to the cause. 
 
 Every adult person needs at least two thousand 
 cubic feet of fresh air per hour for pure blood and 
 good health. Less means that the organic poisons 
 thrown off through the lungs and body must be re- 
 absorbed into the system again. A good many per- 
 sons confound pure air with cold air, and hot air 
 with what is impure, and, acting upon such theory, 
 practically seal up their windows and doors from 
 fall to spring, and never allow a breath of air, which 
 ingenuity can exclude, to get in from the outside 
 during the winter. Necessarily such houses are dif- 
 ficult to warm, as it is almost impossible to heat up 
 cold, impure air; and the inmates frequently begin 
 the spring with broken-down tissues, and typhoid, 
 malaria or a hacking cough. 
 
 I have frequently tried the experiment on a very 
 cold day, when my furnace and grates seemed inca- 
 pable of producing the necessary warmth, of open- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 31 
 
 ing the windows all round, top and bottom, two 
 rooms at a time, to get a current of air, and have, 
 after a clean sweep, which rid the house of all lurk- 
 ing impurities, been rewarded by a deliciously warm 
 and grateful atmosphere. Pure air readily warms 
 up, but it is almost impossible to impregnate dense, 
 impure air with heat. 
 
 It is a comparatively easy matter for one interest- 
 ed in the fresh-air question to arrange a system of 
 ventilation for the home which will, in connection 
 with the insensible ventilation admitted by doors, 
 windows, crevices, and, happily for health and lon- 
 gevity, that modern artistic revival, the fireplace, be 
 very nearly perfect. All rooms need ventilation 
 from above, because it is a well-known fact that 
 bad air rises, especially when warm, and if no means 
 of escape is provided at the top of the room this 
 poisoned atmosphere hangs like a cloud of destruc- 
 tion, imperiling the lives of the inmates. Admitting 
 ^ pure air at the bottom of the window is well enough, 
 so far as it goes; but it does not go far enough to 
 insure absolute purity of atmosphere, especially in a 
 room that is constantly used. 
 
 Draughts are to be deprecated, but there is no 
 need for them if a little skill be used in arranging 
 the means for ventilation. I know a house in which 
 all windows are opened at the bottom from six to 
 ten inches and supplied with ornamental glass, trans- 
 
32 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 parencies, or carved woodwork. The effect is at- 
 tractive, and an excellent system of ventilation is 
 established. The space between the upper part of 
 the lower sash and the lower part of the upper sash 
 affords a means for fresh air to enter in an upward 
 direction, which saves draughts, and at the same 
 time keeps up a constant current of pure air from 
 the outside. 
 
 At night the windows of a sleeping-room should 
 be so arranged as to allow fresh air to enter below, 
 and escape above, by a current formed by opening 
 one window at the top and another at the bottom; 
 or, if there be but one window in the room, by open- 
 ing that five inches, both top and bottom; or, better 
 yet, if there is a place in the room for putting up a 
 stove, remove the cap over the opening into the 
 chimney for the accommodation of the stove-funnel, 
 and form a current of air by the combined aid of the 
 window and chimney. A thin India silk curtain on 
 a rod, or a painted bolting screen, or a flowered 
 scrim, may be ornamentally draped over the cap- 
 opening. In fact, ingenuity can suggest numberless 
 pretty devices for hiding the hole in the chimney, 
 while gaining the advantage for purposes of ventila- 
 tion. Of course, no enlightened person in the pres- 
 ent day puts up a closed stove of the air-tight de- 
 scription in a bed-chamber. One guilty of such an 
 inartistic and physiological offence should be con- 
 
3 
 
 33 
 
34 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 fined inside, and given the time and opportunity to 
 realize and expiate their crime in literal sackcloth 
 and ashes. Open-grate stoves are the only ones for 
 sleeping-rooms. 
 
 Many persons have a deeply rooted prejudice 
 against the night air, and would no more go to 
 sleep with an open window than with a pestilence; 
 yet the night air is always preferable to confined air 
 in any location; while in healthful neighborhoods, 
 which are free from malaria, especially in high, dry 
 latitudes, the benefits from the night air are so mark- 
 ed that consumptives often gain very perceptibly 
 from tenting, and are advised to live that way in 
 preference to living indoors during all the milder 
 months of the year. In traveling in Arizona I met 
 a consumptive who had slept out of doors in a swing- 
 ing-bed for nine months out of the twelve during 
 three years, who unhesitatingly declared that he 
 owed his life to the uninterrupted breathing of the 
 pure air of that region, night and day, during all of 
 that time. 
 
 Using ornamental lamps in place of gas, which 
 has gained so much favor during the last few years, 
 is a step in the direction of health, which, it is to be 
 hoped, will not prove a passing fad. The oil-lamp 
 consumes less than one-third of the oxygen, and 
 produces less than one-third of the carbonic acid 
 which is produced by a single gas-jet, and is, 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 35 
 
 in that ratio, less injurious to health than the 
 gas-jet. 
 
 Indifference to pure air in public places is a matter 
 for alarm and protest. Especially is this true of public 
 halls, churches, school-rooms, theatres, and, worst of 
 all, sleeping-cars. Indeed, I do nothesitate to say that 
 the present sleeping-car, with its stuffy curtains and 
 cushions, its bed-furnishings shut up airtight during 
 the day, with the gathered impurities of all kinds. of 
 exhalations from all kinds of bodies, clean and un- 
 clean, together with the poison of the nicotine from 
 the ever-present cigar of the man who will smoke in 
 the end room in defiance of the comfort of people in 
 other parts of the car; and the general prejudice 
 against fresh air which animates all railroad officials, 
 from the president down to the porter, makes the 
 life of a lover of pure air, who is compelled to travel 
 much, simply intolerable. To have one's berth made 
 up with the head toward the engine, and a screen in 
 the lower part of the window at the foot, does some- 
 thing to mitigate the agony of a night in one of these 
 boxes; but not much, when cinders and coal-dust 
 are taken into account. 
 
 During the last few years there has been a change 
 for the better in the ventilation of a majority of 
 the finer public buildings, and of some of the more 
 luxurious and expensive of modern dwelling-houses, 
 especially in large cities, by the means of vertical 
 
36 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY 
 
 shafts in the wall for admitting fresh air near the 
 floor, and the escape of impure air near the ceiling. 
 Heating arrangements have, too, been much im- 
 proved in connection with ventilation, and cellars 
 and furnaces are now supplied with currents of fresh 
 air from the outside, which do away with many of 
 the former dangers to health from damp, unventi- 
 lated cellars. 
 
 In respect to all sanitary matters — to ventilation, 
 to plumbing, to sewerage, to heating — residents of 
 cities obtain advantages far superior to those enjoy- 
 ed by the dweller in the country. 
 
 FOODS. 
 
 Even in the matter of foods, although nature 
 spreads her grains, fruits and vegetables under the 
 hands of the farmer, the ordinary farmer's wife 
 knows little about the science of cooking, and is so 
 ignorant of nutritious combinations for pleasure and 
 nourishment, that the city family is in far less dan- 
 ger of dyspepsia and chronic ailments from badly 
 cooked and unhygienic (in the true sense) food than 
 these custodians of nature's food supplies. 
 
 After knowing many classes of persons, and some- 
 thing of the cooking of several different nationali- 
 ties, it is my judgment that we Americans have 
 m.uch to learn from the French and Italians concern- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 37 
 
 ing healthful cooking and pleasurable eating. Ad- 
 mitting simplicity in foods as worthy of attention, 
 we must not confound simplicity with crudity, and 
 I fear that this is what the ordinary enthusiast over 
 " plain living and high thinking" does. I have seen 
 many apuny, spiritless child of so-called hygienic " 
 parents, which was suffering from nothing but insuf- 
 ficient nourishment. The facts concerning foods are 
 plain to the unprejudiced, that what is one man's 
 meat is literally another's poison, and we cannot lay 
 down arbitrary laws which will apply to all in this 
 matter of eating, because different temperaments re- 
 quire different treatment. The object of eating is 
 nourishment to build up the blood, the tissues, the 
 nerves, the muscles, and, consequently, the whole 
 body. I know men and women who are perfectly 
 nourished upon uncooked foods — fruits and animal 
 products, milk, cream, cheese — and an occasional 
 egg. I know others who would die of starvation 
 upon such foods in a year, because their systems 
 could not appropriate enough nutriment from these 
 foods to counteract the waste. Upon general prin- 
 ciples, I believe that more persons suffer in the pres- 
 ent day from being insufficiently nourished than 
 from overfeeding. 
 
 *' I never allow my children anything but good, 
 plain foods," was the proud boast of one of these 
 diet enthusiasts, who compelled everybody at her ta- 
 
38 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ble to begin breakfast, the year round, with oatmeal, 
 in spite of the fact that the heating quaHties of this 
 grain render it a most undesirable, if not even dan- 
 gerous, summer food for all who are in the least in- 
 clined to humors. Her idea of the proper diet was 
 the aforesaid oatmeal and milk, dried or fresh fruit, 
 mashed or boiled potatoes without salt, coarse 
 breads, eggs, vegetables boiled in plain water with- 
 out seasoning, and occasionally, in winter, beef- 
 steak and mutton. Her table reminded one of the 
 definition which a recent medical writer gave of a 
 plain cook: A person of either sex who brings fire 
 and meat and vegetables together, and lets them, 
 fight it out among themselves for a dinner; the next 
 bout being in the stomach of the unfortunate par- 
 taker of the repast, and the next, perhaps, with the 
 doctor as bottle-holder." Her children, fed on this 
 kind of plain "hygienic" cooking, had coarse, sal- 
 low skins, thin bodies, hungry eyes, and were alwa3^s 
 ailing — the simple truth being that, although they 
 had enough in quantity to eat, they were not nour- 
 ished. The facts are, that plain cooking does not 
 accord with the higher chemical knowledge which 
 belongs to a more complex state of civilization. The 
 knowledge of how to compound highly nutritive 
 foods out of crude ingredients is a noble art. Deli- 
 cately flavored, daintily served dishes aid and assist 
 digestion with people of sensibility and refinement, 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 39 
 
 where coarsely prepared foods, no matter how 
 wholesome the original quality of the uncooked 
 substance, pall upon the appetite and cause dyspep- 
 sia through the physical revolt which renders assim- 
 ilation impossible. 
 
 Races living healthfully upon a very limited diet 
 prepared from few articles, without seasoning, gen- 
 erally gain much physiological advantage from their 
 climate and out-of-door exercise, which induces great 
 hunger, and a not too fastidious appetite in conse- 
 quence. Cannibals and animals need no seasoning 
 with their food. Eastern nations, of a slow and un- 
 progressive mental character, thrive upon a fruit 
 and simply cooked grain diet; hard-working peas- 
 ants, of the stolid, muscular, unemotional type, get 
 along with few kinds of foods, but feed plentifully 
 upon these, as the animals do; while individuals 
 among the higher civilized classes, who go in for 
 coarse ingredients and plain cooking, from enthusi- 
 asm, are very generally of tough, muscular fibre, with- 
 out complex aesthetic and nervous sensibility, and are 
 little given to the enjoyments of the table in the 
 way of elegant trifling over dishes for the sake of 
 companionship and conversation. Indeed, I do not 
 remember ever to have met one of these persons who 
 had what might be termed exquisitely dainty table 
 manners, such as belong to men and women having 
 subtle and more highly developed taste for refined 
 
40 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 and carefully prepared viands. There is no denying 
 that men can live with very little variety of cooking, 
 and thrive physically, if the foods are merely whole- 
 some and not appetizing, provided they can culti- 
 vate a certain indifference to eating,' and merely 
 feed to live; but this fact is not an argument that 
 such food serves the best purposes of complex nour- 
 ishment for physical and moral beauty, any more 
 than it would be to say that a man does not need the 
 education of books and art for a high form of life, be- 
 cause men have lived healthfully and died peacefully 
 in ignorance. 
 
 Appetizingfoods, complex foods, refined foods care- 
 fully prepared, chemically considered foods, are the 
 needs of the differentiated organizations of the high- 
 est types of civilized man. Go into a mechanics' or 
 factory-hands' boarding-house, a sailors' mess-room, 
 or a rough farm kitchen, and there study the mean- 
 ing of the hour to those congregated to feed. Ob- 
 serve their manners, their faces, the texture of their 
 skins — even their flesh and bone structure; then 
 saunter into the cafe of one of the high-class res- 
 taurants, employing an educated cJicf at thousands 
 of dollars' salary yearly, and compare the manners, 
 faces, skins, flesh and structure of these people with 
 the former, and conclusions must be obvious. Good 
 foods, such as the former never enjoy, help to give 
 an elegance to the manners of the latter, to refine 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 41 
 
 the expression of their faces, impart clearness to 
 their skins, firmness and solidity to their flesh, and 
 delicacy to their physical structure; in other words, 
 the scientific chemical combination of food substances 
 produces results which enter into the atoms of the 
 body through the sources of nourishment, becoming a 
 constituent part of the individual economy. For this 
 reason cooking is a noble art, and should be studied 
 for high and holy purposes. 
 
 Undoubtedly, fruits, grains and vegetables are 
 susceptible of the most delicious of all flavors, and 
 have, when properly prepared, great nutritive value; 
 but, served as the ordinary cook serves them, the 
 wonder is that more people do not die from the ef- 
 fects. Meats, above all foods, need the exquisite 
 touch of the artist cook to give them the refined, 
 savory flavor which saves meat-eating from utter 
 grossness. Everybody recognizes the red-faced 
 beef-eater who takes his meat almost raw, while the 
 habitual fat-pork epicure carries his sign-manual in 
 a greasy skin and swinish expression. 
 
 To regulate the table for a family so that each 
 day shall give some delectable surprise is an art in 
 itself; but the housewife is well repaid in the cheer- 
 ful temper of her husband and children, and the 
 looks of their sleek, well-nourished bodies, sparkling 
 eyes and rosy cheeks. Breakfast, except for the very 
 hard-working, should be a simple meal of ripe 
 
42 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 fruits served upon green leaves, with toast or rolls 
 in season; and, out of season, of cooked fruits, with 
 wheat, rice, barley, or hominy which has been 
 steamed for hours, and served with rich cream; 
 boiled eggs, omelets with fine herbs, and delicately 
 broiled chops or fish, if one must, from tradition, have 
 something substantial. 
 
 Lunch properly includes only soups or broths, 
 breads, fruits and salads. Dinner should be the 
 principal meal of the day, served at noon for people 
 of quiet habits, who retire very early at night, and 
 at evening for those having social obligations. The 
 only objection to eating the principal meal at noon 
 lies in the fact that a full meal should be followed 
 by sufficient rest to properly start the processes of 
 digestion before engaging in any toil which has a 
 tendency to retard or stop these functions. 
 
 Dinner should begin with a soup, to prepare the 
 stc^ach for other things; and as every housewife 
 ought to know how to utilize vegetables, tidbits 
 and savory herbs to good purpose in this way, there 
 is no excuse of putting on style," or incurring 
 unnecessary expense or trouble, to be offered as an 
 apology for its absence from a well-regulated, if 
 humble, table. What follows may be ever so sim- 
 ple and inexpensive, but must be well cooked and 
 well served. A poor cut of meat delicately season- 
 ed, and cooked, as it may be, in any of a number of 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 43 
 
 different ways until tender and nutritious, served in 
 its own gravy with a single deliciously prepared 
 vegetable, followed by a dish of Italian spaghetti and 
 tomato sauce, with grated Parmesan cheese, and af- 
 terward a salad of lettuce, celery, chicory, cresses 
 or tomatoes, dressed with oil, without any other 
 dessert than crackers, wafers, Brie or other cheese, 
 nuts and a small cup of black coffee (if one takes 
 it), will make a thoroughly good and refined dinner, 
 withal appetizing, nutritious and inexpensive, an 
 improvement over the ordinary plain American fam- 
 ily dinner, which admits no comparison. 
 
 It is not enough in this age that a given food is 
 wholesome, and contributes to pure blood; even the 
 savage may have pure blood and strong muscles; 
 perfect foods must contribute refined sustenance 
 to the higher mental as well as physical powers, 
 and by stimulating a delicate appetite satisfy an 
 artistic demand. It is not plainer foods whicli^he 
 higher races require, but foods better and more 
 delicately and scientifically prepared and served — 
 foods which will render every form of coarse, gross, 
 gluttonous feeding impossible in the nature of things. 
 The family table will then become the meeting- 
 place for refined, elevating conversation, and the 
 diplay of each one's best manners and most unself- 
 ish and beautiful traits of character. 
 
44 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 Coincident with the importance of fresh air and 
 good foods is the necessity for plenty of sleep. 
 Without this natural restorative great physical beau- 
 ty is out of the question. Tired nerves and broken- 
 down tissues are not conducive to a high form of 
 beauty, and sleep is absolutely essential to the 
 proper repair of the exhausted forces of the body. 
 The necessary amount of sleep differs with different 
 individuals; some persons require two or three hours 
 m.ore sleep a night than others; but, upon general 
 principles, it has been decided by competent author- 
 ities that "seven to eight hours' sleep is necessary 
 to the proper rest for the ordinary adult. Children, 
 of course, need much more. In fact, no child under 
 ten years of age should be permitted to sit up after 
 €\g\X. o'olock any evening, and an earlier hour should 
 see the baby in bed. The sleep obtained before 
 midnight is the most restful, and contributes most 
 to the general upbuilding of the body; neverthe- 
 less, individual hours for retiring must necessarily 
 be regulated somewhat by one's evening social du- 
 ties and pleasures. 
 
 The platitudes indulged in by some very well- 
 meaning people about early rising have no force and 
 weight, in point of fact, unless one's hours for re- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 45 
 
 tiring are such that they are sufficiently rested for 
 rising at an early hour. To get up on principle 'at 
 a certain hour, without regard to the sleep ob- 
 tained, is worse than foolish — it is a crime against 
 health. 
 
 Many a nervous child has suffered a lifetime in 
 consequence of an iron- clad rule which compelled 
 it to get up at a certain hour all through childhood, re- 
 gardless of its needs for rest and recuperation. A safe 
 course, concerning sleep with growing children, is to 
 leave them undisturbed until they awake naturally, 
 and refreshed. All young children should have a 
 daily midday nap, and the habit with any one, at 
 any age, of dozing for a few moments after the noon- 
 day meal, is valuable, inasmuch as it establishes a 
 complete nervous and muscular relaxation, which 
 is physically most grateful and refreshing. 
 
 The habit of going to sleep immediately upon re- 
 tiring can be established by being in bed punctual- 
 ly at a certain hour for a number of weeks together. 
 When one wakes in the middle of the night and in - 
 clines to lie awake, thinking, let him get up and walk 
 the room for five minutes, after shaking up the bed- 
 clothing and giving it a chance to air: this will usual- 
 ly induce sleep. If this method fails, the towel-bath 
 and vigorous rubbing all over will, almost without 
 exception, produce the desired result. 
 
46 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 FABRICS. 
 
 I am yearly more and more convinced that the 
 character of the clothing worn next to the skin, and 
 the regularity with which it is changed, has much 
 to do with health and physical beauty. The great 
 demand of the last few years for woolen undergar- 
 ments, which has been regarded by some skeptics as 
 a mere fad, is, in my judgment, the natural result of 
 deeper investigation and sounder ideas concerning 
 the true uses of clothing. To serve its purposes 
 well, clothing must be protective. In winter one needs 
 what will the most readily aid the body in retain- 
 ing the natural heat generated; and in summer what 
 will exclude outside heat, while being sufficiently 
 porous to allow the excessive moisture of the body 
 to evaporate most quickly. The fabric which will 
 do this must be a practical non-conductor of heat. 
 There was a good deal of genuine truth in the Irish- 
 man's wit who declared that " What will kape out 
 the could will also kape out the hate;" and there is 
 a deeply scientific truth in the claim of the wool en- 
 thusiasts that woolen fabrics are best suited to all- 
 of-the-year-round wear next to the skin. The only 
 exception, if indeed tliere is any, is in the case of 
 silk, worn for rheumatic affections because of the 
 tendency which it has to excite electrical conditions 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 47 
 
 peculiarly beneficial to all gouty, neuralgic and 
 rheumatic conditions. 
 
 Linen is the worst possible material that could be 
 worn next the skin; cotton is better, but by no means 
 equal to wool for summer wearing, and it is wholly 
 unsuited to winter wear. The softest and most del- 
 icate of wool materials should be chosen for all-of- 
 the-year-round clothing next the skin; a very light 
 weight fabric for summer, a thicker quality for spring 
 and autumn, and still thicker for winter. The under- 
 clothing should be changed twice a week, at least, 
 in summer; once a week will suflRce in winter, if the 
 skin be kept perfectly clean by the daily bath and 
 friction. No garment worn during the daytime 
 should ever be worn at night; but what replaces the 
 day garment should be of the same fabric, to avoid 
 colds by sudden exposure to a change in tempera- 
 ture, and a gauze woolen, worn under the cotton or 
 cambric night-dress, will serve the physical needs, 
 while admitting the artistic daintiness of a flowing 
 white garment made attractive by exquisite needle- 
 work and fluffy jabots of lace. 
 
 The complaint that woolen shrinks badly is a just 
 one, and this fact undoubtedly stands in the way of 
 its universal adoption by people of limited means; 
 nevertheless, I know by experience that care in 
 the laundry will obviate a great deal of the dif- 
 ficulty, while the benefits to health, when set over 
 
48 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 against expense, are worthy of most serious consid- 
 eration. 
 
 In washing woolens, perfectly clean water, very 
 little above tepid, must be used. Soap must never 
 be rubbed on the fabric; but a good borax soap 
 should be employed for a suds, and in such suds all 
 woolens may be quickly washed, and, if not allowed 
 to soak, there will be very little shrinkage. Imme- 
 diately afterward the garment, held lengthwise of 
 the fabricy should be plunged into plain (unsoaped) 
 boiling water and quickly squeezed out. When 
 thoroughly coolod, it should be passed through an- 
 other pure water of a moderately cool temperature, 
 again squeezed as dry as possible (never wrung) 
 and hung in the sunlight where it cannot possibly 
 freeze. A great deal of trouble, some will say; but 
 I am not ready to admit that anything which serves 
 so important a purpose as a general aid to physical 
 health and beauty is, by comparison, too much 
 trouble to take, in view of the grand object to be 
 attained. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF BODILY EXPRESSION. 
 
 T would .seem to the student of 
 physical science that everything 
 possible to be said upon the the- 
 ory of physical devel- 
 opment and the culture 
 of bodily expression 
 had already been said. 
 Since the revival of en- 
 thusiasm upon this sub- 
 ject, which has been 
 steadily growing for several 
 years, much thought has been 
 given to the practical side of the 
 question, and many books have been written in the 
 interest of one system of exercise and another, 
 some by the really able, others by charlatans; but 
 all having the one desirable tendency to emphasize 
 popular demand for knowledge upon this subject. 
 Dr. Charles Wesley Emerson, of the Emerson 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 College of Oratory, of Boston, who probably under- 
 stands this science as thoroughly as any man, well 
 says: " Every true teacher is a torch-bearer, advanc- 
 ing into the darkness. We cannot add to the gen- 
 eral illumination of the world by extinguishing the 
 torches of others. No great artist ever spent his 
 time in criticism of other artists. Michael Angelo 
 was once asked to criticise some of Raphael's fresco- 
 ing. He said nothing, but took a crayon and drew 
 a figure, the best he could, and then replied, * I criti- 
 cise by example.' Michael Angelo emphasized a 
 gospel principle. Criticise your neighbor by exam- 
 ple; by living better, if you can." 
 
 Dr. Emerson has called to mind a grand truth 
 which every teacher and student of bodily training 
 would do well to remember: that the excellence and 
 the error in one's work stand an equal chance in the 
 critical judgment of the world, and whatever is of 
 great practical value is sure to gain recognition. 
 
 Centuries ago the ancients studied and practised 
 exercises for bodily expression; then came the long 
 lapse of ages during which the body was neglected, 
 and physical proportions were degraded; but once 
 again the popular mind is aroused to the necessity 
 for consistent relations between the physical, men- 
 tal, and moral faculties. This latter-day awakening 
 has, no doubt, been due to Francois Delsarte more 
 than to any other person, and, much as one may re- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 51 
 
 gret that his work has been so often misrepresented 
 by those who have failed to grasp its full scope and 
 purpose, there can be no doubt whatever that the 
 Delsarte Philosophy of Expression, as formulated by 
 Delsarte himself, embraced certain principles for 
 physical, mental, and moral discipline of a high and 
 harmonious character. Every true student of aesthet- 
 ic bodily science owes him a debt of gratitude, and 
 while deploring the almost flippant use to which his 
 name and memory have been reduced by many who 
 know nothing of the grand and heroic life-struggle 
 of the man, there can be no doubt about the real 
 value of his work to humanity at large; and, fortu- 
 nately for the ultimate triumph of the laws for which 
 he lived, there are a few persons who appreciate and 
 exemplify them to an extent to insure the incorpora- 
 tion of some, at least, of his theories into the practical 
 actualities of every-day life. 
 
 The man was a student of human nature under 
 every imaginable condition, and learned the lessons 
 which he taught from unremitting hard work and 
 patient delving into the heart of human mysteries 
 and high places and low down. His purpose seems 
 to have been to understand and logically explain the 
 meaning of every movement, gesture, look, and atti- 
 tude, in order that he might teach others how to build 
 enduring character through the art of expression, 
 and its reflex upon the mind and morals. 
 
52 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 Without entering into any lengthy discussion of 
 methods of physical development I must give it as 
 my judgment as a careful student of several different 
 systems, that more good is accomplished for the 
 average mai^^or woman by practice without apparatus 
 than with it. It is not important to sound develop- 
 ment, certainly not to well-rounded harmonious de- 
 velopment, that ones hould have piled up prominent 
 muscles. The practical object to be attained is gen- 
 eral power, not the abnormal development of muscu- 
 lar tissue in any part of the body. 
 
 The real object of physical exercise is the highest 
 possible health and beauty through self-evident laws 
 of the human economy. The first step, therefore, 
 toward the intelligent application of these laws is an 
 understanding of anatomy. I no longer believe it 
 possible for one to become a profound student of 
 bodily expression without first gaining a thorough 
 and conscientious mastery of the anatomical knowl- 
 edge necessary to intelligent exercise of certain 
 muscles and nerve-centres for definite objects: and 
 one cannot learn how to preserve a proper balance 
 between the energy of supply and that of waste with- 
 out first learning the names, location, and collateral 
 relations of the different muscles which develop pow- 
 er, and those which waste it. The harmonious bal- 
 ance of these functions cannot be taught by imitation, 
 but must be taught by knowledge to avoid disaster. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 53 
 
 A perfect system of physical culture aims at in- 
 creasing the power of the vital centres; unless, how- 
 ever, one understands all about these vital centres, 
 the effort to increase muscular power may result in 
 muscular atrophy, or wasting away of the tissue, until 
 little but tendons are left. For this reason, physical 
 training must be undertaken by those who are pre- 
 pared to teach from the anatomical as well as the 
 artistic standpoint. 
 
 It does not follow that every student must be a 
 specialist in anatomy and physiology; but every 
 teacher certainly ought to understand what he 
 teaches, else he is unprepared to safely guide the 
 pupil into the necessary work to overcome individ- 
 ual defects which may proceed from one of many 
 different causes, and need, in consequence, special ap- 
 plication. To produce intelligent alteration in bodily 
 structure requires unquestioned physical knowledge 
 directed toward given ends. 
 
 Every school board should provide thoroughly 
 and scientifically prepared teachers for the public 
 schools under their supervision, to give lectures on 
 anatomy and physiology, practically illustrating and 
 articulating by physical exercises. It is a reproach 
 to the higher civilization of the day that any youth 
 of either sex can go through a public school course, 
 and graduate broken down in bodily health, with a 
 stooping gait, weak and undeveloped muscles, dis- 
 
54 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 organized nerve-centres, and a predisposition toward 
 pulmonary troubles brought on by impure air and 
 unhealthful bending over desks for study. 
 
 One of our well-known college professors says: 
 " So dense is the present ignorance, not only of the 
 mass of the people, but. also of a large section of the 
 educated portion of the community concerning the 
 elementary truths of biological science in general, 
 and of psycho-physical science in particular, that it 
 would be well-nigh hopeless to attempt to institute 
 and administer any thorough-going system of phys- 
 ical training as a part of the system of public in- 
 struction in even the most enlightened States of the 
 Union. Until the modern doctrine of bodily exercise 
 is more generally apprehended, we can only look 
 for sporadic efforts and fragmentary and discordant 
 results in so much of the field of physical training as 
 the richer and more advanced colleges and univer- 
 sities may occupy. The Swedish, German, and 
 French systems of physical training and educating 
 teachers in gymnastics are well worth studying, but 
 the greatest present need is to educate trustees, com- 
 mitteemen, teachers, and physicians in physiology 
 and hygiene." 
 
 About the latter clause there can be no doubt, but 
 it is, after all, to be questioned whether the work 
 already being done in our college gymnasiums and 
 athletics is not of a more or less hit-or-miss charac- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 55 
 
 ter, excepting only a very few colleges which provide 
 competent instructors to teach and enforce laws 
 leading to understanding of the true science of the 
 work. College athletics are far too generally prac- 
 tised in a spirit of fierce contention for the supremacy 
 of one boat-crew or ball-team over another of a rival 
 college, and not for systematic and symmetrical in- 
 dividual benefits. Often these exhibitions degenerate * 
 into brutal displays which do great harm. When 
 one reads of a student's coming in, staggering, from 
 one of these violent contests for useless honors, and 
 later on that he has been compelled to drop out of 
 his class because of physical and nervous exhaus- 
 tion, the argument is certainly not in favor of great 
 personal benefits from athletic exercise as partici- 
 pated in at universities. 
 
 Unless one studies the true meaning of bodily de- 
 velopment, it is easy to make these exhausting mis- 
 takes; while it is by no means easy to maintain 
 equilibrium between physical exercise and physical 
 upbuilding, between effort and result, unless one 
 learns how to economize vital force while takine 
 vital movements. 
 
 I believe the education of books to be of less value 
 to the virile life force of the nation than bodily cul- 
 ture, and for this reason the public school should be 
 the training-ground of bodies, in order that subse- 
 quent mental development may be in unity with 
 
56 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 sound first principles; but the science must be taught 
 as part of a regular system and branch of compre- 
 hensive anatomy. 
 
 At our military and naval academies, young men 
 learn to walk and breathe correctly. If it is neces- 
 sary to the manhood of the man of battle that he 
 should be well-developed, symmetrical, and com- 
 manding for the forcible protection of national inter- 
 ests, it is certainly reasonable to conclude that the 
 man of peace, who may become the statesman in a 
 country like our own, or the woman who will become 
 the mother of statesmen, soldiers, and men and 
 women of grand civic powers, should be physically 
 perfect for the pride and greatness of the nation. 
 
 The public school is an institution for the benefit 
 of the State quite as much as for the individual, and 
 for this reason it should be made a channel for the 
 dissemination of physiological knowledge, calculated 
 to control disease and crime. To neglect those 
 means of correction at the fountainhead of the edu- 
 cation of youth, which would logically contribute to 
 the permanent welfare and glory of the nation, is 
 worse than error of judgment; rather may it b)e con- 
 sidered criminal negligence of a high and holy trust. 
 Aggregate national integrity of bodily power and 
 moral stamina depends upon individual discipline, 
 which will contribute to sound bodies and alert minds. 
 
 The ancients understood and lived up to this 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 57 
 
 grand truth, and their ablest philosophers laid laws 
 for life which were far superior in many essential re- 
 spects to those popularly accepted by the intelligent 
 of the present day. 
 
 Says Plato: " The bodies of the trained may, bet- 
 ter than those of the untrained, minister to the vir- 
 tuous mind, and once more, when a body large and 
 too strong for the soul is united to a weak intelli- 
 gence, then, inasmuch as there are two desires 
 natural to man, one of food for the sake of the body, 
 and one of wisdom for the sake of the diviner part of 
 us, then, I say, the motions of the stronger getting 
 the better and increasing their own power, but mak- 
 ing the soul stupid and forgetful, engender igno- 
 rance, which is the greatest of diseases. There is one 
 protection against both kinds of disproportion: that 
 we should not move the body without the soul, nor 
 the soul without the body, and thus they will aid 
 one another, and be healthy and well balanced. 
 And, therefore, the mathematician, or anyone else 
 who devotes himself to some intellectual pursuit, 
 must allow his body to have motion also, and prac- 
 tise gymnastics; and he who would train the limbs 
 of the body should impart to them the motions of 
 the soul, and should practise music and all philoso- 
 phy, if he would be called truly fair and truly good." 
 
