Page:Popular Tales of the Germans (Volume 1).djvu/183

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OF THE VEIL.
165

ſtock of a nymph that bathes in it; both are indeed harder to gain in the viâ humidâ of a water bath, than to be aped in the viâ ſiccâ of the bruſh and rouge box.

There is, beſides, this particular to be taken into the account, that the Zwikow beauty-bath exerts its wonderful virtue on thoſe ladies who are founders kin, though but in the thouſandth degree, to the race of the fairies. Let not this, however, be underſtood ſo as to deter any damſel from a trial of the remedy or preſervative; for who can be ſure that ſhe deſcends in an undiſturbed ſucceſſion, both on the father’s and mother’s ſide, from the terreſtrial loins of grandam Eve; that not a ſingle fairy has ever intervened in the long ſeries of her forgotten grandmothers, to infuſe a drop of ethereal blood into her veins? Poſſibly the reſtleſs ſpirit of human ſcience may diſcover a profile peculiar to the fairy race, as it has already ſhrewdly ſuſpected a line that marks the deſcendants of kings,and