"Relax, relax," says Edmond Russell. "Let go the tense hold of your
arms that is wearing out your vitality. You will get rest by doing
this. Sleepless people will fall asleep. Stop holding yourself in a
knot and relax. Hold up the chest, breathe slowly and deeply through
the nose, and relax the extremities."
"Try letting go," says Mrs. Russell; "it is a great rest. You can let
yourself go for a few moments in the theater, in a crowd, in church,
in the street car, anywhere. It is the universal habit to hold on to
one's self with a grip that would almost lift one's weight, muscles
tightened, nerves strained to no purpose. The mind is too eager and
fast for the body. The result is exhaustion."
"How shall it be avoided? Take the will out of the body when it is not
in action. In walking, let the lower limbs do the work; the arms have
nothing to do: let them be carried as attachments, pendulums if you
will, but at rest." Let the hands fall easily when sitting in
carriage, street car, or drawing-room.
On Corset Wearing.
The wearing of corsets meets the strong disapproval of all
Delsarteans, as "control of the breath underlies gesture, walk and
voice," and a tightened corset-lace necessarily cramps the breathing
power. The tight, high collar is also objectionable for the same
reason.
An English writer justly observes that "all the greater harmonies and
higher courtesies of life must extend over the whole body." Now, in
great emotions the chest expands, and especially the lower part where
the ribs are freest and intended to expand most, and this part it is
that tight corsets most compress to attain the artificial waist. The
figure, trying to accommodate itself to the new conditions becomes
deteriorated in all directions. The back grows rounded, the ribs fall
in, and the stomach obtrudes itself unduly; all this to the injury of
health and of harmonious beauty of form.
Mr. Russell also asserts that a forced compression of the waist
damages the power of the figure as an instrument for the expression of
emotions, the result of all this being an unfavorable reaction upon
the mind and character of the unfortunate victims. One of his maxims
is: "A beautiful woman is at her lowest plane in a tight-fitting
dress; an ugly woman on her highest in drapery!"
General Remarks.
Educated men and women of to-day study social, domestic and political
economy, forgetting that vital economy that Delsarte teaches is more
essential to our interests and the interests of our descendants.
"Relax, relax, relax!" one is tempted to cry in unison with Edmond
Russell. Give us what there is in you. Make yourself "a being whose
body is the exponent of the soul responsive to every command of the
spirit."
Cease limping through life on high-heeled shoes. Cease lifting the
shoulders, fidgeting the hands, painfully raising the eyebrows, and
contorting the face into a meaningless smile. Remember that all facial
contortions leave indelible traces in their wake. The laugh, or broad
smile that half closes, or squints the eyes, engraves those fine
ray-like, much-dreaded lines about the eye, known as crow's feet.
Remember that "laughter ages the face more than tears." Smile more
often with the eyes. Let them light up and laugh for you. Trust me, in
most cases a vast improvement will result, since scarcely any adult
laughs well, and if there is some trait of affectation, frivolity,
cruelty, or even coarseness in the character, uncontrolled laughter
will be the sure exponent thereof.
Rest more. Do not try to accomplish too many things at once. Do not
let your thoughts be weeks or days ahead of you and the task in hand.
This would be imposing double duty upon the already strained physique.
If the body is at one store, do not let the mind fly off to shop in
half a dozen other stores to snatch "bargains" from the hands of other
over-burdened ones.
Straighten out the frowns on your strained brows. Cease carrying
numberless loose packages, and loads of heavy skirts in your hands,
and struggling with the well-dressed mob to secure coveted bargains.
They are dearly bought at the loss of beauty, youth and repose. One
such day ages the face. If you do not believe it, ye dwellers in
cities, go stand before your mirror next time you reach home, dusty,
rasped, fragmentary, weary from a day of counter-shoving, neither
mistress of yourself nor those about you, and the face that meets your
gaze will tell its own story.
Rightly does Herbert Spencer say, "We have had something too much of
the gospel of work, it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation."
And this chapter will have reached its aim if it shall be the means of
inducing any to become disciples of Delsarte, restful converts of this
gospel of relaxation, which is one with the Gospel of Beauty.
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