 It is seen that centuries ago this profound student 
 of immortal truth formulated the principle that the 
 
58 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 body must be trained with reference to its relation 
 to the soul. He did not seek, as do some wise 
 people of the present time, to degrade the use, holi- 
 ness, and beauty of the body that the soul might 
 proclaim its superiority; but, recognizing the phys- 
 ical body as a higher servant of the soul, he taught 
 that true interdependence and unity which makes 
 the harmony between correlating forces which cannot 
 by any possibility be separated; and in this respect 
 Plato's philosophy was superior to much of the latter- 
 day religion which has led men to the mortification 
 of the flesh; for nothing in nature can be more cer- 
 tain than that divine wisdom intended man to be 
 physically as well as morally beautiful. Nowhere is 
 proof of this statement wanting, for every moral and 
 spiritual degradation brings its corresponding phys- 
 ical punishment. Upon the faces of men and women 
 who live out of harmony with high moral law, whether 
 upon the plane of sensualism and debauchery, or 
 selfishness and avarice, excess sets the stamp which 
 marks the disobedience. Be the face ever so regu- 
 lar in contour, the physical degradation is written 
 there as if by the hand of God. Let us not, there- 
 fore, make the mistake of neglecting the physical 
 upbuilding of the body in the belief that the more 
 exalted interests of the soul are thus conserved. 
 Pain and disease are unnecessary, and retard the 
 finer moral development. Sin is the hereditary 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 59 
 
 descendant of the ignorance which scoffs at physical 
 law. 
 
 Attention to bodily culture, apart from its profound 
 significance in developing enduring character, has an 
 artistic and aesthetic side which is worthy serious 
 thought. Control of muscles and nerve-centres, 
 which helps one to economize the undue expendi- 
 ture of vital and mental force, brings that rare and 
 beautiful self-possession and dignity of bearing which 
 is so valuable to one's success in active association 
 with the world, giving, as it does, a certain subtle 
 but no less positive evidence of reserve power of 
 mind and physique. It may seem of little practical 
 consequence to the casual thinker to know how to 
 poise, stand, walk, breathe, sit, talk, M/ith ease and 
 grace, and without self-consciousness; but that rare 
 charm of manner, that beauty of expression, that 
 magnetic radiation of inward power which certain 
 profound students of harmonious bodily and mental 
 culture possess, is certainly the result of years of 
 just such systematic study and practice of exercises 
 as the skeptic laughs to scorn and dismisses as an 
 affectation or waste of time. Few persons, because 
 of unfortunate inheritance and environments, are en- 
 dowed naturally with this gift of physical superiority; 
 but all can cultivate it to a greater or less degree. 
 
 In taking up the work of bodily training for self- 
 culture I should advise a course under the immediate 
 
6o 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 supervision of a careful and conscientious teacher, if 
 possible. If not, then procure some good work on 
 anatomy and physiology, and afterward the illus- 
 trated physical-culture works of those who have given 
 serious study to the matter of compiling and explain- 
 ing illustrations for practice. Naturally I should in- 
 cline to the work of those with whom my own mind 
 and study have been in full sympathy, teachers who 
 give simple exercises for home practice without ap- 
 paratus. Some of these systems are more helpful 
 than others; but one soon learns to judge the merits 
 of a given work by its results. 
 
 The aim of any really comprehensive system of 
 physical culture is not so much to multiply move- 
 ments as to simplify, so that a great deal of work 
 may be condensed into a few exercises; but these 
 must prove that they have been thoroughly well 
 considered by fulfilling what they promise. The 
 body must be exercised in every part with reference 
 to the whole; and, however few the movements 
 necessary to a perfect system of free gymnastics, 
 repetition and daily practice of these are essential to 
 harmonious vital results. 
 
 Above all other considerations, the student of 
 physical development must regard his work as with- 
 out limitations, else he will surely fall into the too 
 common error of the great numbers who believe that 
 they know it all when they have learned to perform 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 6i 
 
 a few tricks with the muscular system. In a profound 
 sense physical development is without end; each day 
 bringing new revelations of harmonious physical 
 possibilities after one has learned to execute all of 
 the necessary movements faithfully and with definite 
 aim and precision. To free the body so that it will 
 express the highest emotions of the soul, unhindered, 
 is the work of psycho-physical culture, and to this 
 work a thorough understanding of the groupings of 
 muscles and their relations and articulations, and the 
 development of this relationship to prevent undue 
 nervous tension, is essential. 
 
 Any collection of exercises which fails to do this 
 falls below the requirements of a perfect system. 
 
 What has been said upon the subject of scientific 
 physical development has had reference to exercises 
 arranged with a definite object; but there are many 
 general exercises, both for work and pleasure, which 
 serve good purposes in keeping one healthful and 
 happy; and while exalting the necessity for system- 
 atic, physical work based upon fixed laws for the 
 development of grace and unity, I must not be un- 
 derstood to deprecate or underestimate the excel- 
 lence of any vital field sport if not carried to excess. 
 It is true that the value of these exercises lies largely 
 in the pleasure of the moment, in cheerful compan- 
 ionship and laughter, and the fact that they are taken 
 in the pure air; nevertheless, running, climbing. 
 
62 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 riding, tennis, boating, and, most of all, swimming, 
 are, when practised in moderation, helpful aids to 
 physical health, especially when a short, loose, 
 light-weight costume, which gives the arms, legs, 
 and vital organs freedom, is worn. 
 
 While it is undoubtedly true that one may, under 
 certain circumstances, live in comparative health to 
 old age without the knowledge and practice of 
 scientific physical exercises, a very high form of 
 grace and expression will be impossible, unless one 
 reaches after the lofty ideals of living embraced 
 within the complex possibilities of human destiny 
 which the mind presages long before it grasps the 
 full significance of the divine reality. 
 
THE 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SKIN — ITS FUNCTIONS AND 
 CARE. 
 
 HILE there are certain general 
 rules which may safely be laid 
 down for the care and preserva- 
 tion of the skin, the intelligent 
 student of health and beauty soon 
 comes to the conclusion that no 
 other organ demands more careful 
 study than this one, which js of 
 such wonderful organiza- 
 tion, and so exquisite 
 and complex in func- 
 tion. that it may be 
 said to be the 
 mirror of 
 the body. 
 Certain it 
 is that the 
 
64 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 beauty of the skin depends upon health, while sound 
 physical health is impossible unless the skin, which 
 is an organ of secretion, excretion, and absorption, 
 is in a condition to perform its various functions with 
 strict integrity. 
 
 The construction and organization of the skin 
 has been minutely and exhaustively described in 
 physiological and medical text-books, by those bet- 
 ter calculated to do it than I, and it is therefore 
 not necessary for me to. go into a more elaborate 
 discussion of its structure than will serve to impress 
 a few simple truths upon the minds of my readers. 
 It will suffice to an intelligent understanding of the 
 importance of caring for the skin according to physi- 
 ological and rational principles, to give a general 
 idea of the work that this organ has to do, and the 
 methods by which this work is accomplished. 
 
 The skin consists of three principal layers: the 
 subcutaneous connective tissue, the lowest of the 
 three; the corium, or true skin, next; and the epider- 
 mis, or scarf-skin. Each of these principal layers 
 has its own subdivisions. The skin has the power 
 of respiration, of imbibing the life-giving oxygen to 
 a limited extent, and, in about the same proportion, 
 of eliminating the noxious products of the body in 
 the form of carbonic acid gas. The skin, even more 
 than the lungs themselves, expels — in connection 
 with sensible and insensible perspiration — acids. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 65 
 
 salts, bile, and solid matter in solution. Whenever 
 the kidneys and liver become inactive from any 
 cause, extra work is thrown upon the skin, and as 
 this organ is so largely under individual control, it 
 follows that neglect to keep the skin in a good con- 
 dition is simply neglect of a most important means 
 for keeping the body, which is always in process of 
 waste and repair, in health. 
 
 Cleanliness is, therefore, imperative, for it is not 
 possible to keep the millions of pores of the skin free 
 and active without eternal vigilance; and the com- 
 pensation for care devoted to bathing and friction is 
 a bright, blooming skin, and a general sensation of 
 vitality and power. In this connection, let me say 
 that only last year, in conversation with me, a most 
 intelligent man offered an objection to frequent 
 bathing, which may have equal force to many other 
 minds than his. He said: All of this talk about 
 constant bathing, of one kind and another, which is 
 taking such hold upon the popular mind, seems to 
 me to be more in the nature of a fad than of an im- 
 portant truth. Look at the hard-working peasants 
 of many different countries, who enjoy perfect health 
 and seldom a bath; many of them have glowing 
 skins." He spoke a half-truth, but neglected to 
 give the explanation of this apparent paradox. By 
 hard work, long hours of exposure to the sun's rays, 
 daily profuse perspiration, and the constant friction 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 of coarse clothing incident to their labor, these peas- 
 ants gain the same physiological results which the 
 man or woman of more sedentary habits can only 
 enjoy through the free use of hot air, water, soap, 
 towels, and deliberately planned friction. These 
 same peasants soon become pale, sallow, hollow- 
 eyed, and subject to disease of one kind and another, 
 when transplanted from their native fields and health- 
 ful out-of-door labor to the close, confined atmos- 
 phere of factory and workshop. 
 
 All persons cannot enjoy the superior advantages 
 of constant exercise in the fresh air and sunlight, 
 and, consequently, of naturally induced perspiration; 
 but every one can, if they will, keep the skin, with 
 its far-reaching and extensive channels for the elimi- 
 nation of effete matter, clean and free to perform the 
 functions upon which so much depends. 
 
 The sebaceous glands and their ducts, and the 
 sweat-glands and their ducts can be kept in a state 
 of activity and purity by the simplest means, and it 
 is a reproach to one when, from unhygienic habits, 
 the skin becomes unsightly and offensive. It is true 
 that the health of the skin is largely influenced by 
 the internal state, and any serious disturbance of the 
 nervous system, particularly, will report itself in this 
 orean; nevertheless, there is a law of action and re- 
 action, by which reciprocal advantages are gained, 
 and whatever acts upon the skin advantageously 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY 
 
 67 
 
 will as surely improve the internal condition. When 
 a prize-fighter, a pedestrian, an oarsman, or any other 
 sportsman, or even a racer, is in training, the skin is 
 made a vehicle for imparting strength, endurance, 
 and physical vitality, by daily systematic rubbing 
 down. These facts, simple in themselves, emphasize 
 the importance of the same kind of treatment, in 
 different degrees to correspond to different tempera- 
 mental conditions and occupations, for the great 
 mass of men and women. 
 
 Bathing, as practised among the ancients, un- 
 doubtedly contributed very largely to their superior 
 physical development; and it is not too much to say 
 that the introduction of a thorough system of public 
 baths into the populous and filthy slums of our large 
 cities would soon become a recognized corrective 
 of many of the morbid physical and mental tenden- 
 cies which eventuate in crime. In Japan, all classes 
 bathe much more than do the people of other nations, 
 and travelers who have taken the trouble to inform 
 themselves upon the subject say that even the pro- 
 miscuous bathing of the sexes, and the simplicity of 
 the costume worn, react favorably upon morals. 
 In the purifying and healthful vapor, and the agree- 
 able splash of grateful exercise, baser passions are 
 forgotten. It is a well-recognized truth that what- 
 ever interests and stimulates the higher faculties has 
 a corresponding influence in subduing and controlling 
 
68 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the lower; and the physiological influence of water 
 and friction upon the skin extends to the purification 
 of the mind as well as body. 
 
 Water may be used upon the skin for distinct pur- 
 poses. Hydro-therapy comes under the province of 
 the physician, and relates to regular systematic 
 treatment of disease by water, and, in this connec- 
 tion, requires thorough pathological and scientific 
 knowledge. Bathing, upon the other hand, should 
 be practised by all for purposes of cleanliness, and 
 the maintenance of vigor and health. Ignorant ap- 
 plication of hydropathy to delicate, sensitive, and 
 diseased people, cannot be too severely condemned, 
 while the practise of frequent and systematic bath- 
 ing is to be recommended for all. 
 
 But, one asks, how shall the layman, who wishes 
 to bathe thoroughly for purposes of cleanliness and 
 vitality, draw the line between his own and the phy- 
 sician's province } With the best intentions is it not 
 possible to use cold and hot water in a way to harm 
 not only the skin itself, but the general health } 
 Unhesitatingly I must reply, yes; and this is the 
 reason why one who has given the subject much 
 careful thought and study regrets the general ten- 
 dency upon the part of every writer who can wield a 
 graceful pen to enlarge and lay down arbitrary 
 rules concerning this subject, upon which they gener- 
 ally have a profound fund of ignorance. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 69 
 
 Every one can take a tepid bath without injurious 
 effects; but many persons cannot take a cold sponge, 
 shower, or plunge bath, in a tub, river, or the ocean, 
 without a serious shock to the nervous system and 
 injury to the general health; nevertheless, a class of 
 ienorant enthusiasts can be found, who recommend 
 the cold bath for men, women, and children, without 
 regard to health, temperament, or consequences. 
 Neither can everybody take a hot bath with im- 
 punity. Persons of full-blooded, apoplectic tem- 
 perament, those subject to bursting" headaches, 
 and especially to organic heart disturbances, maybe 
 much injured by haphazard indulgence in a steam- 
 ing bath which, to the thin, wiry, bilious man or 
 woman, would prove a sedative and a blessing. 
 The safe rule to follow, in the use of water, is to 
 begin the daily bath (for everybody ought to be 
 washed all over thoroughly once a day), with tepid 
 water, in a pail or sitz tub, good Castile or olive-oil 
 soap, a rough wash-cloth (never a sponge), using 
 plenty of muscle. After washing sufficiently with 
 soap and water to cleanse the skin, rub, and rub, 
 and still rub with a good Turkish towel of generous 
 size, until the skin is thoroughly dry, red, and ting- 
 ling. No harm can come to anybody from such a 
 bath, taken in a room sufficiently warm to avoid a 
 chill, and its tonic effects are wonderful. After be- 
 coming used to this kind of daily tepid bath, one 
 
70 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 may by degrees use cooler and cooler water, until 
 the bath can be, by many persons, taken quite cold; 
 but in each individual case the test of whether good 
 or harm is being done lies in the reaction. If the 
 bath is followed by a glow and sensation of renewed 
 power and warmth, it has done good; if the bather 
 is blue, covered with "goose-flesh," and rather de- 
 pressed in spirits, it has done harm, and hot blankets 
 should be wrapped about the body until warmth has 
 been thoroughly restored. 
 
 Whether one may venture into a cold plunge can 
 easily be ascertained by beginning as advised. One 
 who does not react from the cold hand-bath would 
 run great risk in the still more trying cold plunge. 
 
 In the same way, one can test the virtues, in indi-^ 
 vidual cases, of the hot bath; for, singular as it may 
 seem, where the circulation is weak and imperfect, 
 one may come out of the hottest water and shiver 
 for hours together. In taking a full-length hot bath, 
 wetting the top of the head, and sitting with the feet 
 in the water from three to five minutes before the 
 whole body is immersed, is an excellent plan to 
 avoid rush of blood to the head; and one should 
 never neglect the tepid spray or shower from a rub- 
 ber douche immediately afterward, as a preventive 
 of colds. Where the douche is not at hand, pouring 
 a pailful of tepid water over the body has the same 
 effect. The immediate cleansing qualities of the hot 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 71 
 
 bath are undoubtedly superior to either the tepid or 
 cold, for the reason that all foreign matter which 
 has secured lodgment in the pores, or upon the 
 scarf-skin, is more soluble in hot water than in cold, 
 although the tonic effects of hot water are far less. 
 A full-length hot bath should not be taken oftener 
 than once a week, and there is no need for it where 
 a proper amount of friction with a good towel is used 
 daily. The combined influence of the frequent ap- 
 plication of water and friction to the body is to con- 
 stantly renev/ the skin, rendering the epidermis 
 pliant and fine in texture, while everything which 
 could impede the natural functions of the corium, or 
 true skin, is removed. The question has sometimes 
 
 ^been asked me whether the constant use of water and 
 soap does not have the effect of destroying the nat- 
 
 ' ural oil of the skin, and rendering it harsh, colorless, 
 and unattractive. The answer to the question de- 
 pends upon the kind of soap and the temperature of 
 the water used, the amount of friction employed, and 
 the reacting power of the skin, and especially upon 
 avoidance, after bathing, of immediate exposure to 
 rough winds. Where the skin has been thoroughly 
 dried and a glow established, the natural oil has 
 been healthfully stimulated, and beneficial results 
 obtained. It is possible, however, with the use of 
 caustic and impure soaps, to remove the oil to such 
 an extent as to injure the texture of the skin, while, 
 
72 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 upon the other hand, neglect to use a good soap and 
 water and plenty of friction, and to thoroughly dry 
 the skin, may result in leaving the oil to clog upon 
 the surface after it has served its purpose of lubricat- 
 ing the pores, and needs to be removed in the inter- 
 est of the continued and healthful function of the 
 sebaceous glands; for the removal and renewal of 
 the oil of the skin is necessary to health, and espe- 
 cially to beauty. 
 
 Much artistic damage can be done to a delicate 
 skin by too free use of borax, ammonia, alcohol, 
 and other such " simple, harmless aids to cleanli- 
 ness" — so considered by the majority of people; in 
 fact, because of the possibility of overdoing the use 
 of these things, it is better to avoid them altogether, 
 and keep to pure water (rain-water, if possible), soap, 
 and friction, unless something different is prescribed 
 by a physician for some special affection of the skin 
 which requires special treatment: and the chances 
 are that none of these things will be ordered when 
 an intelligent physician is called upon to correct 
 even a simple skin trouble; as sulphur and other 
 medicated washes are so much more effective in the 
 cure of even mild forms of cutaneous disease. 
 
 In writing of the care of the skin, I have confined 
 myself to the simple means which are always at hand, 
 even in humbler homes which do not afford the 
 luxury of a set bath-tub; but I hope to be understood 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 73 
 
 as emphasizing the necessity for using these means 
 thoroughly and vigorously; for the ordinary wetting 
 of the skin which passes for a bath with most per- 
 sons, is not by any means sufficient for cleanliness 
 or tonic. There are, indeed, thousands of persons 
 who are accustomed to what they are pleased to 
 term a weekly or semi-weekly or even a daily bath, 
 who are never clean. These persons sponge the 
 body, and wipe it off, without friction, with any ordi- 
 nary towel at hnnd, removing the superficial dust, 
 which has collected, so to speak, upon the surface of 
 the skin; but as to the skin itself, little has been ac- 
 complished. 
 
 I have heard women with sallow, greasy, dirty- 
 looking faces, which only needed a series of good 
 washings to be thoroughly restored to health and 
 beauty, declare that they bathed regularly and care- 
 fully, and what was more, they believed it them- 
 selves. No one bathes thoroughly who does not get 
 below the surface with the results. The work is 
 done upon the scarf-skin, but it must be effective 
 enough to reach through every layer of the true skin 
 and its connective tissue to the very bottom, or the 
 bath has failed of its true purpose — purification, in- 
 vigoration, and stimulation. One reason why I al- 
 ways recommend the patronage of the Turkish and 
 Russian baths to those who are convenient to these 
 luxuries of civilization, and can afford to patronize 
 
74 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 them is, that they correct the evils of a lazy method 
 of home bathing, besides which, they have recognized 
 curative virtues in many forms of chronic disease. I 
 have known some most remarkable cures of the two 
 extremes of obesity and leanness from the use of hot- 
 air and daily sun baths. But of these I shall write 
 more fully after giving those of my readers who know 
 nothing from experience of any of these methods of 
 bathing, a correct idea of what is meant by modern 
 Turkish, Russian, and sun baths. 
 
 Students of history are familiar with the stories of 
 the magnificence and luxury of the baths of the 
 ancient Greeks and Romans; and travelers in Orien- 
 tal lands bring most fascinating accounts of the sen- 
 suous and voluptuous details of a Turkish bath as the 
 Turks themselves enjoy it, especially the women of 
 the harem. As a matter of fact, these women are 
 noted for their plump, well-rounded figures, and the 
 satin-like texture of their skins, the result of their 
 frequent, systematic, and thorough bathing and man- 
 ipulation. But with these excellences their beauty, 
 which is purely physical, ends, for they lack the 
 lithe, active grace which can only be acquired by 
 independent efforts at muscular control, and more- 
 over, this sensuous, yea, even sensual beauty which 
 begins and ends with physical proportion, the result 
 of extreme physical care, is, at best, an unsatisfactory 
 type. These same proportions are equally possible 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 75 
 
 to other women in other lands, who are living for 
 the nobler activities; and were it possible to unite 
 extreme physical attention to mental and spiritual 
 expression in this age, we should see a race of men 
 and women finer in body and more exalted in mind 
 than any who have made the higher civilization of 
 the past. 
 
 I do not despair of such a noble destiny for future 
 generations, for th« tendency of the present time is 
 toward better understanding of natural functions, 
 and the scientific adaptation of natural agents, such 
 as water, sunlight, air, and massage, to the correction 
 of physical and mental disability out of harmony 
 with physical and moral law. The Turkish bath is 
 a hot-air-bath: the Russian is essentially a vapor- 
 bath. In taking the former, the bather enters a hot 
 room and there remains until the action of the dry 
 heat upon the skin has induced copious perspiration: 
 in the latter, one comes into immediate contact with 
 the vapor, and the combined action of heat and 
 steam produces a moist condition of the body. The 
 Turkish bath is, by many, considered the better to 
 reduce too much flesh, and the Russian to aid in 
 flesh-making, and my own observation inclines me 
 generally toward the same theory, although I have 
 known cases where the effect of the hot air of the 
 Turkish bath, followed by the cold shower, and the 
 vapor of the Russian bath, had exactly the same 
 
76 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 effect; the hot air and vapor causing perspiration, 
 and the cold water, combustion of fatty tissue. 
 
 When about to take a Turkish or Russian bath, 
 one is first shown to a private dressing-room, and 
 there provided with a sheet to wrap around the body. 
 Most persons content themselves with wrapping this 
 around in any way that will make it easiest to serve 
 the purpose of a covering; but occasionally one 
 meets a woman whose artistic Sense converts her 
 sheet into the flowing drapery of a classic statue with 
 pleasing effect. Once in the hot rooms, the attend- 
 ant seats one in a chair, raises the feet very nearly 
 level with the body, and places a wet cloth upon the 
 head. For local troubles and inflammation, hot 
 fomentations are applied to the affected parts. In 
 this grateful atmosphere of heat and languor one re- 
 mains for a longer or shorter time, according to 
 necessity. With some persons perspiration is in- 
 duced in a few moments; with others it will require 
 half an hour, or even longer: but one should never 
 remain until faint. My advice to those taking the 
 baths for the first time, is to remain ten or fifteen 
 minutes. The feeling of luxuriousness, the exquisite 
 abandonment to perfect repose and tranquil warmth 
 is so grateful that one is often tempted to weaken 
 one's self at the very start; but such indulgence 
 should be avoided, as the beneficial effects will other- 
 wise be wholly lost, and although the first touch of 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 11 
 
 the hot room is one of delicious languor, in which 
 dreamy imagination and external sensation meet 
 and produce pictures which lift the mind out of the 
 dreary commonplaces, this first soothing touch is fol- 
 lowed by a sense of vitality that renews active ener- 
 gies and stimulates new ambitions. 
 
 From the hot room the bather is conducted to a 
 marble room, where the sheet is thrown aside in 
 order that the manipulator may lather, rub, knead, 
 and spray the body. A good many sensitive people 
 still object to the baths because of this display of the 
 person; but such objections can hardly carry serious 
 weight, in view of the fact that the attendants are 
 always perfectly indifferent to one's condition, and 
 apparently unconscious of the difference between a 
 nude and a clothed figure. 
 
 I once put the question to my shampooer, "Do 
 you not find a great difference in the agreeable and 
 disagreeable qualities of the flesh which you are com- 
 pelled to knead " and she replied: " I do not pay 
 any attention to it whatever. I take my ladies one 
 after another, as they come here, and rub them 
 scientifically, but you would scarcely believe that 
 this process has become so mechanical, through 
 familiarity, that I have ceased to be conscious of any 
 difference between them, or even of the fact that they 
 are unclothed. I have often wondered, if I were to 
 meet a nude figure upon the street in a warm sum- 
 
78 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 mer's day, if it would cause me a shock. I do not 
 think so; indeed I no longer see any immodesty in 
 nudity, and if it were a matter of cotirse with every- 
 one, it zvonld no longer be shocking^ 
 
 Of this we have no better illustration than is af- 
 forded by the fact that ultra-society women display 
 the bosom — the most suggestive part of the person 
 — with impunity, and without the sensation of im- 
 modesty, which would cause the retired little woman, 
 who knows nothing of big balls and grand recep- 
 tions, to blush and hid'e her face with shame. It is 
 very largely the difference in education. 
 
 There can be no doubt, whatever, that the great 
 lesson of morality to be learned in the future will 
 embrace the understanding that morality and im- 
 morality are states of action instead of being, and I 
 hope that I may live to see the day when parents 
 will teach innocent children the divine use, holiness, 
 and beauty of their bodies, instead of filling their 
 minds with vulgar prejudice. 
 
 In the spraying-room one is invited to lie upon a 
 marble couch, while the attendant kneads away the 
 dead cuticle which has been softened by the heat. 
 After this process the body is lathered, and rubbed 
 with a brush, and then sprayed with warm water, 
 which is gradually decreased in temperature until 
 quite cold. If one aids this process by personal 
 effort, rubbing and manipulating the different mem- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 79 
 
 bers as the spray falls upon them, the refreshing- 
 qualities of the bath will be greatly accentuated. 
 When one is a swimmer, a cold plunge, with a num- 
 ber of vigorous strokes, and the exercise of diving, 
 plunging, and floating, will aid the circulation of the 
 blood. After leaving the spraying-room one lies 
 for half an hour upon a couch to cool the body 
 thoroughly before dressing.^' When one wishes to 
 gain flesh, the Roman bath, which is really cocoanut- 
 oil applied to the skin for an hour, and thorough- 
 ly rubbed into every pore, will prove very beneficial; 
 or, if one desires to decrease weight, dry massage is 
 employed to harden the flesh, and give tone and 
 elasticity to the muscles. 
 
 I heartily recommend these baths for overworked, 
 sedentary, and mentally taxed people, for their effects 
 are not only immediate in reducing the pressure of 
 blood, relaxing the nerves, and quickening the skin, 
 but they stimulate the liver and kidneys, and open 
 the way for the elimination of impurities which clog 
 the system and produce chronic disease, giving per- 
 manent relief, often, when medicines have failed. 
 
 After the "bath of vapor, water, and friction, air 
 and sun baths do great good to the skin, and, through 
 it, to the general health. Human beings, like plants, 
 need the combined effects of water, air, and sun- 
 light. Nervous and mental prostration will yield 
 more readily to the hygienic qualities of these power- 
 
8o 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ful natural forces than to drugs. The two extremes 
 of leanness and obesity, as I have ah'eady stated, are 
 greatly affected by water wisely applied; and direct 
 exposure to solar rays is equally beneficial. The 
 sunlight gives us in a most refined form the proper 
 elements of sodium, iron, magnesium, and carbon, 
 all of which are essential to perfect health. Exposure 
 to the sun stimulates the nutrient functions and 
 quickens the blood-force into such activity as to 
 prevent any excessive forming of adipose tissue. 
 
 It is quite possible for dwellers in the country to 
 arrange for a daily sun and air bath; but it is less 
 easy for those confined within the brick walls of a 
 city; still, it is a truism worth repeating here, that 
 ''where there is a will there is a way," and Dr. Bab- 
 bitt, of New York, tells us of a wonderful instrument, 
 the thermolume, which has the power to concentrate 
 the sun's force and heat so that a very little can be 
 utilized to good purpose, producing results which 
 are marvelous in extent. Where the sunlight is ab- 
 solutely excluded from a dwelling, he tells us that a 
 reflecting apparatus can be used to receive electric 
 lieht in connection with the same thermolume, 
 which will give a vitalizing power equal to that of 
 the sunlight, and the doctor proves this statement 
 by quoting the success of Professor Siemen (of Eng- 
 land), in ripening fruits in midwinter by the arc-light, 
 as rapidly as could have been done by sunlight. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 81 
 
 But it must not, by any means, be supposed that 
 I advise the use of artificially produced heat or light 
 where natural forces are possible; indeed, I strongly 
 recommend solar architecture for our city houses — 
 solariums, where the nineteenth-century dweller 
 within brick walls may enjoy the freedom and bene- 
 fits of nude exposure to the sunlight and air, as did 
 the Romans of centuries ago. 
 
 The idea of a roof promenade to one's house is 
 certainly natural and practical, and, were a little 
 thought given to the benefits to be derived from such 
 an addition to home comforts, no doubt solariums 
 and pavilions would grace many a roof. The pavilion 
 for winter use, when direct exposure to the air would 
 be too severe, should be built in the middle of the 
 enclosure with glass upon four sides; here a person 
 would sit or recline at full length and enjoy warmth 
 and invigoration and skin tonic at will. 
 
 What the city dweller, under present conditions, 
 loses in the matter of sunlight and air is made up in 
 better water-bathing facilities than the resident of 
 country towns and villages usually enjoys; yet, as has 
 already been shown, the city house may easily be 
 provided with its solarium and pavilion, and it is 
 equally certain that a little ingenuity and very little 
 expense would provide the country resident with 
 the most approved appliances for a good vapor-bath. 
 All that is needed is a box of ever so rough con- 
 
 6 
 
82 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 struction, of a little less height than that of a person 
 seated. 
 
 This should be made with straight sides and back, 
 
 and closed with folding-doors in front, which should 
 slant backward, leaving a square space large enough 
 for the neck of a bather. Inside the box a wooden 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 83 
 
 chair, with a solid front coming down to the bottom 
 of the box should be placed; under the chair a pail 
 for boiling water, and, once the bather is seated in 
 the chair, the square top of the box should be closed 
 by two short pieces of thin board semicircularly cut 
 out upon one side, to fit to the neck of the bather. 
 Put a towel about the neck to save escape of vapor. 
 The hot water in the pail may be renewed as often 
 as one desires, and in this way a perfect vapor-bath 
 can be secured at a cost so small as to place it with- 
 in the reach of the humblest of persons. 
 
 Upon leaving the vapor, a pail of tepid water 
 should be poured over the bather; then (if experi- 
 ence has proven that the reaction will warrant it), 
 one of still cooler water, the whole to be followed 
 by brisk friction with a coarse towel, and, if possi- 
 ble, a half-hour's rest and sleep. 
 
 I know of an instance where an ordinary dry- 
 goods box was made to serve the purpose, except 
 that in this case the bather took a sulphur instead 
 of . a pure vapor bath. A small tin shelf was placed 
 inside the box; under it a cup of alcohol, which was 
 ignited; on the shelf, above the cup of alcohol, a 
 small saucer of sulphur; and the result was a hot 
 medicated bath, which induced profuse perspiration, 
 and would do great good to any one suffering from 
 rheumatic or skin troubles. 
 
 I quote these different possibilities for bathing, to 
 
84 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 show that the health-giving properties of heat, wa- 
 ter, and vapor need be by no means the exclusive 
 enjoyment of the wealthy, who have well-appointed 
 bath-rooms, and the mone^y to patronize luxurious 
 Turkish and Russian baths. 
 
 Summing up the principal means for acquiring a 
 glowing, healthful skin, we find that water, vapor, 
 sunlight, air and friction, are the essentials, and 
 these are within the reach of all. 
 
