The Cultivation of Beauty
Excerpts from Chapter XXXVII
harmful modes of clothing, and improper modes of living generally. Take away these hindrances to the normal development of life, and the human form will begin to retrace its steps in the direction of PERFECT BEAUTY. Nature tends towards perfection in its individual creatures. Unfortunately, nature is so constantly thwarted by numerous factors to which our lives are subjected, that BEAUTY in the individual is not the end result. Yet all BEAUTY and poise spring from nature, and anyone who would acquire these must begin by getting close to the source of the supply.
The real beautifiers are out right choices, made in accordance with the perfect laws of nature. How much more could these choices achieve were we to work in harmony with the forces of life, instead of thwarting them at every turn! Not until we recognize the beautifying forces within us as being as natural as the forces without, will we be able to appreciate the necessity for meeting the requirements of the natural operations of these inherent beautifiers.
The ideal of human excellence and BEAUTY is ever latent in the race: we need but to arouse and vitalize it to make it real. There is need of a little stirring of the innermost depths of woman's being, a gentle rainfall, a little more warmth to loosen her from her prison and develop her into a glowing, radiant dazzling, wholesome, helpful personality. She needs to feel the thrill of a new life as it breaks the bonds of its former weariness, despondency, and ill health and comes forth into the sunshine! In every age and among all peoples, there have been those who were ever groping and reaching towards the light. In this age and among our people, the light seekers are the HYGIENISTS. The HYGIENIST must ever see before him and her the most beautiful women and handsome men, the race restored to its pristine pre-perfection vigorous and cheerful as the deer and the bird!
Ideals of themselves do not produce BEAUTY and strength. Unless these ideals are translated into constructive action, they wither and die in ugliness and weakness. Just as a man cannot by "taking thought" add a cubit to his stature, so he cannot sit in and armchair and think himself into health and strength and handsomeness. Dr. Jennings was right when he declared that: "No man ever acquired the strength of Hercules without the effort of a Hercules." This is equally true of BEAUTY: it is the creation of BEAUTIFUL LIVING. "BEAUTY is as BEAUTY does" is truer in a deeper and more fundamental sense than the old adage is commonly used to imply.
"You cannot sit still and expect the gods to pour out golden apples into your lap." No woman becomes or remains beautiful by neglecting herself by being careless of her living habits. The pathway to BEAUTY is not a hard one: it is the normal and healthful way of life. If, like the wives of the aristocrats of the East, who spend their lives in their tents in sloth and ease, and gentle-soft enjoyment, you take the way of indolence and indulgence, you can expect only to become fat and flabby, weak and sick. Whatever of BEAUTY you possess will certainly slip away. There is a RECIPE FOR BEAUTY that must be followed strictly and consistently.
Is BEAUTY something unattainable and undesirable? Is it a fairy gift? Is it a grand prize in a lottery, where only a lucky few are possessors of the winning numbers, while the great majority draw blanks? Is it some "rare and magical quality" that lifts a woman's face above the multitude of her contemporary sisters who bite their nails in futile envy? Is it a far-fetched and dear-bought gem? Is it a pomander to be smelt only when the crowd becomes too stinkingly repulsive to be tolerable? Is it a burst of rare oboe or violin? Is it something that is visible only from 10 to 6 by state permission at a nominal charge? Is it a thing richly apart? An ethic? A way of life and practice? And faith? And work? Is it not something transcendent, in its implications, with the very threads of life?
Let us fully realize that no fairy queen waves a wand to create Cinderellas. Because we are prone to seek out some difficult or abstruse explanation for things, instead of accepting the obvious and commonplace facts of life, as a basis for explanation, facts which are simple and lie close at hand are ignored. Hence it is that we are inclined to discount health. And the basis upon which BEAUTY depends is health! Woman's eternal quest for ways of becoming beautiful has been as misguided as man's search for the means of becoming healthy. Man has sought for health in poisons, and woman has sought in the same sources for BEAUTY. Indeed, the two searches are but parts of one whole. Man expects to get health from a bottle, and woman expects to get BEAUTY from a jar or box. Her alleged BEAUTY is not even skin deep; it is but a plaster applied from without.
Genuine BEAUTY, like love, cannot be bought or sold.... The real things of life, the vitally important things are not for sale: they cannot be purchased. BEAUTY, like strength, is the creation of Beautiful Living! Ideals of BEAUTY may be "made flesh" only by complying with Laws of Life that are as immutable as the law of gravity. BEAUTY grows normally and naturally out of certain genetic, nutritive, ethical, and environmental conditions; and when these are absent or deficient, BEAUTY withers or fails to manifest.
Behind every manifestation of BEAUTY, there are constant and unchanging laws. We must search for new BEAUTY recipes along vital lines and organic principles that will provide us with the genuine BEAUTY that all of make-up, hair-styles, and fashion camouflage so vainly seek to imitate. No intelligent person can long be satisfied with anything less. If we are to achieve anything worthwhile in the cultivation of genuine BEAUTY, we must create and cultivate higher ideals of BEAUTY than those that now prevail. But, first of all, we must learn to realize that BEAUTY is not a synthetic, superficial, inanimate thing that may be packaged and sold over the counter and applied to the human form; but, rather, BEAUTY is a living thing: it is vital, deep-seated, and subtle. For this reason, it requires nurturing and intelligent fostering.
As BEAUTY is the normal product of nature, the way of BEAUTY lies through ceasing to produce ugliness and artificiality with such causes as poor heredity, faulty nutrition,
