see it clearly
The Will O' the Wisp, Beauty
FOR fifteen years I have been studying, experimenting, manufacturing and writing along the lines followed in this volume.
I do not advance theories, but demonstrated facts in what I have to say. I know that good women are happier and better if they keep their good looks, their youthful grace and elasticity, their girlish figures throughout life, than when through ignorance or carelessness, or both, they lose their personal charms and become old and bent, wrinkled and fat, or emaciated before they have reached the golden prime of life. When I say that no woman need be obese, no woman, if she have not an organic disease, need be bony, no woman need grow bent and haggard and yellow, faded or wrinkled; I assert what I have proved not once, but thousands of times.
I believe that good women can be more helpful, more uplifting, and wield a stronger moral influence if they are lovely to look at, graceful as well as gracious, perpetually young and beautiful, than the reverse.
We were created with a love of beauty, and woman is its highest expression. The beautiful girl, the beautiful wife and mother, the beautiful grandmother-- we think of them each with a special tenderness and gratitude.
The reason for writing this volume is found in the fact that for many years no single day has passed that I have not received letters from unknown women asking for a book that would give them practical advice on the subjects here treated.
I most sincerely hope and believe that every woman who does me the honor of reading what I have to say will find many hints and suggestions that will be useful to her and to others whose welfare she has at heart-- for it is my earnest wish to be of practical service.
I am indebted to the Editors of the New York World for permission to reprint the copyrighted accounts of the cures of Catherine Lane and Martha Baker, two patients who were placed by the Sunday World in my care, and for leave to use in this book various of my formulas, which have appeared in the World's evening edition.
Harriet Hubbard Ayer, Health and Beauty
I also beg to acknowledge my indebtedness for many formulas and also for much valuable information contained in this book to the eminent dermatologists, Dr. E. Monin, Secretary of the French Hygienic Society and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, Dr. Hebra Pere, Vienna, and also to Drs. Fossati, Vigier, Anna Kingsford, J. V. Shoemaker, as well as to the works of the late Sir Erasmus Wilson,-- Drs. DeBaye and Cazenave, and particularly I wish to express my appreciation of the aid given by Dr. Robert Eugene Payne, whose marvelous dental work needs no commendation of mine to enhance its value.
Doctor Payne performed the operation of tooth implantation described in Chapter XXVII. and personally gave me much late scientific information in the management of teeth, which places me in his debt and will prove of valuable benefit to my readers.
I wish, likewise, to thank my colleagues, Mrs. E. A. Hammond, Mrs. E. M. Brandenberg, Miss E. Cogswell, Mrs. Juliet Lee, Miss Parrish, and Miss Sophie Bergman, each eminent in her calling, for the photographs illustrating the administration of electricity, facial massage, manicuring, and foot massage, massage of the scalp, and Swedish movements for physical culture.
These pictures were taken under the personal direction of the ladies mentioned, and are invaluable because they actually demonstrate from living subjects the scientific methods for obtaining the best results from treatments which are acknowledged by the medical profession, without a dissenting voice, as the very best known to science for the purposes in view.