 No doubt many of my readers will be disappoint- 
 ed that I do not give a long list of recipes for con- 
 cocting various washes and cosmetics whose vir- 
 tues I could recommend; but simple honesty and 
 rational study of the skin are against such a course, 
 and I must leave it to persons having other ends 
 than intelligent helpfulness to serve, to impose upon 
 the credulity and ignorance of those who believe 
 that vulgar washes and paints can be made to pro- 
 duce the exquisite fineness of texture, brilliance of 
 color, and dazzling translucency of the complexion, 
 which are the visible evidences of health, vigor, 
 cleanliness and refined care of the skin. 
 
 I will not deny that there are very simple unguents 
 which will, when properly applied, provide a certain 
 stimulus to torpid skins; but these are not half as 
 efficacious as what I have already described, and 
 why give the preference to the poorer instead of the 
 better aids to beauty 1 For example, almond-oil, 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 8s 
 
 well rubbed into the face at night, has a softening, 
 emollient influence; but so does the free use of 
 soap, water and hand-friction, and the latter will 
 not do any harm, while there is decided danger to 
 certain skins that the hair follicles may be stimu- 
 lated to such a degree that the soft down of the lips 
 and cheeks will become an annoying and unsightly 
 growth. Some fairly harmless lotions are recom- 
 mended for cleansing purposes; but nothing is so 
 effective as rain or distilled water, good soap and 
 friction, which brings us back again to our original 
 position. Face - powders, lotions and cosmetics 
 cover up, to a degree, but they do not remove any 
 blemish of disorganized tissue. 
 
 Sunburn and freckles may be safely treated with 
 benzoin and cold water, two teaspoonfuls of the for- 
 mer to a pint of the latter. Bathe freely for several 
 minutes, morning and night, avoiding the eyes. Al- 
 low the mixture to dry upon the skin at night, but 
 wipe off carefully in the morning before it has 
 dried in. 
 
 If one insists upon some kind of make-up for the 
 face, the only absolutely harmless treatment that I 
 know is an application of pure cold-cream (be sure 
 and get that bearing the name of some reliable 
 chemist) wiped into the skin gently with a soft 
 linen. This forms a surface for the rouge and pow- 
 der, and prevents the pores of the skin from be- 
 
86 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 coming filled and clogged with the foreign matter 
 applied. 
 
 The art required for painting " milady's " portrait 
 is nothing compared to that required to rouge mi- 
 lady's " face so that it will not look loud and vulgar. 
 I have never seen it well done by but two women, 
 and with them I confess that the art was so perfect 
 I was fain to forget the artifice. In each instance 
 the cold - cream was used as suggested, and the 
 cold-cream, made pink by powdered carmine, was 
 the coloring-matter for the cheeks, while a simple 
 powder of prepared chalk and carbonate of magne- 
 sia, dusted over the whole face and carefully wiped 
 off, left no suggestion of grease or paint. 
 
 This make-up should be carefully washed off at 
 night, however, with warm water and soap. 
 
 Such blemishes upon the face as moles and hairs 
 should never be treated except by the electric nee- 
 dle of a skilled dermatologist. Any bungling with 
 this kind of treatment is fatal to the purpose, and 
 injurious to the skin. 
 
 A mole upon the arm or neck, which stands out 
 prominently, may safely be taken off by tightly 
 tying a hair from the head about it, and allowing it 
 to drop off, as it will in a few days. 
 
 Many women are troubled with black specks upon 
 the face, which are known as blackheads, and to re- 
 move them they resort to squeezing and pinching. 
 
PHYSTCAL BEAUTY. 87 
 
 which very often leaves the face disfigured and irri- 
 tated. .As a rule, these black points are the result 
 of torpidity of the skin, and can be permanently re- 
 moved by carefully washing the face with warm 
 water and soap until the cuticle has been softened, 
 when a hollow key or tweezers may be used to press 
 them out. After this, the face should be treated 
 daily to stimulating hand-friction, until the skin has 
 been restored to normal activity. When these 
 points amount to acne, or a general filling up of the 
 sebaceous ducts, the cure is long and tedious, and 
 may involve good medical treatment for the general 
 constitution, as well as scrupulous attention to hy- 
 gienic care of the face itself It is almost fatal to the 
 subsequent beauty of the skin to resort to advertised 
 nostrums for local application at such a critical time. 
 
 Where one cannot have competent advice for the 
 individual case of acne, it is quite safe to try a daily 
 steaming of the face for twenty minutes, one day 
 with pure steam, the next with sulphur, as this proc- 
 ess is sure to open the pores, and give the clogged 
 matter a chance to escape. The result of this treat- 
 ment will be to make the face look worse for the 
 time; but if persisted in, the most obstinate cases 
 will gradually yield. 
 
 In all cases of skin disease where the pores are 
 closed, the matter must be set free; there is no 
 other way. 
 
88 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 To steam the face, a good-sized vessel should be 
 filled with hot water, and placed upon a table. The 
 patient should take a seat with the face bent over 
 the vessel in such a manner that the head can rest 
 easily upon the palms of the hands. A large towel, 
 or something sufficient to confine the steam, should 
 be thrown over the head. In wiping the face after- 
 ward, care should be taken to do it thoroughly 
 enough to remove everything that may have exuded, 
 however invisibly, from the torpid pores; but much 
 friction would be too harsh at the moment. Later 
 in the day, when the heat has subsided, cold water 
 and friction should be applied, to assist in further 
 stimulating the action set up by the steam. 
 
 When one uses the sulphur, a copper vessel con- 
 taining hot water should be employed. Over this, 
 a tin shelf with a hot cup containing the sulphur. 
 The steam and heat from the water will penetrate 
 the sulphur, as the shelf will allow the escape of the 
 heat and vapor upon two sides. This is a wonder- 
 fully purifying and efficacious remedy for all skin 
 diseases ; but the general health must be very care- 
 fully watched, and every aid given to restoration 
 of the normal elements of secretion and excretion 
 meanwhile, and to the proper purification and oxy- 
 genation of the blood. In these matters, sunlight, 
 exercise, pure air, and nutritious foods play more 
 important parts than do drugs. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 89 
 
 Every wise woman knows that tight clothing, and 
 shoes which are too small for the feet, are apt to 
 redden the nose, or give it a pinched and blue look, 
 while the network of scraggy red lines, like red 
 threads, running through certain complexions, or 
 the spotted appearance of others, may as often be 
 traced to clothing which impedes circulation in 
 women, as to free wine habits in men. Each reader 
 can point his own moral. 
 
 Wrinkles can only be successfully treated by 
 manipulation in a contrary direction. This treat- 
 ment, if persisted in, will work wonders with all 
 except those of extreme old age. Most incipient 
 wrinkles are caused by a relaxed and unhealthy 
 condition of the muscles and nerves of the skin, and 
 by the deplorable but almost universal habit of in- 
 dulging in grimacing and unmeaning contortion of 
 the face in speaking. Many an ugly line will dis- 
 appear by cultivating a sweet and reposeful expres- 
 sion of the face, and especially by modulating the 
 habit of laughing in such a way as to pucker the 
 skin about the eyes and corners of the mouth; while 
 strengthening of the muscles by scientific massage 
 cannot be recommended too highly for overcoming 
 these fatal foes to beauty. 
 
 Sometimes, in traveling, one finds it impossible to 
 get pure, soft, or even clear, clean water, for bath- 
 ing purposes, and it is well, in starting upon a jour- 
 
90 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ney, to provide against interruption to the healthful 
 functions of the skin, for, by taking along a bottle 
 of rose-water to wipe the face off under such circum- 
 stances, and a box of cerate or cold-cream, using 
 whatever water one can procure for bathing essential 
 parts of the body to save unpleasant odors. The cold- 
 cream and a rough towel with friction can be made 
 to answer the purposes of a water-bath — it is, indeed, 
 a towel-bath — and the rose-water used for the face 
 with friction will keep the complexion from torpid- 
 ity for weeks together. A good brisk rubbing all 
 over once a day with a flannel is very stimulating 
 and cleansing to the skin when traveling: and, above 
 everything else, do not neglect the offices of nature, 
 as no other cause will so soon give the complexion 
 a muddy and offensive color and odor. 
 
 In recommending sun and air for the skin, I must 
 not be supposed to mean deliberate exposure of the 
 face to the blistering rays of a midday summer's 
 sun, nor to winds which will give the tanned and 
 hide-like appearance that distinguishes some farm- 
 laborers and seamen, but a reasonable indulgence in 
 the tonic effects of sun and air under favorable con- 
 ditions. 
 
 When one cannot avoid the irritating effects of 
 rough and inclement winds, a little cold-cream well 
 rubbed into the face, and sprinkled with prepared 
 chalk carefully wiped off, will serve for an immediate 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 91 
 
 protection. Never use hot water for the face just be- 
 fore going into the air, especially in winter, as rough- 
 ness and redness will surely follow. The action of 
 hot water upon the face is to expand the capillaries, 
 causing the blood to flow to the surface without 
 having any reflex action. With cold water there is 
 an opposite and exhilarating effect, as the blood 
 moves away from the surface, and returns with a 
 tonic influence, a protection in itself against expos- 
 ure to the cold of the air. 
 
 Avoid all patent advertised nostrums for beautify- 
 ing the skin, lest not only the skin itself, but, through 
 its many mouths, the general system, should suffer 
 permanent injury, as nearly all of these " beautifiers" 
 contain deadly poisons in greater or less proportion. 
 
 Do not fear to trust to nature and exercise for the 
 beauty which is in harmony with natural law. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EYES. 
 
 OETS have, in all ages, sung son- 
 nets to the eyes, and lovers have 
 raved over these ''windows of the 
 soul," while practical people have 
 been fain to acknowledge that 
 no other of the special senses 
 serves a purpose at once 
 so artistic, so enhanc- 
 ing, so useful and al- 
 most indispensable 
 as the eyes. Indeed, 
 no other single misfor- 
 tune could possibly be re- 
 arded as equal to the loss 
 of the eyesight, to say 
 nothing about the detrac- 
 tion from the attractive- 
 ness of the face caused by 
 any interruption of their 
 natural functions, and yet 
 how few people take what 
 might be called reasonable 
 care of these wonderful and 
 complex organs of sight ! 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 93 
 
 Eyes are beautiful or not, according to color, and 
 the manner in which they are set in the socket. 
 With the Mongolian race, the eyes seem to be set 
 slanting, because of the peculiar droop of the eye- 
 lids; with the African tribes they protrude; but 
 among white races, generally, they are well set, and 
 are neither too prominent nor sunken, for which rea- 
 son, and because of variety in color, the eyes of the 
 higher civilized types are the most beautiful of all. 
 
 The study of the eye is exceedingly interesting, be- 
 cause of its wonderful mechanism and the diminutive 
 size of the window through which one comprehends 
 at a single glance a multitude of widespread glories 
 reaching out in every direction. Study of the litera- 
 ture of the eye will richly repay the time given to it, 
 and I only regret that I am so limited for space in 
 the present connection, that anything like a fair de- 
 scription of its points and powers is impossible. 
 
 The important divisions of the eye are: the cornea, 
 the iris, the pupil, the retina, the optic nerve. The 
 cornea is popularly known as the white of the eye, 
 and, except when yellowed from disease, it is, in the 
 higher races, translucent, clear, and slightly violet- 
 tinted. The opaque cornea is a continuation of the 
 cornea itself, and is in size very much larger by far, 
 in fact, the largest part of the little globe of the eye. 
 It is a tough, whitish membrane into which the pupil, 
 the real window-pane, is set. The iris is the colored 
 
94 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 circle surrounding the pupil; the retina is the plate 
 at the back of the eye which receives refracted im- 
 pressions through the lens from the pupil; and the 
 optic nerve is the medium of telegraphic communi- 
 cation between the external world and the brain. 
 
 The beauty of the eye depends very largely upon 
 the coloring of the iris, and the contracting and re- 
 stricting muscles which cause the dilation of the 
 pupil, according to circumstances, and the necessity 
 for the admission of more or less light. It is for the 
 artificial dilation and increased brilliancy of these 
 parts of the eye that foolish women of society some- 
 times apply the deadly belladonna, a dangerous 
 practice, which will sooner or later avenge itself in 
 serious injury to sight and a complete loss of lustre. 
 The only permanent and satisfactory brightness of 
 the eye is that which comes from health, for this 
 member is an accurate reporter of internal conditions. 
 The dull eye of disease, the gleaming eye of insan- 
 ity, the glassy eye of death, have nothing in common 
 with the sparkling eye of health. 
 
 To preserve the eyes at their best, attention to the 
 general laws of health is necessary, together with 
 care in warding off local inflammations, and early 
 failure of the sight from abuse. 
 
 Very few persons, comparatively speaking, enjoy 
 the possession of eyes perfect in every particular. 
 There are so many organic and functional difficulties 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 95 
 
 to which these members are liable, such as color- 
 defects, astigmatism, short-sightedness or myopia, 
 and long-sightedness or hypermetropia; besides 
 which, eyes are sure, like any other exceedingly 
 delicate instrument, to wear out from use. For this 
 latter reason alone, the greatest care should be exer- 
 cised in their protection and preservation. 
 
 Moderately cool water should be used for bathing 
 them every morning upon rising. The eyes should 
 be opened, and allow the water to run under the 
 lids, thus bathing the ball itself. A very soft towel 
 should be used for drying, always wiping inward 
 toward the nose, and never outward, takipg great 
 care meanwhile not to press upon and flatten the 
 eyeball, as the flattening of the lens of the eye is 
 considered a sign of approaching old age, and cer- 
 tainly accompanies failing sight. Another good 
 reason for wiping inward around the ball of the eye 
 is the tendency to keep wrifikles away from the outer 
 corner, a position in which these arch-enemies of 
 beauty early take lodgment. Great care should al- 
 ways be taken to keep all foreign substances, espe- 
 cially soap, astringent washes, and irritants from the 
 delicate skin of the lids, and particularly from the 
 still more sensitive eyeballs. Pure rain-water is bet- 
 ter than anything else for washing, except when 
 there is some local inflammation, in which case it 
 , can often be entirely cured by bathing in hot rain- 
 
96 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY 
 
 water and milk in equal parts, ten minutes at a time, 
 morning and night. 
 
 Among the many abuses which will tend to early 
 loss of sight may be mentioned reading or sewing at 
 twilight, or in the evening, by a flickering or insuf- 
 ficient ray. Gas is an exceedingly injurious flame to 
 work by. A steady, full-power student lamp is the 
 only safe light for working, and the blaze of the 
 lamp should be entirely shaded from the eyes, so 
 that it will fall upon one's work or book only. 
 Another abuse is reading in a reclining position; 
 still another, straining to get a steady focus for read- 
 ing in a moving train or carriage. 
 
 Very few persons at any time take the trouble to 
 so arrange their work that the best possible light 
 will fall full upon it. In writing, a desk should al- 
 ways be so placed that the light will fall over the 
 left shoulder or from behind. In sewing, one should 
 never face the light; and#n walking in the sunlight, 
 or taking a sun-bath, the eyes should always be 
 shaded. When walking or riding along a glistening 
 sandy beach, or over a hard, white road, or, in win- 
 ter, upon newly fallen, sparkling snow — even upon 
 the water when the sun is shining, smoked glasses 
 are a great saving to the eyes, gratefully softening 
 and toning down the glare. 
 
 At the very first suggestion of failing sight or any 
 decided local difficulty, the advice and services of a 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 97 
 
 thoroughly competent ocuHst should be sought. 
 There should be no ignorant tampering with these 
 organs for any reason; and the best optician is but 
 the servant of the master, his business being to 
 fulfil the behests of a higher knowledge. Instances 
 there may be, although the numbers are not worth 
 mentioning, when these men are prepared to give 
 the necessary advice concerning the real needs of a 
 patient; but in the nature of things the work of the 
 oculist is that of a physician: the optician is a man for 
 mechanism only; to expect more of him is to de- 
 mand what is preeminently out of his line. No one 
 should postpone wearing glasses from sensitive, 
 foolish pride, when conditions require them, whether 
 young or old. It is a vain boast that one does not 
 wear glasses, when it is patent to everybody that one 
 needs them. After putting glasses on, it is neces- 
 sary to change them from time to time, intelligently, 
 to suit aging conditions.* Failure to do this is a 
 neglect of a great advantage offered by art to fail- 
 ing nature. Often one needs glasses of different 
 strength for each eye, and only an oculist can ac- 
 curately decide this, and the reason for it. The 
 eyes, both in youth and age, should be frequently 
 rested from any given labor, however agreeable, to 
 change their focus and remove the nervous strain 
 which comes from continued looking at a single 
 object. 
 
 7 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 While, upon general principles, it is unwise to in- 
 dulge in any self-prescribed treatment for difficulties 
 of the eyes, there are simple cases of inflamed or 
 granulated lids, stye, watery eyes, etc., etc., which 
 may safely be treated by simple home remedies. 
 
 For granulated lids an alum paste made by rub- 
 bing a small piece of alum into the white of an egg 
 until a curd is formed, and then applied to the lids 
 upon retiring at night, tying a piece of soft linen 
 over the eyes, will often entirely cure the trouble. 
 
 An excellent wash for weak and inflamed eyes is 
 made from camphor-water and witch-hazel, equal 
 parts. This is specially refreshing when the inflam- 
 mation proceeds from a cold, and should be used 
 upon the eyes as a bath several times daily until re- 
 lieved. 
 
 One grain of yellow oxide of mercury mixed with 
 thick, pure, sweet cream will often reduce a very 
 serious inflammation of the lids, and is excellent for 
 the unsightly difficulty known as a stye. 
 
 For a cooling lotion to heated, watery eyes, hot 
 water poured upon dried rose-leaves and allowed to 
 stand until cool will be found very refreshing. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TEETH. 
 
 EAUTIFUL teeth add greatly to a 
 woman's attractiveness. With 
 men the fasliion of wearing the 
 mustache helps, in a meas- 
 ure, to hide any defects in 
 the shape of the mouth 
 d teeth ; but with a 
 woman, when irreg- 
 ular and unsightly, 
 they are a positive 
 blemish, except 
 where there is no dis- 
 play in talking and 
 laughing, which is 
 very seldom indeed, 
 the present improved 
 of dental surgery there 
 is, however, little excuse for 
 disfiguring irregularities, and 
 
 99 
 
lOO 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 none whatever for offensive breath, discoloration 
 and loss of attractiveness, the result of neglect. 
 The most beautiful teeth — those best suited to the 
 purposes of usefulness for which they were design- 
 ed in the economy of nature — are neither pearly 
 white, nor deeply tinted, but are of medium size 
 and of a good, sound color between the very white 
 and ivory. 
 
 When the second or permanent teeth are growing 
 in, the child should be frequently taken to a first- 
 class dental surgeon to be sure that no irregularity 
 escapes timely attention, as almost any change can 
 be effected in the setting of the teeth of young per- 
 sons; skillful dentists sometimes finding it necessary 
 to move every tooth in the jaw to bring them out 
 into position, or to push them backward when too 
 prominent. It frequently happens that the size of 
 the jaw will not accommodate the full number of the 
 teeth that are natural, and one or two of those of the 
 least practical service will then be removed to make 
 room for the others to come into line and regularity. 
 Thus, by early care and attention, will a beautiful set 
 of teeth be insured for future ornamentation ; and, 
 after all, the highest forms of beauty are everywhere 
 in nature combined with the quality of usefulness. 
 
 The teeth are composed of two main substances: 
 the dentine or softer bone surrounds the cavity in 
 which lie the essential preservatives of the tooth — 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 lOl 
 
 the living structure; and the enamel, harder in sub- 
 stance than the dentine, covers and protects the 
 crown of the tooth. 
 
 The bones of the teeth, like other bones of the 
 body, depend upon nutrition for health, and it is al- 
 most certain that the teeth of an insufficiently nour- 
 ished child will early show signs of defective struct- 
 ure and decay. For perfect health of the teeth, 
 plenty of good food in variety is needed, and the 
 habit of chewing the food well is as valuable to the 
 preservation of the teeth themselves, as to the proc- 
 esses of healthful assimilation in the stomach. 
 
 It is a curious but noticeable scientific fact, that 
 the evolution in the civilized jaw goes on in strict 
 accordance with the laws governing the growth and 
 development of other organs and faculties of the 
 human body. There has been, for instance, a very 
 marked change, surgeon-dentists tell us, in the gen- 
 eral size of the civilized human jaw within even the 
 last half-century; a very perceptible contraction, 
 corresponding to higher forms of living, to greater 
 art in cooking, and the constantly diminishing ne- 
 cessity for the use of teeth in structure and design 
 (like the canine teeth) calculated to tear and pre- 
 pare tough and badly selected meat and vegetable 
 products. 
 
 To the preservative care of the teeth daily at- 
 tention is necessary; and, upon general principles, I 
 
I02 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 believe that sound health is better insured by using 
 very little dentifrice. Some of the nostrums adver- 
 tised will undoubtedly do just what is claimed in 
 the immediate matter of whitening the teeth; but 
 they will also do what is not set forth in the glow- 
 ing accounts of the advertiser — remove the enamel 
 and make sad havoc in the vital parts of the tooth. 
 Very few pastes, washes and lotions can be used 
 with any degree of safety; and it is usually better 
 to allow one's dentist, who should understand the 
 nature and requirements of the individual mouth un- 
 der his treatment better than any one else possibly 
 can, to prescribe the necessary treatment for the in- 
 dividual needs. 
 
 For those persons of slender means, however, to 
 whom a dentist's care is an unheard-of luxury, a few 
 general directions may be safely given; and if faith- 
 fully followed, the evil day when the dentist's atten- 
 tions will be imperative may be long postponed. Of 
 course, perfect cleanliness of the mouth and teeth 
 is necessary to beauty, health and sweet breath. 
 Once a day at least (it is better to take time just 
 before retiring) a silk thread should be run between 
 the teeth of both jaws, to dislodge any particles of 
 food which may have remained after eating. Then 
 a brush — not too stiff, with the bristles set well into 
 the back, in irregular lengths — should be dipped 
 into a half-glass of clear, cold water, into which two 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 103 
 
 or three drops of tincture of myrrh have been mix- 
 ed, and the brush should be used carefully upon the 
 teeth, rubbing downward upon the upper teeth, up- 
 ward upon the lower, but never across either set. 
 By using the brush as directed, the bristles will 
 easily search out the hidden places, and there will 
 be no shock to sensitive gums, as there must be to 
 the setting around the teeth when the brush is used 
 upand down andacross,in anywayone maychoose, 
 regardless of the needs and nature of the structure 
 being cleansed. 
 
 Where pure water and myrrh are used in this way 
 faithfully once a day, both inside and outside the 
 teeth, there will be no accumulation of destructive 
 tartar, and no danger of that unsightly recession 
 of the gums, which finally causes the tooth attacked 
 to loosen and project beyond the other teeth. Myrrh 
 is astringent, cleansing, purifying, and sweetens 
 the breath as nothing else will. When the tartar 
 has already made inroads upon the gums, of course 
 nothing will entirely restore the lost beauty of 
 shape about the teeth, but the myrrh may save per- 
 iostitis, which is a diseased and inflamed condition 
 of the root caused by the tartar working under the 
 edge of the gums, and its frequent use will be found 
 pleasant and refreshing to the mouth. 
 
 Picking the teeth with metal is sure to result dis- 
 astrously; indeed, the habit of picking the teeth 
 
I04 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 with anything is vulgar and disgusting. The little 
 box of toothpicks in the centre of the table, from 
 which each guest is expected to help himself, is a 
 relic of days when general society was much lower 
 down in the aesthetic scale than now, and is unwor- 
 thy the keeper of a first-class hostelry. At a private 
 table it is glaringly inexcusable. Occasionally, 
 some annoying bit of food will wedge itself between 
 the teeth; but one should refrain from removing it 
 until he can seek the privacy of the toilet. If the 
 pain becomes too annoying, however, to be borne, 
 and he cannot well excuse himself from the table, 
 hold the napkin before the mouth, and quickly and 
 quietly remove the offending particle. This should 
 never be done, however, if there is any possible way 
 to avoid it. The silk thread and the brush are far 
 better than any kind of toothpick for all purposes 
 for which the pick might be used when at the toilet. 
 Biting off threads, cracking nuts, and biting the fin- 
 ger-nails are all most injurious practices for the teeth. 
 
 Many persons employ charcoal for cleansing the 
 teeth; but its frequent use is to be deprecated, as it 
 is too harsh, and its antiseptic qualities are more 
 than counteracted by this fact, however finely pow- 
 dered. A good, safe, harmless tooth-powder can 
 be made from ground orris-root and precipitated 
 chalk in equal parts, ounce for ounce, and flavored 
 with oil of rose. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. TO5 
 
 A decayed tooth must have the immediate atten- 
 tion of a dentist, as the stomach and general health 
 may be greatly impaired by neglect to fill or re- 
 move decaying teeth. A very little thoughtful care 
 given to these useful members will repay one a 
 hundredfold in comfort, and the general whole- 
 someness and attractiveness of the face will be 
 greatly enhanced. 
 
Si 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THE HYGIENE OF THE HAIR. 
 
 HE hair is generally conceded 
 to be Nature's crown of beauty. I 
 once knew a woman who was not 
 only saved from plainness, but, as 
 a matter of fact, passed for some- 
 thing of a beauty because of the 
 instant admiration bestowed 
 upon her luxuriant, softly wav- 
 ing and richly tinted hair, a 
 veritable halo of glory encir- 
 cling a face of irregular propor- 
 tion and deficient expression. 
 
 One of the most noticeable 
 differences between civilized 
 and barbaric races is the difference in the char- 
 acter, texture, gloss and subtle shadings of the 
 hair. No one of refined taste would pres-ume to 
 compare the black, close-curled frizz of the negro, 
 or the coarse, straight, broom-like hair of the North 
 
 American Indian with the gleaming, silken locks of 
 
 1 06 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. lOJ 
 
 one of Titian's Beauties." The hair of the negro 
 and the Indian, like the fur of animals, serves for a 
 clothing and protection to the head; but with men 
 and women of more highly developed sensibility, 
 having a constitutional appreciation for the truly 
 beautiful, the hair is regarded not only as a cover- 
 ing, but a means for enhancing refined personal 
 charms to a degree which makes the possession of 
 a luxuriant suit of hair a thing to be coveted. 
 
 Knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the 
 hair is desirable, but not indispensable to its proper 
 care, although study of the phenomena of its devel- 
 opment, growth, fall and regeneration is of great 
 assistance in warding off disease of the scalp, which 
 very naturally affects the hair itself However, 
 knowing that the casual reader is averse to entering 
 deeply into the science of things unseen, and be- 
 lieving that disease of the scalp should be treated 
 by learned practitioners, I shall confine myself to 
 consideration of the hygiene of the hair, or how to 
 preserve and care for it to save disease and decay. 
 
 First, the hair must be considered as dependent 
 upon the nerve-supply and circulation of the scalp; 
 therefore, whatever stimulates the nutrition of the 
 hair-roots helps to maintain its good condition. In 
 a general way, this fact is accepted by most per- 
 sons; but with many it leads to a mistaken series of 
 vigorous brushings for the stimulation of the scalp, 
 
io8 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 especially with those who have a predisposition 
 toward premature baldness. In using the word 
 " mistaken " I do so advisedly, for, next to absolute 
 neglect of the hair, nothing is more dangerous to its 
 vitality and health than the indiscriminate and per- 
 sistent use of a hard brush morning and night. 
 
 The scalp is thin, and its epidermis and corium 
 (true skin) are not reinforced by the heavy masses 
 of underlying tissue which characterize the skin of 
 the body, and for this reason the skin of the scalp 
 cannot bear the same vigorous treatment which 
 proves so beneficial to other parts, and, moreover, 
 there is great danger of injuring the roots of the 
 hair by the severe strain put upon the hair-shaft in 
 too energetic manipulations. The reader must not 
 misunderstand me, and suppose that I wish to depre- 
 cate the use of hair-brushes altogether, for a well- 
 selected bristle brush is not only essential to the 
 health and cleanliness of the scalp, but to the beauty 
 and gloss of the hair itself. What I do wish to im- 
 press upon the mind is the necessity for selecting 
 and wielding the brush with a view to the physical 
 character of the organ to be treated, and not igno- 
 rantly and recklessly to the point of irritation and 
 disaster; for it is quite possible to overstimulate 
 the scalp, and thereby cause a more rapid loss of 
 the hair than would otherwise have occurred. The 
 use of the brush should be principally for the health 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 109 
 
 which comes from cleanliness, as rubbing of the 
 scalp with the tips of the fingers, after separating 
 the hair into strands, will do more for the hygienic 
 stimulation of the scalp than can possibly be ac- 
 complished with a brush, however carefully selected, 
 as the finger imparts a certain vital warmth and 
 glow which is most beneficial to the hair-follicles, 
 stimulating and nourishing the productive energy of 
 their sebaceous glands. 
 
 For the hygienic care of the scalp and hair, cer- 
 tain methods are essential; the shampoo, careful 
 brushing and combing, friction with the fingers, and 
 the occasional use of oil, with exposure to light and 
 air, and the frequent cutting of the ends to keep the 
 hair-shaft at a length to admit of being properly 
 nourished by the nutritive material of the root, a 
 matter which will be found to differ greatly with dif- 
 ferent persons. 
 
 Care of the scalp and hair should begin with the 
 new-born babe and continue throughout life. To rid 
 the scalp of a new-born child of the fatty matter known 
 as vernix caseosa, great care must be exercised, or 
 inflammation may set in, to be followed by an un- 
 sightly scabbiness. Sweet almond, or pure olive oils 
 should be used as soon as the child is born, and 
 after a few hours the head must be washed with 
 warm water and Castile soap. If this does not re- 
 move the fatty matter at once, the same treatment 
 
no 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 should be repeated daily. To use anything like a 
 fine-toothed comb or brush, or rough cloth to re- 
 move this substance, however obstinate it may prove, 
 is to entail endless suffering upon the child and do 
 serious damage to the hair-roots at the very thresh- 
 old of life, The head of the infant must be care- 
 fully washed, thoroughly dried, and slightly oiled 
 daily for several weeks, although the vernix caseosa 
 may have yielded at once. This treatment will pro- 
 tect the head until the hair has grown, and for a year, 
 at least, a brush of exceeding fineness and delicacy 
 should be used, without any attempt at combing the 
 hair. After the first three months it will not be nec- 
 essary to wash baby's head oftener than once a week. 
 
 In general it may be stated that a monthly sham- 
 poo is quite enough for most adult heads; the ex- 
 ceptions are diseased conditions, and where persons 
 are exposed to unusual dust and dirt, and must re- 
 sort to water oftener for simple cleanliness; but even 
 then finger friction of the scalp and carefully parting 
 and wiping the hair with a soft, damp towel will 
 usually suffice. Wetting the hair daily is a great 
 mistake for both men and women, as the tendency 
 is to a condition of brittleness and harshness; the 
 constant use of water upon a surface so difficult to 
 dry as the scalp (when properly covered) having the 
 effect to remove, without stimulating, secretion of the 
 natural oil. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The proper way to shampoo the head is to have 
 ready a basin of warm water and Castile soap. With 
 the fingers rub the soap and water well upon the 
 scalp and hair until a lather is made, and all dan- 
 druff and foreign matter have become loosened, when 
 the warm douche should be used to remove the 
 lather, and afterward the cold douche for reaction 
 and stimulation. When the spray from the rubber 
 douche is impossible, pouring water over the head 
 freely will answer the same purpose. Where the 
 scalp is very sensitive, a well-known medical author- 
 ity advises the use of the yolks of three eggs beaten 
 up in a pint of lime-water instead of soap. After 
 the scalp and hair have been thoroughly washed, 
 the very best way to dry them is to sit in the open air 
 and sunlight ; hot towels are the next best means, 
 and these should be applied until not a suspicion of 
 moisture remains at the roots of the hair, when olive- 
 oil or plain, simple beef's marrow, well refined and 
 very slightly scented with oil of rose or bergamot, 
 should be rubbed into the scalp to supply the oil 
 which has been removed for the time, or may, per- 
 haps, have been deficient before the shampoo. Care 
 should be taken in applying it to the hair-roots not 
 to smear the hair itself, as nothing is more offen- 
 sive to good taste than focks saturated with grease. 
 Vaseline and other mineral oils should never be 
 used upon the head. 
 
