The Woman Beautiful Part 8

To be perfectly wholesome, fruit with firm flesh, like plums or apples or cherries, must be thoroughly masticated. The skin of raw fruit should under no circ.u.mstances be eaten. It is covered invariably with mult.i.tudes of minute germs which always swarm upon the surface of the fruit and multiply rapidly under favorable conditions of warmth. Before eating grapes or cherries all dust and impurities must be removed by careful was.h.i.+ng in several waters.

But to sum up the entire question of diet, eat what you know will agree with you, and choose the blood-making, nouris.h.i.+ng foods. Let fruit and vegetables predominate in your meals, but do not avoid meats entirely.

Cake is not harmful unless very rich, but greasy pastries--like pies and tarts and things of that sort--are simply utterly, hopelessly impossible! Fats make the skin oily and coa.r.s.e, pastries produce pimples and blackheads faster than you can doctor them away, and too much sweets will have about the same effect. Instead of buying candies, save your money and acquire a fine complexion along with a bank account. It will pay in the end.

SLEEP.

"What a delightful thing rest is! The bed has become a place of luxury to me. I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world."--_Napoleon I._

If womankind half realized the beauty benefits of plenty of restful, refres.h.i.+ng sleep, all femininity would be crawling into bed at sunset.

I've often wondered why the great sisterhood that is praying and working and fretting for physical loveliness does not understand that more real help comes from rational, hygienic living than can be squeezed out of all the cosmetic jars that ever enticed weak feminine hearts.

Beauty sleep! Why, we've heard of it since the long-ago days when our blessed mothers sung it, lullaby-fas.h.i.+on, into our ears! As little girls it brightened the "sand-man" hour and made us go contentedly to bed. As women it should rightly continue its good work, and the dear Lord knows we need it more now than we did then, for--perhaps--the crow's feet have begun to show their ugly little tracks and the fine complexion of early girlhood is losing its l.u.s.ter and brightness, and is growing a bit dull and yellowed--like a leaf first touched with the autumn chill.

Perhaps you won't believe it, but there are right ways of sleeping and wrong ways as well. The girl who curls up like a shrimp is the one who will be writing to me in a great flurry and worry, telling me that her shoulders are round, and that she simply can't make them nice and square as they should be for the new tailor-made that is to transform her into a happy little Easter girl! The woman who is horrified to find wrinkles appearing like wee birds of omen does not have to tell me that she is a pillow fiend and sleeps with her head half a foot higher than her heels. It stands to reason that a pillow will push the flesh of the face up into little lines. There is no necessity for pillows at all, and girls don't need them for comfort any more than a little puppy dog needs patent leathers or overshoes. The bed should be hard and perfectly flat, with springs that do not sag or give and let the poor sleeper roll down in the middle in a jumbled-up heap. A hair mattress is the best for health and comfort, but others will do nicely if they are only perfectly flat and not too soft.

The first thing to do, then, is to dispense with the pillow. If this change cannot be accomplished all at once, then let your pillow be gradually made smaller and smaller until none at all is desired. Your sleep will be much better, and after the habit is once formed a pillow is looked upon with derision. I know foolish mothers who put their children to sleep on pillows as big as a school-girl's love for caramels, and the poor babies tumble and toss, and the next morning those mothers dose them for a pain in the "tum-tum." Alack-a-day!

Babies don't need pillows--unless it be those little soft cus.h.i.+ons of down that are as flat as pancakes.

But to return from babies to beauty. If your sleep is restless and you awaken with a dull headache and the feeling of weariness that makes you want to begin the night over again so as to get refreshed, you may be sure that something is wrong--either you are worried or troubled or are working too hard for your own good. Perhaps your digestion is out of order, or the room is not properly ventilated. It may be any of these things that keep you from getting the rest that is really so very necessary for health and comfort and good looks.

Heavy bedding is also distressing, and as good a maker of nightmares as deviled crabs or plum pudding. Light blankets make the best covering.

Let the window be open at top and bottom, so as to have perfect ventilation. Don't eat an indigestible lunch before retiring; this is the greatest of all beauty follies. Lie on the abdomen, with your hands at your sides. This position will keep your shoulders back, will give you a good figure and a better carriage. When you have followed these directions and still find that you spend most of the night crawling around over your bed vainly seeking a comfortable and restful spot, then you can make up your mind that you need a good tonic and a doctor's counsel, for your nerves or your digestive organs are not as they should be.

