May 17, 2007: Beauty & Health

Illustration by "Dwig" from Whimlets, 1902

BEAUTY There are women who have an indefinable charm in their faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates, but a cold stranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty would fail. - A Tramp Abroad One is apt to overestimate beauty when it is rare. - Innocents Abroad One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a really beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her; and the rule applies to Niagara Falls, to majestic mountains, and to mosques--especially to mosques. - Innocents Abroad

HEALTH He had had much experience of physicians, and said "the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not." - Following the Equator There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and ever eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry. - Mark Twain's Autobiography Under our free institutions anybody can poison himself that wants to and will pay the price. - Mark Twain's Autobiography

Postcard from the Dave Thomson collection