112 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 In smoothing the hair, which will always be more 
 or less tangled by the shampoo, one will require only 
 a soft, firm brush, and a coarse comb with very 
 smooth teeth of uniform size; never a fine comb; 
 indeed, the fine-toothed comb has no place upon the 
 toilet-table, as it is very injurious to both the hair- 
 shaft and the hair-root — often splitting the one, and 
 shocking the other by its irritating scratch, scratch. 
 Its use is warranted in getting rid of parasitic invad- 
 ers of the scalp and hair, when its employment is 
 in a measure remedial, but at no other time. 
 
 Using advertised fluid washes for the hair is at- 
 tended with much danger, and my advice is, Don't." 
 Even the free use of borax, ammonia, and alcohol, 
 by so many persons regarded as harmless, is a seri- 
 ous mistake, as the very properties which render 
 these articles valuable as cleansing agents prove that 
 they must have a drying and caustic effect upon the 
 hair and scalp. Water, soap, finger-friction, simple 
 oils, and careful, gentle, patient brushing will ac- 
 complish more in the way of strengthening the hair 
 than all of the so-called tonics in the market. Where 
 medicated fluid is essential for any reason, it should 
 be prescribed by a physician knowing his business, 
 and not by an ignorant charlatan. 
 
 One reason for the early falling of the hair is the 
 habit of allowing it to grow as long as it will, espe- 
 cially with children. This custom may add some- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. II3 
 
 thing to the mere prettiness of childhood, but it is 
 largely at the sacrifice of the future strength and 
 beauty of the hair, for the nutrition which is diverted 
 to the stimulation of the long hair-shaft at such an 
 early age is more than likely to permanently im- 
 poverish the vitality of the hair-root; although this 
 result is, in a measure, counteracted at the present 
 time by the loose and flowing style in which chil- 
 dren wear their hair, and its consequent exposure to 
 air and sunlight — a fashion much more hygienic than 
 that of closely braiding, or tying it up with strings 
 and ribbons. 
 
 There is a superstition among women about cut- 
 ting the ends of the hair every new moon, to make 
 it grow; a superstition which may or may not con- 
 tain the grain of truth, so far as the moon is concerned. 
 I do not pretend to the mystical knowledge which 
 would entitle me to speak with authority, but I am 
 prepared to state, as a physiological fact capable of 
 demonstration, that the withered appearance of any 
 individual hair is an unmistakable sign that the root 
 is not equal to the nourishment of its entire length, 
 and the health of such hairs can only be restored by 
 cutting sufficiently to bring the length within the 
 nutritive capacity of these individual roots. Because 
 of this fact, it follows that the practice, whether reg- 
 ulated by superstition or knowledge, of cutting the 
 ends of the hair, from time to time, must be beneficial. 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 In caring for the hair, so as to preserve it, I have 
 given directions for the shampoo, the oil for the 
 roots as a fertilizer, a soft brush, and a coarse-toothed 
 comb. 
 
 Do not buy one of the cheaper kinds of brushes, 
 but with great care select a soft yet firm bristle 
 brush, having its bristles set well into the back in 
 groups. The middle of each group should be longer 
 than the outside, as such grouping is better adapted 
 to all conditions of the hair and scalp, and has less 
 tendency to irritation; besides, a brush with bristles 
 of irregular lengths is far better calculated to search 
 out dandruff and foreign matter than one of the 
 ordinary kind having the bristles set together and 
 all of a length. 
 
 One should never buy a very cheap comb, think- 
 ing it a bargain, for examination will prove the in- 
 side of the teeth to be rough and irregular. Always 
 hold a comb up to the light, and examine carefully, 
 to be sure that there are no jagged surfaces to tear 
 and split the hair. Do not buy a comb having half 
 of the teeth fine and the other half coarse, for a 
 coarse-toothed comb should always be used in dis- 
 entangling and arranging the hair, the only purpose 
 for which a comb is needed, as the brush does the 
 work of smoothing, and keeping the hair free from 
 dust and dandruff. 
 
 Both brush and comb should be kept scrupulously 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 clean by frequent washings in warm water and am- 
 monia, for eczema and other irritating diseases of 
 the scalp are easily established by using a brush 
 having an accumulation of dust and the effete matter 
 thrown off by the scalp and hair matted around the 
 setting of the bristles. 
 
 Great glossiness and beneficial stimuli can be 
 given to the hair by the daily practice of sitting in 
 a sunny window, and then separating the hair into 
 strands, carefully wiping each one with the palms 
 of the hand, with a slow, stroking, downward move- 
 ment. Ten to fifteen minutes a day is quite enough 
 time to devote to brushing the hair, and it is better 
 to perform this task at night than in the morning, 
 as one will then retire with the day's dust removed, 
 and with nothing to interfere with the excretory and 
 nutritive functions during the sleeping hours. 
 
 Even where there is a tendency to premature 
 baldness, such care as I have outlined will very ma- 
 terially lessen and ofttimes entirely prevent the fall- 
 ing of the hair. Among men, several causes com- 
 bine to hasten baldness — one, the most prolific, 
 perhaps, being the habit of frequently sopping the 
 head with water, and, while still damp, brushing it in 
 a manner so vigorous as to positively injure the hair- 
 root, and to altogether destroy the natural oil-sup- 
 ply. Another, going frequently to barbers, and 
 submitting to their manipulations and a deluge of 
 
ii6 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 ignorance from a bottle in the name of ''an excel- 
 lent hair tonic," which is, almost without exception, 
 astringent and injurious. Still another, the habit of 
 wearing stiff hats without sufiHf!^ient ventilation. 
 
 With the first signs of approaching baldness, a 
 man should begin a systematic course of treatment 
 calculated to allay the fall of the hair, and furnish 
 additional fertilization to the scalpo Stop the daily 
 head-bath, and burn the stiff hair-brush, which have, 
 very likely, helped to precipitate the difficulty. With 
 soft, warm water (rain-water is best) and Castile 
 soap carefully wash the head once a week, and dry 
 it thoroughly. Then expose the head to the sun and 
 air for a half-hour, rubbing refined beef s marrow, in 
 very small quantity, into the scalp with the tip of 
 the finger, very gently, until a warm glow is felt all 
 over the head. Repeat the process of rubbing the 
 head daily, and, above all else, expose the crown 
 of the head and hair to sunlight and air, each day. 
 Renew the application of oil to the scalp at the first 
 suggestion of dryness at the roots of the hair. 
 Avoid barbers and lotions, ointments and mineral 
 oils. In brushing the hair, do so very gently, and 
 without slapping the brush down on the head, after 
 the manner of mankind generally, and the chances 
 are greatly in favor of putting off the evil day indef- 
 initely. When early baldness is hereditary, and 
 due to a lessening of the subcutaneous fat and atrophy 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 117 
 
 of the corium, the only hope to save the hair is by 
 stimulation of the hair-follicles, and an artificial 
 supply of the fatty matter which, in perfect health 
 of the scalp, is furnished by the sebaceous glands. 
 It will therefore be seen at once by the intelligent 
 reader that no hope lies in " hair tonics; " but only 
 in the electrical power of friction with the vital finger- 
 tip, in sunlight and air, and the application of animal 
 sebum as nearly resembling the deficient natural 
 oil as possible. 
 
 A mild current from a galvanic battery is also 
 helpful to stimulation of the secretions of the scalp, 
 and consequently to the vitality of the hair, and 
 should always be resorted to in cases of rapidly fall- 
 ing hair and incipient baldness. 
 
 If these natural, rational means do not, however, 
 effect the desired cure, nothing else will, and resort 
 to quack nostrums is very dangerous, and may cost 
 one the additional price of weakened mental power. 
 
 As cases of baldness occur in persons having great 
 vital power and sound bodily health, it must reason- 
 ably be concluded that the trouble is oftener local 
 than general, although there are instances which 
 require constitutional treatment. 
 
 Undoubtedly, failure to recognize the true nature 
 of dandruff, and to treat it accordingly, leads to 
 many cases of falling hair which could be saved. 
 Dandruff iifiay, or may not, be in the nature of dis- 
 
ii8 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ease. Upon a perfectly healthy scalp there will 
 always be more or less of a formation of dandruff, 
 because the skin of the head, like that of the body, 
 is constantly throwing off its dead and useless mat- 
 ter, and demanding cleanliness and attention for 
 perfect health. Where these are neglected, dan- 
 druff is apt to degenerate into disease, and must then 
 be treated remedially. The use of a fine-toothed 
 comb has an irritating action upon the scalp, some- 
 what like the scratch of a pin upon the flesh, and its 
 constant employment is almost sure to establish and 
 aggravate a condition of dandruff amounting to 
 disease. Improper care of the scalp, and the use of 
 pomades, hair-dyes, and tonics, lead to one form and 
 another of local irritation. Of course the first method 
 to be employed for the cure of dandruff is cleanliness; 
 and the directions for the care of the scalp and hair, 
 already given, will be found necessary to restoration 
 to sound condition, when disease has been established 
 from any cause. 
 
 Where local treatment for the dandruff of disease 
 is essential, Fournier recommends an ointment of 
 
 Beef marrow, . . . . . . 60. 
 
 Oil of sweet almonds, . . . .20. 
 
 Flower of sulphur, . . . . i. 
 
 Tinct. of benzoin, . . . . . 6. 
 
 The head and hair should be washed and dried 
 before applying the ointment, which should then 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 119 
 
 be thoroughly rubbed into the scalp every other 
 night. 
 
 Occasionally it happens that, instead of being 
 deficient in natural oil, the scalp will have an over- 
 supply, and the reverse of the treatment recom- 
 mended for dryness is then necessary to save degen- 
 eration into the trouble known as seborrhea sicca, 
 a functional disease of the sebaceous glands, in 
 which an abnormal amount of sebaceous oil is 
 secreted. If this is not removed there is danger 
 that it will mat into thick flakes around the hair- 
 follicles and give the hair an offensively greasy 
 look. Wash once a week, according to directions 
 already given, with pure water and Castile soap, 
 thoroughly rinsing the scalp and hair with cool, or 
 if possible, without creating a shock to the head, 
 with cold water. When the hair is thoroughly dry, 
 take a very small soft toilet-brush, not over two 
 inches long, carefully separate the hair, and go all 
 over the scalp to brush away any incrustations 
 which may possibly remain. If the treatment, when 
 continued for three months, does not overcome the 
 difficulty, other local treatment is needed, and an 
 application of the following ointment to the scalp 
 should be made every night, and rubbed off w ith a soft 
 linen in the morning, until the difficulty is removed: 
 
 Oleum rusci, ... oz. ^^-=15. 
 Ungt. aquae rosae ad, . . — 02. iv=\oo. 
 01. rosae gt, .... x \.o xx=\. 
 
I20 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 Of the artistic effect of the hair much might be 
 said; but each woman should study this question 
 for herself, because so much depends upon the shape 
 of the head and face, and the general character of 
 the hair itself. 
 
 The most beautiful hair is that which, whatever 
 its color, whether dark or light, is soft, glossy, 
 abundant, waving, and full of those exquisite glints 
 that come from variety of pigmentation (coloring 
 matter) in the individual hairs. Where nature has 
 done her part in giving such hair, and preservative 
 art lends her aid to its care and becoming arrange- 
 ment, hair may well be said to be a woman's chief 
 ornament; but, unfortunately, nature does not 
 always endow her children generously in these 
 respects, and one oftener meets men and women 
 with thin, straight, lustreless hair, than with that 
 which has special claims to beauty. 
 
 Much of this general lack-lustre and scantiness is 
 undoubtedly due to ignorance of the hygienic needs 
 of the hair, and abuse of its possibilities. Intelligent 
 care will, almost without exception, improve the 
 quality and quantity of hair; and, be the color what 
 it may, every one can find a method of becoming 
 arrangement by studying effects, and abandoning 
 the sheep-like fashion of following recklessly wher- 
 ever fashion leads. No style of dressing the hair 
 was ever devised, however ridiculous, which was 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 121 
 
 not becoming to somebody. The pointed bang, 
 in its nature a hideous conception, actually gives 
 piquancy to certain faces; but alas for the greater 
 number of women who have adopted it ! Frizzes 
 and waves, water curls and fringes, puffs and pom- 
 padours, all have good effects with certain faces; but 
 for every woman made beautiful by prevailing modes 
 which have been adopted regardless of individual 
 needs, dozens are rendered far less attractive than 
 nature intended them to be. In the matter of hair 
 arrangement, above all other considerations of the 
 toilet, individual needs should be studied and faith- 
 fully carried out. 
 
 Perfectly plain hair is becoming to very few faces, 
 for the reason that the forehead itself is so seldom 
 well shaped, and such harmless beautifiers as crimp- 
 ing-pins and curl-papers certainly ought not to be 
 inveighed against by the most rigid moralists. The 
 crimping-iron justly comes in for a measure of con- 
 demnation, because it leads, in longer or shorter 
 time, to absolute ruination of the natural gloss and 
 vitality of the hair. 
 
 To many faces, a soft fluffy wave of the long hair 
 backward is much more becoming than short bangs 
 and frizzes, and great care should be exercised in 
 deciding upon and adopting the individual method 
 of hair-dressing. Occasionally a youthful face is 
 improved by artificial hair waves, but rarely; and 
 
122 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the habit of piling switches and cushions upon the 
 head is vulgar in the extreme, and generally distort- 
 ing to the shape and grace of the head. Where one 
 has very little hair, fluffing it, by doing it up at 
 night upon innocent curl-papers, and then catching 
 it up carefully with invisible hair-pins in some soft, 
 loose style of knot at the neck, or, if it were becom- 
 ing, on top of the head in the morning, will gener- 
 ally do away with the necessity for switches. Where 
 one must, however (which is a great misfortune), 
 resort to artificial hair, great care should be exer- 
 cised in the selection to get what is absolutely clean, 
 undyed and free from parasitic deposits. 
 
 Regarding the color, whatever it may be, any- 
 thing is better than artificially colored hair. Of all 
 offensive, disgusting, inexcusable toilet practices, 
 that of dyeing the hair is the very worst; nobody is 
 deceived, and the incongruity between eyelashes, 
 eyebrows, skin and hair is not only unsightly; but 
 the solid, withered-looking mass of brush, without 
 lights and shadows, is a constant reminder of decay, 
 like the dried grass in a sun-scorched field. Not a 
 wrinkle, not a sign of passing years, but is empha- 
 sized and exaggerated by contrast, old age being 
 rendered absolutely hideous by it, since the gray 
 hair of age is the only fitting frame to an aging 
 face, softening it as nothing else can. 
 
 There is a beauty which is undeniable in natural 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 123 
 
 iron-gray and white hair, and many a youthful face, 
 not noticeable before, has been positively trans- 
 formed by this so-called early misfortune; but 
 nobody was ever rendered anything except offen- 
 sive by dyeing the hair; besides which, the com- 
 pounds used are largely mineral, generally injurious, 
 and altogether objectionable to good taste, art, and 
 common sense. 
 
 With the hair, as with other organs of the body, 
 hygienic care, and the exercise of artistic taste, 
 based upon a correct understanding of what is really 
 beautiful, will lead to the best and most pleasing 
 effects. 
 
 For keeping the hair in curl, an entirely harmless 
 bandoline is made as follows: 
 
 Gum tragacanth, . . . i X drachms. 
 
 Water, 7 ounces. 
 
 Proof spirit, .... 3 ounces. 
 
 Attar of rose, ... 10 drops. 
 
 Macerate for one day, and strain the mixture. 
 Dampen the hair when doing up at night. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CARE OF THE HANDS. 
 
 HE hand, more than any other 
 member, perhaps, proclaims 
 refined Hneage, and that in- 
 describable something which 
 is the result of good blood 
 and breeding. Aristotle well 
 called the hand " the mem- 
 ber of members," 
 and in all ages hom- 
 age has been paid 
 to its beauty, its 
 grace, and its 
 importance. 
 Orators have 
 brought its 
 subtle pow- 
 er to bear 
 in empha- 
 sizing the 
 
 most profound speech; and priests to give dignity 
 to their ceremonials in the invocation of the Divine 
 blessing, in the sign of the cross, and the laying 
 on of hands. Courtiers and lovers have ever 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 bent the knee and bowed the head to kiss the 
 hands of ladies fair, from royal sovereigns down 
 to village maid; while science and superstition have 
 each played conspicuous parts in giving prominence 
 to the superior importance of this member. Through 
 many centuries the cutting off of hands was a much- 
 dreaded punishment, and was a penalty remaining 
 in force for the offence of drawing a sword in a court 
 of justice, or assaulting an officer of the crown, until 
 comparatively recent times. When Cicero was as- 
 sassinated, 43 B. C, an immortal tribute was paid to 
 the hand, as an eloquent aid to oratory, in the send- 
 ing of his hands, as well as his head, to be hung in 
 the Forum at Rome. 
 
 -Among Eastern nations white hands are regarded 
 as typical of generosity — among Western nations, of 
 innocence. With the ancient Egyptians the hand 
 was the symbol of strength — with the Romans, of 
 fidelity. With all persons inclined to the mystical, 
 belief in palmistry holds more or less sway, and it 
 is by far the oldest form of divination, although such 
 later-day men as Ben Jonson, Coleridge, and Ivan 
 Turgeneff have not hesitated to declare in favor of 
 the science. But, apart from other beliefs or super- 
 stitions, ancient or modern, stands the one self-evi- 
 dent and indisputable truth, that the hand plays a 
 constant and indispensable part in nearly every act 
 and incident of our lives: it is, therefore, worthy of 
 
126 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 most intelligent and careful consideration; for the 
 hand may be educated to almost any art or grace 
 for which one has the patience and inclination. 
 
 Very few, indeed, are the persons born with ex- 
 quisitely graceful and refined hands, which are a 
 constant delight to their possessor and a pleasure to 
 the beholder, for very few persons in this age of 
 mixed blood and democratic tendencies can boast a 
 line of ancestors, whose occupations and traditions 
 have combined to produce the desired result; and 
 art has but recently come to the aid of nature in 
 overcoming the defects of inheritance in the general 
 expression of these too often graceless members, 
 although cosmetics and unguents for softening and 
 whitening the skin of the hand have long been em- 
 ployed by fashionable dames. 
 
 There are many different styles of hand, charac- 
 teristic of different occupations and temperaments, 
 diversified formation which cannot logically be 
 changed, although such subtlety of movement and 
 expression may be educated into muscles and joints 
 from wrists to finger-tips, that even ill-favored and 
 clumsy hands will be transformed into agreeable 
 and pleasing members. 
 
 There are seven classes or types of hand described 
 by D'Arpentigny: — "Elementary or large-palmed 
 hands; the necessary or spatulated hand; the artis- 
 tic or conical hand; the useful or square hand; the 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 12 J 
 
 philosophic or knotted hand; the psychic or pointed 
 hand, and the mixed hand, each one having a natu- 
 ral correspondence to temperament." This interest- 
 ing student of the science of the hand says, in sub- 
 stance, that: " On the palm of the hand are found 
 the indications of the physical appetites of men, and 
 up to a certain point those of the intensity of the in- 
 tellectual aptitudes which these appetites determine; 
 thus, a very narrow, meagre palm indicates a feeble 
 temperament, lacking in warmth and force of imagi- 
 nation, and without definite objects. A supple palm 
 of medium thickness and consistency of surface in- 
 dicates a nature capable of enjoying all pleasures of 
 the senses, while possessing the keenest faculties of 
 imagination. Where the developments of the palm 
 are too pronounced, egoism and sensuality are the 
 dominating instincts, while hard and thick palms, 
 with amplitude out of proportion with the rest of the 
 hand, indicate instincts and individualities verging 
 upon an animality destitute of ideas. 
 
 Fingers are either smooth or knotty. If the joint 
 which connects the nailed phalanx with the second 
 is prominent, ideas are in order; when the second 
 joint is prominent, there is a gift of material order 
 and of method in worldly affairs; when both are 
 prominent the instinct of arrangement, symmetry 
 and punctuality are pronounced, and the possessor 
 of such fingers will move by reflection and have 
 
128 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 aptitude for the pursuit of science. Smooth fingers 
 are endowed with the faculty of art, and, however 
 practical the end toward which they are goaded by 
 material interest, they will always proceed by in- 
 spiration rather than by reason; by fantasy and 
 sentiment rather than by knowledge, by synthesis 
 rather than by analysis. Taste, from the intellectual 
 point of view, resulting, as it does, from considera- 
 tion, belongs to knotty fingers; and grace, unrea- 
 soning and instinctive, belongs to essentially smooth 
 fingers. Square fingers are responsible for theories, 
 for methodical registration of facts, for literature and 
 science, and not for the higher flights, which they 
 never attain. To fingers which terminate in a spat- 
 ule (flattened) belong action, ability to instruct, 
 tact and knowledge." 
 
 But whatever the shape or size of the hand and 
 fingers, and whatever its essential scientific aspects, 
 as set forth by^ students of character-reading, one 
 fact important to my present purpose remains — 
 grace and elegance'of hand can be cultivated to an 
 astonishing degree; and, by intelligent training of 
 an unsymmetrical member, even naturally well- 
 shaped but crudely managed hands will often ap- 
 pear at a disadvantage by contrast. I remember, as 
 a point in fact, a very large hand which once im- 
 pressed me as so graceful and ornamental that for 
 the moment I wondered Avhy anyone ever preferred 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 129 
 
 small hands to large ones; and I still believe that 
 grace and beauty in this member are not so much a 
 matter of size as of intelligent handling. 
 
 The first and most difficult lesson to learn in edu- 
 cating the hand is relaxation and repose; how to 
 divest it of life from wrist to finger-tips, to vitalize 
 and devitalize, without apparent effort, at will. 
 Nothing is more fatal to art and grace in this mem- 
 ber than clumsy display of the mechanism by which 
 certain very desirable ends may be accomplished. 
 The effort that falls short of art and degenerates 
 into affectation is so vulgar and inexcusable that 
 one knows not whether to pity or excoriate the 
 offender. Still, it is by no means easy for nervous 
 Americans, at least, to learn control of their hands, 
 to overcome the restless and unmeaning fingering 
 of ornaments, watch-chain, rings and small objects 
 within easy reach while conversing or listening to 
 others. When the actual activity of the fingers has 
 been overcome, it is more difficult yet to relax joints 
 and muscles, and lay these members down in a re- 
 poseful manner which will compose swollen veins, 
 smooth out harsh lines, and reduce the unsightly 
 redness of tense and overstrained action. Never- 
 theless, perfect grace of the hand in activity cannot 
 be acquired until one has become master of the art 
 of devitalization. 
 
 There are many different exercises for relaxing 
 
130 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the muscles of the hand; but I have seen the most 
 wonderful results accomplished by merely shaking 
 
 the wrists backward and forward; slowly at first, 
 and increasing the impetus of the movement until 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the hands are entirely under the control of this 
 wrist force; falling apparently 'lifeless upon cessa- 
 tion of the movement, when the hand is ready for 
 its first lesson in vital grace. With the hand and 
 wrist perfectly passive, raise the arm at full length 
 upward, with the hand falling naturally from the 
 wrist in its relaxed condition. At a point above 
 the head, when the arm is fully extended, begin the 
 downward movement, introducing life at the wrist, 
 and gradually into the entire hand, by depressing 
 the wrist. Remember that it is the wrist which 
 must vitalize first, the hand following its lead; 
 otherwise the tendency will be to ignore the supe- 
 rior claim of the wrist and throw the hand up into 
 an angular and awkward position, and the lesson of 
 muscular control and harmonious activity will be 
 lost, because it is impossible to acquire graceful 
 movement of the hands until the habit of continuity 
 has been established, that is, until the lesser muscles 
 obey and follow the lead of the superior; in this way 
 and this only, can the angles and awkwardness of 
 disconnected and jerky movements be overcome. 
 All systems of physical culture give exercises for 
 the cultivation of gesture and dramatic expression; 
 some good, some bad, and many more calculated to 
 make the student self-conscious, affected and ridicu- 
 lous, as those who anticipate and plan the effect of 
 any gesture before making it must always appear; 
 
132 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 but it is quite possible for the intelligent student of 
 physical grace to acquire pleasing movement of the 
 hand, and the habit of spontaneous relaxation and 
 activity, with no other exercise than that just de- 
 scribed and illustrated in the diagram. It is by no 
 means essential, and oftener detrimental to the 
 superf.cial student of expression than otherwise, to 
 know that certain attitudes and gestures voice, 
 dramatically, certain emotions. If muscles, nerves 
 and joints of the hand are under sufficient training 
 to be free, unconstrained and supple, there will be 
 no lack of pleasing and appropriate expression in 
 activity, because it is emotion which gives subtlety 
 and variety to unconscious and spontaneous move- 
 ments, while the muscular control and freedom of 
 function essential to graceful action are quite as im- 
 portant to express"ion in repose. Hands must differ 
 organically just as faces differ, because it is a law of 
 nature that structure should correspond to function, 
 and differentiation in the hands of individuals of the 
 same race and nation will correspond to the mental 
 characteristics of these individuals, since the hand 
 is the active physical representative of specific 
 thoughts, desires, capacities and occupations. Ad- 
 mitting organic differences, however, there is no 
 reason why any hand, except those condemned to 
 the most arduous and unceasing manual labor, 
 should not acquire certain aesthetic virtues which 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 will be independent of fundamental character- 
 istics. 
 
 For example, a thin, meagre hand is often ren- 
 dered less attractive by a habit of hugging the fin- 
 gers together, which throws the knuckles into an 
 awkward and prominent position; exaggerating the 
 thinness of the hand, giving a generally stiff and 
 constrained appearance. This defect in expression 
 is easily overcome by relaxation, and no better 
 exercise for the purpose can be devised than the 
 one suggested. As the hand devitalizes, the fingers 
 fall apart naturally, the knuckles no longer stand 
 out in aggressive ugliness, and although the hand 
 remains thin and meagre still, ease and grace have 
 taken the place of stiffness and constraint. The 
 same is true, in a degree, of other types of hands, 
 and other physical irregularities. A broad, thick, 
 short-fingered hand, of the ''dumpy" variety, may 
 be greatly improved by exercises which give mental 
 expression and muscular flexibility. Such hands, in 
 a crude state, usually suggest stupidity and clumsi- 
 ness, and belong to people of peasant origin and of 
 the hard-working class; yet their physical formation 
 is just as complex as that of the most exquisite hand: 
 the normal difference lies in the agents which move 
 the machinery — the nervous organization, the brain, 
 the will. Mechanical muscular control will do some- 
 thing toward refining these members; but their best 
 
134 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 possibilities cannot be realized until intelligent men- 
 tal direction is united to muscular freedom, for, after 
 all, reason rules the throne, and although dependent 
 upon the consent and cooperation of the members 
 governed for the executive ability to fulfill its com- 
 mands, the brain remains the sovereign power. I 
 might go on indefinitely, citing physiognomical dif- 
 ferences in hands, which are almost as numerous as 
 those of faces, but always to the same purpose — to 
 show that the wider the range of mental ideas, the 
 broader the sympathies, the more varied the emotion- 
 al experiences, and the better the muscular control 
 gained by mechanical means, the more graceful, beau- 
 tiful and diversified will be the expression of the hand. 
 
 After expression, the important consideration is 
 the care of the hands, and it is needless to say that 
 scrupulous cleanliness stands first in the order of 
 care-taking. A good soap is indispensable, and 
 here let me warn my reader against all manner of 
 highly scented fancy soaps. Now and then one may 
 find a manufacturer conscientious enough not to in- 
 troduce poisonous animal fats into the ingredients of 
 which his soaps are composed; but the ten^ptation 
 to make a marketable article at a very cheap rate is 
 too great for the larger numbers, and safety lies in 
 using only what has borne the test of years, and 
 good, pure white Castile or olive-oil soaps are safe; 
 then, again, the odor of scented soap lingering about 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the hands is vulgar and offensive to refined nostrils. 
 If a brush be used about the hands, be sure that it is 
 of rubber and not bristles; the former will leave the 
 hands fair and smooth, the lader will irritate and 
 render very sensitive skin liable to roughness and 
 redness when exposed to the air. In washing the 
 hands, one should be careful to dry them thoroughly, 
 and the edge around the root of the nail should 
 always be pressed back gently but firmly. To 
 neglect to do this for a single week is to expose the 
 nails to an unsightly growth of rough and ragged 
 skin, which it will be difficult to remove with instru- 
 ments without bruising the nail and destroying that 
 delicate selvage edge from which the well-kept nail, 
 with its lunula (the white half-moon), shows forth 
 by contrast, a delicate pink surface, like the inner 
 polish of an exquisitely tinted sea-shell. 
 
 No matter how beautiful the shape of the hand, 
 nor how delicate the skin, if the nails are irregular 
 and neglected, it is evidence enough that the owner 
 is not as fastidious as the gentlewoman is naturally 
 expected to be. No excuse of lack of time can be 
 urged 'for what is plainly neglect, since it is just as 
 easy, in washing the hands, to wipe the skin back- 
 ward, and so preserve the regularity of the shape 
 about the base of the nail, as to wipe it onto the 
 nails and there allow it to become attached until all 
 symmetry is destroyed. 
 
136 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 When, from ignorance of how to properly care for 
 the nails, this surrounding skin has pushed forward 
 until the lunula is entirely covered, and the nail is 
 without a proper setting, the treatment with instru- 
 ments should be begun very carefully. The services 
 of an experienced manicure are not easy to secure, 
 except in the larger cities, and, besides, every lady 
 can easily learn to become physician to her own 
 nails. Procure a proper set of manicure instruments 
 — there are a great many in the shops suggesting one 
 use and another, but the only indispensable articles 
 are a file, delicately curved scissors, a small knife or 
 spade-shaped instrument, an orange stick, a tiny 
 camel's-hair brush, a chamois polisher (this should 
 be large and strong and well-padded, not one of the 
 tiny, useless, strictly ornamental kind shown in most 
 fancy manicure toilet-bQxes), a box of nail cosmetic 
 and one of pink nail powder. 
 
 Begin treatment by soaking the hands in a bowl 
 of soft water — ^rain and distilled water are best. The 
 temperature should be just above tepid, and the 
 water should be well-soaped, as the object is to 
 soften the nails and loosen the clinging skin about 
 the roots. When the skin has been thoroughly pre- 
 pared, wipe the hands very carefully and begin to 
 force the knife or spade-like instrument between the 
 clinging skin and the nails, very gently and slowly 
 at first in order not to tear the selvage edge, which 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 will, if it once becomes ragged and inflamed, take a 
 long time to heal and assume the delicate and sym- 
 metrical appearance which adds so much to the 
 beauty of the hand; it is, moreover, fatal to smooth- 
 ness and polish to bruise and crease the nails, as the 
 ridges thus made can only be gotten rid of by taking 
 time to grow out afresh. 
 
 When the neglect to wipe the skin back from the 
 root of the nail has been due to ignorance of the 
 proper methods of caring for the hands, it follows 
 that the trouble will require much patience to cor- 
 rect, and one should not be discouraged if very 
 little is accomplished each day, for the reward of 
 careful work is sure to come in time. I have known 
 cases which required from ten to fifteen minutes 
 daily, for several weeks, before the desired end was 
 accomplished; but what a surprise and delight the 
 result was ! 
 
 After carefully using the instrument and wiping 
 back the skin all that one can each day, without 
 irritating either skin or nails, the point of the nails 
 should next receive attention. The nail should be 
 pared and filed to curve from side to side, and it 
 should never be allowed to extend beyond the tip 
 of the finger further than is necessary as an actual 
 protection to the finger itself: more than this is sug- 
 gestive of a talon or claw, or of the practices of cer- 
 • tain pagan fanatics, who, for one reason and an- 
 
138 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 other, allow the nails to grow to abnormal and dis- 
 gusting lengths. After paring and filing the nails 
 until the edge is perfectly rounded, take the camel's- 
 hair brush and apply a very little of the pink nail 
 cosmetic to the centre of the nail, avoiding getting 
 it under the selvage edge, or the nail itself; then, with 
 the chamois polisher dipped in the nail powder, rub 
 across the nails vigorously until they are glowing 
 and warm from the friction, when the hand should 
 again be carefully washed and the nails wiped up 
 and down, still pushing the skin backward. 
 
