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 circumstances be eaten. It is covered invariably with multitudes 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 washing 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, nourishing 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 coarse, 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, refreshing 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-fashion, 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 luster 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 cushions 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.