The feet should be washed every night and morning as regularly as the hands. It preserves their strength and elasticity, and helps to keep their shape. What person of refinement can take any pleasure in looking at her own feet presenting the common appearance of distortion by shoes too tight in the wrong place, and the dry, hardened skin of partial neglect? One’s foot is as proper an object of pride and complacency as a shapely hand. But where in a thousand would a sculptor find one that was a pleasure to contemplate, like that of the Princess Pauline Bonaparte, whose lovely foot was modeled in marble for the delight of all the world who have seen it?
As nice care should be given to feet as to hands, beginning with a bath of fifteen minutes in hot soap and water, followed by scraping with an ivory knife, and rubbing with a ball of sand-stone, which will be found most useful for a dozen toilet purposes. The nails may be left to take care of themselves, with constant bathing and well-fitting shoes, unless they have begun to grow into the flesh, when all to be done is to scrape a groove lengthwise in each corner of the nail. The whole foot should be anointed with purified olive-oil or oil of sweet almonds after such a bath. A pair of stockings should be drawn on at night to preserve the bedclothes from grease-spots. The oil will soak off the old skin, and wear away the scaly tissue about the nails, while it renders the soles as soft and pliant as those of a young child.
A daily change of stockings is as desirable for those who walk out as a fresh handkerchief every morning—but how many people consider it necessary? It may sound audacious to suggest that when laundry-work is an item, a lady would show her ingrain refinement by washing her own Balbriggan hose as truly as by stinting herself to two pair a week on account of washer-women’s bills. As for the vulgarity of wearing colored stockings “because they show dirt less,” it is to be repudiated, save in the case of children, who are quite capable of going through with a box of white stockings in a day, and looking none the cleaner for it at the end. Our bootmakers are in fault about the lining of shoes, which ought to be changeable when soiled. Soiled, indeed! When are common shoes ever clean within? Our manufacturers are the opposite of the French, whose workmen wear fresh linen aprons, and wash their hands every hour, for fear of soiling the white kid linings at which they sew. The time will come when we will find it as shocking to our ideas to wear out a pair of boots without putting in new lining as we think the habits of George the First’s time, when maids of honor went without washing their faces for a week, and people wore out their linen without the aid of a laundress. Cleanliness means health in every case, and a plea must be offered for those neglected members, that only find favor in our eyes by making themselves as diminutive as possible.
CHAPTER XVI.
“The Leaves are Full of Joy.”—Nobility of the Body.—Its Possibilities.—Brain and Heart Dependent on it.—Physical Culture Imperative in America.—Our Contempt of Health.—Easier to be Magnificent than Clean.—Distilled Water for Every Use.—Substitute for Stills.—Vapor and Sulphur Baths.—Bran Baths.—Oatmeal for the Hands.—Frequency of Baths.—Remedies for Hepatic Spots.
How lusty and delicate the young leaves grow on their stems in their nook of sunshine! What could be lovelier in its way than the three geranium leaves starting from the mould in the window-box where the sun strikes across the corner of the sill? They are so firmly poised, yet glancing; each full of green juice that the sun turns to jewel-light, with spots of darker tint where the feathered edges overlie—a subtle piece of color wrought by sun and soil for no eye to see but by chance, yet ecstatic in its delight, as if meant for the centre trefoil of an altar window. So the sun does all his work. So leaves grow by myriads in the garden and the forest. So the forces of nature bring forth every thing perfect if left free to their impulses.
There is something like the leaves in our frames, that would grow springy and strong, soft-colored and brilliant, upright and joyous, if it were suffered to. It appeals for sunshine and gayety, for abundant food and ease, for copious watering, tendance, and freedom. Give it these, and the body, under present conditions, is as far beyond its common dullness and weakness as it is below the saints in light; for heavenly bodies can not be very different from ours unless they cease to be bodies.
The mortal frame is noble enough as it is. No harp ever vibrates like it with emotion and pleasure; no star shines so fair or so wise as the face of man. God made it, and God loves it, which is the reason it wins so closely upon us, and is so dear. There is no wisdom in despising the body or its sensations. It is crudity to uphold that the mental part of us should absorb all the rest. Brain and heart are dependent on the body, and it was meant, not for the slave—as men seem never weary of preaching—but for the interpreter and companion of both.
Honor is due the body, and thanks for its pleasures, which should be enjoyed with intelligence and leisure. They are no more low or debasing than mental pursuits may be when pursued to the exclusion of all others. The sensualist is no more intolerable in the order of nature than the pedant or pretender in literature, and does little more harm in the long-run. The former ruins himself; the latter, by a false philosophy, may lead thousands astray. Give the body its due—its thirds with the mind and the soul. Neither is the better for having more than its share.
The need of physical culture grows more and more urgent in this country. Here most unlike races mix sullen and mercurial blood together in the most variable of climates. They interchange habits as well, though the only one peculiar to Americans as such is a tolerable contempt for the conditions of health—a contempt inherited through half a dozen generations. The climate is not in fault, but the people are. It is much easier in this country to be magnificent than to be clean. At any hotel there is enough of useless upholstery, as a matter of course, but a bath is an extra, often not to be had on any terms. This is the case even in the metropolis, where at least a better idea of civilization ought to prevail. For the rest, there is not much to be said for the intelligent culture of any family who have carpets before their bath-room is fitted up.