INTRODUCTION

Chapter Four DEVELOPING YOUR LATENT POWER

We have seen how alluring, from a man's point of view, is an air of joy and freshness, of delight and vivacity, of sparkling liveliness and wholesome playfulness.

The secret of the attractiveness of dancers and musical comedy actresses is often their physical vitality.

In a man's eyes, there is nothing in the world less attractive than obviously poor health in a woman. The
attraction of women for men is a force that doesn't function when the woman is physically unhealthy. The man looks upon a debilitated woman with the same indifference with which he looks upon another man.

"This is all very well," you say, "but I don't happen to be healthy." To which the answer is, that you may
not be healthy, but that you can become so. Usually, poor health is your own fault, in that you are violating the laws of nature. Continued poor health is sometimes the result of pure laziness. Sickly women are often too lazy physically to take the exercise they need, and are too apathetic mentally to learn how to take care of their health.

A boy trying for the college football team will work like a slave on the track, in the gym, and on the field, in order to get himself in proper physical trim to attain his place on the team. He knows that if he will exercise hard, if he will devote his thoughts and his energies toward improving his condition, and keep at it, he can improve both his strength and his health…Why, then, doesn't the fair co-ed use the same system? She is not trying merely for a place on a football team for a season; she is trying for a place in a love-nest of her own for an entire lifetime. Before she can attain that place, especially if she wants to have the power to pick and choose her partner, she must have a magnetic health and vitality such as the football aspirant seeks.

It is decided, then, that you are to go through a regular course of training to improve your health. Even
if your health is already fairly good, you are going to undertake the training and keep it up until your
physical condition is perfect, until it is so vigorous that your every movement betrays it, until people passing you on the street cannot help remarking what a clean-limbed and wholesome concentration of gracefulness and vitality you are.

If you have the facilities, you can consult some teacher of physical training, join some gymnasium class, some out-of-door girls' club, or the Y. W. C. A…  Take up swimming, aesthetic dancing, tennis, golf, rowing, canoeing, or any sport you can that leads to exercise out-of-doors. If you can't do better, buy yourself a camera and hike for miles through fields and woods looking for pretty pictures to take. And whatever you do, do a great deal of it, every day, and keep it up month after month, and year after year. Don't let mere laziness cheat you out of a home of your own with a protecting partner to share it and cherish you.

Indoor work may be exercise, but it is of little value to your health. The greatest benefit in exercise
out-of-doors is that the exercise causes you to breathe deeply and long of the greatest tonic in nature-fresh air. This causes your blood to be purified and your whole system to be rejuvenated. Indoor work tires you out without supplying you with the tonic of fresh air to relieve your weariness, and thus often does more harm than good. Even if you work hard all day long, and are tired out, you will be surprised to discover that additional exercise in the open, calling into play a different set of muscles, will, instead of increasing your weariness, refresh you to such an extent that you may forget your fatigue entirely...The additional exercise in the fresh air gives Nature a chance to clean out your lungs, and your blood, and to wash out the poisons in your system which have caused the feeling of weariness. As for time, and opportunity, and money, they are not obstacles if you possess a little determination. Surely you can take half an hour's walk every day, and a good long hike on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. This alone, if kept up for a few months, will have a remarkable effect upon you. In the absence of tennis or golf, plain callisthenic exercises in the open air will be sufficient. All you need is a lonely spot where you are assured of privacy... In fact, the walking and the calisthenics, if persisted in, especially with the assistance of some book of instruction in physical culture, will do all that can be done toward making you a perfect woman physically.

BODY

Seven Essentials of Good Health.

The seven essentials of good health are the following:

I. Remove the causes of disease.
2. Live sensibly.
3. Exercise properly and plentifully.

 4. Drink plenty of water.
5. Eat with good judgment.
6. Breathe deeply.
7. Practice relaxation frequently.

1. REMOVE THE CAUSE OF DISEASE: Often girls will go for years, wondering all the time why they are unattractive, when without their knowledge something is wrong inside of them that makes good health impossible. NATURE MAY GIVE NO WARNING TO THE GIRL HERSELF; BUT IT WILL GIVE WARNING TO THE MEN, BY MAKING HER UNATTRACTIVE, THAT HERE IS A GIRL NOT PHYSICALLY SUITED FOR MARRIAGE. One girl we knew complained and ailed for years without knowing that anything was fundamentally wrong with her. She never had a single beau. Then suddenly she found that her appendix had been diseased all along. She had it removed, took a good long rest in the country, and soon had acquired a robustness she had never before deemed possible. She was so much more lively, pretty, and interesting with her recovered health, that two or three men began to evince a genuine interest in her.

