Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/39

 of awkwardness in the minds of observers. In French, gaucherie, from gauche, the left, means clownishness.

It is next to impossible for an adult to overcome this habit. The best they can hope for is to gain a sufficient command over the right arm and hand to be able to use it at table, at the blackboard, etc., as others do. Still, they have for their consolation the example of many a poor fellow in the war, who having lost his right arm has acquired singular proficiency in a year or two with his left. We have in our possession several autograph letters of that distinguished soldier and philanthropist Major General Howard, who lost his right forearm at the battle of Fair Oaks. They were written about eighteen months subsequent to his wound, and the penmanship is quite legible and regular.

A want of symmetry in the shoulders is very common among those who write or paint steadily. The right shoulder usually becomes higher, and the bones more prominent. These persons should practise daily and regularly sitting with the left shoulder elevated and the right depressed. They should avoid low-necked dresses, and on state occasions conceal the lack of uniformity by a soft padding. A course of calisthenics is also of great service.

There is a complaint which would be comical were it not so distressing to the sufferer. It is that in which there is a partial palsy of one-half of the face. The