 After all is done, take the flat, broadly pointed 
 end of the orange stick, and run gently under the 
 skin and under the nail, at the tip, to remove any 
 possible clinging remnant of cosmetic, powder, skin 
 or foreign matter; afterward each nail should be 
 polished for a moment with the thumb of the other 
 hand, and the result will show nails refined, almost 
 transparent, tinted a beautiful, delicate pink and ex- 
 quisitely polished. 
 
 Some persons recommend an acid preparation to 
 remove stains from the fingers and nails; but as 
 these are apt to be poisonous, and consequently 
 dangerous, I prefer the simple juice of a lemon, 
 which will answer the same purpose and do no 
 harm. Where the nails have received the treat- 
 ment described until they are in perfect condition, 
 it is not necessary to pare and file the tips oftener 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 than twice a week, and the orange stick with the 
 cosmetic and powder applied every other day will 
 keep them looking beautiful; in other words, five 
 minutes a day will be quite time enough to give to 
 the nails when they have once become the objects 
 of artistic attention; and under this kind of care 
 agnails or hangnails, popularly called, will disap- 
 pear. 
 
 The white spots which sometimes mar the beauty 
 of the nails can usually be removed by a paste 
 made of refined pitch and myrrh mixed together. 
 This paste should be put on at night, and in the 
 morning rubbed off with cream or olive-oil. 
 
 After the care of the nails, means for whitening 
 and improving the skin of the hands should next be 
 considered; and in this connection let me say at 
 once that nothing is more fatal to the delicacy and 
 refinement of the hand than wearing clothing so 
 tight as to stop the free circulation of the blood in 
 any part of the body. The practice of lacing the 
 waist, wearing very close sleeves, and gloves into 
 which the hands are literally stuffed, often results in 
 red or spotted hands with swollen, prominent veins. 
 Nature demands compensation for abuse of her 
 laws, we may be sure, and she enforces her behests 
 in ways which leave no manner of doubt as to her 
 integrity of purpose. 
 
 To treat the skin of the hands according to the 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 individual needs, one must consider occupations 
 first, and next the natural texture of the skin. To 
 those whose lives are idle and involve no exposure 
 of the hands to rough and irritating conditions, very 
 gentle treatment with distilled or rain water and 
 pure soap, and the wearing of loose gloves at night 
 will usually suffice to give the fine grain and deli- 
 cacy of tinting which are so desirable; but for those 
 who take more or less part in the active duties of 
 the world, whose hands daily concern themselves 
 with household duties or rough work of other de- 
 scription, entirely different treatment is necessary. 
 
 There are many kinds of toil that have the ten- 
 dency to roughen and redden the hand, which might 
 be performed in gloves with perfect ease; but, even 
 where the hands are exposed to rough conditions, 
 washing in soft water with good soap, and drying 
 carefully, will remove much of the evidence of rough 
 usage, and there are oils — almond and olive oils are 
 best — and simple lotions, that any druggist can com- 
 pound, of rose-water, benzoin and borax, which will 
 produce excellent results in beautifying and refining 
 the hands. 
 
 The hard-working woman should keep upon her 
 wash-stand a piece of pumice-stone for removing 
 callosities, plenty of wheat bran and almond-meal, 
 and a bottle of almond-oil to rub well into the skin 
 after the final washing at night, before putting on a 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 141 
 
 pair of large, soft leather gloves; and she should 
 not neglect during the day to wash the hands care- 
 fully after performing any unusually coarse work, as 
 she can save the delicacy of the skin very much by 
 this immediate attention to the removal of the stains 
 of toil. 
 
 In giving directions, however, for the care of the 
 hands of working women, it must not be supposed 
 that I regard the extreme delicacy of a weak and 
 useless hand as a greater beauty than that which 
 shows the result of fine action, and proclaims itself 
 able to perform some worthy service every day, be- 
 cause the most beautiful hand will always be that 
 one which suggests capacity, which reveals the 
 presence of highly gifted skill in some given direc- 
 tion; it is only when such hands are neglected, and 
 denied the fastidious care which is evidence of a re- 
 fined personality, that the visible signs- of toil become 
 degrading. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FEET. 
 
 ROBABLY no other part of the 
 human form, except the waist, has 
 suffered more abuse and distor- 
 tion, especially among civilized 
 people, than the feet. Sur- 
 ;eon-chiropodists tell 
 us of the most dis- 
 tressing diseases, 
 the result of 
 cramping and 
 pressure from 
 badly made and 
 tight-fitting shoes; 
 and students of 
 graceful carriage 
 are shocked to find 
 how few women are 
 able to poise the body 
 firmly and elegantly, 
 because of deformity of the feet brought about 
 through ignorance of the complex mechanism of 
 these useful members, and bungling efforts to im- 
 prove upon their natural shape. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 We are apt to exclaim in horror at the Chinese 
 practice of breaking and turning under the toes of 
 their high-caste women to arrest growth; but I am 
 not sure that many of our own practices do not pro- 
 duce results equally disastrous and excruciatingly 
 painful. 
 
 Corns and bunions are evidence that the shoes are 
 worn too tight, and generally ill-fitting. No amount 
 of denial will change the fact; and the first step to 
 be taken toward a cure is to have one's shoes 
 properly made by an experienced workman accord- 
 ing to the anatomy of the foot, allowing sufficient 
 length, and with soles broad enough to give the ball 
 of the foot perfect flexibility and muscular play. 
 
 The small-foot mania is an absurd one. Feet 
 should correspond to general size, and a very small 
 foot on a very large person is as far removed from 
 symmetry as a very large foot on a very small per- 
 son. 
 
 To be really beautiful, the feet must be in propor- 
 tion to the rest of the structure, with a fine instep, 
 curved heel, and individual toes. Ancient statuary 
 shows us the human foot in its purity. The modern 
 fashionable foot is a type of degradation, which 
 argues not only want of artistic appreciation, but 
 lack of practical common sense, for what man or 
 woman can lay claim to fine mental balance, who will 
 deliberately stump through life with ungraceful gait. 
 
144 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 or twisted toes, with joints pressed out of place, in- 
 growing nails, and painful corns ? 
 
 Proper treatment of the feet is a subject worthy of 
 serious consideration, and parents should begin the 
 work of caring for the feet of their children, to avoid 
 all disease and suffering, in early infancy, great at- 
 tention being given to the shape and make of shoes 
 during the period when the bones are soft and pliable. 
 Under no circumstances should a child be allowed 
 to wear heels to throw the spine out of poise, nor 
 should old shoes be worn a day after they fail to 
 admit flexibility of the muscles and freedom of the 
 joints, for upon the buoyancy and elasticity of these 
 parts health and grace depend. Far better for a 
 child to go barefooted than to wear, for a single day, 
 a pair of cramping shoes. Neither are the evil 
 effects of tight and irregularly shaped shoes confined 
 to the feet; the nervous system suffers, and the cir- 
 culation of the blood is greatly disturbed. 
 
 Shoes should be long enough and broad enough 
 to admit throwing the full weight of the body upon 
 the ball of the foot without a sensation of uncomfort- 
 able pressure anywhere. 
 
 In the care of the feet, bathing comes first. The 
 feet require a daily sponge bath, at least, with care- 
 ful wiping between the toes. The nails should al- 
 ways be left even with the ends of the toes, as a 
 protection, and the selvage around the root of the 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 nail should be cared for sufficiently to keep the skin 
 raised and free. 
 
 Where the feet have already suffered abuse, and 
 are distorted and crippled, much patient care will be 
 needed to restore them to health, if not to perfect 
 symmetry. Shoes well made, with broad soles, and 
 sufficiently large, are the first requisite, in order 
 that a natural motion of the foot may be gradually 
 established. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that the foot can- 
 not be clothed elegantly and attractively in any 
 except shoes with high heels and pointed toes. 
 Admiration of such an abnormal shape is evidence 
 of vicious taste. It is true that some of the so-called 
 hygienic shoes have been very clumsy and unattract- 
 ive affairs; but there are makers who select their 
 stock carefully, and give a finish and workmanship 
 to properly constructed boots which make them 
 really far more elegant and refined to look upon 
 than the unnatural things shown by the average 
 bootseller. To fit the foot perfectly, and be well 
 adapted to its purpose, a walking boot should give 
 just enough freedom for use of all the muscles and 
 joints in walking, but should not sit upon the foot 
 slouchily; a boot when too large will produce blis- 
 ters and affect the walk unpleasantly. The instep 
 and ankle should be firmly held, and there should 
 
 be no slipping of the foot. 
 10 
 
146 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 For house wear the only really artistic foot-cloth- 
 ing is a soft sandal. I have been able to coax boot- 
 makers (at exorbitant prices) into providing me, 
 upon different occasions, with Suede embroidered 
 slipper-sandals, without heels, with soft soles; and 
 how beautiful they were ! even my ultra-fashionable 
 friends, upon their stilt-heels, with five toes in the 
 space demanded by three, were forced to admit it, 
 and admit, also, that they envied my delicious sense 
 of freedom. 
 
 When the demand for this style of shoe will war- 
 rant it, we shall find the makers quite as ready to 
 devote skill to their production as to those which 
 are now shown in the shops. With dealers, it is a 
 question of demand, and whether there is money in 
 it. Good sense and artistic appreciation can create 
 a demand. 
 
 We look upon some of the shoes worn in past 
 ages with a certain kind of wonder and curiosity, 
 especially those with toes curling over like a hook, 
 as shown in our illustration; but, after all, there is 
 nothing about this design to indicate that it was 
 more uncomfortable for the foot of the wearer than 
 some of the shapes worn at the present time. 
 
 The study of foot-clothing in different periods of 
 the world's history, and among different people, is 
 interesting. With the Egyptians, great attention 
 was paid to the beauty of the sandals. Even at that 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 147 
 
 early date some of those worn by ladies of rank were 
 turned up at the end like our skates; others had a 
 flat point; others were rounded at the tip. These 
 sandals were made of interlaced palm-leaves and 
 papyrus-stalks, and of leather, interlined with cloth, 
 upon which figures were painted. 
 
 In Isaiah iii. 16-18, an ornament is mentioned 
 which seems to have been a kind of high heel of 
 metal, which tinkled as the wearer walked. 
 
 Little is known of the shoes of the Greeks; but 
 their statues show respect for the anatomical pro- 
 portion, which proves that the foot was preserved 
 in its purity. Pythagoras is reported to have or- 
 dered his disciples to wear sandals made of the 
 bark of trees; but history would seem to point to 
 the fact that, as the love of ornament increased, san- 
 dals became remarkable for the magnificence of their 
 embroidery and precious stones. 
 
 Homer says: 
 
 " And on his feet the golden sandal shone," 
 
 The Romans wore a shoe called calcetis, which 
 covered the whole foot. They also wore sandals. 
 The shoes of the patricians often reached to the mid- 
 dle of the leg; and, although black was used for 
 occasions of elegance, red was a favorite color, and 
 the ornaments gold, silver and precious stones. Ro- 
 man women wore white, red and purple, adorned 
 with embroidery, and even pearls. 
 
148 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 c u 1 e from 
 poets and his- 
 t o r i a n s, as 
 well as cen- 
 sure from the 
 clergy. The 
 length of 
 shoes at one 
 period is de- 
 scribed as sufficient to embar- 
 rass the wearer in walking, and 
 require that the points should 
 be fastened to the knees by 
 small chains. 
 
 Because of our generally ad- 
 vanced knowledge upon all 
 subjects pertaining to health 
 and comfort, I am sanguine 
 
 Illustrations of the shoes 
 worn at different periods are 
 interesting merely as a matter 
 of knowledge; for there does 
 not seem to have been any 
 logical evolution of the shoe, 
 great absurdities having been 
 encouraged at different times, 
 and modified at others. From 
 the time of 
 Rufus to that 
 of Henry 
 VII., shoes 
 were so ex- 
 travagant in 
 shape as to 
 excite ridi- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 149 
 
 ous effects for 
 foot - clothing 
 for elegant oc- 
 casions; and I 
 decidedly fa- 
 vor a corre- 
 spondence be- 
 tween the 
 dress and boot 
 worn for the 
 
 promenade. An especially at- 
 tractive boot is one which has 
 a vamp of serviceable leather, 
 and a cloth top matching the 
 general character of the walk- 
 ing-dress. 
 
 Should it be possible to es- 
 tablish, as I believe it will, in 
 time, a short dress for women 
 
 that the foot-clothing of the 
 next generation will be far bet- 
 ter and more healthful than 
 that of the present. There is 
 unquestioned evidence to sup- 
 port this belief at this time. As 
 more attention is given to phys- 
 ical culture, to grace of carriage 
 and artistic clothing, feet must 
 come in for 
 their propor- 
 tion of the 
 general bene- 
 fits. There is 
 no reason why 
 we should not 
 encourage rich 
 and sumptu- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 who must, of necessity, walk a great deal, and, in the 
 pursuance of active duties in the world, go out in all 
 kinds of weather, high boots to meet the skirt will 
 come in for a large share of thought and attention, 
 and I see no reason why ingenuity and skill should 
 not devise something at once hygienic and artistically 
 attractive. The mistake made with the feet, as well 
 as with other parts of the body, is in trying to adorn 
 and beautify contrary to the self-evident demands of 
 nature, instead of in strict harmony with her laws. 
 As we grow wiser we shall see our mistake, and an 
 era of good sense will follow, in which the natural 
 rights and the possible beauty of feet will surely be 
 recognized. 
 
 Where such unhappy conditions as corns and 
 bunions exist, the following recipes will be found 
 helpful: 
 
 FOR BUNIONS. 
 
 Applied daily with camel's-hair brush: 
 
 Glycerine, . . , . . .2 drachms. 
 CarboUc Acid, . , . , 2 
 Tincture of Iodine, . . . .2 " 
 
 FOR CORNS. 
 
 Applied daily, until the growth can easily be 
 scraped away: 
 
 Borate of Sodium, . . . . i drachm. 
 Extract of Cannabis, . . . . i scruple. 
 Collodion, . . . . . . i ounce. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 DRESS IN ALL AGES. 
 
 'HE whole history of dress, among 
 both civilized and savage races, 
 goes to prove that the love of or- 
 namentation is inborn in the human 
 breast, although dress in pre- 
 historic times consisted of very 
 few garments. Great labor 
 was expended by people of 
 caste in producing ma- 
 terials of the finest qual- 
 ity and richest elabora- 
 tion of gold and silver and 
 jeweled embroideries. The 
 earliest races of which we 
 have any authentic account 
 are Semitic — Assyrians, 
 Babylonians, Jews, Egyp- 
 tians, Scythians. All of 
 these early people, men and women, 
 contented themselves with two, or, 
 at most, three garments. The principal dresses men- 
 tioned in the Bible are the tunic and the mantle. 
 The former was made of linen, with sleeves, and 
 
I 5 2 PH YSICA L BE A UTY. 
 
 was bound round with a girdle at the waist. The 
 wealthy also wore skirts. The early priests, it would 
 seem from Exodus xxviii. 42 (1491 B. c), wore cov- 
 ering for the legs : And thou shalt make them 
 linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the 
 loins even to the thighs they shall reach." 
 
 Mantles, among the Hebrews, 
 were made of different materials, 
 four-cornered, and were, accord- 
 ing to the law of Moses, border- 
 ed with fringes and ribbands of 
 blue. Herodotus mentions some 
 Egyptian dresses of linen, with 
 a fringe bordering the legs. The 
 custom of using fringes upon their 
 dresses was also common to the 
 Israelites. There was little dif- 
 ference between the garments of 
 men and women, as shown by 
 the monuments of the early The- 
 ban dynasties. The long, loose 
 robe and girdle seem to have 
 been common to both. Slaves, and all who were 
 obliged to labor, were clad in an apron girt about 
 the loins. 
 
 The beauty and richness of the flowing Assyrian 
 dress was so celebrated that the invention was at- 
 tributed to Semiramis. This wonderful robe was in 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 two parts, the under part richly embroidered and 
 fringed, and confined with a girdle having cords and 
 tassels. Over this garment, a second garment was 
 worn, nearly the length of the first, open in front, and 
 also richly trimmed. It would appear that the 
 wealthy among all of the earlier 
 races wore flowing robes, many 
 of them of almost barbaric 
 splendor of coloring 
 and ornamentation. It 
 is not until we turn to 
 the northern Asiatics, those 
 hardy, war-like tribes who, at 
 various times, carried their con- 
 quering arms far to the West 
 and South, that we find partic- 
 ular mention of other styles of 
 dress. These people were dis- 
 tinguished from all others by 
 their long, loose trousers, called 
 by them bracal, and it was their 
 descendants who, under Cyrus, 
 in the course of conquest, B. C. 
 538, introduced these useful garments into classic 
 Greece. 
 
 The Greeks, however, were fond of long, flowing 
 robes, which were suited to their climate and man- 
 ner of living. At that time they were not an aggres- 
 
154 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 sive nation like their trousered neighbors, but were 
 given to pleasure and intellectual pursuits. It is 
 easy to picture the gay Athenian youths crowding 
 around the philosophers and scholars in public 
 places, clad in the short tunic and graceful folds of 
 the pallituii. 
 
 The dress of Greek women was perfect in its noble 
 simplicity. Homer gives us a charming picture of 
 the fair goddess, Saturnia: 
 
 "Around her next a .heavenly mantle flow'd, 
 That rich with Pallas labour'd colors glow'd, 
 Large clasps of gold the foldings gathered round; 
 A golden zone her swelling bosom bound; 
 Ear-beaming pendants tremble in her ear, 
 Each gem illumined with a triple star; 
 Then o'er her head she cast a veil, more white 
 Than new-fall'n snow, and dazzling as the light." 
 
 There were two quite distinct styles of dress 
 among women. The first, worn by the unmarried 
 women of Sparta, was known as the Dorian chiton, 
 and was noted for its simplicity; it was, in fact, so very 
 simple, being only a single light garment fastened 
 with clasps down the side, that it did not escape the 
 criticism of the carping, even in those early days 
 when the human form was idealized, and looked 
 upon with a much purer spirit, in consequence, than 
 with succeeding ages. Over this garment was worn 
 the Doric stola,\N\\\Q\i was fastened on the shoulders 
 with clasps, leaving the arms bare. The lonians 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 wore a long linen cJiiton, with sleeves. This garment 
 reached to the ground, and over it was worn a flow- 
 ing robe or kind of wrapper, confined with a girdle, 
 which was sometimes fastened high up under the 
 bosom, sometimes low down, according to the fash- 
 ion of the hour. 
 
 Embroidery appears to have attained to the great- 
 est degree of art and 
 beauty. In the Iliad and 
 Odyssey it is often men- 
 tioned. Ladies, with their 
 own cunning fingers, 
 worked pictures and sto- 
 ries into the willing fabric. 
 Thus, Helen, we are told, 
 
 "The golden web her own sad 
 story crown'd." 
 
 The Romans also wore 
 loose and graceful gar- 
 ments, all borrowed in 
 general style from the 
 Greeks, but bearing dif- 
 ferent names. The stately patrician, as he wended 
 his way to the senate, wrapped his toga closer, or 
 drew one end of it over his head for protection from 
 the weather, while the fair Roman matron, clad in 
 costly stola, loosely bound with a jeweled girdle, 
 
156 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 presided in her lord's house with grace and dignity, 
 to which her flowing, classic garments contributed 
 very largely. 
 
 The world has never seen any costume for women 
 more artistically beautiful than were some of the 
 early Greek and Roman robes. The best proof that 
 this is true is afforded by the artistic appreciation 
 bestowed, after twenty centuries of change and 
 evolution, upon one of these ancient classic styles, 
 when well carried out upon the stage, and the ab- 
 horrence, by contrast, of a modern fashion-plate 
 when as many years have passed. 
 
 With the decadence of Rome's superior civil pow- 
 ers, there began a change in dress which recognized 
 the practical advantages for war and work afforded 
 by the trousers of the active, barbarian races, while 
 the latter in their turn, attracted, no doubt, by the 
 beauty of the classic dress, adopted it in part. From 
 the fifth century there was, therefore, an incongruous 
 blending of the Roman classic style with the pre- 
 eminently utilitarian. Planche writes of dress dur- 
 ing the first centuries of the Christian era: "We 
 must resort to those mosaics of Italy which have 
 been preserved for us, for a view of those dresses 
 and ornaments which, worn at the court of Con- 
 stantinople, became the fashion amongst all the 
 various races that had overrun the west of Europe 
 during the first five centuries of the Christian era: 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the Greeks, the Goths, the Franks, and the Lom- 
 bards. In the Reviie ArcJieologique^ 1830, are cop- 
 ies of two mosaics from the originals at St. Vital, 
 Ravenna, one representing the Emperor Justinian, 
 his court, and the clergy of Ravenna, and the other 
 his wife, the Empress Theodora, and her attendants, 
 said to have been the work of artists about the year 
 540. A singular mixture of Greek, Roman and 
 Asiatic decoration gives a peculiar character to the 
 costumes of all classes at this period of the Eastern 
 empire, and it will be also remarked that while an 
 oriental taste was gradually increasing to the oblit- 
 eration of all tke features of ancient Roman classical 
 dress amongst the people in, and adjacent to, Constan- 
 tinople, the Franks and other Scythic or Teutonic 
 nations occupying the old provinces of Rome, were 
 assuming more and more the dress and habits of the 
 former empire of the West." The same authority 
 also says that **the garments of the principal inhab- 
 itants of Europe were, during the three centuries 
 following the establishment of Saxons in England 
 and Franks in Gaul, as similar as are at this day 
 those of their descendants," which, until the Nor- 
 man Conquest, were quite simple, varying but little 
 from time to time. The Normans, however, who 
 were noted for their love of fine apparel, introduced 
 many absurdities into dress. In the twelfth century 
 sleeves and gowns were carried to a preposterous 
 
158 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 length; garments were made closer, and tight-lacing 
 came into vogue. 
 
 Although Terence, a dramatist of the sixth cen- 
 tury, B.C., mentions "ladies who strait-lace their 
 waists to make them well-shaped," there is little in- 
 formation regarding stays during succeeding ages 
 until about the twelfth century; and certain it is 
 that neither among the Greeks nor Romans was 
 there any attempt at unnatural compression of the 
 waist, although some early writers give accounts of 
 a garment which may have performed the office of 
 a partial support for the bosom with the women of 
 both of these nations. 
 
 Writers of mediaeval times niake many allusions 
 to the wasp-like appearance of the ladies. Chaucer 
 tells of a beauty — 
 
 " Sore pleasant and neat with all 
 Gentle and in her middle small." 
 
 A "pair of bodies" is mentioned in the fifteenth 
 century, and in the sixteenth, Catherine de Medicis, 
 amone her other crimes, invented a corset which 
 consisted of two pieces opened longitudinally by 
 hinges, secured by a hasp and pin, and like an ordi- 
 nary box-fastening. During her rule at the French 
 court, a thirteen-inch waist measure was the ac- 
 cepted standard of beauty. 
 
 But men as well as women patronized this cruel 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 and barbarous instrument of compression at this 
 period, so wide-spread was the desire to be wand- 
 Hke, and even as late as the time of George III. 
 tailors advertised Codrington Corsets and Peter- 
 sham stiffness for the benefit of gentlemen of fashion." 
 Fifteenth-century gallants must have been most mis- 
 erable in their clothing, for 
 the tunic was then worn 
 close and short, and the 
 long, loose trousers of the 
 earlier races had given place 
 to tight hose; so tight, in- 
 deed, that one writer de- 
 clares that gentlemen were 
 obliged to have assistance 
 in dressing and undressing 
 themselves. I am willing to 
 confess that at this distance 
 of time, and in view of some 
 absurdities that still obtain 
 among women, it is pleasant 
 to review the fact that men 
 of past ages were not always above indulging in the 
 uncomfortable, and even grotesque, for mere fash- 
 ion's sake; if, indeed, the sex may be said to be 
 entirely above reproach in this respect to-day. 
 
 About the same time that men tricked themselves 
 out in this uncomfortable manner, women began to 
 
i6o 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 wear that most impossible head- 
 dress, handed down in history as 
 a hennin. Monstrelet describes 
 them as a ''sort of round cap, 
 gradually diminishing to the 
 height of half an ell or three- 
 quarters," and relates "that some 
 wore them with loose kerchief- 
 straps hanging down, sometimes 
 as low as the ground." Addison, 
 in the Spectator, tells of the monk, 
 Thomas Connecte, who traveled 
 from town to town, preaching 
 down this monstrosity with such 
 success that 
 
 many of the 
 women threw 
 down their 
 head-dresses in the middle of 
 his sermon, and made a bonfire 
 of them in sight of the pulpit. 
 Previous to the introduction of 
 th.Q hennin Isabella of Bavaria, 
 Queen of Charles VI. of France, 
 is represented (in an MS. of the 
 fifteenth century) with a heart- 
 shaped head-dress high enough 
 to give one a belief in the story 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 i6i 
 
 that she carried the fashion to such an extent that 
 the doors of the palace at Vincennes were altered 
 to allow her, and the ladies attending her, ingress 
 and egress in full dress. 
 
 In the same century (1403) Henry IV. considered 
 it necessary to have a statute enacted to partially 
 prohibit the reckless luxury of the times in dress. 
 Garments were then cut and slashed on the edges, 
 embroidered with pearls, and ornamented with gold 
 pieces; in fact, every imaginable extravagance was 
 indulged for the sake of show. The statute provided 
 that no person except those of high estate should 
 wear any cloth of gold, of crimson, of velvet, nor 
 hanging sleeves, open or closed, nor his gown so 
 long as to touch the ground. That the wife of an 
 esquire, if she be not ennobled, shall not use any 
 furs of ermine. Four years afterward another statute 
 was added, by which it was ordained that no man, 
 let his condition be what it might, should be per- 
 mitted to wear a gown or garment cut or slashed 
 into pieces in the form of letters, rose-leaves, or 
 posies of any kind. It is recorded that the sleeves 
 of the houppelande oi Charles, Duke of Orleans, were 
 embroidered in gold and pearls in the words of a 
 song. The lines of the music were worked in gold 
 thread, and each note was formed with four pearls. 
 
 The sleeves of the garments of both men and 
 
 women were generally, in the sixteenth century, 
 II 
 
l62 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 separate articles, taken from or added to the body 
 of the dress by means of buttons. There are entries 
 of sleeves in the wardrobe of Henry VIII., which 
 read, "a pair of trunche sleeves of green velvet, 
 richly embroidered with flowers of damaske gold 
 
 foil." Another account in 
 manuscript is of "three pair 
 of purple satin sleeves for 
 women; one pair of linen 
 sleeves, paned with gold 
 over the arm, quilted with 
 black silk, and wrought 
 with flowers between the 
 panes and at the hands." 
 
 At the close of the fif- 
 teenth century, a writer 
 observes the dress of the 
 English to have been ex- 
 ceedingly fanciful and ah^- 
 surd, so much so that it 
 was difficult to distinguish 
 one sex from the other. In 
 the time of good Queen Bess came the enormous 
 ruffs, so exciting the wrath of Stubbs that he wrote 
 in 1583: "There is a certain liquid matter, which 
 they call starch, wherein the devil hath learned 
 them to wash and dye their ruffs, which, being dry, 
 will then stand stiff and inflexible about their necks." 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 1 63 
 
 Both censure and ridicule were called forth by the 
 vertugale or vertngade^ which is described in the 
 reign of Henry II. of France as a sort of cage worn 
 under the petticoat, to which, at that period, it gave 
 the shape of a bell. This monstrous invention in- 
 creased in rotundity for women (at the same time 
 came in the trunk- hose for men), until, in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, it be- 
 came of the most 
 preposterous 
 shape, and made 
 one look as if 
 standing in a 
 drum, as Sir Rog- 
 er de Coverly de- 
 scribed a portrait 
 of his great-great- 
 grandmother . 
 
 vertugale, or, 
 as it was popularly 
 known in Eng- 
 land, farthingale, Queen Elizabeth wore in having 
 one of her most celebrated portraits made; and the 
 disfiguring fashion continued through the entire 
 reign of her successor, James I. During the reign 
 of Charles II. it disappeared, and did not return 
 until the eighteenth century, when it came back in 
 the form of the hoop. 
 
164 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 In 171 1 the spectator declares the dress of wom- 
 en to have been so covered with lace frills and 
 flouncings that the wife of a high dignitary looked 
 furbelowed from head to foot; every ribbon was 
 
 wrinkled, and every part of her garments in curl, so 
 that she looked like one of those animals which in 
 the country are called Friesland hens. 
 
 During our own century fashion has witnessed 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 some wonderful and almost incredible exaggerations 
 and contradictions of the human semblance in the 
 voluminous skirts and flouncings of our grandmoth- 
 ers, and the enormous hoop-skirts of our mothers, 
 
 whose pictures, taken in these barrel-like co.ntriv- 
 ances, topped with the corner-wise folded shawl and 
 cape-bonnets then in vogue, look very much like 
 animated pyramids. Even in our own day the Gre- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 167 
 
 cian bend (why Grecian ? since one would think that 
 a Grecian woman would surely rise out of the dust 
 of centuries to rebel against the abuse of the word), 
 like the hump of the kangaroo, and the tie-back, and 
 the rigidly corseted waist, and the bustle, and all of 
 the other wretched novelties of fashion, leave a sus- 
 picion upon the thinking mind that we have some- 
 thing yet to learn before we may presume to sit in 
 judgment upon the taste and customs in dress of 
 those who have lived in other centuries of the world's 
 history. 
 
 In closing this chapter, however, with the pleas- 
 ant anticipation of giving a glimpse of something 
 really better in the way of dress in my next, I will 
 add that I do not believe that many of these latest 
 exaggerations of fashion could possibly be revived 
 again, now or hereafter; for, with the wider interests 
 which women are making for themselves in the live 
 world, there comes a corresponding grasp of things 
 real and beautiful in their essential nature, which 
 must lead to the triumph of higher 'physical ideals, 
 as well as of moral and mental interests. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DRESS AS IT SHOULD BE FOR HEALTH 
 AND ARTISTIC EFFECT. 
 
 T has been shown, by a cursory glance at 
 dress in different ages of the world's his- 
 tory, that simplicity and art in 
 personal adornment have be- 
 longed to those periods when 
 correct anatomical propor- 
 tions have been idealized and 
 exalted. With indifference to 
 physical development comes a 
 corresponding disregard for 
 the laws of healthful and ar- 
 tistic clothing; and, artificial- 
 ity taking the place of art, one 
 exaggeration follows another 
 until all appreciation for nat- 
 uralness and beauty in unity 
 and proportion is lost. 
 Pleasure in contemplation 
 of the ideally beautiful is 
 merged into a feverish thirst 
 for novelty, and the work of 
 the gownmaker and milliner de- 
 
 i68 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 169 
 
 generates into a servile effort to furnish new sensa- 
 tions to degraded and satiated taste. 
 
 For centuries the world of fashion has been ruled 
 by unsesthetic and ignorant despots who, knowing 
 nothing of the laws of proportion and symmetry 
 themselves, have, by ridicule and the strength of 
 numbers, overridden the objections of those who 
 ventured to suggest the possibility of something 
 better, and manifestly more in harmony with the 
 laws of nature and art as exemplified in the greatest 
 works of the great masters of antiquity. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of establishing correct 
 ideals of dress have hitherto, in our own generation, 
 been traceable to several causes, the most important 
 being a lack of physically perfect models who could 
 demonstrate the artistic superiority of a free and 
 simple system of clothing, by contrast with accepted 
 fashions, to the advantage of the former; because, in 
 combating ignorance and prejudice, and especially 
 preconceived and strongly established habits and 
 customs, it is necessary to appeal to the eye as well 
 as to common sense. 
 
 Wide-spread indifference to physical culture, and 
 the general employment of artificial aids to deficient 
 natural charms had resulted in establishing a cor- 
 responding deterioration in the development of cer- 
 tain parts of the bodily structure; and, in conse- 
 quence, many muscles and nerve-centres refused to 
 
170 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 perform the service essential to contest for the palm 
 of superiority between nature and artifice. Nature 
 wore her improved garments; but " She wore them 
 not handsomely," because of her own physical de- 
 ficiencies. Artifice, however, from long experience 
 and the aplomb which comes from association with 
 an approving world, smiled serenely, and challenged 
 comparison with herself, which inevitably resulted 
 in her own favor, and Nature, outwitted by the Philis- 
 tines, retired vanquished, but not convinced, to 
 search within herself for the cause of her own dis- 
 comfiture. 
 
