Should Art aid Beauty?
My answer is, “Yes, undoubtedly, if it be real art.”
Says the poet—
“Beauty unadorned is adorned the most.”
This is all nonsense. It is just as reasonable for beauty to call in the aid of science and art as it is for her to use soap with which to wash her hands and face. But on the other hand, a beauty that is all artificial is quite detestable. No man can stand a painted doll. We meet such in society all too often, but we soon find out that she is just as frivolous and heartless as she is artificial—a painted fraud, in fact, and I pity the poor fellow who is snared into marrying her.
But there are legitimate methods of securing greater beauty. The chief of these is health. Without good health there can be no real beauty, no beautiful complexion, no bright and sparkling eyes, and no power to please others or make others happy. One cannot bestow upon those around them that which they do not possess themselves. It is girls like this—girls who may be classed with that great army, the only middling—who, instead of endeavouring to set themselves right by the aid of judicious living and everything that conduces to health, are for ever hunting among the trashy advertisements of cheap ladies' papers for cosmetics that shall not only make them beautiful for a day, but keep them beautiful for all time.
Very catchy are many of those advertisements to the eyes of the simple and the ignorant, and they are always tastefully illustrated. In a country better governed than ours, those advertising quack-women, who charge such awful prices for specialities that are simply worse than want, would soon find themselves inside the four walls of a prison. Pray take my warning, girls, and keep your money in your purses.
Do not forget, however, that regularity in living, temperance in eating, daily pleasant exercise, no spurting if you ride, plenty of fruit, and the bath, using the mildest soaps are the passports to health and happiness; and beauty cannot exist without these latter.