A FINE COMPLEXION.

197 in Paris, you know-there are lionnes who still have recourse to this extraordinary procedure to heighten their charms. We are obliged to confess that it would doubtless be efficient, for the albumen in the flesh would soften the epidermis and loosen its scales. But who would be willing to go to such an extreme, when the object may be attained by cleanlier and more agreeable means? Or who would follow the example of Madame Vestris, who, if rumor did not traduce her, was wont to cover her cheeks and forehead every night, with what butchers call a "leaf" or "flare," from an animal freshly killed?

PROTECTING THE COMPLEXION-MASKS AND VEILS.

Sun and air give a ruddy, healthy glow to the face, but they also roughen and brown it. They are unfriendly to the delicate shades of pink and white, which are the pride or the envy of many a belle. Therefore from earliest times shields of various sorts have been devised.

In the Orient and in Spanish countries, women of the better class rarely go abroad except in thick veils, with perhaps apertures cut for the eyes. In Egypt, the little girls of eight and ten years will find some old rag to conceal their face from a stranger, though they leave exposed every inch of the rest of their body.

The custom arose not so much from marital jealousy and rigid discipline, as from coquetry, and a desire to

guard the complexion against the burning sun and scorching winds of those hot climates. The veil in our more temperate land serves the same purpose. It is an important article of the dress, and should be worn assiduously on going out in a damp and raw, or hot and dry atmosphere. In winter, the sudden change from our furnace-heated houses to the keen outdoor cold is very trying to the skin, and then especially is a thick veil of service. No cook can hope to have a good complexion, or a healthy skin, and it is because she is constantly exposed to just such changes from heat to cold.

Our ancestors were in this respect more careful than we. In the days of the second Charles, and Queen Anne, it was no unusual sight to see ladies in the London thoroughfares wearing masks or half masks, not, as you might suspect, bent on some wild freak, but simply for the purpose of protecting their complexions. In France, the home of coquetry, the usage was already ancient. Margaret of Navarre, queen of Henry IV., she whose wedding torches were quenched in the blood of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, was so in love with her mask that she refused to lay it aside even at night. This irritated her husband, with very good reason, we think, and was the first of a long series of "domestic infelicities." Henry was not choice in his expressions, and roundly said to her no long time after the wedding day :

BENEFIT OF MASKING.

199

66 Madam, with that confounded black mask on, you look so much like the devil that I am always tempted to make the sign of the cross to drive you away."

Margaret preferred to lose her husband rather than her complexion, and, when matters went to the extent of suing for a divorce, as they naturally did, Henry offered this nocturnal mask as a grave evidence of conjugal insubordination.

We have already remarked, and we repeat the warning, that exposure to out-door air immediately after washing the hands or face will almost surely change the skin more or less into parchment. The Romans and Greeks knew this, and took care to protect these parts by inunctions of oil; the ladies of the olden time knew it, and covered their faces with their loups. If the belles of our own day bore it more constantly in mind, there would be less demand for the artifices by which ruined complexions are concealed. Always, therefore, for at least fifteen minutes after washing the face, remain in a room moderately lighted and moderately warmed. Or if it is necessary to go out, wear a veil, and if the air is raw, rub gently on the skin a few drops of pure glycerine, or dust it with a little rice powder.

WHAT CLOTHING SHOULD BE WORN NEXT THE SKIN?

On a previous page we disavowed any intention of discussing that profound question, the Philosophy of

Clothes, which, according to Mr. Carlyle's favorite hero, Herr Teufeldröck, and (dare we add?) the verdict of many a fair one, 'simply includes most that is important in this sublunary sphere. Nevertheless, we cannot altogether escape it. It meets us just now in considering how best to protect the skin against outside influences, and we must, perforce, give it attention. The underclothing-we mean its deepest strata in immediate contiguity to the body-has quite as much to do with a person's comfort, health, and good looks, and consequently with his or her success in life, as the outside apparel, public opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. It is pertinent, here as elsewhere, to look beneath the surface to form our judgment of the individual.

Cleanliness we take for granted. "Foul linen" and healthy skin are incompatibles. Falstaff himself, whose stomach was not easily turned, could not abide the "rank compound of villainous smells" which he suffered in the buck-basket. No excuse, short of that of Queen Isabella, is valid for not changing the underclothing every week. Isabella, daughter of Philip II., wife of the Archduke Albert, swore by the Virgin and all the saints that until her royal husband should reduce the refractory citizens of Ostend, to which he was diligently laying siege, she would not remove a stitch of her clothing.

The stiff-necked burghers proved of doughtier mettle

A HORRIBLE PENANCE.

· 201

than she had at all anticipated, and it was three good years ere her husband could send her word that her penance was ended, and that she might put on a clean smock with a clear conscience. By that time, and long before it, her ruffles and collars had acquired a dingy brown hue, which out of compliment to her was at once adopted as the court fashion, under the name of l'Isabeau.

The first quality demanded in the articles which come next the skin is, that they be soft and comfortable. They must not irritate, nor be chilly, nor heating. To our mind, one of the most dreadful penances of convent life is that mentioned by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables. He says that the nuns of a certain order are obliged to clothe themselves in harsh woollen cloth next the skin. The irritation is so distressing that they are not unfrequently thrown by it into a fever, and break out in an eruption from head to foot. The hermits and ascetics of the Middle Ages were wont to wear shirts of horse-hair cloth. The sharp ends of the hairs maintained them in that condition of constant petty misery deemed so salubrious for the soul. The same condition can nowadays be attained so easily without this artificial means, that it has fallen out of vogue.

The amount of clothing should be carefully adjusted to the temperature. When too scanty, the skin is