Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-15
life was 80 easy, and its burdens blissfully

borne.
The only girls who receive anything like
such training nowadays are actresses and
those favored to grow up in some quiet region,
sweetly recluse as that Miss Jewett pictures in
"a Marsh Island" CT Miss Woolson's Anne
grew to beauty in, among northwestern pines.
For you cannot have stage success without
physical training to a degree which repels any
but the most determined, and you will not find
beauty, health and sweetness combined without
it. The great beauties who take the social prizes
in marriage are almost all bred in the lesser
towns, where a less conventional society gives
women a snatch at freedom in girlhood. You
don't find them growing up with calisthepic
wands, health lifts and a massageuse to do
their exercise for them. You all remember
the painful story Of q girl in a city home, sur
the cords of her "health-pull' one evening,
little more than year since. Scarcely more
pitifu is her fate than that of the girls brought
up to depend on such substitutes for work and
exercise if they live. A sick, anemic woman,
unused, unable to care for herself or others, is
the most pitiable,
REPuaSAST OBJECT IN CREATION.
Uselessness, worse than disease, leaves its
blight on moral and mental growth, the
threads of its mycelium entwining the whole
nature with evil-breathing fungus and decay
Literal decay; you will not find an inactive
woman whose teeth are not spelling, her breath
nauseous in spite of deoderizers, her perspita-
ton acrid and liberation insidiously consum-
ing her interior. Better try the exacting ex-
erclses an actress undergoes to train her to the
pleasing grace which seems 80 effortless on the
stage, to kick at beam for hours, to rock,
touching the floor with her hand at each dip OF
outspread arms; to twist and turn, clinging to
rope till she can bend over backward and
touch the floor easier than you can forward.
Actresses die of paralysis, but seldom Of cancer.
They work too hard and aerate the blood too
thoroughly for that. Artists as rule are hard
working people, in love with work, in or out of
their profession. So studious women with
brains instead OF papier-mache filling in their
heads. They find in bodily activity relieffrom
nerve tension, respite for the brain. You will
recall Madam Rudersdorf housekeeping on her
summer farm, Fanny Davenport churning her
butter and keeping dairy in more practical
fashion than Marie Antoinette, though not
more so than Nine. de Sevigne. One Of the
NOTABLE NEW ENGLAND WOMEN
to-day does all her own housekeeping in a
country cottage orderly as new entertains,
does preserving and embroiders dresses, edits
family paper, and writes sixty friendly letters
week. besides getting up Christmas trees for
poor children and making every article on them
herself. l confess the notability of this woman
discourages me. The sixty letters a week
would overthrow my energies hope it is not
traitorous to repeat the pleasant picture given
of a call on committee business on Mrs. Kate
Gannett Wells, the author, who is also one OF
the business women in Boston. Writing cpl
grammatc articles for the magazines, enter
tanning largely of the best company In the city
OF good company, model wife and mother, also
a working member of twelve benevolent or lit
erary societies, this particular day she came to
the door in white apron and cap, having just
swept all the second floor, her various servants
having extra duty on account of a luncheon
party next day. thorough modern condition
of things. The employer takes care the SER
want does notneed, but who is there to take
care OF the mother and mistress? Another OF
the literary guild in New England, where the
lower class is SO busy elevating itself Chose
already elevated must do their own housework)
did the family washing, dug the ground and set
out fifty rose bushes and then wrote SIS ar'i-
Gle before tea for a days work. Perhaps such
woman may be said to pay her way III FAM
lily. Her child said to her one day, Mother,
why is it that you don't look old and wrinkled,
as other women do?' Don't know, unless
I'm too busy to give the wrinkles chance to
set" said the happy, hard-worked woman.
Now, wasn't that a nice thing for child to say
to Its mother!
THE WISE WOMAN.
But beside work which I so worship and
relish as to be always vainly speaking its praise,
the wise woman spares none Of the gentle
means to keep her suppleness and vitality at
its highest. Hot baths are cleansing and re-
newing, till it is like being born again to come
out of one. In Partisan shops, like the Bon
Marehe, one sees little bags Of bean sold for
the bath, for their chaffy, cleansing qualities.
The portable vapor bath, looking much like q
colonial secretary, is Invaluable as restorative
and cosmetic agent. This is a tight box with a
folding seat, where one takes his place over
saucer of burning alcohol and the sloping lid
fits close around the neck, so that one has
Turkish bath without leaving his own
chamber. A brunette lady who used this
bath weekly, always came out so bleached
one could but wonder what the effect used
oftener would be. Steaming the face over
kettle Of hot water is an effective way of soft
ening and whitening the skin, and wards of
wrinkles Washing the face in the hottest
water II will bear, half dozen times day,
and leaving 1t for minutes at time. is all that
it is recommended to be for restoring the COM
plexion, and sometimes reduces red nose and
other imfammations.
1t is the presentable aches and fatigues which,
added to the inevitable ones, break down ones
health--something which few women ever find
out. Aud little care goes great way often
in supporting one under necessary cares.
Always pick the straws off your camel, if You
can do nothing more to lessen its burden.
Gur Nm