HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 2, 1880

HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL.

ONE of the most fascinating women I ever saw was very homely, but she had such a charming manner that no one remembered that she was plain. One of the most beautiful had prominent eyes, rather prominent teeth, and altogether irregular features, yet no one could see her and not recognize the fact that she was beautiful; it was the beauty of a lovely soul shining through and transfiguring the whole.

I will give you a very short rule for being pretty—think prettily, act prettily, live prettily. You can all remember that; and the more you think of it, the more you will see how much is comprised in it. Be always neat in your dress; dress as tastefully as you like or are able. But the question of dress, aside from neatness, should be considered subordinate; the rest depends more on your character and manner than you can at present realize.

A girl who is cross, selfish, petulant, over-bearing and discontented, cannot prevent those qualities from writing their character indelibly upon her face sooner or later; while one who is, or tries to be good, patient, thoughtful, loving, gracious and full of a charity that thinketh no evil, also has written on her face the testimony of her real life, and grows more beautiful as she grows older. This is the kind of beauty to strive to obtain.

Be regular in your habits; have society, but not to dissipation. By late hours, excitement, unhealthy living, lack of occupation and lack of exercise, you lessen the tone of your system, lose the bloom of health, and, so intimately are mind and body connected, impair also the tone of your mind; the effect is, of course, to make you lose even the beauty that is always, to a greater or less extent, the accompaniment of the freshness and fairness of youth.

Youth should only be, however, the promise of the bud; the full flower of beauty should come with the fullness of life and development and it will do so where the heart is pure, and the life righteous, for the writing comes from within, not from without.—Arthur's Home Magazine.