To sum it all up in a nutsh.e.l.l: You must sleep well, and you must sleep a great deal if you wish to be the "woman beautiful." Sitting up late at night will cause grey hair as will nothing else. It makes those dark circles about the eyes, and causes the "windows of the soul," to lose half their l.u.s.ter and softness and beauty. Who ever saw a pretty woman with dull, lifeless eyes? She wouldn't be pretty were she so afflicted.

By sleeping properly, the body is kept stronger and fresher, and thus the complexion is benefited greatly. Wrinkles do not come so soon, the skin does not take on that muddy, yellow hue as it would otherwise, and cheeks are pink and rosy with that greatest of all rouges--Health.

There's a heap of truth in all this. If you do not believe it, then give up late hours--be they for study or pleasure--and see if the problem won't work itself out nicely with you. I think it will. In fact, I am really quite sure of it.

EXERCISE

"Better to hunt in fields for health unbought Then fee the doctor for a nauseous draught The wise for cure on exercise depend; G.o.d never made His work for man to mend."

--_Dryden._

It would have done your heart good to see her.

She came into the room with the briskness of a March flurry of snow.

Her cheeks were poppy-red, her eyes sparkled with the mere joy of living. And she chuckled happily as she tucked back the curly scolding locks that were flying about, all helter-skelter, like feathers unloosed or fluffy chicks blowing away from the mother wing.

"Isn't it jolly?" she chirped, as she threw her m.u.f.f on the floor and made a dive for Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson is a cat, as black as the ace of spades and as pugilistic a feline as ever walked a fence.

"Isn't what jolly?" I queried. "The weather or your sprightly self? Do you know, you'd make a splendid poster now for some new-fangled cork-soled walking shoe? Or perhaps a bearskin ulster for Klondike wear. I'm sure a feather boa concern would pay a fortune for your picture. I would I were an artist man, with a little brush and a little pencil and a little palette with nice little paint puddles on it----"

"What-in-the-world? Here I start in to dilate upon the joys of exercise and off you go, just like a musical top with your buzz-buzz-buzz, and your incomprehensible talk about little painters and little palettes and little paint puddles. I'm sure it's not a bit nice of you."

Peter Jackson was shoved to the floor.

"But walking is jolly!" she piped, "and I've just had the very gloriousest tramp and I feel as fine as a--what is it they say? Oh, as fine as a violin--I--I mean fiddle. I walked miles and miles--perhaps not quite so far--and the wind was blowing a blue streak right in my face. Ugh! first it made me s.h.i.+ver and creep up into my collar. But bimeby I got nice and warmy, and my cheeks tingled. I felt as if I could walk from here to the place where the sun goes down. Do you know, I never before realized how much fun it was to take a good tramp. I've half a mind to reform from my role of lazy-bones and walk every day, whether it snows, blows, cyclones, or turns warm, and fells us all with sunstrokes and heat prostrations."

"Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise of health," said I, quoting Thomson.

"Oh, well," and my pretty, rosy-cheeked guest arose. "I must be going.

You know how it is when one gets to preaching physical culture and spouting poetry. Ta-ta!" and away she went, like the fleeting memory of last night's dream.

If women paid as much attention to exercise as do men there would not be so many wrinkles and stooped shoulders among the feminine s.e.x, and old age wouldn't rap on the door ahead of time. The girl who goes in for outdoor sport, who isn't afraid of walking a block or two, who loves the cold air and who revels in wheeling and swimming and skating, is the one who won't be an old woman in appearance while she is still young in years. Keep the muscles firm and healthy by exercise. This will not only improve your carriage and add to your general development, but will aid the digestive organs in their work and keep you animated and cheery. Who of us does not know the inspiration of a walk in the open air after a few days spent in the close atmosphere of the house? Fresh air is the elixir of life. We can't have too much of it, and--oh, my girls--think of the exceeding cheapness of it! It can be got for the asking, which is more than one can say for the various beauty pomades and lotions that beckon us toward poverty.

Walking and skating are the best exercises during the winter, but all kinds of exercises are acceptable, providing they are gone about in the proper manner. It is easy enough to see why thorough and regular exercise is absolutely necessary to health.

