Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/127

 leather. Either may be worn at night, or in the house during the day.

Such a malformation is often peculiar to some races and families. Negroes notoriously have their thick, coarse lips as a trait of race. The Hapsburgs, the royal house of Austria, are distinguished by a hanging nether lip. They have always been an ill-favored family, and though they have managed to marry rich heiresses, and absorb quantities of land, their homeliness has been in their way. Albert I, son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, founder of the line, an ugly, loose-lipped man, blind of an eye, was rejected as Emperor by Pope Boniface on account of his looks. "What!" said the Pope, "that one-eyed, clownish, thick-lipped fellow? he is not fit to be Emperor." But Albert killed with his own hand his rival for the imperial purple, and did become Emperor in spite of his big lips, the Pope, and the whole set of them.

Girls who have a scrofulous tendency in their constitutions are liable to an excessive growth of their upper lip. It becomes hard, puffed out, and twice as thick as natural. The veins are large, but there is little or no pain. This is an obstinate complaint, but it can be cured if a skilful surgeon is consulted in time.

We have seen not a few unfortunate people who, when they smile or laugh, turn the upper lip almost inside out, and show a fold or crease of the red, mucous membrane which lines it. This is a most disagreeable