Beauty is a long story--ask any woman. But this is a short chapter--short enough for any man. Experiment writes essays; Experience writes epigrams. Not that I am adept in boudoir legerdemain. Only a general averment anent authorcraft.

   Beauty is soul-deep.

   I think even a man will agree to this. At least if he has ever had a sweetheart whose eyes answered the light in his own.

   But beauty is more than soulfulness. You can't cure a muddy complexion with a smile, or fill out hollows by means of a tranquil mind. Beauty is too natural to be occult. What desirable thing isn't? Nature made beauty paramount with health. You can't separate them. And any woman content to be other than beautiful is other than wholesome.

   Take for instance Dress Reform. The garb it whacks out may be a consolation to the lady that wears it--no woman would wear it--but it's an eyesore to everybody else. Sackcloth and ashes go together. And there's no place on a sackcloth gown for the rose of your admiration. You think at once of the ash-barrel. Indeed that's where all reformers belong--in the ash-barrel. I stopped being a reformer just in time to escape it. I'm glad--for the sake of the ash-barrel. It hadn't hurt anybody.

   I don't recall the artist's definition of beauty. But in general I believe human beauty to be made up of seven elements; Form, Color, Texture, Posture, Proportion, Expression, Animation.

   Now the secret of beauty, thus defined, is perfect metabolism. I mean physiologically, of course. And with the possible exception of Proportion, every one of these seven elements is enhanced, or restored to its pristine perfection, by the regenerative power of the Conquest Fast.

   Fasting won't work miracles. Only the plastic surgeon or the advertising dermatologist can do that. Fasting won't rectify crooked noses, or melt moles from the cheek, or make the windows of the soul look inviting while the blinds are still down. The blinds go up though during the Fast, don't they? I forgot. But every bit of beauty you're entitled to as the just fruition of your past lives, the Conquest Fast will give you.

   Take Form.

   Suppose you weigh too much. When you come to regain the weight lost through the Fast, you will stop short of the excess. I was ten pounds overweight before my Fast. After it I was normal. Or if you lack flesh, you will put it on. By the same renewal of the powers of assimilation. In short, inequalities will be leveled, and symmetry ensue.

   Take Color.

   The delicacy of tint that will mantle your face can be approached by nothing save the memory of childhood. Skin blemishes will disappear. Extreme redness or whiteness will be modified. Even enlarged pores will subside. I'm not talking poetry now. Beauty is poetic. But every woman knows that the average beauty stunt is prosiest of the prosy.

   Take Texture.

   Did you ever compare the foreheads of a prize-fighter and a poet ? Not alone in form and contour, but equally in the texture of the skin is the difference manifest. The prize-fighter lives on beef steak and "sinkers"; the poet on--well, mostly air and optimism. Of course if he's a magazine poet, he will sometimes be invited out to dine, and occasionally receive a cheque. But we're speaking now of real poets, the kind the world isn't ready for till they die. The fibre of your flesh will refine noticeably, even before you finish the Fast, and in the end it will be smooth as the petal of a rose-bud.

   Take Posture.

   Ever observe how many people sag in the middle? This chronic collaption may be traced to two causes; too much dinner and not enough self-respect. The Conquest Fast subtracts the dinner and adds the self-respect.

   Take Expression,

   Which includes the sparkle in the eye, the blush on the cheek, the smile about the lips, in a word the ensemble of the countenance. Health brings Hope. And only Hope can illume the human face with an aura angelic.

   Take Animation.

   By this I mean sensitivity, responsiveness, feeling. Most people are unattractive because moribund. You can't beautify the pallor of a corpse in the making. Put Life into the human body, Love into the human heart, Light into the human soul:-- and lo, a being of beauty arises in the majesty of newly awakened Selfhood. Life, Light and Love--this exactly sums the Conquest Fast.

   That's all.

   I said it would be short, didn't I ?

   Surely in one chapter I should be kind to you.

   P. S. You won't be conspicuously beautiful while you're fasting--not till afterwards. So don't be haunting the mirror Lest the mirror haunt you.