We all know--at least, we all should know--that the general size of the human body depends on muscular development. The same bony frame which makes a slim-jim girl that tips the scales at seventy-five pounds can be padded with good solid flesh until it boasts of a triple chin, fingers like wee roly-poly puddings, and a full 200 pounds in weight.

The framework of the body counts little toward size.

The muscles are like the various bits of machinery which go to make up a steam engine. In performing their work they produce heat and motion.

The fuel which supplies this force is taken into the body as food, prepared for use in the intestinal tract, and from there carried by the blood to be stored up in the muscles and various tissues as latent force. Through the circulation of the blood the whole body is heated by muscular exercise. It stands to reason that continual exercise of a certain kind will develop certain muscles. For instance, there's the arm of the blacksmith or the firmly developed legs of the danseuse. The same muscle that grows when used within certain limits will waste away when deprived of proper exercise.

In physical culture the object is the symmetrical development of all the muscles, not one at the expense of the other. So, for that reason, don't pin your faith to dumb-bells and Indian clubs and neglect more necessary exercise. If you do you will in time find yourself possessed of big Sandow arms that will make the rest of you look as spindle-like as a last year's golden-rod stalk.

Walking is as good a form of exercise as anything yet discovered. But walking as most girls and women walk won't do you one bit of good. You might just as well spend your time trying to count 700 backward or while away the hours talking 1880 fas.h.i.+ons with the woman next door, for all the health or happiness or physical development that you will get out of it.

Corsets and bands and belts must be done away with. You must have full, free use of your lungs. Then, don't wear heavy petti-coats that will r.e.t.a.r.d the free movements of your legs and make your hips ache with their tiresome weight. Dress warmly but as lightly as possible.

Above everything else don't stick your fingertips into a m.u.f.f and waddle along like a little duck in sealskin and purple velvet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Your arms must swing easily at your sides. Thus equipped walking should not be a task, but a great, big, lovely joy, no matter if the frost does nip your nice little nose and make your cheeks feel as if they had been starched, dried, ironed and hung on the line to air.

English women who come to America can tell us a thing or two about long walks. Only the other day a pretty Englishwoman with a complexion like apple blossoms casually divulged the information that a walk of ten or fifteen miles was an old, old story to her. So, when I say that three miles a day--the three miles ought really to be covered inside an hour--is not a bit too much to give one's muscles the necessary exercise, I hope you won't lean back in your chair and gracefully expire. Some of you will gasp, no doubt, for a walk of five blocks to a suburban station is usually looked upon as a heroic martyrdom to circ.u.mstances and environments.

Alas, for woman's fickleness! And alas, for her playful habit of going to extremes! Suppose, for instance, that Polly Jones says she is going to take a nice long walk every day of her life; that she knows the bountiful blessings and benefits of a brisk tramp, and that she will take that tramp in spite of obstacles as big as the Auditorium or as immense as her longing for a cherry-colored silk petticoat.

The first day--and, mind you, she has not walked a mile for weeks, the lazy girl--she covers five miles in an hour and ten minutes.

And when she comes home she's such a wreck that the whole family is up in arms in a jiffy, and whisk out the tomahawks ready for war. That's the end of Polly Jones' pedestrian exercises.

And Daisy Brown. She does quite the same thing, only not so violently.

The first day she walks four miles, the next two, and then comes a trip around the corner to get arnica and liniments for her poor, aching bones. Thus also terminates Daisy's stern resolution to take daily const.i.tutionals.

But the wise woman. Daisy's and Polly's methods are not hers. Far from it! When she begins to walk for health and beauty she dons loose, comfortable clothes, and with swinging arms and head well back, strides along briskly and easily. Her first day's walk is scarcely a mile. The second tramp is longer; and gradually the distance is increased until the three miles are covered in about fifty minutes.

The wise woman does not take her exercise in the afternoon, but in the morning, an hour or so after breakfast, when the day is young and everything seems bright and hopeful and cheery. Then it is that the babies are out in their go-carts and carriages, and the "chillens" are trooping to school. It's heaps pleasanter than an afternoon walk when one has more of the worries and events of the day on one's mind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN HELENA OF ITALY]