We'll waste no time in proving that women, from the cradle to the
grave, at all hours and all ages, are sincerely interested in
their personal appearance.
No man should object to this--the constitutional guarantee
referring to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness covers
the ground fully.
But it is not enough for men NOT TO OBJECT to woman's various
innocent vanities.
Every man should be delighted that women are vain. Each man
should do what he can to keep the vanity alive.
FOR WOMAN'S VANITY, DEARLY BELOVED, IS THE ONE AND INDISPENSABLE
PRESERVER OF HER HEALTH.
A woman cannot be pretty, according to her own notions, unless
HEALTHY.
If too fat, she is not pretty--and she is miserable until,
through self-control, she gets thin.
If too thin, she is not pretty. At present she has a crazy sort
of idea that to be "skinny" is to be attractive. That is a
passing delusion. In the long run women realize that there is
nothing beautiful about a female living skeleton, and they strive
through normal living to become normal.
Above all, no woman can have a good complexion unless she have
good health and live normally. This one absorbing question of
complexion does more for woman's health; it gives us more strong
mothers, and more sensible girls, than all the preachings,
beseechings, prayers and expostulations of all the world's male
advisers.
A woman's instinct is to eat buckwheat cakes, adding boiling hot
coffee and iced water. She likes to eat candy between meals, and
her idea of a fine luncheon is lobster salad and ice cream. But
small spots appear. Those fine pink cheeks get too pink or too
pale, and sensible eating is adopted as a life rule.
Even the hideous corset squeezing is counteracted by the power of
complexion. Woman likes to look like a wasp, and if she could
she would move her poor system all out of place for the sake of a
waist hideously small.
But, providentially, a waist squeezed too mercilessly gives a
bright pink tip to the end of the nose; and for the sake of the
color of that nose-tip the poor waist gets a rest--the corset is
let out.
It cannot be denied that among idle, nervous women to-day there
is a tendency to take stimulants to excess, and even to smoke
abominable cigarettes.
Alcohol, fortunately, ruins the complexion. And for the sake of
their looks women often deny themselves and show a strength of
resolution that would not be called forth by any moral appeal.
Cigarettes in short order make the face sallow, spoil the shape
of the mouth, make the eyes heavy, fill the hair with permanently
unpleasant nicotine suggestions, develop a mustache--and women
are cured of cigarette smoking by a look in the glass, when they
could not be cured by tearful appeals of the wisest philosophers.
----
Do not, therefore, O men, despise the vanity of women. Praise
and cherish it rather. Be grateful that nature works in a
wonderful way through the power of attraction, making woman do
for good looks' sake that which is most important to her welfare.
If you want to cure your wife or some other female relative of
lacing, don't moralize. Say to her six or seven times:
"Isn't the end of your nose a little red?"
Should she act in any way unwisely, staying up too late, living
foolishly, trying the silly and unwomanly habit of cigarette
smoking, don't criticise the habit.
Criticise her complexion, or the look of her eyes, or her general
lack of youthfulness. She will soon be cured, if you can follow
this advice astutely.