Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/100

 eye-glasses with plane glass! They are carried merely as something "nobby," excellent wherewith to "ogle a party."

The fashion is not new. There is a very amusing old book called "The Ladies' Travels in Spain," written by an English lady of noble birth, who resided at the Court of Madrid about 1670. She gives many queer particulars of social customs there, and among others, that it was the fashion for an stylish young ladies to wear on their noses enormous spectacles, sometimes two and three inches in diameter. It was supposed to give them a lofty and earnest appearance, such as suits the ideal of the haughty Spaniard. In time our eyeglasses will appear quite as absurd as these huge spectacles do now.

When the sight is weak, but with no special disease present, it may be very much improved by one of the following methods: Take a handful of fresh red-peppers, or ginger-root, and pour over them a half pint of pure alcohol. Wipe twice daily the brow above the eye and the temple with a little of this on a soft sponge, and let it dry. Or take a heaping tablespoonful of clean rock salt, and let it dissolve in a quart of rain water. Immerse the face in this every morning, and open the eyes while under the water so that the salt can act directly on the organ. This latter is most excellent also in cases of redness or slight inflammation of the eyes.