29. A breath of wind is not allowed to blow on many a fair face. The consequence is, that her cheek becomes sallow, wan, “as wan as clay,” and bloodless, or if it has a color it is the hectic flush, which tells of speedy decay!
30. Sitting over the fire will spoil her complexion, causing it to be muddy, speckled, and sallow. The finest complexion in a lady I ever saw belonged to one who would never go, even in the coldest weather, near the fire: although she was nearly thirty years of age, her cheeks were like roses, and she had the most beautiful red and white I ever beheld; it reminded me of Shakspeare’s matchless description of a complexion:—
“’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on.”
31. Sitting over the fire will make her chilly, nervous, dyspeptic, and dispirited. It will cause her to be more chilly, and thus will make her more susceptible of catching cold; and it will frequently produce chilblains. If she be cold, the sitting over the fire will only warm her for the time, and will make her feel more starved when she leaves it. Crouching over the fire, as many do, is ruination to health and strength and comeliness! Sitting over the fire will make her nervous: the heat from the fire is weakening beyond measure to the nerves. It will disorder and enfeeble her stomach—for nothing debilitates the stomach like great heat—and thus make her dyspeptic; and if she be dyspeptic, she will, she must be dispirited. The one follows the other as surely as the night follows the day.
32. If sitting over the fire be hurtful, sitting with the back to the fire is still more so. The back to the fire often causes both sickness and faintness, injures the spine, and weakens the spinal marrow, and thus debilitates the whole frame.
33. A walk on a clear, frosty morning is as exhilarating to the spirits as the drinking of champagne—with this difference, that on the day following the head is improved by the one, but not always by the other. Simple nature’s pleasures are the most desirable—they leave no sting behind them!
34. There is nothing like a long walk to warm the body and to make the blood course merrily through the blood-vessels. I consider it to be a great misfortune that my fair countrywomen do not use their legs more and their carriages less. “As to exercise, few women care to take it for mere health’s sake. The rich are too apt to think that riding in a close varnish-smelling carriage ought to be a very good substitute for muscular struggles in the open air.”[[9]]
35. Unfortunately this is an age of luxury. Everything is artificial, and disease and weakness, and even barrenness, follow as a matter of course. In proof of my assertion that this is an age of luxury, look at the present sumptuous style of living: carriages rolling about in every direction; dining-tables groaning under the weight of rich dinners, and expensive wines flowing like water; grand dresses sweeping the streets, almost doing away with the necessity for scavengers. I say, advisedly, streets; for green fields are, unfortunately, scarcely ever visited by ladies. We are almost, in extravagance, rivaling ancient Rome just before luxury sapped her strength and laid her in ruins!
36. If a lady has to travel half a mile she must have her carriage. Strange infatuation! Is she not aware that she has hundreds of muscles that want exercising? that she has lungs that require expanding? that she has nerves that demand bracing? that she has blood that needs circulating? And how does she think that the muscles can be exercised, that the lungs can be expanded, that the nerves can be braced, and that the blood can be properly circulated, unless these are all made to perform their proper functions by an abundance of walking exercise? It is utterly impossible!