The Project Gutenberg Project

Drawing is highly calculated to enhance feminine beauty; the thoughts it excites are soothing and serene, the gentle enthusiasm that is felt during this delightful occupation not only dissipates melancholy and morbid sensibility, but by developing the judgment and feeling, imparts a higher tone of character to the expression of the countenance.

- Lady Judith Cohen Montefiore, The Jewish Manual, or, Practical Information in Jewish and Modern Cookery, with a Collection of Valuable Recipes & Hints Relating to the Toilette (1846) [full text]

The hands should be regularly washed in tepid water, as cold water hardens, and renders them liable to chap, while hot water wrinkles them. All stains of ink, &c., should be immediately removed with lemon-juice and salt: every lady should have a bottle of this mixture on her toilette ready prepared for the purpose.

- Lady Judith Cohen Montefiore, The Jewish Manual, or, Practical Information in Jewish and Modern Cookery, with a Collection of Valuable Recipes & Hints Relating to the Toilette (1846) [full text]

Boil down half a shin of beef, four pounds of gravy beef, and a calf’s foot may be added, if approved, in three or four quarts of water; season with celery, carrots, turnips, pepper and salt, and a bunch of sweet herbs; let the whole stew gently for eight hours, then strain and let it stand to get cold, when the fat must be removed, then return it to the saucepan to warm up. Ten minutes before serving, throw in the balls, from which the soup takes its name, and which are made in the following manner:

Take half a pound of matso flour, two ounces of chopped suet, season with a little pepper, salt, ginger, and nutmeg; mix with this, four beaten eggs, and make it into a paste, a small onion shred and browned in a desert spoonful of oil is sometimes added; the paste should be made into rather large balls, and care should be taken to make them very light.

- Lady Judith Cohen Montefiore, The Jewish Manual, or, Practical Information in Jewish and Modern Cookery, with a Collection of Valuable Recipes & Hints Relating to the Toilette (1846) [full text]

Melt one ounce of spermacetti, soften sufficiently with oil of almonds, color it with two or three grains of powdered cochineal, and pour while warm into small toilet pots. We mention the cochineal to colour the salve, it being usual to make lip salve of a pale rose colour, but we should consider it far more healing in its effects without it.

- Lady Judith Cohen Montefiore, The Jewish Manual, or, Practical Information in Jewish and Modern Cookery, with a Collection of Valuable Recipes & Hints Relating to the Toilette (1846) [full text]

Do not serve greasy soups.

- Mary Green, Better Meals for Less Money (1917) [full text]

The number of business men to-day in possession of funds in excess of their private wants and business requirements is far greater than it was ten years ago, and is constantly increasing. These men are confronted with a real investment problem.

- George Garr Henry, How to Invest Money (1908) [full text]

Especially should woman herself understand her own nature. How many women are there, with health, beauty, merriment, ay, morality too, all gone, lost for ever, through ignorance of themselves! What spurious delicacy is this which would hide from woman that which beyond all else it behooves her to know? We repudiate it; and in plain, but decorous language,—truth is always decorous,—we purpose to divulge those secrets hidden hitherto under the technical jargon of science.

- George H. Napheys, The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother (1869) [full text]

We now approach a part of our subject which we would gladly omit, did not constant experience admonish us of our duty to speak of it in no uncertain tone. We refer to the disastrous consequences on soul and body to which young girls expose themselves by exciting and indulging morbid passions. Years ago, Miss Catherine E. Beecher sounded a note of warning to the mothers of America on this secret vice, which leads their daughters to the grave, the madhouse, or, worse yet, the brothel.

- George H. Napheys, The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother (1869) [full text]

We have had seven years of the highest national prosperity. Although fictitious, it gave us pleasure while it lasted, and we were able to enjoy all that life has to offer in its perfection. We may be going to pass through seven years of dearth, so we must husband our resources of health and wealth, instead of drawing upon them in the reckless way we have lately accustomed ourselves to do.

- Florence Caddy, Household Organization (1877) [full text]

The anxious hostess does not insist on your ceaseless activity, but she is no less persistent in filling your time. She is always asking you what you would like to do next. If you say you are quite content as you are, she nevertheless continues to shower suggestions. Shall she play the phonograph to you? Would you like her to telephone to a friend who sings too wonderfully? Would you like to look at a portfolio of pictures? If you are a moment silent, she is sure you are bored, and wonders what she can do to divert you!

- Emily Post, Etiquette (in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home) (1922) [full text]

For years we Americans have swarmed over the face of the world, taking it for granted that the earth’s surface belongs to us because we can pay for it, and it is rather worse than ever since the war, when the advantages of exchange add bitterness to irritation.

And yet there are many who are highly indignant when told that, as a type, we are not at all admired abroad. Instead of being indignant, how much simpler and better it would be to make ourselves admirable, especially since it is those who most lack cultivation who are most indignant. The very well-bred may be mortified and abashed, but they can’t be indignant except with their fellow countrymen who by their shocking behavior make Europe’s criticism just.

- Emily Post, Etiquette (in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home) (1922) [full text]

BAD BREATH.

Bad breath from catarrh, foul stomach, or bad teeth, may be temporarily relieved by diluting a little bromo chloralum with eight or ten parts of water, and using it as a gargle, and swallowing a few drops before going out. A pint of bromo chloralum costs fifty cents, but a small vial will last a long time.

- Mrs F.L. Gillette (Fanny Lemira) and Hugo Ziemann, Steward of the White House, The White House Cookbook, A Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information for the Home (1887) [full text]

Eau de Cologne is occasionally dropped into the eyes, with the effect of making them brighter. The operation is painful, and it is said that half a dozen drops of whisky and the same quantity of Eau de Cologne, eaten on a lump of sugar, is quite as effective.

- Barkham Burroughs’ Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information (1889) [full text]

21. Is it necessary to have a flannel cap in readiness to put on as soon as the babe is born?

Sir Charles Locock considers that a flannel cap is not necessary, and asserts that all his best nurses have long discarded flannel caps. Sir Charles states that since the discontinuance of flannel caps infants have not been more liable to inflammation of the eyes. Such authority is, in my opinion, conclusive. My advice, therefore, to you is, discontinue by all means the use of flannel caps.

- Pye Henry Chavasse, Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children (1878) [full text]