Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/341

 "I certainly think your book will succeed, because it is on so novel a subject."

"Novel! humph!" interrupted the librarian; "the subject is as worn as some of the faces it pretends to repair. There are hundreds of volumes on the toilet."

"It is true," said we. "We cannot claim to be pioneers in this matter."

"But certainly," rejoined Portia, "you remember showing me in the last edition of Brunei's Manuel de Libraire, that he only mentions three books on cosmetics. Here's Brunet now, and the only titles he gives are of one in Italian, and two in French."

—Yes, this one by Le Fournier, ''La Decoration d'Humaine Nature et Aornement des Dames'', is a curious little book, printed in black letter. You can see a copy of it in the Philadelphia Library. This other, by "Michel de Nostre Dame," is by the identical old astrologer who predicted everything that has happened since his day, except that he and his book should be immortalized by Goethe in Faust. You remember the lines:—

Und dies geheimnissvolle Buch, Von Nostradamus eigner Hand, Ist Dir es nicht Geleit genug?

—To which question of Faust we must hasten to say no, or else people will ask us why we don't republish Nostradamus' old trash, instead of writing—