Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-15
Written for THE EVENING STAR
THE SECRET OF BEAUTY.
The Value of Wholesome and Rational
Exercise and Mental Employment.


Exercise and Mental Employment.
SOME FAULTS IN THE TRAINING OF THE MODERN
eIRL-INTEREsTrNG WORK ADDS TO woMAs's
cHARMs-PARLoR GYMNASTICS AND THE PITS
IcAL CULTURE OF GREEK MAIDEN.
Something more than a pretty face is needed
for charm that will outlast weeks acouaint-
ance. pretty face is enough for photo
graph, but let me remind young women how
many men Of the world, and of taste, have de-
clared they would weary OF Venus herself in
three months il they had to sit opposite her
every day at dinner. There must be something
sought among the secrets Of Gree to give a
longer lease Of charm, a more varied appeal to
the sensibilities in everyday usage. To be a
satisfactory companion, woman wants the
expression which comes Of quick intelligence,
the ease and varied motion that belong to sup
pleness Of limb, and the lightness of mental
and bodily touch, born not Of feebleness, but
force and good staying powers-qualities each
farer than perfect Greek features, unbemished
complications, and hair yard and half long.
The lightness which comes of high order of
strength and endurance is, am inclined to
think, the rarest of all physical qualities, and
at the same time one which all women might
possess II they would cultivate it.
who fills a tailor gown so well, plays tennis to
perfection and pulls an oar in the club regatta
looks the picture of health, but her tread is
convincing. You are aware of it when she sits
down by the shock, and IL you expect her to
turn aside, on meeting suddenly in the shop
aisles or the railway station, you are mistaken.
1t seems impossible for her well-built figure to
swerve or get out of the way, any more easily
than ii moved by brake and axles Put her in
the N flo h,r
careful routine, and she goes to pieces sooner
than her mother who never knew calisthenics,
other than those taught by small beginnings
uncertain income and the bringing up half a
dozen children. The daughter has been
trained, not to live, but to graduate, and her
| physical training has been on a par with her
study of political science and comprehensive
| view of all religions. One thing as TO her fu-
ture as woman Is certain, rich or poor and
she will find use for all the uuickness strength
and lasting ability it is possible to give her.
How do you propose to get them? By shutting
| her away from every pursuit she is likely to
follow the rest of her life, Just when she is
forming, and her tastes and muscles might
ADAPT themselves to these inevitable tasks.
which by practice would cease to be felt as
tasks. By putting upon the immature brain
all Its labor for a lifetime, in shape Of study.
Sending the girl into the world with
NERVES ALREADY TEAsED AND STRAINED,
| unit for any sort Of endurance, If heart and
| stomach are not already diseased to make
| trouble for life. In place of the varied tasks
at home, and outdoor life, she has had the ex-
cellent mechanical gymnastics which are to
real exercise what barrel organs are to music.
or canned soup to fresh beef and salad Take
! the best gymnastics. The Swedish or Ling
system, called we simplest and BEST las they
| require no tbs and do not involve any
| great fatty They are a series of rhythmic
| gestures, glN IN as follows:
| 4 tl.a .tr
| twenty times in succession. Extend the arms
| forward. outward, and upward thirty times.
| z. Execute circular movement from the
waist, swaying the upper part of the body slow
| iy round thirty times.
8. Extend the leg as nearly at right angles
with the body as possible, twelve times each
| side.
T. Extend and bend the foot twenty times
each side; perform the gesture of reaping or
saving thirty times; bend each knee twenty
| times.
s. Raise the arm swiftly and rapidly. as in
| the action Of throwing lance, twelve times in
succession. Throw out both arms together
| twenty or thirty times.
! g. Trot on one spot resting the hands on the
hips and lifting the feet briskly, one hundred
| to three hundred times.
T. Jump with hands on hips and head and
body erect, fifty or a hundred times.
All this to be done before breakfast or an
| hour before each meal. This empty, aimless
motion would be worse than half an hour of
! the tread-mill to a woman of nerves IL ia
hard work for muscles and nerves, because it is
| fighting the air. Better the quot in the hand
or bowling, the race on the green, or turning a
crank, something to give defniteness, resist
| ance and interest to the work.
| HEALTHY AND BEAUTIFUL.
| Simonides tells US that .'the two things the
| Greeks desired most were to be healthy and
| beautiful" with beauty which was the re-
suit OF careful physical training. But it was
not a training with ropes and pulleys, q vacant
] order OF gestures, that left the face as dull as
| the body. Their women were most of them
! beautiful, so that plainness was the same ex-
ception with them that classic loneliness is with
us. They were bred to be lovely, as our girls
| are to be polite and to graduate" and their
manner OF training would have the same result
| in America that it had in Attica or Doria. To
| tell the truth. you seldom find lasting beauty
| which has not had semi-Greek education OF
outdoor life and exercise behind it. Take the
| beautiful Cummings who ran wild in their Irish
country home, till their calculating mamma
| raked and scraped enough to take them to
| Dublin and thence to London
The Cummings were hoydens, but their races
over the hills gave them matchless. complex
! ions. Later still Mrs. Langtry took her beauty
| course, rowing the Jersey lanes with her broth
| ers in soft, pure sea air, living on peaches and
| coarse bread, with just as little of lessons as
| suffeed 70 1T her for London drawing-rooms
repeat IL, ana propose to repeat 1t till the idea
reaches attention. that you can turn girl out.
| clever, better informed, of more accurate
| tastes, and surer adaptation to any society in
| which she is thrown, by three hours study
| day, and the rest out of doors or at work. than
by reversing the order. have seen it and the
| per contra too often not to know Diditneyer
strike you how dull air stupefies and stultifies
the brain, or how incessant early study leaves
| the mind active in its narrow traverse, but in
capable Of originating creditably or seeing
| things clearly?
THE SCHOOL DRILL
sends out the women of angular or precise
movements and equally confined ideas These
| alumne, with their class pins and heads full OF
women's club ideas are the least interesting to
| talk with, or know, of their sex. EverytRine
| is cut and dried, everything repeats the class
| book or the sentiments of o clique. As for
getting her to look over the hedge of her own
opinion, or that of her favorite reviewer I
| pity the sanguine mortal who essays it. You
might as well expect an epigram from her or a
repartee. She may write poetry full of Greek
| illustration, but Greek reality would be very
bad form in her eyes. The nearest thing we
know to it in this age is some up-country or
| far west settlement where the girls climb
| fences, play ball and run races with boys till
they are nineteen, and study Tennysm and
Milton over their ironing boards, or read the
Atlantic Monthly after driving reaper to the
| blue and gold moons of wheat harvest. and
| dance in the moonlight afterward. Wholly