The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 991, December 24, 1898 — John Shaqi
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 991, December 24, 1898Various
General
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 991, December 24, 1898
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
Thank Heaven, I have never worn a false tooth, but it strikes me the
sensation can be far from agreeable. If one uses the toothbrush, with
a good disinfectant powder, such as borax or charcoal, followed by a
rinse of water tinged red with permanganate of potash (and this is
usually sold as Condy's fluid), she will have teeth that will last as
long as they're wanted.
But what I wish to tell you here is this: apart from actual decay of a
tooth and consequent irritation of the nerve, a girl need never have
facial neuralgia, nor sciatica, nor any other "algia" if she but lives
in such a way as to make herself hardy as a heather stem. Dinna forget
that.
CURATIVES.
Dinna forget that medicines are, as a rule, but palliative, and to call
them curatives is, in nine cases out of ten, a very great misnomer.
All doctors will tell you the same; but they are exceedingly useful
and even most necessary at times. Only dinna forget that they do not
repair, nor rebuild the framework of our bodies. Only good, well-chosen
food can do that. But, as it does not do to eat when you are not
hungry, because then the stomach and other organs are too delicate to
digest, you must get up an appetite by exercise, recreation and fresh
air.
I don't want you to go about as if you were an invalid. That will make
you worse, and your friends will pretend to pity you, and this acting
on your mind will soon make you an invalid in earnest. No, keep up
bravely and do not complain. Fate will then say--
"Oh, there is no frightening that girl to death! She doesn't scare
worth sixpence. Look at her now, on her bit of a bike, with her lips
like a half-cut cherry, and the rose tint upon her cheek. Bah, I'll go
and try to frighten someone else!"
Then your nerves are re-strung, muscles get hard, you grow a biceps,
and every ache and pain flies away to the Back o' Bell-Fuff.
AT THIS TIME OF YEAR.
At this time of year many girls whose nerves are finely strung suffer
from hypochondriasis, or lowness of spirits, more especially if the
ground is soft and the sky grey and ugly.
The real hypochondriac is more or less verging on lunacy, because she
has delusions. Nothing seems to go right with her, nothing ever will
be right again. There is no beauty anywhere in life, which, taken on
the whole, is a great big fraud. Why was she ever sent into this world
at all, at all, against her will? She is sure she didn't wish to be
born, and she wishes she were well out of it. She is sad, melancholy,
abstracted, and does nothing with any will.
Well, what shall we do with a girl of this kind? What say you, mother?
Medicine? Was that what you suggested? Well, medicine, even if she
could swallow the whole pharmacopœia, would do her no more good than
a pinch of snuff; in fact, not so much, for the snuff would make her
sneeze, and that would help her for a time. She must have a change.
"A change, a change, and many a change,
Faces and footsteps and all things strange."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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