A Piece of Good Advice

1895

A dear, pretty old lady once said to me, when I, with the sublime uncharitableness which youth considers divine humor, had been ridiculing some one's personal appearance: "My dear, never quiz people for what they can't help. That's their Creator's affair — not yours. Be as down on them as you like for what they can help, but always draw the line there and make it a rule through life." We can't shape our noses as we can our lives, and really I think, considering the mess that some of us make of the latter, it is perhaps just as well. We can't model our cheeks as we can our waists, and that is decidedly a pity, for so long as men admire small waists so long shall we dutifully seek to attain them, by fair means or foul. I suppose we can make our faces innocent or wicked, and that is unfortunate, for the innocent often like to wear wicked masks, and the wicked oftener contrive angel faces. Ah, well!" — Philadelphia Times.


Girls With Voices

Mme. Marchesi, who is the famous teacher of many famous singers, among them Sibyl Sanderson, gives a bit of advice to English and American girls with voices. "No girl," says she, "who would become a singer must neglect to know one other language besides her own. If her ear and tongue have never been trained to hear or pronounce anything but her native English, she will have a hard time of it. It does not matter which language it is — French, German, Spanish, Italian — any one will do. It is the premier pas qui coute. When one is learned, others will come easily enough afterward." This skillful instructor counts two years as the minimum in which to perfect a singer, three years being preferable.

You Have A Beautiful Face (1916 Advertisement)

1916

(Click graphic for bigger view)

But Your Nose?

In this day and age attention to your appearance is an absolute necessity if you expect to make the most out of life. Not only should you wish to appear as attractive as possible, for your own self-satisfaction, which is alone well worth your efforts, but you will find the world in general judging you greatly, if not wholly, by your "looks," therefore it pays to "look your best" at all times.

Permit no one to see you looking otherwise; it will injure your welfare! Upon the impression you constantly make rests the failure or success of your life. Which is to be your ultimate destiny? My new Nose-Shaper, "Trados" (Model 22) corrects now ill-shaped noses without operation, quickly, safely and permanently. Is pleasant and does not interfere with one's daily occupation, being worn at night.

M. Trilety, Face Specialist.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

Note: I doubt if Trilety is still in business, so please save your stamp.


Women and Love

Love is a candle which all women hope to light with a match.

How Accidents Become Habits

1901

As to our mannerisms, says a writer in the Baltimore Sun, at first they are accidents, and afterward they become habits. It is singular how easy it is to convince a credulous public that a misfortune is a gift, just as an eccentricity is a mark of genius.

Your correspondent knows a lady who was asked in marriage by several gentlemen (for where one pastures others will follow), although she was neither beautiful nor clever nor rich but because she was affected with a trembling of the lids. In her inmost heart she who addresses you believes the trembling began with nervousness, but it was universal, and after a little what was curious began to be regarded as fascinating.

At any rate I know a well established, portly lady, married to a man who secured her, not without difficulty, whose only sorrow is the necessity of keeping up the girlish habit which procured her a spouse. He is not a sentimentalist, but he wants what he paid for. He married her because her eyelids trembled, and not unnaturally he wishes to be possessed of the same treasure.

A Dead Face In the Window

1901

Crockford, the proprietor of a well known London gambling house, was made to play a queer role after he was dead. When one of Crockford's horses was poisoned just before the Derby, the misfortune brought on an attack of apoplexy, which proved fatal within 48 hours. Now, many of Crockford's friends had staked large sums on another of the gambler's horses, which was a favorite for the Oaks and which was disqualified by the death of the owner. Only the people in the gambling house knew of Crockford's death, and it was resolved to keep it a secret until after the race.

The servants were bribed and sworn to secrecy, and the conspirators on the day after the night upon which Crockford died had the body placed in a chair at a window, so that people returning from the track could see the gambler sitting there. He was fixed up to look as lifelike as possible and through the window and partially concealed from view by the curtains looked so natural that no one of the great crowd which came cheering by the house when on their return from seeing Crockford's horse win the Oaks suspected the trick.