2. LIVE SENSIBLY: The average normal girl will live sensibly. It is the exceptional girl, the girl passionately devoted to books, to music, to art, or to her profession, who forgets to live a sensible life. She will spend day and night, will rob herself of sleep, of recreation, and sometimes even of proper food; because her whole life is immersed in its obsession. Naturally such a girl cannot remain healthy. She simply doesn't take the time to do the things required by nature. The best plan for her is to get a hobby of some kind to take her away from her work. The hobby must be an out-of-doors one, to get the best results. Then she must carefully see to it that she gets enough sleep, and that the other requirements of good living are fulfilled.

3. EXERCISE PROPERLY AND PLENTIFULLY: Walk briskly, throw your shoulders back, hold your abdomen in, and stretch your spine until you feel as erect and tall as you can be. Don't slouch. Imagine, if you wish, that you are a motion picture actress, and that every step you take is being registered by the camera. You can, if you try, make your walk a thing of grace and beauty, attractive in itself.

4. DRINK PLENTY OF WATER: There is nothing like drinking a great deal of fresh water, therefore, to cleanse your system of impurities and to give you a beautiful natural complexion. Do not rely upon a haphazard system of drinking water. Adopt a plan, and stick to it, by which you drink at least two or three quarts of water daily.

5. EAT WITH GOOD JUDGMENT: As eating is something that you do three times every day of your life, it is well worth your while to learn a little about the subject and to spend a little money for a book dealing with it. By habitually eating the wrong combinations of food, you may be lowering your vitality to such an extent that nothing you can do will give you that vivid and fascinating life and power which has its foundation in perfect health.

6. BREATHE DEEPLY: Get the habit of taking good long breaths for a few minutes at a time ten or fifteen times a day-in fact, every time you think of it. This is a form of exercise which does not even require that
you stop working.

7. PRACTICE RELAXATION FREQUENTLY: The relaxation afforded by the "beauty sleep" has always been recognized as highly important; and it is just as important today that young girls get enough sleep and rest as it has been in the past. But the regular hours devoted to rest should be supplemented by exercises in relaxation every hour or so during the day, and a special exercise should be carried out whenever something arises which makes you irritable, nervous, angry, impatient, or excited in any way… Begin first with your body-see that your ankles, your wrists, your fingers, your knees, shoulders and spine, hang perfectly limp, just as if you were unconscious. When your body is perfectly relaxed, proceed to make yourself just as limp mentally. Leave your mind perfectly blank, if you can, or let your thoughts wander idly and carelessly to unimportant or amusing things. Keep them, however, from concentrating upon any one subject. This exercise takes only a minute or so; but is so effective that you are able to resume your activities again with recuperated interest and energy. Moreover, the short relief to the strain on your nerves at intervals during the day enables you to finish without the exhaustion and irritation which often accompanies unremitting activity. As no one with shattered nerves can be magnetic or charming, it is well worth your while to save your nerves wherever you can.

CONCLUSION

Don't Hide Your Health. 

But though poor health cannot be hidden, good health sometimes can be. Therefore, if you have
satisfactory health, resort to every device available to look and act the part of a healthy woman. See that your hair is becomingly dressed, that your complexion is well taken care of, that your hands are kept soft, your nails in perfect shape, your eyebrows and eyelashes in their most seductive trim; see that your teeth are kept dazzlingly white, your breath fragrant, and your entire person fresh from frequent bathing. When a woman has not life or vigor enough to take proper care of her outward appearance, men assume that she has not life or vigor enough to be fascinatingly healthy. Carelessness and dowdiness of appearance, in men's eyes, are a signal of a lifeless mentality and an unrefreshing, unhealthy physical condition. They cannot conceive of a healthy woman having no interest in her outward appearance; the more painstaking she is about that appearance, the more healthy and normal she seems to them.

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HW ASSIGNMENT

Chapter Four DEVELOPING YOUR LATENT POWER

Please email me your answers with your "name" to 1Femmy@gmail.com.  Due by midnight, Wednesday, July 29th, 2009. Thank you. 

1.    List the 7 essentials of good health.  Memorize.

2.       List the 8 devices available to look the part of a fascinatingly healthy woman. Memorize.

4.      List 5 ways you can exercise out-of-doors every day this year.