 From such unequal contests, and their logical ap- 
 plication, there sprang up gradually a sentiment in 
 favor of the revival of physical culture, and with the 
 scientific developmiCnt of finer natural figures among 
 the few, and their adoption of clothing fashioned 
 after a healthful and artistic character, it was prov- 
 en that nature and art may be made to combine to 
 produce results which appeal to the most prejudiced 
 as superior to mere novelty. 
 
 Physical culture has come to stay; so has an im- 
 proved form of dress, although it must not be sup- 
 posed that I believe that all women of the present 
 generation have the figures calculated to show off 
 this better style of dress to advantage. It is the 
 younger generation, and others to come after them, 
 who will benefit most by the present impetus to 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 171 
 
 vital development and sensible dress. Efforts at 
 innovations upon deforming fashions are meeting 
 with success, because each passing year adds its 
 own quota of proof that the natural beauty and ad- 
 vantages of physique gained by exercise and health- 
 ful dress render women attractive and strictly 
 womanly to a degree impossible under false and un- 
 natural restraints. 
 
 The work of improving woman's dress has nothing 
 whatever to do with " dress reform," popularly so- 
 called. Improvements are not revolutionary: they 
 are evolutionary. In my own platform work, which 
 has been so widely noticed in the newspapers, and, 
 I may add, so generously and kindly noticed, I have 
 always deprecated the well-meant efforts of some 
 writers and reporters to give a sensationally at- 
 tractive turn by declaring that women were rushing 
 headlong into the new idea, I have, it is true, the 
 desire to prove that the simple, refined, modified un- 
 dergarments which comprise the system advocated 
 by me are an improvement over other garments 
 hitherto worn by women. 
 
 But there has been nothing sensational in the 
 purpose, as the work is one of profound importance 
 to the betterment of woman's physical condition, 
 and not in the nature of a fad. That these garments 
 shall win popular favor against all preconceived 
 prejudice is inevitable, because they aim at the first 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 essentials of correct clothing — freedom for the body, 
 ease of movement, perfect fit without superfluous 
 material, restrictions, weight, bands or clumsiness; 
 in other words the simple, sufficient clothing of the 
 natural structure, in harmony with its own demands 
 and physical laws. Only the women who cling to 
 a tradition will object to the perfect-fitting Ypsilanti 
 Union garment's taking the place of the old style of 
 merino vests and drawers, for there is no comparison 
 between the two in point of artistic excellence and 
 attractiveness. The former fits the figure, as it is 
 shaped from the neck to wrists and ankles. One 
 bright woman, in her grateful appreciation, calls it 
 
 my second skin," and all who have made the 
 change wonder that anyone can still be found to 
 wear the two clumsy garments, with their super- 
 fluous fullness which serves no useful purpose. 
 
 The corset was more difficult of attack for two 
 very good reasons: First, because it had been a 
 part of woman's wardrobe for such a length of time 
 that it had come to be looked upon as an absolute 
 necessity to an erect carriage and proper support 
 for the figure; and second, because (whatever the 
 abuse of its principles from time to time) it undoubt- 
 edly at first had rise in an essential law of beauty, 
 the desire for a full chest and rounded bust, and a 
 slender curved and graceful line of the body and 
 waist. Necessarily the garment failed of its own 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 purpose, and, where deliberately laced, developed 
 the inartistic disadvantage of squared shoulders, 
 prominent collar bones, and exaggerated hips; but 
 the object sought was a natural and beautiful one; 
 the mistake, in supposing that the artificial compres- 
 sion and dislocation of any part would produce a re- 
 sult preeminently dependent upon a very high form of 
 artistic physical development and muscular control. 
 
 Physical exercises which raise the chest properly, 
 and lower the shoudlers, will keep the clavicle in 
 proper position, and give an exquisite line of throat 
 and neck; exercises which develop the glands of 
 the bosom, and strengthen the diaphragm and mus- 
 cles over the vital organs, will elongate the body, 
 and give the correct slenderness to the waist at 
 which the corset aims, and in which it necessarily 
 fails, because the constant pressure of steels and 
 much stiffness shrinks and debilitates the muscles, 
 rendering the flesh flabby, and exaggerating the 
 bony structure in consequence. 
 
 There is no objection to a corset-waist when worn 
 loosely enough to avoid all compression and serve 
 as a bosom support merely, and I am willing, in view 
 of the present fashion of wearing the smoothly fitting 
 corsage for street costumes, to admit that such a style 
 of garment looks really better over the slenderly 
 boned Model Bodice or Equipoise Waist than when 
 worn without; but these garments are free from the 
 
174 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 obnoxious steels and stiffness which render the cor- 
 set such a dangerous foe to health and graceful car- 
 riage. Although the corset may be worn ever so 
 loosely, and one may (which is rarely the case) be 
 able to stand perfectly erect with the shoulders slop- 
 ing, the chest raised, the body fully extended, with 
 the abdomen well drawn in, and a curved line at the 
 back, the moment the wearer sits the corset steel 
 inclines inward to accommodate itself to the position, 
 and pressure begins upon the stomach and diaphragm 
 which, in time, shortens the front length of the body 
 from the neck, drawing it downward perceptibly and 
 ungracefully, crowding the bosom up and the abdo- 
 men forward and vulgarly out of place. 
 
 The woman who loves a frou-frou of unmeaning 
 and burdensome stuffs hanging about her body may 
 reg-ret the chemises and drawers, corset covers and 
 
 o 
 
 petticoats; but the sensible woman, who loves free- 
 dom for out-of-door exercise and a sensation of 
 bodily power, will gladly exchange these four gar- 
 ments for the two perfect-fitting, light-weight, beau- 
 tiful, and graceful garments which take their place 
 —the chemilette and divided skirt ; the former a 
 fitted waist combined with legs; the latter, two softly 
 flowing skirts upon one yoke. 
 
 The divided skirt is superior to the ordinary pet- 
 ticoat from every point of view, and although I favor 
 a close-fitting, woven garment for winter wear under 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. ^ 1 75 
 
 the outside dress, there are many occasions which 
 demand the full skirt. The divided garment cannot 
 wind about the legs in windy weather, it falls in soft 
 folds around each member so that much less weight 
 suffices for an equal amount of warmth; it is carried 
 forward at each step in walking, and does not hang 
 out behind to get bedraggled and soiled, and the 
 division does away with the muscular resistance from 
 a multiplication of petticoats falling directly in front 
 of the instep and knees — above all, the garment is 
 far more modest than a petticoat, under which the 
 legs move without sufficient clothing to form a prop- 
 er protection in case of accident. 
 
 Regarding the outside dress, when the question of 
 getting rid of bands and weight has been solved by 
 the gown-form foundation, which is a simple arrange- 
 ment of waist and skirt in one piece, for the purpose 
 of equally distributing the necessary weight of the 
 drapery to the hips and shoulders, the whole prob- 
 lem is resolved into an inquiry as to how to make 
 the ornamental side of dress a matter of sensible har- 
 monies, rather than of novelty and ingeniousness. 
 Woman's dress can never be quite perfect until it be- 
 comes an external indication of its own general pur- 
 pose; in other words, the aesthetic quality must be 
 considered in connection with its uses, so that every 
 condition of life may enjoy its legitimate and per- 
 fectly convenient style of clothing. 
 
176 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 In the matter of congruity, dress has improved 
 during the last ten years, and much that formerly 
 offended good taste is no longer seen upon the pub- 
 lic streets. Correct dress must accord with the three 
 forces of nature — size, motion, and attraction. To 
 those who think about it, there is a fitness and senti- 
 ment in dress which requires that care be taken in the 
 adaptation of means to ends; and while we may rea- 
 sonably demand variety, contrast, and alternation in 
 woman's dress, we must hold the triumph of ease and 
 grace as superior to all other considerations. 
 
 Art in dress requires that the materials be chosen 
 with no less regard for the physical characteristics 
 of the wearer than for the occasions uppn which they 
 are to be worn. Dress having an optical value in 
 the sensation of suitableness conveyed, whatever is 
 unnatural in shape or design offends against refined 
 and cultivated sensibility. The present idea in 
 clothing is as much to conceal^, as to protect from the 
 elements; and although simple and primitive nudity 
 is nowhere considered suggestive or indecent, yet, in 
 countries where civilization has invented and pro- 
 claimed the laws of modesty according to certain 
 arbitrary standards of its own, whatever deviates 
 from these standards becomes at once offensive; 
 hence, the dignity of modern dress depends upon sug- 
 gesting rather than defining the perfect shape; and 
 so long as this custom of concealment stands for 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 moral law refinement demands consistency, and it 
 cannot be denied that clothing should be made after 
 a manner which would enhance without exaggerat- 
 ing any suggestive part of the form, especially the 
 bosom, abdomen, and hips. 
 
 Strict regard for the laws of dress and ornament 
 would lead one to avoid striking contrasts, for the 
 effects produced by consonance and subtlety are 
 much more pleasing and powerful than are exagger- 
 ations, which at first shock and afterward blunt 
 aesthetic appreciation. To those who regard dress 
 as a trivial and unimportant question, little can be 
 said which will prove convincing concerning aesthetic 
 principles, for sensibility must be cultivated; but, 
 fortunately for the future of correct dress, these per- 
 sons are in a minority, and the triumph of utility and 
 beauty must follow naturally upon the heels of grow- 
 ing refinement and artistic culture, for there is a 
 charm in the careful attention to distinct principles in 
 dress, which is no less fascinating than the touch of 
 the master's brush on a fine painting. Dress is all- 
 important, because it portrays elevation of character 
 as unmistakably as does the behavior or conversa- 
 tion, and for this reason those who are really inter- 
 ested in the science and art of dressing believe in 
 the ultimate triumph of what is correct and sym- 
 metrical. 
 
 In the future more attention will be paid to dress, 
 12 
 
178 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 to clothing the body so that the integrity of natural 
 functions shall be considered in connection with 
 picturesque and pleasing effects; but whatever the 
 ends to be obtained, whether simple or elaborate, 
 means consistent with natural and individual condi- 
 tions will be employed. It is a duty which each one 
 owes to society, to dress well, and by dressing well, 
 I mean in keeping with one's station. I do not re- 
 gard my cook as well dressed when she wears a 
 satin dress, at seventy-five cents a yard, trimmed with 
 cotton lace, to church and for holidays, and, since 
 she cannot afford to buy a better quality, I do not 
 consider that satin belongs to her position. She is 
 well dressed when she wears a serviceable cotton 
 or Avoolen fabric only. The same discriminations 
 should be applied to every station in life, for in 
 this way we reach definite conclusions regarding 
 what is and what is not, strictly speaking, "well 
 dressed." 
 
 No well-regulated man or woman can be imper- 
 vious to the advantages and delights of fine costum- 
 ing. A really well-dressed person is a recognized 
 power. In proof, one does not apologize so obse- 
 quiously to the tramp out-at-the-elbows, whom one 
 has jostled in a crowd, as to the elegantly attired, 
 whose faultlessly made garments bespeak care and 
 attention to details, because one associates fine de- 
 tail with fine manners, and when one finds the 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 179 
 
 former not accompanied with good breeding the 
 shock is greater than in the case of the tramp. 
 
 Again, slovenly, careless dress is offensive, be- 
 cause not consistent with perceptible unities in 
 nature. The human body is, in itself, a type of order 
 demanding orderly attention; and one will often 
 find that the person who professes total indifference 
 to dress is lacking in appreciation of the subtler 
 features of natural beauty. They will admit sub- 
 limity and grandeur on a large scale, but take little 
 or no pleasure out of the intricate geometrical regu- 
 larity of the marvelous works of nature's lower 
 kingdoms. 
 
 Lack of artistic appreciation of dress is by no 
 means evidence of mental superiority, but rather a 
 lamentable argument that certain faculties have 
 been stimulated and developed at the expense of 
 others, for a thoroughly well-rounded person finds 
 delight in all beauty, and can no more tolerate dis- 
 cordance and disorder in clothes than in the ar- 
 rangement of the score of an opera, or the finished 
 work of an artist. 
 
 I believe that the dress education of the future 
 will produce a reaction from much that has been of- 
 fensive and crude in the past. True appreciation of 
 clothes will develop a sense of eternal fitness. When 
 this time comes, women who now offend good taste 
 by a display of cheap silks, satins, and jewelry, be- 
 
i8o 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 cause they may be called by important names, will 
 recognize the real articles as the natural accompani- 
 ments of wealth and station, not suited to ordinary 
 street wear, and, consequently, out of place in the 
 woman's wardrobe whose social duties and pleasures 
 are limited to church festivals and an occasional 
 round of calls upon neighbors in a corresponding 
 station in life. Imitations of fine articles will become 
 objectionable to the thoughtful, just as sham virtues 
 now disgust the student of moral science. The 
 woman in moderate circumstances will learn to ap- 
 preciate fine wools, the best of their kind; to value 
 their wearing qualities and simple unpretence, and to 
 content herself with such goods in fine texture and 
 rich coloring, because of their artistic value in lights 
 and shades hidden in their soft folds. Carefully 
 adapting such materials to her own peculiarities in 
 style and fit, she will be recognized for a lady (in the 
 dignified sense of the term), because the instincts of 
 refined taste are the unmistakable evidences of men- 
 tal and moral superiority. 
 
 Many inexpensive materials are, when well chosen, 
 most refreshing to the eyes. India muslin is an ex- 
 quisite fabric, which lends itself to charming effects; 
 wool and silk mixtures often please aesthetic sensi- 
 bilities, as the simple domestic fireside delights the 
 heart. Cashmeres, serges, and crepes all drape 
 well and are beautiful in color effects. Indeed, 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 l8l 
 
 woman's natural desire to dress herself becomingly 
 can be realized, whatever her social station or the 
 limits of her pocket-book, if she considers her own 
 face, figure, temperament, and general style and use, 
 and determines to conform to all of these essentials 
 in selecting materials. 
 
 A housemaid in a cotton velvet basque (which I 
 have seen), with her hair in curl-papers and rock 
 
 diamonds " in her ears, is a sight to set one's teeth 
 on edge; while a maid in a clean, freshly ironed 
 gown of confessed cotton fabric, with a snowy apron 
 and muslin cap, commands a certain measure of re- 
 spect for intelligent adaptation of clothes to their 
 proper uses; one offends, while the other pleases, the 
 eye. 
 
 I heard a lady say of a former servant who had 
 suddenly fallen heir to wealth: " She will make as 
 good a lady as she did maid, for she had the finest 
 sense of propriety that I ever knew; she never covet- 
 ed my cast-off finery, and did not want what she 
 could not wear with propriety." And why, after all, 
 should one who has no use for grand stuffs want them 
 And why should any woman of sense object to wear- 
 ing a gown suitable to her work or a given occasion } 
 My blood was set boiling once by overhearing a 
 coarse man ask of another, doubtfully, in a store, con- 
 cerning a girl behind the counter, ''Respectable, eh.^^" 
 But upon sober second thought, I saw that the young 
 
l82 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 woman had invited the query, for she was dressed 
 in a way to suggest that her salary as saleswoman 
 would not pay for her clothing". 
 
 Not long since, I was walking up and down the 
 platform at a railroad station, when a very large and 
 red-faced woman, whose gloveless hands, covered 
 with rings full of showy stones, bespoke rough work, 
 swept along in the gorgeousness of silks, velvets, 
 laces and glittering chains, all miserable imitations; 
 and every eye followed the self-conscious strut with 
 more or less of amusement. Poor, untrained crea- 
 ture ! a miserable caricature of elegance and fash- 
 ion, yet her garb represented at least three months' 
 wages. The same woman, properly clothed, would 
 have passed unnoticed: or, if noticed at all, without 
 provoking merriment, and the result to her pocket 
 would have been a saving of many dollars for the 
 rainy day. 
 
 The best-dressed class of Americans are the re- 
 fined wealthy. They dress quietly upon the streets, 
 inconspicuously at church, and suitably for all occa- 
 sions. Especially is this true in the East, where 
 custom demands quieter dress than in many West- 
 ern cities and towns. But everywhere, throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land, it is wealth 
 which gives prestige to the plain and refined wool 
 walking-dress; for no woman of elegance would be 
 seen upon the ordinary thoroughfare dressed in the 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 183 
 
 flamboyant style which invites the patronage of many 
 Vv'ho have Httle money to spend, and a seeming de- 
 termination, for that reason, to get all of the show 
 possible out of a little. 
 
 While the subject of dressing well is worthy the 
 genius of the best artists and writers, the reason why 
 it is everyone's duty to dress well can be given in a 
 few words — because a well-dressed person is a pleas- 
 ing object to look upon, suggesting refinement of 
 personal feelings; and true refinement is confined to 
 neither the palace nor cottage. A well - dressed 
 person is not a discordant element anywhere, be- 
 cause such a one is always dressed in garments suit- 
 able to the work and requirements of the hour. Neat- 
 ness and order in dress are first principles, and the 
 result is good, whether the materials used be silk 
 or calico. 
 
 Since dressing well stands for duty, nothing ex- 
 cuses a self-respecting person in any walk in life for 
 offending by careless and slovenly attire; and the 
 employer who allows his help to offend, or the mis- 
 tress who permits her servant to go about in soiled 
 garments, with unkempt hair, is guilty of offense 
 against others' rights and privileges; for their pre- 
 rogatives as employers give the undoubted right to 
 exact clean and orderly habits of dress. « 
 
 Of the man or woman of social pretensions who 
 boasts indifference to dress, and carries his or her 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 contempt to the point of ignoring the demands of 
 refined life in careful attention to neatness and or- 
 der, if not to elegance, it must be said that a host 
 or hostess should refuse to invite them a second time 
 into the sacred inner circle of a self-respecting 
 home. 
 
 Dress, having taken an impetus in the right direc- 
 tion, must modify more and more to meet individual 
 requirements and the demands of different occa- 
 sions. It is certain that practical gowns embodying 
 simplicity and attractiveness must be evolved by the 
 genius of coming years to meet the requirements of 
 active interests in the world. Already women are 
 adopting yachting-costumes, fencing-gowns and rid- 
 ing-dresses, made with a view to their uses, and one 
 need not be over-sanguine to predict that these sensi- 
 ble modifications will, in time, extend to all dress, un- 
 til, as it was in man's case when civil, industrial and 
 military pursuits became engrossing occupations, em- 
 barrassing covering will give place to that better 
 adapted to the exigencies of each one's calling. Al- 
 ready the dem.and for such change has been sounded 
 in no unmistakable tones from the platform of the 
 convention of women met in national council. Their 
 demand was for something adapted to the needs of 
 working women. They did not seek to interfere with 
 anybody's personal love of the picturesque and or- 
 namental, nor did they ask for the recognition of a 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 uniform to which everybody must subscribe; but 
 soberly, and in the spirit of women who are con- 
 vinced of a great and growing need, these earnest 
 spirits invited general thought, discussion, plans and 
 suggestions, looking to the easy adoption of a sen- 
 sible dress for women who must conserve bodily 
 strength for their necessary activities. 
 
 This demand seems to me to be evolutionary and 
 progressive; and, coming from such a source, the 
 very fountainhead of amalgamated public interests 
 among women, it cannot be lightly passed over and 
 ignored; it has a meaning which must command re- 
 spectful attention. 
 
 For occasions requiring picturesque effects some- 
 thing quite different in general design and drapery 
 from the fashions patronized by the constantly act- 
 ive will certainly come into favor to remain. I in- 
 cline to the belief that it will be something nearer 
 and nearer to the ancient classical ideals; the love 
 of novelty and display seeking expression in rich 
 materials and elaborate embroideries, rather than in 
 ever - changing style and cut. Through all dress, 
 however, there must be a more general adaptation 
 to the special needs of the individual. For example, 
 what is suitable to a person of slender, graceful pro- 
 portions is almost certain to be fatal to the attract- 
 iveness of a very stout woman, and vice versa; and 
 why should not one spend the time to know herself 
 
i86 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 artistically, and, having decided whether she requires 
 amplitude of width in her gowns, or the opposite 
 effect, adopt a general system of clothing conform- 
 ing to her own requirements ? 
 
 I know a woman who did this many years ago, 
 and she is regarded as decidedly the best-dressed 
 woman in her own city. For years she has kept to 
 certain fixed laws in dress, no matter what the 
 changes in general fashions, and, by common con- 
 sent, her ultra friends, who alter their own gowns to 
 correspond to every passing caprice of fashion, de- 
 clare hers a picture. " But we could not do it," they 
 add, deprecatingly, " without looking like frights; 
 her face and hair and form all combine to make it 
 possible." To be sure, that is the secret in a nut- 
 shell; the style for her gown was carefully thought 
 out with reference to her face and hair and form. 
 Each separate member was considered by itself, 
 then all were considered together, and one effect 
 after another was carefully tried until the result sat- 
 isfied critical judgment; then there was no further 
 change. Yet her dress is never monotgnous, al- 
 though she wears only three different colors— grays, 
 browns and blacks. 
 
 In one day I saw her in four different costumes 
 for four different occasion, each perfect in itself, and 
 each conforming to her own well-considered require- 
 ments. The first was a very delicate dove-gray 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 187 
 
 cashmere morning-robe, which carried out the es- 
 sential principles of great plainness and length of 
 line from the arm to the ankle over the hip, with much 
 soft drapery in the front to disguise a rather promi- 
 nent development of the bosom. The back was form- 
 ed into a gathered Watteau from the neck, still with 
 the object to suggest greater height and slenderness. 
 
 The second was a carriage and calling dress of a 
 plain soft black and striped velvety material in com- 
 bination. There was a similar but more elaborate 
 effect of front drapery than in the morning, to tone 
 down the bosom; and there was at the side, back, 
 centre-back, and under the arms a fitted arrange- 
 ment of the striped material falling perfectly plain 
 the entire length of the body, to give the necessary 
 suggestion of height. A pleating was let into the 
 back of the shoulders, and fell in long, fan-shaped 
 drapery over the striped material to the bottom of 
 the dress. 
 
 The third was a tea-gown of embroidered crepe- 
 de-Chine, a black-wrought leaf on a gray ground. 
 This was simply a mass of s^oft folds back and front, 
 falling straight from the neck to the floor, and loose- 
 ly confined with a silver girdle high up under the 
 bosom, after th© manner of the Empire period. Again 
 was achieved the required effect of length at the 
 back and under the arms, with the soft draping over 
 the bosom. 
 
i88 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 The fourth dress was an elaborate evening dress 
 of cloth-of-silver, and silver and pearl passementerie, 
 with an exquisitely soft silk tissue in the most deli- 
 cate pearl-gray tint. The body of the dress and 
 train, fitted after the princesse style in long lines, 
 was of the cloth-of-silver, in one length from the 
 neck. The passementerie, in elaborate pattern, 
 pointed toward the centre of the waist, extended 
 from over the shoulders to the bottom of the dress 
 back and front. The silk tissue, laid in clusters of the 
 tiniest imaginable pleats, pressed and then falling 
 loosely, rippled like a silvery sheen over the bosom, 
 and formed a shimmering petticoat under the long, 
 straight, princesse sides. In every dress the same 
 essential principles which, experience had taught, en- 
 hanced her good points and softened her defects of 
 figure, were faithfully observed. Clothed after this 
 manner, she was exquisite — a picture, indeed. In 
 the hands of a dressmaker who would have in- 
 sisted upon the latest style, this woman must have 
 been commonplace, if not vulgar; her figure could 
 not have borne the high effect of the bosom crowd- 
 ed well up under the chin and covered by a plain, 
 close corsage; neither could she have worn a basque 
 effect without being too " dumpy." It was her own 
 artistic good sense which saved her from looking 
 gross, and gave her a well-deserved reputation for 
 beautiful dressing. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 189 
 
 I have cited this case at length, because I am so 
 fully convinced of the artistic pos^bilities of dress 
 that I long for the time when the study of form, fig- 
 ure and other relations will appeal to the cultured 
 mind as no less worthy than the study of literature 
 and the fine arts. The human form is the most in- 
 tricate and wonderful of divine creations. Every 
 possibility of achievement, of mental, moral and 
 spiritual infinity, every impulse of a beautiful soul, 
 every excellence of character, every function of life, 
 exists within this wonderful temple of clay; and that 
 there may be no inharmony anywhere, due relation- 
 ship between internals and externals must be devel- 
 oped. It is but reasonable to believe that the higher 
 the civilization the more profound will be the atten- 
 tion bestowed upon this noble human casket. Who 
 would dare to say that clothing it fitly and exqui- 
 sitely will not come to be regarded as a high moral 
 duty in the future — a failure to do so, as a crime 
 against the laws of the Most High ? 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PRACTICAL SUGGES- 
 TIONS FOR DRESS. 
 
 HERE are some 
 commonplace sug- 
 gestions for dress, which 
 may or may not be new to 
 my readers, but in any 
 case they seem to me to 
 be of sufficient practical 
 value to be worthy of 
 mention in a work like 
 this. In a general way, all 
 women know that there is a 
 law of eternal fitness in dress, 
 but few have the taste and 
 fine discrimination to apply 
 the law for themselves. Very 
 few women select materials 
 with judgment for all occasions, and still fewer have 
 appreciation of coloring and style in design. I have 
 seen stout women in plaids and figured brocades, 
 and this very day met an exceedingly tall and slen- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 191 
 
 der woman in stripes of a color so pronounced as 
 to forcibly accentuate the self-evident incongruity 
 between the wearer and the pattern worn. 
 
 No woman should wear materials, colors, designs, 
 or styles which will tend to exaggerate any marked 
 characteristic or peculiarity. When an excellence 
 of form, feature, or figure is sufficiently apparent to 
 call attention to itself without other assistance, the 
 effort in clothing should be to preserve the purity of 
 the natural gift. Upon the other hand, great pains 
 should be taken to soften, tone down, and generally 
 disguise the irregular in form and contour by artistic 
 study and selection. 
 
 Taken two women of equal but different attrac- 
 tions, for example, the one will be beautiful in col- 
 ors and patterns which would make the other a pos- 
 itive fright. A short woman cannot wear heavy, 
 bulky materials, nor very bright colors,, conspicuous 
 figures, plaids, brocades, broad stripes, and fuzzy- 
 designs, or large embroideries. They are fatal to 
 grace and beauty. Neither can she wear much 
 drapery, fancy puffed sleeves, or short capes, wraps, 
 and dolmans without sleeves. The short woman, 
 especially if plump, looks still shorter and decidedly 
 
 dumpy" in any of these things. To bring out her 
 best points, whether she be light or dark in com- 
 plexion, neutral tints are necessary. She cannot 
 wear two different plain colors in different materials 
 
192 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 combined, although she may use a plain color for 
 the body of her dress, and another material in some 
 small pattern in the same color, but varying shades, 
 for a lengthwise style of combination. The under- 
 sized woman proclaims the fact that her legs are 
 short, and deprives herself of an important appear- 
 ance of height by lacing her waist down until it ex- 
 aggerates an angle at the hips. Be she ever so short, 
 a seeming inch or two can be added to her height 
 by a style of dress which suggests, without defining, 
 a pronounced waist-line. Gowns flowing in unbroken 
 grace from under the bosom are the only ones to 
 give her an appearance of height and slenderness, 
 and she should always wear soft materials with as 
 much sheen as possible in their folds. Cashmeres, 
 Henriettas, nun's veiling, India silks, laces, crepes, 
 the softest of surahs, India muslins; and for her 
 winter gowns, camel's-hairs and clinging serges, 
 but never tailor cloths, velvets, and plushes. For 
 patterns in material she may employ pinhead checks, 
 hair stripes, and other narrow stripes where one is 
 plain and the other in a lengthwise running design, 
 small polka dots, tiny flower sprays, splashed effects 
 on contrasting colored grounds, and other incon- 
 spicuous suggestions, but she will always get her 
 best effects with plain, clinging, neutral-tinted goods. 
 Luxurious and opulent effects do not belong to her; 
 but refined elegance and daintiness do. Her trim- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 mings may be the most exquisite of laces, slender 
 scroll designs in narrow embroideries, and silk pas- 
 sementeries, Greek borders, long cords and tassels, 
 flat narrow bands of braid, velvets, and ribbons put 
 onto her gowns lengthwise (never around the waist 
 or skirt), and long, knotted silk fringes. 
 
 Upon the other hand, the tall, slender woman 
 may, if she wishes, affect great splendor in dress. 
 She may wear for occasions with perfect propriety 
 and good effect the richest of velvets, stately bro- 
 cades, heavy silks, gorgeous embroideries, and glit- 
 tering passementeries. Large designs, if not florid, 
 will soften down her height, and disguise excessive 
 slenderness. She may wear plaids, checked and fig- 
 ured goods which are not bizarre, and all refined 
 colors in the brighter tints denied her shorter sister. 
 She can wear capes, flowing, sleeveless wraps, man- 
 tles, and draperies to advantage, which would be 
 simply atrocious, from the artistic standpoint, upon 
 the short woman, and her length of arm is peculiarly 
 adapted to puffed and fancy styles in sleeves. Re- 
 garding the length of her waist, she may make it 
 whatever she pleases — under the bosom a VEmpirey 
 or low down, confining clusters of folds with jeweled 
 girdles over the abdomen a la Bernhardt, but a 
 closely corseted effect of figure, which will suggest 
 bony hips and lankness, will detract immeasurably 
 from her artistic grace. 
 
194 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 The medium-sized woman, tall enough for grace, 
 and plump enough for rounded contour, has the 
 natural advantage over all others for anything and 
 everything which she may wish to wear. This wom- 
 an can affect novelties, and suffer herself to follow 
 fashions with a degree of freedom which neither of 
 the other women could possibly indulge; neverthe- 
 less, there are certain laws of good taste in designs, 
 fabrics, and colors, which she, too, must observe, to 
 be thought every inch the lady. Bright colors and 
 showy patterns are not suitable for walking upon 
 the street, neither are velvets, brocades, plushes, 
 and rich silks, satins, beaded passementeries, and 
 fine laces, no matter what the style of the woman, 
 the length of her purse, or even her station in life. 
 One who promenades in such finery subjects herself 
 to the suspicion that she has no other and more ap- 
 propriate place for the display of her riches, and 
 must expect to be regarded as a parvenu, not as one 
 born to the ''purple and fine linen." Ladies every- 
 where avoid conspicuous extremes. Jewelry, es- 
 pecially gems, is no longer worn upon the public 
 streets except by the inordinately vulgar. Rustling 
 skirts, jingling fringes, bangles, and chatelaines are 
 very bad form, as they render it impossible for one to 
 pass quietly along unnoticed. The woman who af- 
 fects such things must not be surprised at the rude 
 and questioning stare which her own vanity invites. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 In the matter of headwear for the street, within 
 the bounds of good taste, much more latitude is al- 
 lowed, especially in spring and summer, than with 
 costumes. It is quite appropriate for a young and 
 pretty woman to wear showy flowers upon her street 
 hats. Nature herself offers at this season the wealth 
 of her own coloring to make the days attractive, and 
 there is nothing offensive or incongruous in the 
 bright flower hat or bonnet for those youthful enough 
 to save the suggestion of the " sere and yellow leaf." 
 Even elderly ladies may wear rich-tinted autumn 
 leaves, and quiet flowers like violets, dull-toned 
 asters, deep red and brown berries nestled among 
 dark green leaves, mignonette, and heliotrope, and 
 other fine and delicate flowers. With winter bon- 
 nets more care and discrimination in color-effects is 
 necessary for all. Rich, warm-toned velvet "flowers 
 are appropriate; so, also, are ostrich feathers and 
 pompons, bright velvets and ribbons. Women of 
 sensibility are fast giving up the cruel and offensive 
 fashion of bedecking themselves with the bodies and 
 breasts of the feathered creatures of the air. Only 
 such plumage as can be procured without cruelty or 
 sacrifice of life is in good taste upon woman's head- 
 dress. 
 
