ligaments will in the mean time, from the same cause, have become changed, and the whole body will need the sustaining care which intelligence, aided by art and science, can impart to it, propping up the weakened parts, and enabling them to maintain their normal position.
From what has been already said, the reader may perceive the wonderful influence which cultivation has upon the human body. Properly speaking, there is no difference in the organization of the Englishwoman and the Hottentot; there is the same assemblage of bones, the same combination of muscles, the same organic structure in the one as in the other. The only difference is that our women are living under more favourable circumstances, and hence the deformity, which is almost universal amongst the Africans, is rare with us. The tendency, however, may be discovered everywhere, and should always be anticipated in providing for the elegance and comfort of middle life.
But here we imagine an intelligent friend inquiring how this is to be attained; for many call upon us in a state of utter incredulity, and tell us that they have merely looked in to satisfy the desire of some friend. When this happens, we are generally told that they have tried every party without success, adding, perhaps, that they have a stock of corsets collected from the first houses in France, Germany, Italy, and England, and that the whole were perfectly useless; and this is no doubt correct. The material of which they are composed may be of the very best manufacture, and the stitching be faultless; but, for want of proper knowledge of the structure and requirements of the body, all the efforts have been in vain.
The principles on which our corsets for middle age are constructed are precisely the same as those which have been laid down in a previous chapter. Due attention is paid to the particular figure presented to us, and the state and requirement of every organ having been perceived, our adaptations are made to the physiological and pathological conditions of that particular individual. Without this, all proper fitting of the corset is ridiculous; for, to pretend to fit a form that has neither been seen nor described, is simply to trifle with the common sense of mankind. The human body is a wonderful congeries of organs, each of which requires due care in its development and preservation, in order that the whole may work harmoniously together. And the corsetmaker who cannot perceive the requirements of those organs in their
