The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1889-04-20

BEAUTY TO ORDER.
An Authoress Insists That Plain Girls Car
Make Themselves Pretty.

An AuthOress insists That Plain GIFTS Can
Make Themselves Pretty.
Gertrude Florence Atherton, in her
sensational novel, Hernia Suydam, I"
makes her heroine turn herself into q
beautiful woman from a very ugly one.
But she does not tell how the trans
formation was accomplished. She sim
ply has the young woman closeted with
a fashionable physician; and beauty re-
suits from what the doctor tells her to.
Nevertheless, Gertrude Atherton could
have made known what the doctor is
supposed to have said If she had
wanted to, for in conversation with her
friends she is fond of asserting that
any young woman who wants to be
beautiful can make herself so, no mat
ier how slender basis of beauty she
may have to build upon at the outset.
She makes the assertion in a matter of
course way, and adds in an equally
positive manner: "Of course, i mean
any young lady of means"
Her idea is that modern sense and
modern science have reached methods
for treating every defective part of the
body that is not diseased or crippled.
The new forms of calisthenic exercises
can be applied to part after part until
each is developed to its fullest. There
are exercises for filling out the neck
and upper chest, for developing the
arms, for Strengthening the back and
throwing back the shoulders, with ac-
companying braces to keep those parts
habituated to beautiful positions. There
are even later-day systems for filling
out cavernous cheeks. One physician
at least recommends ladies whose
cheeks are the reverse of plump, to
constantly chew a piece of leather or
thick rubber--in the privacy of their
homes, of course-until the muscles of
the face are strengthened and enlarged
to the right degree.
We have heard of ambitious pug
nosed girls sleeping every night with
a patent clothes-pin fastened upon the
hollow in the nasal outline in order to
bring it up so that the full line of the
nose shall be as nearly aquiline as pos
ladies who sleep in face masks and in
gloves in order to whiten their skins in
those parts. Squint eyes are straight
ened by surgery, and projecting ears
are treated with bandages at night.
Another influence that ladies resort TO
when age begins to leave its marring
finger traces on their countenances is
the practice of rubbing upward with
the towels with which they dry their
faces after each ablution. 1t is held
by some students of the art of keeping
beautiful that as nearly all the lines
that accompany age in the face are
lines trending downward it is reasona-
BILE to suppose that they either are pro-
duced by years of wiping downward
with towels, or at least are fastened
and strengthened by that influence.
Young ladies who wish to keep these
defects from coming upon them should
therefore, always dry their faces with
upward movements of the towel.
The authoress does not go into de-
tails, but when she says 1.-THE ways by
which beauty may be created are well
known" it is these ways that she re-
fers to. AS for the complexion, she
says that while there are washes and
balms that are good, there are others
that are hurtful, whereas there can be
no harm in treating the face with cold
cream every night upon retiring. She
instances the case of a lady beyond
middle age who has pursued this course
for years, and now, while beyond mid
die age, has the complexion of an in
FAINT. Gertrude Atherton may fairly
be suspected of having practiced what
she breaches in this and many other
respects, for her complexion is beauti-
full. Her own well-sculptured Inca
ments, however, are of such a pattern
that no one will suspect her of having
need for practicing those other arts
that are required by youthful plainness.
Though she limits this ability to ac-
quire beauty to those who have means,
it would be more within the fact to say
that the chance is open to those who
have the time. 1t takes time, for in
stance, to give the hair that half an
hour of brushing every morning which
is said to make it luxuriant and glossy;
it takes time to exercise for filling out
thin arms and bony necks; it takes
time to chew rubber till your face is
plump. Time is what the homely girls
must command time, and inclination,
and intelligence enough to go to bed
early.--N. Y. Sun.