 Regarding the shapes of hats and bonnets, each 
 one must be more or less of a law unto herself. 
 Large hats are, however, preeminently out of place 
 
196 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 Upon women past youth ; upon anyone at the theatre, 
 church, concerts, or in any audience hall; and a 
 large, broad-faced woman is conspicuously coarse- 
 looking in a very flaring, showy hat. No more artis- 
 tic style of bonnet will ever be devised for ladies 
 past middle life than that which fits about the face 
 with very little flare to the brim. Out of this style 
 of bonnet a sweet-visaged old lady looks forth 
 as attractive as a lily-of-the-valley peeping out 
 of its green sheath. Very small, jaunty hats 
 and bonnets are becoming to all women of small 
 and medium features who have a good deal of soft 
 fluffy hair, but rarely to others. Shapes and styles 
 of front trimming which produce an abnormal length 
 of face and bonnet detract from the personal appear- 
 ance greatly. A style of hat suited to almost any 
 age up to forty-five, and to most faces, is one which 
 I have often suspected the milliners of deliberately 
 forcing out of fashion every time it appears, in the 
 commercial interest of continued change — a low 
 crown, drooping brim, back and front, with gently 
 upward-rolling sides. This style of hat, trimmed 
 with long ostrich plumes, is most aesthetically pleas- 
 ing, besides which, it serves the real purpose of a hat, 
 by furnishing protection for the eyes. 
 
 No hat or bonnet should be worn heavy enough 
 for the wearer to be conscious of it, as the weight is 
 very injurious to the brain and spine. Fur hats con- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 1 97 
 
 fine the perspiration and shut out ventilation, and 
 are simply unclean ; they should be forever eschewed 
 by all who value good hair, both men and women. 
 
 Apart from general laws of dress there are special 
 applications for special occasions, and one who 
 aspires to the reputation of being ''well-dressed" 
 cannot afford to neglect these fine distinctions. 
 
 For church wear and shopping the costume should 
 always be of wool, very plain and inconspicuous, 
 more so than for any other occasions. For the after- 
 noon promenade it may be more costly wool, and 
 more dressy in style; for the afternoon drive, richer 
 and more elegant yet. For house wear, morning 
 dress should be of attractive but inexpensive mate- 
 rials, fashioned into neat and simple styles. For 
 afternoon house wear, the very appropriate tea- 
 gown may be as rich as one's surroundings warrant. 
 Great latitude is allowed for effects in this robe, and 
 it is entirely appropriate for receiving one's intimates 
 in one's own sitting-room, or for the more ceremoni- 
 ous afternoon tea, to which the casual acquaintance 
 among the dear four hundred are bidden, in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 For dinner, if at evening, which should be the 
 principal meal of the day, the most cheerful and 
 attractive of gowns should be worn. It does not 
 follow that the gown must be expensive ^because it 
 is designed for a dinner-dress, but it should be light 
 
igS PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 in color, attractive, and appropriately made, to give 
 a really ceremonious and dressy effect. 
 
 The physiological and refining advantages of this 
 style of dress at dinner cannot be overestimated. I 
 saw, last year, a dinner-dress which the wearer as- 
 sured me cost only twenty-five dollars for materials 
 and making. It was of heliotrope nun's veiling, ex- 
 quisitely draped, with the neck cut into a V-shape 
 back and front, to show the delicate white throat and 
 neck of the wearer. The sleeves, which were most 
 dressy, ended at the elbow; and around the neck 
 and bottom of the sleeves heliotrope ostrich-feather 
 bands were used. A soft girdle of wax beads, in a 
 harmonizing color, confined the gathered folds of 
 the waist. Good taste had been used in the selection 
 of materials, artistic care in making, and a beautiful 
 dinner-dress at a reasonable cost was the result; 
 while the dinner-table was brightened and enlivened, 
 and the flavor of the foods improved immeasurably 
 by this festive touch of color. 
 
 Very few persons, except the wealthy, who sit in 
 the boxes, pay any attention to appropriate dress 
 for the theatre, opera, concerts, and lectures in this 
 country. Any street suit and wrap, and any kind 
 of a hat or bonnet answers. Abroad it is different. 
 No one goes to the theatre in London in a bonnet, 
 and evenifig dress is very generally worn. It is 
 true that we could not, because of our long distances 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. Igg 
 
 and expensive cab rates, establish a universal system 
 of full dress; but every woman who goes out at all 
 could, at a small cost, have in her wardrobe an in- 
 expensive dress, especially intended for evening 
 occasions. Something light and delicate in texture, 
 and bright and attractive to the eye, made with a 
 view to gas-light and an hour of leisure. Then, 
 again, no generous-minded woman need sit for an 
 evening in a bonnet or hat, and destroy her neigh- 
 bor's pleasure. If she cannot afford a pretty flower 
 wreath to take the place of a hat, she can, at least, 
 remove her head-covering altogether, and not to do 
 so is selfish and thoughtless in the extreme. 
 
 The custom of going into close theatres and halls 
 in an ordinary street dress and wrap, and sitting for 
 an evening, has been responsible for many a serious 
 illness and death. Exposure to the night air after- 
 ward is inevitable. This danger might be avoided, 
 and the charming effect of color and appropriateness 
 gained, by wearing a dress suitable to a close, hot 
 room, and a long, warm wrap, which could be laid 
 aside for the evening. Every woman needs, among 
 her other garments, one which will serve the purpose 
 of a protection, a regular wrap — ^just what the name 
 suggests. For those who have plenty of means to 
 indulge beautiful effects, and change as often as 
 fashion changes, no suggestions need be made, be- 
 cause the shops are always full of these beautiful 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 20 I 
 
 garments; but for the woman who will have to make 
 a single purchase serve a number of years' service, I 
 advise a dark brown, green or black brocaded 
 woolen material lined with red or old-gold or gold- 
 brown farmer's satin of a thoroughly good quality, 
 and interlined with a warm wool wadding. This 
 garment should be of the half-fitting cloak style, 
 loose, and long enough to cover the entire dress. It 
 should be made double-breasted, with sleeves large 
 enough to go on over any kind of under sleeve with- 
 out crushing. To save exposure of the wrists the 
 sleeves should be closed with a kind of cape-cuff 
 coming over the hand. To wear with this garment 
 one should have a bonnet-hood fitting over the en- 
 tire head, with a cape to match the cuffs to the 
 sleeves. In such an outfit exposure would be im- 
 possible, and the walk home, after the evening in a 
 confined audience room, would be a help to sound 
 sleep rather than a menace to health. 
 
 For the evening dress itself, there are so many 
 pretty inexpensive goods of pleasing and appropriate 
 color, that one may have two or three gowns suit- 
 able for festive occasions in their wardrobe, at a 
 comparatively small cost. Good wools are so much 
 prettier than cheap silks, unless it be India silk, that 
 my advice to the woman with little money to spend 
 is, Keep to wools." I saw an exquisite dress of gold- 
 colored albatross trimmed with a rich ruby and gold 
 
202 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 silk lace. The effect was fairly sumptuous on the 
 glowing brunette beauty who wore it. The albatross 
 cost fifty cents a yard; the lace was a " find " on the 
 bargain counter of a store noted for its novelties. 
 Such a dress was just the touch of brightness needed 
 to perfect the evening hour's recreation. A church 
 sociable," or any other mild-flavored country enter- 
 tainment, such as forms the entire social dissipation 
 of many quiet lives, would be rendered much more 
 enjoyable and profitable as a complete relaxation, by 
 attention to suitable dress for the occasion. The 
 inevitable best black silk, which two-thirds of the 
 women wear upon such occasions, makes the hour 
 more like a funeral than a gathering for innocent and 
 much-needed gaiety. 
 
 Let us get the touch of brightness into life by any 
 means possible, and under the glow of the evening 
 lamp gay colors add immeasurably to the desired 
 object. 
 
 The custom of constantly wearing black is a mis- 
 taken one, from every point of view. Upon good 
 authority cases of melancholia, directly traceable to 
 the wearing of heavy crepe for mourning, are re- 
 ported; and for summer wear black fabrics of any 
 kind are objectionable, because black absorbs more 
 heat. Among other unchristian customs which will 
 be done away with in the future, that of wearing 
 dense mourning robes will surely be numbered. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 203 
 
 Why should one whose professed faith promises im- 
 mortal glories and reunions, under conditions where 
 sin, sickness, and death are unknown, deliberately 
 don the trappings of woe for public display when a 
 beloved friend goes before ? The custom is simply 
 shocking when discussed from the standpoint of 
 fashion, and how long one degree and another of 
 mourning should be worn. There is a certain honest 
 grief of separation which bows the head and subdues 
 the weak human heart; but the sorrow should be 
 too sacred for outward display and sign-board ad- 
 vertisements. I know the argument that mourning 
 is a protection; but I do not think that it always, or, 
 indeed, often proves so; and I am certain that it has 
 a depressing effect at a time when one needs to rally 
 all of one's Christian fortitude and human philosophy 
 to meet life with becoming resignation and that 
 beautiful and unselfish cheerfulness which refuses to 
 shadow others' lives with the gloom which has dark- 
 ened one's own. 
 
 Regarding the general selection of colors, be- 
 comingness and occasions should be consulted. For 
 street wear, quiet, neutral tints are better for all; for 
 house wear, what is brighter and more cheerful. 
 Many women Constantly offend the eye with what 
 brings out their worst defects of complexion and 
 coloring. So crude is the general standard of taste 
 that one finds it difficult to make most persons un- 
 
204 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 derstand that violent contrasts are very generally 
 disastrous to refined effects. Yet every artist knows 
 that the burnished-copper tints of Titian's beauties 
 are wonderfully enhanced by gowns of the same 
 color, shading down to the deepest tones through 
 all of the wonderful and beautiful gradations possi- 
 ble. The most delicate blondes are lovely in pale 
 pinks, pale sea - greens, pale yellows and reds. 
 Brunettes need dark blues and greens, browns and 
 old-golds; and an occasional brunette with brown 
 eyes and hair and complexion can wear reds; but 
 black eyes and hair and red cheeks are made posi- 
 tively glaring and vulgar by this particular color 
 which has so long been considered as the exclusive 
 property of the brunette. Delicate tints for the 
 blonde, rich and sumptuous oriental effects for the 
 brunette — effects in which a half-dozen colors and 
 tones are blending to produce a subdued gorgeous- 
 ness of coloring which will harmonize with the 
 warmth in the hair and eyes and complexion of a 
 really beautiful brunette. 
 
 A lady pays attention to her boots and gloves. 
 If she cannot spend much money for these neces- 
 saries, at least she can keep buttons sewed on, all 
 rips mended, and her boots fresh and black by a 
 frequent application of dressing. A woman having 
 genuine refinement of feeling will go without any 
 trinket or gewgaw to save the money necessary to 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 205 
 
 be well gloved and booted. Ripped gloves, minus 
 buttons, boots over at the heel and buttonless, say 
 sloven " more plainly than words could to the ob- 
 server. 
 
 Regarding dressing well upon a small income, I 
 know it to be possible, if good taste and judgment 
 are used in one's expenditures, and the proper care 
 is taken of one's clothing. The woman of small 
 income should never indulge in novelties. These 
 things cost a great deal of money, soon go out of 
 fashion, and are vulgarly conspicuous for all except 
 special occasions; neither can she afford to buy 
 cheap materials. The only woman who can reason- 
 ably pay for the making of cheap goods is the wom- 
 an who can throw her money away if it pleases her 
 so to do. One who has little to spend should con- 
 sider every item in buying a dress, and throughout 
 buy what is uniformly good, from the linings to the 
 trimmings. Cheap linings soon stretch out of shape, 
 and the dress looks shabby and old before its time: 
 cheap trimmings soon grow threadbare. The wom- 
 an of little means should never go into a store and 
 hastily buy what catches her eye; for the indulgence 
 will very likely prove a luxury which she could not 
 afford when she reaches home and begins to think 
 about her needs. Her purchase is pretty; she will 
 be able to wear it sometimes appropriately; but it 
 does not fit into the vacant place yawning in her 
 
2o6 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 wardrobe. She has, however, spent her money for 
 it, and will be compelled to wear it upon many oc- 
 casions for which it is conspicuously not the right 
 thing. It is the same way with the little " fixings " 
 which cost so much — ruchings, ribbons, fichus, 
 trinkets. For the woman of small means they are a 
 mistake. Five dollars expended for good service- 
 able lace will save twenty-five, if not even more, 
 which one would spend during the time that the 
 lace will wear and look both refined and attractive. 
 
 A good, genuine Valenciennes, about an inch wide, 
 will cost fifty to seventy-five cents a yard. Two 
 yards and a half to three yards will be sufficient to 
 plait into an exquisite ruching for the ordinary neck 
 and sleeves. When soiled it can be ripped out, wash- 
 ed by the lady herself, and put back again. Worn in 
 this way, it will last years, growing mellow and refin- 
 ed with wear. Broader lace of good quality, used in 
 dressy costumes, will save money in the same pro- 
 portion, and always look well. A single genuine 
 ornament is worth a dozen spurious articles, yet these 
 catchpenny trinkets absorb the good dollars rapidly. 
 
 Did space permit I might enlarge indefinitely upon 
 this question of small economies as the result of 
 good judgment and good taste; but, once set think- 
 ing, the logic of facts must appeal to sensible wom- 
 en. Upon general principles it is safe to say that 
 ladies do not indulge in conspicuous extremes in 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 207 
 
 dress. More latitude is permitted by fashion for the 
 exercise of individual good taste than ever before, 
 and it is to be hoped that women of sense will hold 
 fast to certain preeminently decent improvements in 
 costuming which mark an advance in aesthetic re- 
 finement. I am hopeful that this will be so, for all 
 of the efforts of the fashion-maker to revive the train- 
 ed skirt for the street, to do the scavenger duty 
 which belongs to the Street Cleaning Department, 
 has failed signally, except with the few, and the 
 bootmakers who devote themselves to sensible 
 boots, with broad soles and low heels for walking, 
 go on enlarging their factories and salesrooms to 
 meet the growing demand for foot-covering adapted 
 to human needs. 
 
 I do not despair of the time when dress will be- 
 come a fine art — when gownmakers will study in- 
 dividual patrons with a view to individual needs, 
 and, instead of offering the latest fashions as "just 
 the thing," will adapt style, color, drapery, matepal, 
 and finish to each one. 
 
 In this improved era of dressmaking what rejoic- 
 ing there will be among the fat women and the lean', 
 the tall women and the short, and especially among 
 those "lookers-on in Venice," who have the fine 
 taste to appreciate congruity and harmony. 
 
 It is an artistic fact that the stout woman is made 
 to appear much stouter by lacing her waist until her 
 
208^ 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 bosom forms a shelf under her chin, and her hips 
 and abdomen bulge out unpleasantly, not to say 
 vulgarly; but fashion's autocrat will inform this poor- 
 unfortunate that the close corsage is the only thing 
 for her, and with as much authority of artistic good 
 sense as would be displayed in saying arms are worn 
 behind or before instead of at the sides, she is in- 
 formed that bosoms are worn high, and assured that 
 a certain make of corset will keep them there, just as 
 they ought to be for style. What a revelation a 
 really stout woman in a dress designed and executed 
 by an artist would be to such poor, deluded victims 
 of "style"! I have seen a woman weighing over 
 two hundred, and looking the picture of serene dig- 
 nity and comfort in an artistic creation. Her bosom 
 was worn where nature meant that it should be. 
 She employed a boned waist for needed support, 
 which did not throw any organ out of its proper 
 place. There was a fine relation of the different 
 parts of her structure to each other, which called no 
 unpleasant attention to the fact that she was a stout 
 woman; and her movements were free and natural. 
 'Her dress was fitted smoothly under the arm, with 
 great care to keep the line from the arm to the ankle 
 an undulating curve, without a suggestion of the 
 sharp angle and bulging hips of an unnaturally com- 
 pressed waist-line. Her bosom, which was where it 
 belonged, did not (as with the laced woman) seem 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 2O9 
 
 to huddle the chin and neck together without leav- 
 ing any line of throat, and a soft drapery helped to 
 conceal the unusual size of the bust, toning down 
 and softening instead of exaggerating nature. In 
 every part, the artist's skill had been directed toward 
 the recognition and softening of physical defects by 
 natural means, instead of hopelessly trying to lace 
 flesh out of existence by crowding it up here, and 
 out there, and into unpleasant prominence every- 
 where. 
 
 Overcoming physical defects by physical develop- 
 ment and artistic clothing, with a view to freedom, 
 grace, health, and pleasing effect is worthy the ef- 
 forts of the most talented men and women, and it is 
 reason for congratulation that the few are again 
 exalting the human form to the high place which it 
 occupied in the minds of the Greeks, centuries ago. 
 Out of refined bodily training and correct clothing, 
 living men and women will rise in the purity of ani- 
 mated art, superior to the most exquisitely chiseled 
 forms of the sculptor, or the glorious figures of the 
 master upon the glowing canvas, which have hitherto 
 been considered ideals out of reach of ordinary hu-- 
 man nature. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 NE may possess the very perfec- 
 tion of physical beauty with- 
 out having the charm of 
 individuality. Compara- 
 tive ethnology, psychol- 
 ogy, and biology show 
 that specialization is a 
 product of higher evolu- 
 tion ; that all individual 
 traits are developed corre- 
 spondingly as we proceed 
 higher in the general physical 
 and intellectual scale; and al- 
 though nature and animal life 
 show that no two objects or 
 creatures are exactly alike in 
 every respect, the differences are 
 infinitesimal, and it takes the 
 sharp-sighted, patient specialist 
 to cTassify differences which are 
 so similar as to be almost iden- 
 tical. Even among the lower races and tribes there 
 are but few distinguishing characteristics by which 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 211 
 
 the different members assume separate and special 
 importance to the casual observer, and we are, there- 
 fore, led to the conclusion that refined individuality 
 is a recent and still unfolding flower of our higher 
 civilization. 
 
 Notwithstanding the distinct and enduring per- 
 sonality of the great men and occasional great 
 women who have adorned the ages, we are compelled 
 to admit that the ancient nations, not excepting 
 Greece with her strongly marked physical superiority, 
 were indifferent to personal individualization, and 
 the exquisite sculpture of the ancients is merely a 
 collection of perfect models of the physical type, en- 
 tirely devoid of sentiment and subtle expression. 
 The accepted superiority of their art lies in the 
 regard shown for refined physical proportion and 
 symmetry, and not in the portrayal of any typical, 
 highly complex, and idealized emotions, such as 
 must have given soul and individual expression even 
 to faces of marble. 
 
 To future ages has been left the glory of an endur- 
 ing art, which will embody the physical perfectness 
 of all that has gone before, combined with the ideal- 
 ized soul principle. It is bdl;ause experience must 
 precede expression that the ancients failed in giving 
 any variety of emotional expression. They could 
 not portray that of which they had no knowledge, 
 and their experiences, emotionally, were exceedingly 
 
212 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 limited, because, no doubt, of the inferior position to 
 which their women were condemned. The mental 
 superiority which made a few the recognized peers 
 of men was, unfortunately, linked with suggestions 
 of shame, and a woman's enduring individuality cost 
 her the reputation for morality. But what progress 
 has been made in all thq complex spiritual senti- 
 ments which elevate both men and women since 
 those days when even the highest form of love was 
 symbolized by the mythic youth Narcissus, who 
 scorned the beautiful nymphs to fall in love with his 
 own image reflected in the water, because of the 
 prevailing idea, probably, of the superiority of mas- 
 culine beauty, as well as of masculine intellect ! 
 
 Again, we have proof that the Greeks did not ap- 
 preciate the subtle beauty of individuality, nor con- 
 sciously enter into the superior charms of emotional 
 expression, else it is by no means probable that they 
 would have been absorbed in the two least individual 
 and expressive of the arts — sculpture and architect- 
 ure. In this connection, Sir Charles Bell may be 
 quoted as saying that " in high art it appears to have 
 been the rule of the sculptor to divest the form of 
 expression. In the Venus the form is exquisite and 
 the face perfect; but there is no expression there; it 
 has no human softness — nothing to love." 
 
 We might carry our analogy through all of the 
 highest forms of past civilization down to the pres- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 213 
 
 ent time, to find that the charms of individuaUty 
 have been the exclusive possession of the few ex- 
 ceptions, rather than the rule — a matter of superior 
 personal endowment rather than the natural out- 
 growth of surrounding conditions. It has been left 
 to our own age to recognize the art and power in 
 individuality, to encourage and develop variations 
 in expression, to harmonize widely divergent char- 
 acteristics through modern culture, and create new 
 and individual types of men and women, having 
 specialized powers in harmony with, and yet in con- 
 trast to, each other. 
 
 My purpose in the present chapter is to review 
 briefly the different degrees of individuality possible 
 under the present conditions of civilized life, and 
 suggest the general means by which each one may 
 reasonably hope to attain to that subtle, desirable 
 something, be it of one nature or another, physical, 
 intellectual or moral, which will command instant 
 and enduring recognition, and serve as a distinguish- 
 ing characteristic. Individuality is, indeed, of ex- 
 treme importance to personal success, and the lack 
 of it is a negative evidence of a species of inferiority 
 in the present day. The absorbing wish to do or be 
 exactly what somebody has been is a lamentable 
 evidence of unaesthetic taste, if not of limited mental 
 perceptions, and is but a degree less vulgar than 
 the opposite extreme, which leads certain men and 
 
214 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 women into extravagant and even grotesque depart- 
 ures from accepted custom for the mere sake of 
 eccentric notoriety. For example, the woman who 
 always follows the very latest fashion, regardless of 
 fitness or adaptability to her own needs, is as offen- 
 sive to good taste as she who defies the laws of dress 
 entirely, persistently appearing in public places in 
 untidy and unsightly habiliments. 
 
 These women are shallow bores, and not, as they 
 may in the pride of conceit suppose, people of mark- 
 ed and individual importance. What they do is of 
 no consequence to anybody, except as they furnish 
 serious minds with the material for a laugh at their 
 pretentious self-assumption. 
 
 Few persons are able to distinguish between indi- 
 viduality and smartness; between refined personality 
 and egregious self-conceit; the one as bewildering 
 and brilliant as the exquisite scintillations of a rare 
 gem — the other like the vulgar glitter of paste. The 
 one a thing of subtlety, of permanence and depth — 
 the other crude, shallow, unreal, like froth. The 
 one a matter of rare genius, or well-considered cul- 
 tivation — the other coarse, pretentious, offensive. 
 
 Individuality of thought and mental culture is un- 
 doubtedly the highest type, because in a profound 
 sense creative and progressive. But even in this 
 higher realm of thought we must discriminate be- 
 tween philosophy and novelty. All thought, to bear 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the test of logical application to the serious affairs 
 of life, must be fraught with some vital principle cal- 
 culated to elevate morally and spiritually, or, at 
 least, to better material conditions. 
 
 How shall one cultivate originality of thought and 
 independence of spirit, and, through these, refined 
 individuality ? I do not hesitate to say, even at the 
 risk of being considered heretical, that our usual 
 text-book methods are not the correct ones. To 
 learn to repeat, parrot-like, is a very low form of 
 intelligence, dependent upon nothing except mem- 
 ory; nor is there anything in that kind of mental 
 discipline to cultivate wit, imagination, clear reason- 
 ing, or the creative powers of the mind. Reading is 
 valuable only so far as it is suggestive, and if one 
 rises from the perusal of an author with nothing 
 gained except a knowledge of what the author has 
 said, the time spent has been well-nigh wasted. If, 
 upon the other hand, the author has aroused en- 
 thusiasm, even that of antagonism — in any case; 
 thought, whether of sympathy or opposition — the 
 reading has been valuable. ^ 
 
 No woman can hope to enter the social arena 
 and maintain a reputation for cleverness with 
 knowledge borrowed from books. To be ready with 
 Avhat somebody else has said, in the form of a quo- 
 tation, is a very mild and poorly flavored kind ot 
 conversational power, and unless one adds to such 
 
2l6 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ordinary cultivation very rare personal attractive- 
 ness indeed, she must not be surprised if intelli- 
 gent, strongly individualized men avoid her openly. 
 Better society a man might have by remaining 
 in his own library and reading the author first- 
 hand. 
 
 One reason why the woman who devotes her morn- 
 ing to the latest French novel is so tiresome in a draw- 
 room is, because the very lowest form of imaginative 
 passion has been stimulated and exhausted in the 
 reading, and all that has been gained for public dis- 
 play is a theatrical and affected application of low 
 and disgusting coquetries, suggestive of intrigue and 
 carelessness. Even the 7'one, who is forever on the 
 alert for sentimental gallantries, is disgusted by 
 such artificiality. He has a taste for immorality, but 
 he wishes it to bear the ingenious semblance, at least, 
 of virtue. The day when this style of woman had the 
 power to charm has passed, for she belonged to a 
 state of society much lower down in the intellectual 
 scale than our own. She might furnish the theme for 
 the song of a troubadour of the Middle Ages, but 
 not a subject for lofty admiration in this latter half 
 of the nineteenth century; not for the reason that 
 public sentiment concerning woman's mental capac- 
 ity has been completely revolutionized, so much as 
 because men of genius are no longer the gross sen- 
 sualists that they formerly were. Passion has been 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 217 
 
 exalted into a master emotion in the minds of think- 
 ing men, with the result that coarse and brutal in- 
 dulgence have lost their former allurement, and only 
 the higher and more refined types of reciprocal emo- 
 tion appeal to highly developed sensibility. 
 
 The woman who completely subjugates a man of 
 commanding power, in the present day, must possess 
 more than animal attractions or flippant accomplish- 
 ments. She must herself be a woman of power, 
 of versatility, of thought, a rare and subtle com- 
 bination of all the virtues; but, above all other 
 charms, she must possess that of mentality. 
 
 The reaction from the belief that a woman, to be 
 a desirable wife, must possess the simple domestic 
 instincts only, has been sweeping and complete in 
 the last fifteen years. 
 
 The sad evidences of unhappiness, where men of 
 genius have married intellectually inferior women, 
 have had the effect to awaken thought upon this sub- 
 ject, and it is very generally admitted, now, that a 
 man can find companionship with a clever woman 
 only — a woman who has the sympathetic, exalted 
 mental enthusiasm which he finds in other men, 
 when wearied of impassioned sentiment. Such a 
 woman — one uniting intellectual and artistic charms 
 with physical beauty — is a power before which gods 
 and men will bow in enduring reverence and admira- 
 tion. Such women have it within themselves to rule 
 
2l8 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 nations and control public affairs to a degree which 
 is limited by their enthusiasm only. 
 
 To acquire this commanding mentality, if one be 
 not endowed with natural instincts for original 
 thought, and with quiet and ready wit, requires pa- 
 tience; one does not need text-books — only mental 
 concentration. Begin by reading little, but always 
 what has been written by thinkers. Read one para- 
 graph at a time, then think upon it. Follow the 
 author's thought to its apparent ultimatum, and 
 think still further upon the same subject. It is in- 
 evitable that something which has escaped the au- 
 thor should occur to one who enters into this method 
 of mental development. Keep this habit up. Set 
 apart an hour daily for this kind of mental discipline, 
 and one will soon be surprised at the richness and 
 depth of his or her own mental reservoirs; and, once 
 this habit has become fixed, it will naturally apply 
 itself not only to written but to spoken thoughts — to 
 things observed; and almost unconsciously the cour- 
 age of certain mental convictions will be developed. 
 How trite, how poor, by comparison, will then seem 
 the shallow book-acquirements, which were merely 
 the haphazard gathering of information concerning 
 philosophy and science, called education in one's 
 school-days ! How soon one will learn to meet logic 
 with logic in conversation, thought with thought, 
 wit with readier comment yet ! 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 219 
 
 Such a method of mental discipHne is calculated 
 to bring forth the individual best, and, more than all, 
 to show each one in which direction his own great- 
 est powers lie, so that there will not be the slightest 
 danger of wide-spread mental monotony. But the 
 end best served will be that of mental courage — a 
 rare virtue, indeed — the ability to think and speak 
 one's thoughts acceptably, and in advance of general 
 public opinion. The man or woman who has this 
 rare power will always find an eager audience, com- 
 posed of the ablest minds, alert and thirsting for the 
 stimulus of original thought. 
 
 I am inclined to believe that our present public- 
 school system is against the development of mental 
 individuality, and I hope that the time will come 
 when the crowding of a number of pupils into one 
 badly ventilated room, in cramped-up attitudes at 
 desks for hours together, will be abolished. Already 
 in the minds of more intelligent teachers there is a 
 decided sentiment in favor of object lessons, instead 
 of text-books, and I believe that the public-school 
 house of the future will be found in the very heart 
 of nature; in other words, that the higher evolution 
 of educationary methods will be in the direction of 
 class-work in direct connection with the subject- 
 matter. Memorizing from text-books is fatal to orig- 
 inal thought, and the absurd custom of study, as now 
 organized, is injurious to physical health and sound 
 
220 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 minds. Neither will the education of the future com- 
 prise such a mess of unclassified verbiage. The 
 kindergarten system of training for children is the 
 beginning of a better regime in educational matters, 
 and the first promise of the rational methods which 
 will eventually develop minds and individual thought, 
 instead of cramming memories. 
 
 Meanwhile, those who are longing for the open- 
 sesame by which woman's powers may become im- 
 mortal in history, and all potent in the every-day 
 affairs of life, should cultivate the instinct of orig- 
 inality by the methods already set forth, and others 
 almost as valuable. I know one very bright little 
 woman who enjoys the reputation for rare mental 
 force and acumen, who devotes a set time every day 
 to holding arguments with herself upon different 
 subjects of popular interest. In other words, she as- 
 sumes the two characters in a parlor scene. Perhaps 
 it is the divorce question that is under discussion, or 
 the latest aspect of European politics, or the fitness 
 of a certain candidate for national honors. She has 
 put her thinking-cap on, pro and con., and deliber- 
 ately and with zest enters into the discussion of these 
 subjects. She is severe in her discriminations, and 
 does not allow either half of her mental self to be 
 betrayed into sympathy with the other half. The 
 result of such discipline must be the very highest 
 form of individual development. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 22 1 
 
 I remember calling upon this unique little lady 
 one afternoon, a few hours before she was to enter- 
 tain a brilliant judge at dinner. She informed me, 
 with the utmost simplicity and naivete, that she had 
 just come from an hour's conversation with herself 
 upon subjects of profound interest to her expected 
 guest — in other words, she had been practising, 
 mentally, just as a singer or pianist plays her scales 
 before a public performance to secure certainty and 
 brilliancy of execution. 
 
 She had been polishing up her mental armor, not 
 getting up speeches for the evening. This wise 
 woman was too cunning in her methods to remember 
 and repeat a speech made up beforehand; indeed, 
 she knew the value of forgetting all that she had 
 ever said before, too well to make any effort that 
 would suggest other conversations. She was prac- 
 tising for readiness of thought, fluency of speech, 
 and quickness of mental perception. 
 
 His judgeship went away from that little lady's 
 parlor, enthusiastic in her praises and ready to de- 
 clare her a rare woman. Not at all the blue-stock- 
 ing; witty, wise, sympathetic, an ornament to her 
 sex — amusing without being silly, bright without 
 pedantry; an unusual woman." 
 
 Yet in no sense of the word, except that defined 
 by a modern writer, is this woman a genius in that 
 particular; in the ability to work she certainly is. 
 
222 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 Had she not adopted this unusual method for mental 
 improvement, she would, however, have been re- 
 garded as almost hopelessly uninteresting, because 
 she is lacking in several very important physical 
 charms. A low musical voice and refined readiness 
 of speech, with something to say worth hearing, 
 have given her a permanent and enduring reputa- 
 tion for individuality; yet all of these charms are the 
 result of thought and profound study. 
 
 Before we can hope to develop a race of original 
 thinkers and conversationalists, we have undoubtedly 
 much to do with the general educational system. 
 Habits, prejudices, and opinions are trained into men 
 and women in the school-room, which leave their 
 impressions for all coming years. It is almost im- 
 possible, under existing conditions, to hope that 
 mental independence and strength will take the 
 place of predetermined opinions and theories. 
 
 The genius of great men is largely that of fearless 
 independence, which leads them to explore the un- 
 known, and by investigation and reason arrive at 
 conclusions which have the weight of facts. To 
 cultivate genius and mental individuality, some gen- 
 eral process which will stimulate independence and 
 thoroughness of thought and reasoning is necessary. 
 The practical range of the human mind is, I believe, 
 far wider and more varied than v/e have heretofore 
 supposed; but to the development of mental genius 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 223 
 
 the complete emancipation from accepted traditions 
 is necessary, and it is not possible to develop general 
 habits of vigorous and original thought and expres- 
 sion unless we are ready for methods which are 
 somewhat opposed to accepted forms. 
 
