Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/35

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moderate, and designed to call into play each of the muscles in proportion to its prominence in the perfect human form. Such culture causes a rapid and astonishing improvement in the figure, and we hope that it will soon be introduced into all our leading seminaries, as it already has been in some.


DEFECTS IN STATURE; TOO TALL OR TOO SHORT.

American women, as a rule, measure between five feet two inches and five feet four inches in height. Those who are much above or much under these figures will be unpleasantly aware of the fact. They should remedy it. But how? Is there anything more wholly out of all range of possibility than to grow shorter or taller at will? Is it pretended that nowadays by taking thought one can add a cubit to his stature?

No! our pretensions do not extend that far. But we profess to have some hints which may be of service even here. Most persons have read more or less about Louis XIV. It is not easy to escape him in French literature. He was called by his courtiers Louis le Grand, and as it is difficult to break an old habit, the adjective clings to him still. Well, all the memoirs of his time speak of him as of commanding stature, and we might suppose from their descriptions he was at least six feet in his stockings. In fact he was about five feet seven inches, and the rest of his height was