It is, however, hardly necessary to refer to these facts as a warning to
girls not to use their arms too much. The danger almost always lies the
other way, and what girls need is a set of intelligent directions for
securing a shapely arm. If the arm is too plump the method discussed in
preceding pages for the general reduction of corpulence will also affect
the arm. If too thin, which is much more frequently the case in young
women, don’t be afraid that exercise will make them thinner—on the
ground that hard labourers are commonly meagre. It is only _excessive_
exercise that produces leanness, by burning away all the fat. Moderate
exercise develops the muscles—the plastic material of beauty—and
stimulates the appetite, so that the fat-cushion under the skin also
increases in depth, covering up the angular outlines of bones, muscles,
and sinews.
It is a suggestive fact that the word calisthenics—"the art of promoting
the health of the body by exercise"—comes from two Greek words meaning
“beautiful” and “strength.”
So many books have been written on calisthenics that it is needless to
repeat here minute directions for training the muscles of the arm or any
other part of the body. One bit of sensible advice may, however, be
quoted from the _Ugly Girl Papers_: “Throwing quoits and sweeping are
good exercises to develop the arms. There is nothing like three hours of
housework a day for giving a woman a good figure, and if she sleep in
tight cosmetic gloves, she need not fear that her hands will be spoiled.
The time to form the hand is in youth, and with thimbles for the
finger-tips, and close gloves lined with cold cream, every mother might
secure a good hand for her daughter.”
It is an ill wind that blows no man good. The incessant piano-banging
and violin-scraping of thousands of unmusical young ladies has at least
one thing to be said in its favour: it helps to round and beautify the
arms of these young players.
Active exercise is the surest and quickest way of securing muscular
rotundity. But in cases where, owing to some infirmity, long-continued
spontaneous exertion is out of the question, _massage_, which has been
defined as “passive exercise,” may be resorted to as of calisthenic
value. It should only be performed by an expert, and always
centripetally, _i.e._ in the direction of the heart. It facilitates the
flow of the venous current, which in the arms and lower limbs has to
struggle upwards against the force of gravitation; and to this is partly
due its refreshing effect. As Americans are the most nervous and
sensitive people in the world, it seems probable that the feeling of
ease following the facilitating of the venous flow has taught them
instinctively to assume that peculiar position, with the feet on a chair
or table, which has been so often ridiculed by Europeans.