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.
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.
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