The nest day it was announced that Crockford was dead, but it was years before the true story leaked out.

How "All Men Are Born Equal"

1905

The woman born beautiful doesn't bother to educate her intelligence, is spoiled by flattery, is unable to hold the men she attracts; the woman born homely is driven to develop her character and her mind, and so more than overcomes her handicap as against her pretty sister.

The man born clever loses because he wins too easily and has no incentive to that sustained effort which alone achieves success; the man born "slow" develops patience, assiduity, balance and, best of all, tenacity.

It comes near to being a universal rule that strong points and weak ones just about offset each other in any human being at the start, and that the development is a matter for the man himself to determine. And there is no fatal handicap except the disposition to regard one's handicap as fatal. — Saturday Evening Post.


Use Pipes of Pure Gold

There is an endless variety of substances of which pipes are made. In China the stems are of bamboo. In India leather stems are used, in Persia sweet jasmine, in Asia Minor cherry wood. In the Philippine Islands a richer material is available, for the natives hollow out sold nuggets which they find in the torrent beds, and use them as pipe bowls.

Wise Words — No Man Wants To Be A Saint

1896

No man wants to be a saint unless he knows what it means to be a sinner.

It is just as easy to predict a severe winter as any other kind.

People never mean it when they say they don't care how they look.

Widowers do not have half so much fun as they are supposed to have.

It is to live twice when you can enjoy the recollection of our former life.

There are several things worse than disappointment in love. Rheumatism is one.

Unfriended indeed is he who has no friend bold enough to point out his faults.

The only way some people ever prepare for a rainy day is by stealing an umbrella.

A man's conduct is only a picture-book of his creed. He acts after what he believes.

Waste of wealth is sometimes retrieved; waste of health seldom; waste of time never.

The man who sells ice in the summer and coal in the winter is about the only fellow who can safely defy the elements.

Scandal is described as something which one-half the world takes pleasure in inventing and the other half in believing. — The South-West.

Long Wars Due to Whiskers

1910

Trivial Incident Led to Three Hundred Years of Fighting

For ages beards were the delight of ancient beauties. The sight of a shaved chin excited sentiments of horror and aversion.

To obey the injunctions of his bishops, Louis VII of France cropped his hair a la pompadour and shaved off his luxuriant whiskers. Eleanor of Aquitane, his consort, found him with this uncommon appearance very ridiculous and very contemptible. She revenged herself by becoming something more than a coquette. The king obtained a divorce.

She then married the count of Anjou, who shortly afterward ascended the French throne, and gave him as her marriage dower the rich provinces of Poiton and Guienne; and this was the origin of those wars which for 300 years ravaged France and which cost the French nation 3,000,000 men.

All of which, probably, would have never taken place if Louis VII had not been so rash as to shave off his whiskers, by which he made himself so disgusting to the fair Eleanor.


Love Affairs of the Sexes

It is only her first love affair that a woman cherishes and remembers. Man is so lacking in originality that all the others are merely duplicates.

Beauty – Calling a Woman "Pretty" is Merely Conventional

1877

Pretty women are spoken of as if they, of all others, were the elect; as if woman's sole claim to admiration rested on her possession of fine eyes or luxuriant hair. "Is she pretty?" is the first question asked concerning a new acquaintance, as though that embraced the whole subject.

If a man likes a woman he generally considers her "pretty," for the term is merely conventional. A pretty woman, in the private lexicon of masculinity, signifies a woman interesting from whatever cause. Who has not known women to be called pretty that could hardly boast of a single handsome feature? Who has not been acquainted with those enjoying a wide reputation for prettiness that had almost any other than a physical charm? She who has a distinctly graceful manner, or an elegant air, or fine tact, or a talent for conversation, or quick sympathies, or cordial ways, or a heart of listening well, albeit plain in face and of ordinary figure, is frequently styled pretty, and the adjective is repeated until it is fastened upon and constantly associated with her.

