But perhaps there may be other causes
why a country which starts some of the most beautiful girls in the
world produces so few beautiful women. Have not our close-heated stove
rooms something to do with it? Have not the immense amount of hot
biscuits, hot corn cakes, and other compounds got up with the acrid
poison of saleratus, something to do with it? Above all, has not our
climate, with its alternate extremes of heat and cold, a tendency to
induce habits Of in-door indolence? Climate, certainly, has a great
deal to do with it; ours is evidently more trying and more exhausting;
and because it is so, we should not pile upon its back errors of dress
and diet which are avoided by our neighbors. They keep their beauty,
because they keep their health. It has been as remarkable as any thing
to me, since I have been here, that I do not constantly, as at home,
hear one and another spoken of as in miserable health, as very
delicate, &c. Health seems to be the rule, and not the exception. For
my part, I must say, the most favorable omen that I know of for female
beauty in America is, the multiplication of water cure establishments,
where our ladies, if they get nothing else, do gain some ideas as to
the necessity of fresh air, regular exercise, simple diet, and the
laws of hygiene in general.
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