Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/187

 rough. A healthy glow should be felt after the rubbing, and the skin should be pink and warm. If it seems dry and harsh afterwards, an ounce or two of glycerine can be put in the water, or a small quantity rubbed in with the hand. If, on the contrary, there remains a greasy feeling and a shiny appearance on the surface, a few teaspoonfuls of spirit of ammonia may be poured in the water, or some common yellow soap employed daily. It has also been recommended that persons with skins of this description should, after drying themselves thoroughly, dust the surface with a bag containing finely powdered starch and orris-root, three parts of the former to one of the latter.

History says that when Anne Boleyn came to France then a young girl, lady of honor to Mary, Queen of Louis XII., she was of a "dark and oily" complexion. Some one recommended a daily bath, and after the bath a powder such as we have described. When a year or two afterwards she returned to England, there was not a lady at the Court of Henry VIII, who compared with her in beauty of complexion, and that king, who was a connoisseur in such matters, soon showed that he indorsed the general sentiment. It was an unlucky success for her, as all the world knows; but she never blamed her beauty for her misfortunes. Quite the contrary, for the story goes that on the day before her death she said to her tire-women:—

"It is high time that the headsman did his work, for