In this state of purity and light one learns to reverence one’s physical self. A body that at its best is so glorious and happy ought not to be exposed to the disturbance of appetite and the contact of gross things. We need to be very much more refined in our living, eating, and breathing. We ought to be nicer about our clothes and our food, choosing the best of meats, and fruit far better than we are now content with, and should place our dwellings out of the reach of the least impure air. In this altered and steadied frame evil dispositions lose their sway. Irritable temper is soothed, despondency flees as by magic, and fiercer passions lie asleep as at the stroking of their manes. If any one should read this page who battles with unnatural desires, which make life less blessed and lofty than it was meant to be, let her have recourse to this efficient ally. It will restore one from the horrible depression which craves alcohol or opium, it will rescue from the perilous excitement of overwrought nerves or too much brain-work, and banish those morbid feelings which consciously or unconsciously incline to impurity of imagination if not of life. The purity of the body and the soul are too closely interwoven for any one to dare neglect them.
In the old time, saints used to subdue the body by prayer and fasting. The modern way is by prayer and bathing.
It is hard enough to keep a peaceable, firm, and sweet habit of soul without letting loose on it the humors and insanities of the body. These are in no way so surely quelled as by warm baths, and this is why they ought to be among the public buildings of every village, and made as cheap as possible. There the drunkard might find a stimulus which has no reaction, the emotionally insane a sedative that would clear his brain and steady his nerves. There the exhausted watcher by the sick might recruit, and the overwrought student, lawyer, or physician find support without recourse to perilous stimulants. The doors of such a place in a large city should stand open night and day, like those of churches.
Women need the bath for all these purposes even more than men. The feeble mother will find no soothing for her jarred nerves or lightener of her burdens like the well-applied bath. Strange as it sounds, the vapor-bath does not weaken. It washes away the worse particles of the body that weigh it down, and leaves it as if winged. I have known an invalid of years take it twice and thrice a week, gaining strength every time. If harm came, it is because the head was not kept cool by fanning, or because the final sponging was not gradual enough. There is harm in every remedy used unskillfully. It is the doctor’s province to direct in such matters, always premising that the best and wisest physicians prefer to teach their clients the rules of health and treatment for themselves, and seldom refuse to give the reason and theory of their orders. It is safe to be shy of the perceptions and methods of a doctor who doesn’t like to tell what medicines he gives, and why he gives them. The keenest and best medical men are impatient to have others see and understand the truth as well as themselves.
CHAPTER XXI.
Devices of Uneasy Age.—Bread Paste and Court-plaster to Conceal Wrinkles.—Accepting the Situation.—Plain Women and Agreeable Toilets.—Examples.—The Rector’s Daughter.—Dressing on Two Hundred a Year.—Écru Linen and White Nansook.—A Senator’s Wife.—A Washington Success.—Dull, Thin Faces.—Hay-colored Hair.—Advantages of Lining Rooms with Mirrors.
Did you ever go to see a lady, not of uncertain but of uneasy age, and find yourself ushered into the family sitting-room by a new servant, who did not know the ways of the house? Did you find her with a court-plaster lozenge an inch wide between her eyes, and one at the outer ends of her eyebrows? At sight of this remarkable ornament, did concern express itself lest she had fallen down stairs, or had a difference with the cat? Were these insinuations parried with veteran resources, and were you dissuaded from further inquiry by the delicate remark that she could interest you better than by giving the history of her scratches? Of course you knew there was a mystery about those bits of court-plaster, and perhaps feel so to this day, unless Nature have given you the mind of a detective. If so, your patience is to be rewarded. The secret of those patches was not scratches, but wrinkles.
I trust due tribute will be paid to the ingenuity of failing age, which has perfected this device for warding off its unwelcome tokens. The rationale of the plan is very simple. The plaster contracts the skin, and prevents its sinking into creases and lines. It also protects and softens the skin. I have heard of one oldish lady who wears these ornamental appendages all the time in the house when not receiving company, and covers parts of her face with a dough made of well-mumbled bread to keep her complexion fair. The heroism of this resistance to time must be applauded, but it is an open question whether the play is worth the candle. The beauty of age lies not in freshness like that of sixteen, but in clear and lofty expression, in the look of experience and not unkindly shrewdness, in the finish of self-repression, of calmness, trust, and sympathy. These things grow on a face as it loses freshness and roundness, just as the sky begins to show through thinning boughs.
The greatest of blessings for some people would be to learn to accept themselves and their gifts. If they could stand apart from themselves a while to see their becoming points, much of their repining would be dropped. Every thing and every body is beautiful in its season. There is a wholesome plainness that accords with domestic life and natural surroundings, as the bark of trees relieves their green. The color of health, the gentleness and sweetness that come of a conquered self, are elements of beauty that make any face tolerable. How dear are the plain faces that have watched our childhood, with whom we have grown up so closely that feature and form have lost their significance, so that we really do not know whether they are homely or not, and see only the love or the humor that lives in their faces. In general, very ugly people are happily indifferent to their looks, and degrees of imperfection may always be lessened by judicious use of the arts of dress.
A young and homely woman makes herself agreeable by the complete neatness of a very simple toilet. Let her eschew dresses of two colors, or of two shades even, though the latter are allowable, if the shadings are very soft. When the complexion is dull, there must be some warm or lively tinges of color in the costume, and vice versa. But it is easier to dress real figures than to generalize.