the matter of long life is a
striking fact. It is also constant. All authorities agree in this, that
more women than men live to be very old. The more fragile pitcher is
not so soon broken at the fountain. Why?

One would hardly expect woman, with all the dangers and sufferings
attending motherhood, to last longer than man. Yet undoubtedly she does.

I know in Brittany a peasant woman who is now ninety-seven. She does her
sewing without spectacles; she walks a couple of miles every day; goes
to bed at eight, rises at six in the winter and at five in the summer.

She eats and sleeps well, and is in the enjoyment of perfect health. She
had seventeen children. The healthiest trees are those which bear fruit
every year.

The reason for woman's longevity is not far to seek. Women lead more
careful, regular, and sheltered lives than men. It is the man who has to
fight daily with the world, and how hard and trying the fight often is
none but the fighter himself can tell.

He succumbs to more temptations than woman, because more come his way.
It is the man who is often called upon to undermine his bodily vigour by
earning his bread at unhealthy occupations. It is he who goes down the
mines, to sea, and to the battlefield.

CHAPTER XXI

WOMEN MAY ALL BE BEAUTIFUL

Nothing is more difficult to define than beauty. It is not something
absolute, like truth; it differs according to times, countries, races,
and individual tastes. Greek beauty is not Parisian beauty, English
beauty is pretty well the opposite of Italian beauty.

A European beauty might strike a Chinaman as very ugly, and a Chinese
beauty would find no admirer in Europe, except, perhaps, among blase
people with the most fastidious tastes and ever in search of novelty.

The Buddha of the Hindoos has nothing in common with the Jupiter of the
Greeks. Ancient art differs entirely from modern art.

In Antiquity, beauty consists in the harmony of the proportions, the
purity of the lines, the nobility of form and attitude, the sobriety of
the figure, and the coldness of the expression. In modern times, beauty
consists in gracefulness, piquancy, intelligence, sentiment, vivacity,
and exuberance of form.

But there are two kinds of beauty in women: that which is natural to
them, and that which they can acquire by carefully studying what suits
them best to wear, and how they can use to advantage their style of
face and figure.

I have seen women absolutel