Page:Modern Dancing (1914) Castle.djvu/161

Rh fifteen extra pounds is heartbreak, and a double chin is the end of life's illusions." So we dye the gray hair, diet away the fifteen pounds, and tie up our chins till only one grows where two grew before.

Every night and every morning, with the faith and hope of religious zealots, thousands of women bob up and down, and squat and rise, and bow and bend and wiggle their heads, and rub their necks, and go through all the rites of the liturgy of beauty—that is, if they don't dance. The woman who dances does not need other beauty aids; beauty will seek her. That is not a theory, but a fact; for when a woman is dancing she is happily unconscious, and therefore easily carrying out all the exercises taught by beauty experts.

The woman who is beginning to show flabby lines in her throat is told to hold her head up steadily, to stretch her neck back, and move her head from side to side till she strengthens the muscles. When she dances she holds her head up, holds it up in the graceful fashion that she would never accomplish if she were trying it as an exercise. She moves her head from side to side as she takes the various steps and the double chin goes; she actually dances it away.

Then there is the fat that clings to so many women when they reach that turning of the years