Women-wise and Otherwise

Mrs. Randolph Guggenheimer, Editor

Have you ever read Barrie’s delightful play: “What Every Woman Knows”? There Maggie, the heroine, one of the most delicious and appealing creatures that ever moved through the pages of book or play, there Maggie explains to her father and her brothers what charm is. “Oh,” she says, “it’s-it’s a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have.”

A sort of bloom, then, is charm, and a bloom furthermore, Maggie could have added, which even the chill finger of Father Time does not rub away, which is impervious to the dust of the years. Beauty may fade, wit may dull, but a charming woman remains charming and is at sixty as delightful as at twenty.

More than that. Just as every woman may have her share of physical good looks if she only takes a little sensible care of her appearance, so likewise may every woman have her allotment of that intangible bloom which we may define as loveliness of the mind. The very same rules, indeed, which the beauty specialists lay down for the creation and preservation of good looks also hold good for the creation and preservation of charm. Just as physical health is the foundation of all physical beauty, so is mental health, poise and balance, the foundation for the charm every woman should and can possess. Feed the body properly, use the right diet, and you will create beauty; give the mind its proper nourishment and you will evoke charm.