Merely pretty women do not rule society — never did and never will. When beauty is allied to pleasant manners, or accomplishments, tact, quick wit, then, indeed, it is all-powerful; otherwise a really plain woman who had conspicuous graces of mind and manner will prove more than a match for her beautiful, insipid sisters.



Jonah and the Whale

A naturalist walks boldly to the front and announces that the preservation of Jonah in the whale's belly was not a miracle. The throat of the whale is large, and is provided with a bag or intestine, so considerable in size that the whales frequently take into it two of their young ones when weak, and especially during a tempest. As this receptacle is furnished with two vents that serve for inspiration, it is claimed that Jonah could have lived there comfortably and, with reasonable amount of furniture, many years, provided he could obtain food and drink.



Emotions of a Mother's Heart

A mother may never find words in which to express the emotions which surge through her heart on finding her babe, just dressed in its Sunday best, stirring the contents of a bottle of ink into the coal ashes with the hair-brush but she will try to, and try with all her might.

The Looks of Literary Women

1874

Some one having revived the lamentable truism that literary women are seldom beautiful; that their features, and especially their foreheads, are more or less masculine, a recent writer points out some exceptions, among them Miss Landon, whose forehead was essentially feminine, and who was exceedingly pretty. Mrs. Stanton, likewise, is a pretty woman, but Miss Anthony and Mrs. Livermore are both plain. Maria and Jane Porter were women of high brows and irregular features, as was also Miss Sedgwick. Anna Dickinson has a strong masculine face; Kate Fields has a good looking, though by no means a pretty one, and Mrs. Stowe is thought to be positively homely. Alice and Phoebe Gary are both plain in features, though their sweetness in disposition added greatly to their personal appearance. Margaret Fuller had a splendid head, but her features were irregular. Charlotte Bronte had wondrously beautiful dark brown eyes and a perfectly-shaped head. Julia Ward Howe is a fine-looking woman. Laura Holloway resembles Charlotte Bronte. Neither Mary Booth nor Marion Harland can lay claim to handsome faces, while Mary Clemmer Ames is just as pleasing in features as her writings are graceful.


Man as a Leaf

Man is no better than a leaf driven by the wind until he has completely mastered his great, lonely duties. If he has no habit of retiring from all that is worldly, and of conversing face to face with his inner man, if he does not draw down upon his soul "the powers of the world to come," then he is no man yet; he has not found the life of man, nor the strength of man; he is a poor, unhappy man, sporting only with shadows, and affrighted before the real and the eternal. He owns a great house, a wonderful house, but it is shut up, and he lives outside with his fellow-cattle; the inside is wholly unknown to him, and he has lived outside so long that he is afraid of the inside. Think, my good brothers and sisters, of the great, high serene world, in which you might live and move and have your being.

Stout But Wanting To Look Thin? Work On Your Collar

1903

THE FACE AND THE COLLAR.

Easy Means by Which a Stout Man May Make Himself Look Thin.

Men who do not want to look any fatter in the face than they can help have an easy means of accomplishing their purpose. Not all of them are aware of the effect that may be created by the form of a collar or cravat.

"The stout man who wants to look as thin as he can," said the haberdasher's clerk, "ought to wear a tie of the kind known as the four-in-hand. Preferably it should be dark in color and drawn tight. That carries down the line of the face and lengthens it to a degree that tends to make the face look thinner.

"Another aid to making a man look thin is in the height of his collar. Stout men who want to look thin should wear high collars and close ones. Any collar that opens in front makes one look stout under nearly every circumstance. Such collars are becoming to the thin men.

"The fat man should avoid the kind of tie that has a horizontal effect. This will add pounds to his appearance — in his face, at least.

"On the contrary, this cross effect will make the thin man look stout. The broad plastron scarves, as they are called, have little effect on a man's looks one way or the other. When he wears them it is the collar that makes the difference.

"He should therefore see that he wears a high one that does not open if he wants to look as thin as possible, whereas, if he wants to seem stouter, an open collar will produce that effect for him. — New York Sun.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 5, 1903, page 6.