 But, individually, it is worth the trial, and many 
 a hopelessly unattractive woman might become the 
 very centre of a charming circle, were she ready for 
 the liard work involved in arousing her best mental 
 possibilities. 
 
 Leaving the mental plane for the physical (al- 
 though I am compelled to confess that I hesitated 
 long about giving precedence to the mental), we 
 find that the same law of individuality which leads to 
 mental attractiveness applies to the physical. Fash- 
 ion is often the deadly enemy of individuality, rather 
 than the handmaid and servant; and many a woman 
 who might enjoy superior physical charms lacks the 
 moral courage to assert her good taste and original- 
 ity concerning physical development and dress. 
 The woman who wishes to enjoy the highest form 
 of physical individuality must give nature the chance 
 for scientific physical development, and the benefit 
 of clothing adapted to her own artistic possibilities. 
 
 With Sarah Bernhardt, it is exquisite, subtle, 
 muscular freedom, even more than histrionic genius, 
 which attracts attention, and her individuality is 
 more that of movement, grace, and radiation, than 
 
224 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 of tragic art. Yet the pose, poise, walk, and action, 
 which give her such commanding prominence, are 
 the result of muscular freedom and vital radiation, 
 together with a style of dress calculated to hide 
 physical defects and emphasize special charms. 
 
 Individuality may show itself in an especially be- 
 coming method of dress, in characteristic gracious- 
 ness of manner, in the exquisite melody of a laugh, 
 the musical vibrations of a voice, the sinuous grace 
 of vital carriage, in a thousand subtle and complex 
 ways, each and every one dependent, however, upon 
 sound and unfettered bodies; and the woman who 
 refuses to recognize the underlying principle in phys- 
 ical culture and healthful dress ignores many of the 
 possibilities of physical individuality. 
 
 Going from physical science to the trifling details 
 which are, after all, of much more importance than 
 appears at a first glance, it is easy to see that certain 
 women may in an instant destroy the single possi- 
 ble touch of individuality by following arbitrary 
 fashion in hair-dressing, gowns, bonnets, and orna- 
 mentation, which have a tendency to exaggerate and 
 emphasize the very personal defects which most re- 
 quire concealment. 
 
 Intelligent understanding and study of one's self 
 is sure to result in pleasing and suggestive person- 
 ality. 
 
 Much more might be said upon this subject to 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 225 
 
 prove that individuality demands study, thought, and 
 intelligent adaptation of means'to ends. The first 
 step has been taken, however, toward one's best 
 development when either a man or woman has re- 
 solved to know himself or herself, and apply reason- 
 able independence of action to latent possibilities. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE HOME OF THE FUTURE, AND ITS QUEEN. 
 
 HE subject for this chapter was 
 furnished by the grumblings 
 of a pessimistic old gentle- 
 man, who declared it as his 
 belief that there would be no 
 such thing in the future as a 
 home. Said he: "Look 
 at the hotels, apart- 
 ments, flats, board- 
 ing-houses, and 
 places in our large 
 cities where people 
 can herd and swarm, 
 crowded to their ut- 
 most holding capac- 
 ity during all of the 
 winter season; and in 
 summer go to any 
 kind of resort, how- 
 ever poor, and there 
 you will find the same 
 conditions. Women 
 
 no longer take inter- 
 
 est 
 
 houses and 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 227 
 
 homes such as our mothers and grandmothers took; 
 home has lost its significance, its sacredness, and is 
 destined, in my opinion, to altogether disappear 
 from off the face of the earth. We shall have any- 
 thing and everything for substitutes; but the beau- 
 tiful domestic retreat is fast becoming a thing of the 
 past. Grand houses for the rich, in which they are 
 seldom found, and, when they are, seem as little at 
 home as any guest — yes; but the refined domestic 
 fireside — no." 
 
 Let us inquire into the truth and justice of this 
 prophecy, for I confess that the honest observer is 
 bound to admit a rather wide-spread Bohemian ten- 
 dency at the present time, and if there is reason to 
 believe that the pleasures of home have lost their 
 hold upon the heart let us search for the cause. 
 
 It is not to be denied that thousands of people 
 board, the year round, who could afford to keep an 
 establishment of more or less modest pretensions, 
 and the reasons given are, in their order: the diffi- 
 culty with servants; the amount of time that must 
 necessarily be devoted to wearing and monotonous 
 details; that the same amount of money spent in 
 other ways makes more comfort and show, and 
 brings greater returns in the luxury of nothing to do 
 except to please one's self; that one has more com- 
 panionship, and, according to the bent of inclination, 
 time for study, philanthropy, public interests, and a 
 
228 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 general good time; and if one's husband is a club 
 man who seldom devotes an evening to home, the 
 wife thinks less about it, and instead of spending 
 several lonely hours as formerly, in patient listening 
 for the sound of a familiar footstep, she makes inter- 
 ests for herself just as he does, and learns to live 
 without his companionship. 
 
 To analyze these reasons in their order, we will 
 begin with the servant problem, which really is a 
 serious one in this country, and yearly becoming 
 more so. I have recently been very much interested 
 in a series of letters in a leading daily, published in 
 one of our largest cities, from working girls who 
 were asked to define their reasons for preferring to 
 work in a store, factory, or office to the far more 
 healthful housework, and although some of these re- 
 plies were weak and illogical, showing a general 
 spirit of restlessness and discontent, a few went to 
 what I believe to be the pith of the matter as viewed 
 by really intelligent, self-respecting women ; and 
 although, as was to be expected, the best of these 
 replies dealt with one side of the question only, the 
 other side was worthy of serious consideration — 
 that of the women who complain, and justly, that 
 they cannot get responsible people to do their nec- 
 essary work. 
 
 The pith of these complaints — the real kernel with- 
 in the shell, was, that one is made at every turn to 
 
\ 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 229 
 
 feel that the work is degrading, and the worker de- 
 graded. 
 
 Perhaps the most sensible and just of these letters 
 was that of a young woman of American parentage, 
 who said that she had absolutely nothing else to 
 complain of Her mistress was negatively kind, pro- 
 vided her with comfortable quarters, did not demand 
 any more work than she could reasonably perform, 
 and gave her plenty of food and as good as the fam- 
 ily had; but she never allowed me to forget that 
 I was an inferior; her manner was a constant con- 
 descension, although I was as well born and as well 
 educated as herself Six months determined me 
 upon not being a servant, notwithstanding the fact 
 that I much prefer household work to shop-tending, 
 which I am now engaged in. Although any position 
 has its trials, as a saleswoman I do not feel every 
 hour in the day that I am an outcast. I have more 
 time to myself, and a certain kind of self-respecting 
 independence. When women want intelligent, care- 
 taking, educated helpers in their households, and 
 they take the initiative in recognizing the rights of 
 such a class, it will not be difficult to secure them; 
 until that time, they will be compelled to bear with 
 the trials of ignorance, incompetence, and the ills of 
 which so many now complain." 
 
 Other letters stated that in many cases, besides be- 
 ing constantly made to feel the sting of inferiority. 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 creature comforts were denied them, the servants' 
 quarters often being hardly fit for human beings, 
 dirty, cramped, with rickety furniture and httle at 
 that; beds hard and uncomfortable and the room, in 
 general, lacking in every convenience, cold in winter 
 and hot in summer; while the food was what hap- 
 pened to be left from the table, of the substantial, 
 with all delicacies denied. I have tried to look at 
 this question from both sides, and while I am com- 
 pelled to admit that I have borne my share from ir- 
 responsible and ignorant help, I believe that the evil 
 might be corrected, if enough women in any city 
 were interested to band together for the common 
 object — to secure intelligent, adaptable women who 
 would bear treating with consideration. 
 
 Household work is not necessarily degrading, and 
 it is a mistake to regard it so. Perfect cleanliness, 
 sanitary and chemical knowledge, refinement of 
 feeling and self-respect in domestic affairs would be 
 the very introduction to heaven upon earth. To be 
 free from the dominion of ignorance, sloth, filth, 
 crudeness, and impertinence would be a thing worth 
 striving for. 
 
 ''And how might this be attained.?" asks the 
 skeptic. " Shall we take our cook and housemaids 
 for bosom friends, introduce them to our intimates, 
 eat with them at table, and live upon general terms 
 of familiarity V Not necessarily, although we must 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 231 
 
 make it distinctly understood among our intimates 
 tliat we do not regard our kitchen girls as degraded 
 by their work while it is performed intelligently 
 and well. The self-respecting young woman will 
 not wish to become the intimate of her employer 
 unless she is able to so attach herself to her that 
 there shall be some reason for it in affinity of spirit, 
 just as with other friendships and interests in life. 
 
 As I perceive it, the zvork itself must be relieved 
 from the stigma of degradation. 
 
 The mutual bearing of mistress and maid must be 
 respectful, kindly, helpful, appreciative, but not 
 necessarily familiar. 
 
 Helpers' rooms must be made comfortable and in- 
 viting. 
 
 No girl must be compelled to sleep with any other 
 girl. This is a great wrong in my judgment, or a 
 real indignity. 
 
 The food provided must be of good quality and 
 plentiful. 
 
 The hours of work reasonable, and at least two 
 hours of each day for the one who rises early — the 
 time most conveniently spared — should be a girl's own 
 to do what it may please her to do, sewing, reading, 
 or whatever she will most enjoy. Helpers should 
 not only be permitted, they should be encouraged, 
 to have friends, and to receive them at reason- 
 able hours. Where it is possible, the mistress of a 
 
232 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 house should provide both a bath-room and an at- 
 tractive, if small, sitting-room for their convenience 
 and comfort. In other words, the human demands, 
 the comforts, the physical and mental needs of this 
 class of workers must be recognized and respected 
 in order that the work may command the services of 
 the really competent and self-respecting. Neither 
 need a woman of education and refinement feel that 
 she had lowered her dignity by spending a few mo- 
 ments daily in conversation with her helpers upon 
 subjects of interest outside their work, upon general 
 topics, giving them the resume of her recent reading 
 of good books, the latest bit of scientific or philo- 
 sophical news, anything helpful and stimulating, and 
 calculated to furnish the mind a momentary and 
 pleasing diversion, and the heart the knowledge of 
 that spirit of interest and fellowship which carries 
 warmth and good cheer in its train. 
 
 One woman could not inaugurate such a change, 
 but a number of earnest women might, and an 
 organization for the encouragement and employ- 
 ment of educated home helpers might be started, 
 and supported, until the dignity of general house- 
 work, good cooking and refined home service was 
 restored to the place which it long enjoyed among 
 well-born, well-educated New England women in 
 the earlier days. Employers belonging to such an 
 organization would be pledged to keep no domestics 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 except those of character and proper training for 
 their duties, and to regard them as helpers, and en- 
 titled to such reasonable consideration as I have 
 already set forth; while the helpers themselves 
 should be pledged to perform their duties faithfully 
 and intelligently, to look upon their work in the 
 nature of a domestic profession requiring study and 
 skill; and valuable in proportion to the nicety and 
 excellence with which each separate duty was ful- 
 filled. Cooking, particularly, should be regarded as 
 a fine art. Such a mutual protection organization, 
 to be perfect in its workings, should furnish to each 
 member the means for acquiring hygienic and ap- 
 petizing culinary knowledge— the department, of all 
 others, in which our present difficulties seem most 
 hopeless and discouraging. 
 
 How soon the exclamations, " You have, I see, the 
 trained helpers: is it not a great relief Are they 
 not a comfort 1 Is not housekeeping a pleasure 
 since their introduction 1 Is it not bliss to feel that 
 there is responsibility instead of dense ignorance in 
 the kitchen.^ " etc., etc., would be heard in place of 
 the lamentations which now fill the measure of the 
 housewife's trials. 
 
 Whether^the rank and file of the Bridget and Bid- 
 dy brigade would ever learn the lesson I will not 
 pretend to say, but the more intelligent and adapt- 
 able would, no doubt, after a few years spent upon 
 
234 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 American shores; and those who did not would 
 find employment at rough work only — the overflow 
 of heavy washing, cleaning, and other coarser 
 branches, as well as at farm and factory labor. The 
 object to redeem light, pleasant, refined house- 
 work in simple homes from the stigma which is a 
 disintegrating cause in the deplorable tendency tow- 
 ard the abandonment of housekeeping and, conse- 
 quently, home-making, would have been achieved; 
 and at the same time the next objection, that many 
 valuable hours are necessarily given to wearing and 
 monotonous details, would be disposed of, for sys- 
 tem. in the household, and responsibility in each de- 
 partment would bring surcease from the annoyances 
 and vexations of constant repetition of the same 
 orders day after day. With the establishment of 
 responsibility among servants, expenses would be 
 perceptibly reduced, for there is a great deal of un- 
 avoidable waste and extravagance under present 
 conditions in most households. 
 
 As to the greater possibility for show on a mod- 
 erate income when boarding, there can be no doubt. 
 Keeping up a house is more expensive, under the 
 most favorable conditions, than boarding, but the 
 compensation in small conveniences is threefold; 
 and in the matter of companionship, the mixed and 
 indiscriminate associations of the best of boarding- 
 houses must be objectionable and far from satisfy- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ing to those of sensitiveness and refinement of feel- 
 ing. With all possible regard and justice for the 
 many excellent women who are engaged in board- 
 ing-house keeping, I cannot refrain from saying 
 that the general tendency of boarding-house life is 
 demoralizing. The idle gossip of the parlor and 
 dining-room, the gradual letting down of the mind 
 to take speculative interest in the affairs of each new- 
 comer, the freedom from those little womanly re- 
 sponsibilities which develop thoughtfulness and 
 character within the walls of home are not con- 
 ducive to the bringing out of one's best. The in- 
 terests of the boarding-house are seldom the large 
 human interests of mutual sympathy and helpful- 
 ness: they are too often but the idle, desultory, hap- 
 hazard stimulations of curiosity, which will degen- 
 erate into unkindness, and even viciousness if not 
 closely watched. 
 
 At the risk of being thought old-fashioned, behind 
 the times, not progressive, I must declare my belief, 
 thatthe best flowers of character bloom inside the gra- 
 cious influences of home. An occasional wild blossom 
 of rare fragrance and beauty springs, it is true, from 
 the barren and arid soil of the desert, but the wide- 
 spread cultivation of human graces and amenities 
 depends upon the daily small influences, and the 
 home is the true cradle of character. Nothing can 
 be regarded as really progressive or desirable which 
 
236 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 turns woman's nature away from such a destiny, and 
 since woman is the complement of man, he also must 
 be included within this magic circle. The home 
 must be made to comprehend and embrace the limit- 
 less range of human interests. Whenever and wher- 
 ever it fails to do this, home must be regarded as a 
 failure — an abiding-place only. 
 
 Unlike the pessimistic old gentleman, however, 
 whose complaints begin this chapter, I believe that 
 the future will see homes beside which the homes of 
 the past will seem, by comparison, mere habitations. 
 We are now in the throes of a transition period. In- 
 dividual human rights are under the most jealous dis- 
 cussion, and the adjustment of the aroused senti- 
 ments of equality and equity, as between man and 
 man, and man and woman, cannot be compassed 
 except by the lessons learned from past mistakes, 
 and the deductions drawn from the practical and 
 far-reaching logic of experience. I have no fears 
 for the future. The home of the future will be the 
 grandest institution the world has seen; its queen 
 will be possessed of graces of mind, body, and spirit, 
 which will mark her as the superior of all the scep- 
 tred rulers of ancient or modern times. 
 
 Grand women have lived and adorned the history 
 of the centuries, but grander women yet are to follow. 
 Noble men have loved, cherished, and protected 
 beautiful wives, and given of their devotion accord- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ing" t«o the light and spirit, sometimes far in advance 
 of it, of the age in which they have lived since the 
 earliest evolutions of the higher types of civilized 
 character, but there has never been a time when the 
 finger of God has pointed so unmistakably to the 
 solidarity of human destiny as in the present hour. 
 
 Men and women, under the most favorable con- 
 ditions, have, in the past, missed that exquisite 
 adjustment of all of their faculties of mind and body, 
 which are now giving promise of a perfected human- 
 ity; for the unmistakable tendency of the apparent 
 antagonisms and division of interests which are un- 
 der discussion as woman's rights in every depart- 
 ment of life, thought and activity, must lead to a 
 better understanding of the mutual interests of both 
 halves of a perfected humanity. 
 
 Just as a comet, hoAvever wild, erratic, and extended 
 its flight, is bound by the laws of the solar system to 
 return again from its wanderings, the heart of hu- 
 manity will return to the centre of affection — the 
 home; but the sacred fires of love will burn upon a 
 reconstructed hearthstone, around which will cluster 
 the happier, holier interests of inseparable compan- 
 ionship and mutual ambitions. 
 
 Woman will still be the home-maker in the sweet 
 domestic sense, but she will be more; she will be 
 the magnet, whose grander physical, mental, and 
 moral powers will draw and hold the heart and de- 
 
238 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 votion of man captive to the charms of a splendid 
 womanhood, broad and comprehensive enough to 
 meet and fill every demand of his higher manhood. 
 Such men and women will walk together, not apart; 
 they are separated now by the diameter of a golden 
 circle, along which each is traveling toward the 
 other, but their point of meeting will eventuate in 
 an indissoluble union of mutual interests. 
 
 The home of the future may be humble or costly, 
 wanting in grand appointments, or a very treasure- 
 house of art, according to circumstances, but it will 
 be independent of the mere accident of wealth in all 
 of the essentials which make the solid happiness of 
 life. Men and women will be so rich in the realities 
 of character that they can afford to smile above the 
 vulgar pretenses which make the present interests of 
 many shallow minds. 
 
 The home of the future will rest upon the secure 
 foundations of honesty, simplicity, love, and char- 
 acter. Men and women will not fear to live in ac- 
 cordance with simple facts, deeply grateful when 
 blessed with material prosperity, but not hesitating 
 to admit that self-respecting necessity for small 
 economies, which is no measure of human worth. 
 Sacrificing the realities to idle pomp and show will 
 seem unworthy serious minds. 
 
 The home of the future will stand at the very head 
 of all human institutions, and its queen will comple- 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ment its king with a royal and gracious womanhood, 
 which will admit of no question of inferiority or su- 
 periority. There will be no bolts nor bars, no bar- 
 riers, no limitations of sex. Motherhood will be held 
 no more sacred than fatherhood, but parenthood will 
 be held the highest and holiest of all human respon- 
 sibilities. Morality will know no sex, and the gods 
 of truth, honesty, virtue, intelligence, and love will 
 preside at the domestic altar. 
 
URING all the years when "wom- 
 ^^NlIM liHw an's sphere " was under discus- 
 sion, not a word was said about 
 man's sphere. One was 
 therefore led to believe that 
 man had no recognized 
 sphere, else why 
 such long-continued 
 silence concerning 
 so important a mat- 
 ter, at a time when 
 woman's duties, 
 rights, privileges, 
 and powers were ex- 
 haustively discuss- 
 ed, measured, and 
 limited by all man- 
 ner of men, in news- 
 papers, periodicals, 
 and books, from the 
 pulpit, rostrum, and in private places ? 
 
 I have often wondered what the state of men's 
 
 240 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 241 
 
 minds would have been, had women begun a discus- 
 sion of man's sphere, based upon the same narrow 
 and illogical deduction, and emphasized by the same 
 egregious self-importance which led to masculine 
 declaration of belief in the necessity for limitation of 
 feminine privileges in the past. 
 
 It goes without saying that, in this year of the nine- 
 teenth century, the words, " You may permit wom- 
 en to do this or that," addressed to a class of divinity 
 students recently by a learned divine, are more 
 amusing than annoying to the women who go di- 
 rectly to the throne of God for the inspiration of life; 
 nevertheless, an important human lesson may be 
 learned from the fossil remains of these ancient 
 prejudices which live men and women have relegated, 
 along with other primitive curiosities, to historical 
 archives. In closing this little book, which I hope 
 may prove helpful in some simple, practical particu- 
 lars to both men and women, I wish to call atten- 
 tion to this lesson, under the long-neglected heading, 
 
 Man's Sphere?" 
 
 In the past, men have been in turn, toward other 
 men, both rulers and ruled; toward women, en masse, 
 they have been gods or demons, tyrants or passion's 
 slaves, protectors or betrayers, anything and every- 
 thing except equals and companions. With the 
 dawning recognition of man's sphere, we are just 
 beginning to know the beauty and the tenderness. 
 
242 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 the strength and the devotion, the divine humanness, 
 and the human divinity in man's nature, under con- 
 ditions which encourage and develop his nobler 
 attributes. For the first time in the world's history 
 man's sphere is coming in for its share of recognition, 
 and it is found to be that of companion, brother, and 
 co-worker with woman. With the recognition of 
 man's sphere grand and great men hasten to extend 
 the hand of comradeship to women, no longer afraid 
 to welcome them to participation in all of the splendid 
 activities which develop bodies and stimulate mental 
 force. These men no longer say to women, " Your 
 place is there," but to all the world, proudly standing 
 at woman's side, they declare Our place is here." 
 
 In this beautiful and equitable readjustment of 
 human interests, the element of sex is stronger than 
 ever before', but refined, ennobled, purified, and not, 
 as heretofore, specialized. In this glorious oneness 
 of human interests, men are men, and women, wom- 
 en, with all of their distinguishing characteristics; 
 but they are removed above the animals by the 
 recognition of a divinity of spirit which is more than 
 male and female — which is manly, womanly. 
 
 Since man has come into his rightful sphere as 
 the companion and not the master, how much 
 greater the apparent respect between the sexes! I 
 was particularly impressed vv^ith this at a recent 
 public gathering, where both men and women were 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 invited, upon equal terms, to express ideas upon a 
 subject of weight and importance. There was no 
 condescension, no toleration in the spirit with which 
 men listened to the opinions of women, but an eager 
 and genuine interest, which showed itself in hearty 
 and spontaneous applause when one very able wife 
 of a noble husband, and mother of six sons, scored 
 a point of more than usual originality and brilliancy. 
 
 It was beautiful to see the tenderness and rever- 
 ence with which men, young and old, paid her social 
 courtesies later on. There was not a man in the 
 assemblage who was discussing her age, and calling 
 her passe; not one who was joking vulgarly about 
 the loss of the bloom of sweet sixteen; not one who 
 had a flippant or idle comment for that grand old 
 woman. These men had, one and all, entered upon 
 man's sacred sphere, in which manhood and woman- 
 hood are held as coequal; in which the higher and 
 holier instincts of human nature are no longer lim- 
 ited by sex alone. 
 
 " She is a magnificent woman," said an enthusi- 
 astic young fellow, just out of college; ''she has a face 
 which is an inspiration; she makes me feel what a 
 loss to a young man the early death of his mother 
 is. I am sure, from what I have been told of mine, 
 that she would have been another such splendid 
 character, had she lived." 
 
 I think that this was one of the most beautiful 
 
244 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 tributes to womanhood, pure and simple, that I 
 have ever heard. Compare the lofty spirit of it with 
 that of the average college boy of a decade ago, 
 before man had come into his rightful sphere: 
 
 " I am opposed to women talkers in public; if she 
 were my mother, I would not allow it. The place 
 for women is at home: they are out of their sphere 
 when talking on public questions. I do not like to 
 see women trying to be men." 
 
 This sweet-faced old woman spoke, earnestly and 
 eloquently, truths which she had learned from the 
 rich experience of a lifetime. They were not mas- 
 culine nor feminine truths; they were human truths, 
 and of equal importance to men and women. 
 
 There are still a few men left who know nothing 
 of man's sphere — men who admire pretty and insipid 
 girlhood, and care not whether rosy lips drop 
 "pearls or toads;" men who watch for the first 
 gray hair, and the first line of age about the eyes of 
 women, ready with the finger of derision and the 
 > remark of scorn, as if these legitimate fruits of the 
 passing years were evidence of woman's crime. 
 Such men may have polished drawing-room man- 
 ners, and pass for gentlemen; but they know noth- 
 ing of man's holier sphere, in which womanhood, 
 whether bearing the first flush of maiden charm, or 
 the more resplendent glory of maturer responsibility 
 and experiences, is held in sacred respect. Shall 
 
PHYSICAL BEAUTY, 
 
 we pity or blame such men ? I hold them as objects 
 of pity, because they have certainly missed the op- 
 portunity to learn the richest of all of life's lessons 
 — that of companionship and oneness with women. 
 
 The man who is still outside man's sacred sphere 
 in the ignorance which regards womanhood as a 
 matter of sex only, the fresh bloom of girlhood as 
 all that there is to woman's charms, the passing 
 years as destroyers of her attractiveness, and of 
 feminine grace and accomplishment as mere pink- 
 and-white prettiness of superficial mental knowl- 
 edge, and given to coquetries and sighs, is, in spirit, 
 little in advance of his brother of the forest and 
 plain, who recognizes only the sensual element in 
 sex and the brutal rights of degraded possession. 
 
 Having entered upon man's sphere, the beauties 
 in universal association of ideas appeal to the mind 
 with a certain moral grandeur and richness which 
 has hitherto been missed. 
 
 In lofty friendship between men and women lies 
 that rare alchemy which transmutes unneutralized 
 and selfish instincts into sympathetic and enduring 
 interests. It is not alone that woman's character 
 and life is enriched and broadened; man himself 
 is lifted into sincerity of soul, and serenity of heart 
 and mind. 
 
 Through the definition of man's sphere, and not 
 woman's, do we approach the ideal life. With 
 
246 
 
 PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 
 
 totally distinct personalities, but the same moral 
 sympathies, with intrinsic and indestructible char- 
 acteristics distinguishing each from the other, yet 
 with a blending of mental culture, love of liberty, 
 and progressive interests, men and women become 
 units of humanity, equals, co-workers in the nobler 
 fields of moral and mental activities. With this 
 closer communion of wide-spread sympathies it is 
 inevitable that the refining and hallowing influences 
 of family life and affection should keep pace. It is 
 not, then, by limiting woman's sphere, but by en- 
 larging man's until old prejudices drop away, that 
 he recognizes the grand truth that' in unrestrict- 
 ed human liberty, and not by superior privilege 
 accorded sex, will the divine' purpose in human 
 destiny be achieved. With m.an's entrance upon 
 this higher sphere of reasoning, the perfecting of 
 the race through cooperating affection and intelli- 
 gence must be fulfilled, and an ideal social and do- 
 mestic equilibrium forever established. 
 
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ie"-Tlfi Llarf of Anericatt Literato .-'^^^ 
 
 COMPILED AND EDITED BY 
 
 EDMUND CLAEENCE STEDMAH AND ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON. 
 
 The '* Libraj-v of American Liter aUire'^ is the WasJiington Mommient 
 of American Letters. 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 Vol. I. — Early Colonial Literature, 1607-1675. 
 Vol. II. — Later Colonial Literature, 1676-1764. 
 Vol. III. — Literature of the Revolution, i 765-1787. 
 Vol. IV. — Literature of the Republic, Constitutional Period, 
 1 788-1 820. 
 
 Vol. V. — Literature of the Republic, 1821-1834. 
 
 Vols. VI., VII., VIII. — Literature of the Republic, 1835-1860. 
 
 Vols. IX., X., XL — Literature of the Republic, i86i-i8go. 
 Fully representing writers that have arisen since the beginning of the 
 Civil War. Vol. XL contains biographical notices of all authors 
 quoted, selections from recent literary productions, and an exhaus- 
 tive topical index of the entire work. 
 
 The Library of American Literature. Compiled and Edited by 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackav^ Hutchinson. 
 In Eleven Octavo Volumes of over 500 Pages each. Fifteen 
 Full-Page Portraits in each Volume, many of which are Rare and 
 Valuable. 
 
 A nation lives in its literature, which, unless it be imitative, re- 
 flects the character of thought of every period through which the na- 
 tion passes. Here is the record of patriotism, of the struggles for re- 
 ligious and political liberty, and here also we find depicted the daily 
 life of the people, and the manner in which they were educated, cul- 
 tivated, and amused. 
 
 The last century, which has seen a few isolated colonies, exhausted 
 by eight years' revolution, develop into a mighty nation, has also 
 witnessed the growth of a national literature, a literature keeping 
 pace with our wonderful material prosperity, and equally a matter of 
 national pride and national importance. The truth of this assertion 
 is made evident by the numerous and increasing demands for a work 
 embodying in a reasonable compass all that was best and most char- 
 acteristic in the writings of our authors, a work chronologically ar- 
 ranged, so that each period of our growth might be reflected in the 
 writings of its great authors, 
 
 The work is as broad as our continent, and the selections as diver- 
 sified as our national life. It is strictly a work for the whole people, 
 not for a class, and is arranged to meet the requirements of all. 
 
 PRESS COMMENTS. 
 
 These volumes are a substantial addition to popular literature, and make, as they pro- 
 fess to do, a library of our best American reading for the people at large. — The Atlantic 
 Monthty, Boston. 
 
 It not only makes the reader well acquainted with the progress of American literature, 
 but shows him its relations to the life of the people with a vividness and accuracy which 
 no historian has yet attempted. — New York Iribune. 
 
LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.— Con^^n^led. 
 
 Earnest gratitude is due to the poet-critic and the charming lyrist whose combined studies 
 have produced so valuable a v^^ork. — 7%^? Crii/c, New York. 
 
 No popular review, on anything Uke an appropriate scale, has before been made of our 
 national literature; for, though in iis beginning it was studiously modeled on the parent 
 source, it has grown to be as distinctly national as any other phase of American develop- 
 ment. — San Francisco Argonaut. 
 
 1 1 is both a pleasure and a privilege to taste of this literary feast, a mental feast unparal- 
 leled in its completeness and excellence — North American Review 
 
 COMMENTS OF EMINENT LITERARY MEN. 
 From John Greenleaf Whittier. 
 
 Oak Knoll Danvers, Mass, Sept. 14, 1888. 
 The plan and execution seem to me deserving of unqualified praise. A breath of the 
 New World blows through it. John G. Whittier. 
 
 William Dean Howells in the " Editor's Study ' oi Harper's Monthly 
 Magazine, August, 1888. 
 (See the entire article for an admirable digest of the work.) 
 In their brief introduction they give us at once the right point of view, and then they 
 make haste to stand out of the way and let us enjoy a prospect of American literature 
 which could hardly have been more complete. 
 
 From John Bigelow, Ex-United States Minister to France. 
 
 21 Gramercy Park, Nov. 22, 1889. 
 This library is one thing at least we may exhibit at the Great Fair of 1892, without the 
 slightest apprehension of any competition from abroad. I do not know of any greater 
 tribute that has ever been paid by the nation to Columbus, or indeed can be. 
 
 John Bigelow. 
 
 From Mark Twain. 
 
 If one would think or laugh or cry, or feed his pity or love or charity, or lash himself 
 into a fury, he may choose his emotion and turn to the things that will lift it to an ecstasy 
 every time. 
 
 With it on the shelf, one may say to anybody — Name your mood, and I will satisfy its 
 appetite for you. S L Clemens (Mark Twain). 
 
 COMMENTS OF PROMINENT ED UCA TORS. 
 From Professor John Fiske, of Harvard University 
 
 Cambridge, Jan. 25, 1889. 
 The book will be of great service to the student of American history and American lit- 
 erature. Very sincerely yours, John Fiske. 
 From Dr. W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education. 
 
 Department of the Interior, \ 
 Bureau of Education. ) 
 Washington-, Dec. 20. 2889. 
 1 do not see how any school in America can spare this work from its reference library 
 for teachers and pupils. 
 
 ' am sure that every private individual will purchase it for his own library, if he has to 
 cut off for a time his purchase of other literature. Very respectfully, W. T. Harris. 
 From Professor Moses Coit Tyler, 
 
 Cornell University, May 23, 1888. 
 I can truthfully sny that I am much impressed by the tact and felicity of the choice 
 which has been made of these specimens of our literature. Faithfully yours, 
 
 Moses Coit Taylor. 
 From Hiram Orcutt, LL. D., Manager Bureau of Education, Boston. 
 
 Boston, March 10, 1890. 
 The editors of this great work are to be congratulated upon their success, and the gen- 
 eral public upon the good fortune of having access to so valuable a production 
 
 Hiram Orcutt. 
 
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