Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/92

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always when wiping them, the rubbing should be in the direction of the hair, from the nose outward, and never in the reverse direction.

When it is intended to deepen their hue, it should not be done by a dye, but with a pencil of dark pomatum, which allows the greatest accuracy of application, and has no influence on the skin or eyes; or by means of a needle smoked over the flame of a candle, which is equally innocent, but less permanent.


THE EYELIDS AND EYELASHES.

The eyelids should neither be widely separated nor half-closed. The former habit gives a scared, uneasy look, damaging to the repose of beauty; the latter, either a sleepy or a sensual expression, equally far from the ideal of art. The half-closed lids are characteristic of indulgence, and seem adapted, says an elegant writer on aesthetics, "to diminish or partially to exclude the excess of those sensations which make even pleasure painful." All the pupil should be visible, but none of the white of the eye, either above or below it.

The lids are subject to various disfiguring complaints, most common of which are a redness and swelling of their margins, with more or less discharge, especially during the night. This is called blear-eye, or "lippitudo," and when more severe, "psorophthalmia." Sometimes it is attended with a burning and itching