Grand Rapids herald. [volume] (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 1892-1959, 1893-01-08
HOW TO BE PRETTY
Fannie Edgar Thomas Gives
Some Practical
HINTS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE
II Is the Trained Complexity OF Motion
That Makes GfAce-Women Should
Train the Body.

HWY nv adopt physical culture
N through falls. idea thar
e. naturalness means grace.
E>A "Wedo want 10 be grace
X - full, but we hate atfecta-
ton" they say. What is
natural and easy must be graceful. We
become conscious, stiff and stilted once
we meddle with nature and attempt to
train ourselves into grace"
Never We're hackneyed expressions
more utterly false than these. The many
unfortunate surprises from mirror and
photograph camera ought TO prove that
TO any intelligent person. Thought may
imagine position OF great dignity and
elegance The reflection discloses one
of extreme awkwardness that is fire.
Quently ludicrous. While thought must
underlie all grace, it is not able to speak
through stiff. unframed muscles.
Some people are born with natural
grace and need little or no suggestion
in this regard. With some little
thought and effort works marked i'm
provement, while others, in order to
attain any sort of satisfactory symme
try, must go into u regular course OF
training for Development. Any one who
would develop all her latent charm must
pass through more or less of this.
Pleasing expression of the body is
similar to harmony on carefully tuned
piano. When one portion of the body
is keyed too high and snother too low
the result must be diverd to the OBJ
server. This discord is awkwardness.
Proportional tension or laxity of the
body produces its music, which is grace.
Among women there is the comforta-
Bile clumsiness of ignorance, the lissom
indolent grace of the skilled muscle and
the great crowded middle land of effort
without training, showing stiff, awk-
ward angularity, self consciousness and
nervousness, as displeasing to the eye as
uncomfortable to the owner.
Were thought upon the subject all
that were necessary, one lecture, with
illustrations from everyday life, would
absolutely graceful women, but unfor-
tunately muscle must be made obedient
TO brain before it can fifty represent it.
| By nature large minded, independent,
enthusiastic, honest, sensible and digni-
! fed, American women as a class utterly
misrepresent themselves to foreigners
by unframed gaucheries of personal ex-
preston.
! Observe in the next company Of which
you are member the launching of shout.
ders to ears, chests followed into fur
rows, contracted brows, turned in toes.
| spasmodic contortions of the face, sup
posed to be expressive; incessant jerk
ings of hands, arms and head; stiffening
of limb joints into supposed graceful po-
sitions--all outward incongruities due
to neglect of the laws of grace; bad
habits of sitting. riding, walking, which
distort or leave unaccented the ssiapely
line of corsage, sleeve or limb, and
which are chiefly the result of a nerv-
business born of the desire to please.
Skilled grace is always easy and com
Portable. 1t makes Bernhardt, Sal
vini. Lolita. Looking upon it each
| one imagines it easily attainable-till
one tries! Unskilied motion is painful
awkwardness. Half trained skill is con-
scious affectation-the most displeasing
of all.
The stumbling block in the way Of
Improvement to many Americans is
found in their impetuous haste to show
F., off, TO rush into observation with half
baked skill, as far from naturalness as
from grace. Observers, Disguised. have
! been led to exclailn: ''All this Delsar-
team work is affectation. l will have
none of it"
In her ideas of grace the English wom-
ans manner is marked by an exaggerat-
ed repose: the Frenchwoman's by a
capitalization of surprises; that of the
Italian and Spanish by an indolent lux
ury of line and motion--the music of
feeling.
II is not the simplicity Of it. but the
trained completely of motion, that makes
I grace. In the bow Of Salvini there are
a score Of motions, yet to look upon it
is the most simple and natural thing in
the world
Few pretty women get half the value
Of their figures on account of the stiff
I ungracefulness Of the muscles. Tn
trained muscles do not grow beautifully
wild. like children and flowers, but stiff
and ungainly. without sdaptability or
expression.
The hand of professional pianist,
trained 10 habits of obedience to the
brain. even in repose is speaking-full
Of expression. Compare it with that If
the day laborer Most of our bodies
compare with the latter.
The first thing TO do with the body ia
to timber it up to make the muscles
absolutely pliable. bat firm and strong.
= make the different portions Of The
bedv individual or distinct from each
other. Co make all subservienf 70 the dc
tates IF the brain, and TO make this
+ obedience spontaneous and unconscious
. through habit
Even a busy woman" should devote
a. beast fifteen OF twenty minutes twice
q day 90 the training II her form 10
make il straight, round and flexible.
FANSIE EDGAR THOMAS
Z afnNaNfrr xafNxs p 80 DaukCDhpEyc