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TUB POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



body reminds her to change her boots when they 

 are damp ; nobody jogs her memory as to the 

 unwholesomeness of this or that beverage or 

 comestible, or gives her the little cossetings 

 which so often ward off colds and similar petty 

 ills. Unless the woman live with a sister or 

 friend, it must be scored one against her chances 

 as compared to a man, that she has no wife. 



There must, of course, be set against all this 

 the two facts that the imperiousness of men's 

 wishes and wants leads them often not only to do 

 such wholesome things as those of which we have 

 been speaking, but into sundry unwholesome ex- 

 cesses besides, for which in due time they pay by 

 various diseases, from gout up to delirium tremens. 

 And correspondingly, women's comparative in- 

 difference to the pleasures of the table keeps 

 them clear of the ills to which gormandizing and 

 bibulous flesh is heir. We all know scores of es- 

 timable gentlemen who can scarcely be prevailed 

 on, by the prayers and tears of their wives, to re- 

 frain from drinking a glass of beer or port wine 

 which will in all probability entail a fit of the gout 

 next day ; but in my whole life I have never known 

 a woman who consciously ate or drank things likely 

 to make her ill, save one mild and sweet old lady, 

 whose predilection for buttered toast overcame 

 every motive of prudence, and, alas ! even of re- 

 ligion, which I have reason to believe she endeav- 

 ored to bring to bear against the soft temptation. 

 But for the purpose we have now in hand, namely, 

 that of tracing the origin, not of acute diseases, 

 but of general petite sante, this aspect of the sub- 

 ject is unimportant. It is precisely petite sante 

 which comes of the perpetual neglect of Nature's 

 hints — that she wants air, bread, meat, fruit, tea, 

 wine, sleep, a scamper or a canter. It is definite 

 disease which results from over-exercise, over- 

 feeding, and over-drinking. 



Would it not be possible, I venture to ask, to 

 cut off this source of feminine invalidism, at all 

 events, by a somewhat more respectful attention 

 to the calls of healthful instinct? I am very far 

 from wishing that women should grow more self- 

 ish, or less tenderly regardful of the convenience 

 and pleasure of those around them. Even sound 

 health of body — immeasurable blessing that it is — 

 would be purchased too dearly if this should hap- 

 pen. But there ought surely to be an adequate 

 reason, not a mere excuse of whim and caprice of 

 her own or of anybody else, why a woman should 

 do herself hurt or incapacitate herself for future 

 usefulness. 



Another source of petite sante, I fear, may be 



found resulting from a lingering survival among 

 us of the idiotic notion that there is something 

 peculiarly "lady-like" in invalidism, pallor, small 

 appetite, and a languid mode of speech and man- 

 ners. The very word " delicacy," properly a term 

 of praise, being applied vulgarly to a valetudinary 

 condition, is evidence that the impression of the 

 " dandies " of sixty years ago, that refinement and 

 sickliness were convertible terms, is not yet wholly 

 exploded. " Tremaine " thought morbidezza — a 

 " charming morbidezza' 1 '' — the choicest epithet he 

 could apply to the cheek of beauty ; and the her- 

 oines in all the other fashionable novels of the 

 period drank hartshorn almost daily, and died of 

 broken hearts, while the pious young Protestants 

 who converted Roman Catholics in the religious 

 tales, uniformly perished of consumption. By- 

 ron's admiring biographer records how, at a large 

 dinner-party, he refused all viands except pota- 

 toes and vinegar (horrid combination !), and then 

 retired to an eating-house to assuage with a beef- 

 steak those cravings which even Childe Harold 

 could not silence with "chameleon's food" of 

 " light and air." 



We have advanced indeed somewhat beyond 

 this wretched affectation in our day, and young 

 ladies are not required by les bienseances to exhibit 

 at table the public habits of a ghoul. In a few 

 cases, perhaps, we may opine that women have 

 gone to the opposite extreme, and both eat and 

 drink more than is desirable. But yet we are 

 obviously not wholly free from the " delicacy " 

 delusion. We are not so clear as we ought to be 

 on the point that, though beauty includes other 

 elements, yet health is its sine qua non, and that no 

 statuesque nobility of form (much less a pinched 

 waist and a painted face) can constitute a beauti- 

 ful living human creature, who lacks the tokens 

 of health — clear eyes, clear skin, rich hair, good 

 teeth, a cool, soft hand, a breath like a bunch of 

 cowslips, and a free and joyous carriage of the 

 head and limbs. 



Have we not, in the senseless admiration of 

 feebleness and pallor (to obtain which a fashion- 

 able lady not long ago literally bled herself by 

 degrees to death), an illustration of the curious 

 fact pointed out by Miss de Rothschild in her ad- 

 mirable essay on the " Hebrew Woman," 1 namely, 

 that the homage which Christianity won for weak- 

 ness has tempted women to cultivate weakness to 

 secure the homage ? Just as Christian charity 

 to the poor has fostered mendicancy, so has chiv- 

 alrous tenderness to the feeble inspired a whole 

 sex with the fatal ambition of becoming feeble 

 1 New Quarterly Magazine, No. X. 





