Page:The Business of being a Woman by Ida Tarbell.djvu/123



of the most domineering impulses in men and women is that bidding them to make themselves beautiful. In the normal girl-child it comes out, as does her craving for a doll. Nature is telling her what her work in the world is to be. It stays with her to the end, its flame often flickering long after her arms have ceased their desire to cradle a child. Scorn it, ridicule it, deny it, it is nature's will, and as such must be obeyed, and in the obeying should be honored.

But this instinct, which has led men and women from strings of shells to modern clothes, like every other human instinct, has its distortions. It is in