Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/213

 than she had at all anticipated, and it was three good years ere her husband could send her word that her penance was ended, and that she might put on a clean smock with a clear conscience. By that time, and long before it, her ruffles and collars had acquired a dingy brown hue, which out of compliment to her was at once adopted as the court fashion, under the name of l'Isabeau.

The first quality demanded in the articles which come next the skin is, that they be soft and comfortable. They must not irritate, nor be chilly, nor heating. To our mind, one of the most dreadful penances of convent life is that mentioned by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables. He says that the nuns of a certain order are obliged to clothe themselves in harsh woollen cloth next the skin. The irritation is so distressing that they are not unfrequently thrown by it into a fever, and break out in an eruption from head to foot.

The hermits and ascetics of the Middle Ages were wont to wear shirts of horse-hair cloth. The sharp ends of the hairs maintained them in that condition of constant petty misery deemed so salubrious for the soul. The same condition can nowadays be attained so easily without this artificial means, that it has fallen out of vogue.

The amount of clothing should be carefully adjusted to the temperature. When too scanty, the skin is