CHAPTER V.

BATHS--RESTORATION OF BEAUTY.

If, as certain French physicians maintain, sea-water baths have only a mechanical action, infuse no new principle into the blood and _are merely a simple branch of hydropathy_, it must be confessed that of all the forms of hydropathy they are the harshest and most hazardous. Let it once be clearly shown that that sea-water, so rich in life, bestows no more of vitality than fresh water and we must confess that it is little less than madness to take sea-baths in the open air and at all the risk of the wind, the sun, and the thousand possible accidents.

Whoever has seen a poor creature come out of the water after taking his first bath, whoever has seen him come out pale and shuddering, must perceive how dangerous such experiments are to certain constitutions. Be assured that none of us would submit to so much suffering if health could be as readily secured without suffering and without danger, in one's own house, and by common fresh water hydropathy.

And, as though the impression of a first sea-bath were not sufficiently strong, it is aggravated for a nervous woman by the presence of the crowd of bathers. For her it is a cruel exhibition to make before a critical crowd, before rivals, delighted to see her ugly, for once; before silly and heartless men, who, with telescope in hand, watch the sad hazards of the toilette of the poor humiliated woman.

To brave all this the patient must have faith, great, surpassing faith, in the Sea. She must believe that no other remedy will meet her case, and must determine that, at whatever risks, she will be permeated by the virtues of the sea water. "And why not be thus _permeated_?" ask the German physicians. "If at first entering the water you contract and close up your pores, reaction brings almost immediately a warmth that reopens them, dilates the skin and renders it very capable of _absorbing_ the life of the sea."

The two operations, the closing and the reopening of the pores, the first chill and the succeeding glow, almost always take place in five or six minutes. To stay in longer than the latter space of time, is almost always injurious.

Moreover, we should not venture upon this violent emotion of the cold bath without a preliminary course of warm bathing, to facilitate absorption. Our skin which is entirely composed of the little mouths which we call pores, and which, in its way, both absorbs and digests, as the stomach does, wants time to get accustomed to such strong nourishment as the _mucus_ of the sea, that salted milk with which the sea makes and remakes such myriads of creatures. By a graduated course of baths, hot, warm, lukewarm, and almost cold, the skin acquires this habit, and, so to speak, this appetite; and "increase of appetite grows by what it feeds on."

For the hard ceremony of the first cold sea-water baths, at least, the odious gaze of a mob of people is to be avoided. Let them be taken in private and with no one present but a perfectly reliable person who, at need, will help the nervous patient, and rub her with hot cloths and revive her with warm drinks containing a few drops of the potent elixir.

"But," it may be said, "the presence of other bathers lessens the danger; we are far different from Virginia, who, in an extreme danger, preferred drowning herself to taking a bath." A great mistake; we are more nervous now than ever we were. And the impression of which I speak is at once so vivid and so revolting--I mean for nervous people--that it is quite capable of killing, by aneurism or apoplexy.

I love the people, but I hate a mob; especially a noisy mob of fast livers who come to sadden the great Sea with their noise, their fashions, and their absurdities. What! Is not the land large enough? Must such people come to the Sea to martyrize the sick and to vulgarize the majesty of the Sea, that wild and true grandeur?

I once had the ill luck to run from Havre to Honfleur in a craft loaded with such fools. Even in that short trip they found time to grow weary of quiet, and to get up a ball. One of them--probably a dancing master--had his Kit with him and played all sorts of dances in the presence of that great Ocean. Happily one could not hear much of that small music; scarcely now and then could a shrill note or two rise above the solemn, the truly solemn bass of the Sea's roar. I can easily imagine the sadness of the lady who, in July, suffers under the invasion of a mob of these fops, fools, and gossips. All liberty is then at an end. Even in the most retired spot the drowsy ear of night is vexed by the boisterous echoes from saloon, and dancing room, coffee-room and Casino. In the day the host of yellow gloves and varnished boots crowds the shore. One lady is observed alone, with her boy. Why is that? Impertinents wish to know, they approach, and, gathering sea shells for the child, endeavor to force their conversation on the mother. The lady is embarrassed, bored to death, and has to confine herself to her lodging or venture out only in early morning, while the empty pated revellers are still sleeping off the effects of the last night's follies. Then, from her seclusion flow a thousand ill natured comments. She becomes alarmed, for some of these idlers have influence and may, possibly, injure her husband.

Nowhere more than at the sea side, are we inquisitive, and the poor woman becomes agitated and sleepless during the long hot nights of July and August, and if, towards morning, she at length sleeps, she is not much more tranquil. The baths, far from cooling, add the saline irritation to the fierce heat of the dog days. From her youth she derives, not strength, but fever; and, weak and highly nervous, she is all the more disturbed by that interior storm.

Interior, but yet not hidden. The Sea, the pitiless Sea, brings to the skin the proofs of that excitement which the sufferer would fain keep hidden. She betrays it by red blotches, slight efflorescences. All these petty annoyances, which still more afflict the children, and which in them the mother looks upon as signs of returning health, the mothers feel as humiliations when seen on their own faces. They fear that they will therefore be less loved. So little do they know of the heart of man. They know not that the sharpest spur of love is not beauty, but suffering.

"Oh! If he should find me ugly!" is the poor woman's morning thought, as she looks in her glass. She at once fears and desires the coming of her husband. And yet she feels so lonely, and fears, she knows not what, amidst that noisy crowd. She dares not go out, she becomes feverish, and at length is confined to her bed. In little more than twenty-four hours, the beloved one is by her side.

Who has summoned him? She certainly has not. But, in his great straggling handwriting, her boy has written to his father thus: "My dear Papa, come quickly. Mamma is confined to bed, and the other day she said 'oh if he were here!'" And accordingly he was there, and immediately she felt herself recovering. And he, how happy he is! Happy to see her restored, happy to be necessary to her, and happy to see her looking so beautiful. She is somewhat sun burnt, but how young she looks! What life in her glance, and in her flowing and silky hair!

Is this mere fiction, this so prompt restoration of life, beauty, and tenderness; this delightful incident of finding in a wife, a young mistress, so happy in being rejoined by a husband? Not at all. It is an agreeable sight which right often may be witnessed. If rare among the very rich, it is not so among the laborious families whose labor makes them, during most of their lives, close prisoners. Their forced separations are painful, and their reunion has a charm, a rapture, which they do not even try to conceal.

When we consider the prodigious tension of modern life, for toiling men, (that is to say, for every one but a few idlers) one cannot but be glad to witness those scenes of joy, when a reunited family expand their hearts. Those who have no hearts, call all this vulgar and prosaic. But, the form matters little, where the substance is so surpassingly good. The careworn merchant, who, from three months to three months, has only with utmost difficulty saved the bark in which the destiny of his wife and children is exposed to shipwreck; the administration victim; the employé, worn well nigh to death by the injustice and tyranny of the offices--these suffering captives, are released, for a brief space, from their galling chains, and the tender family, the mother and child, endeavor to make the husband and father forget his cares.

And well able are wife and child to wile the worn man into that sweet temporary oblivion. Their gaiety, their caresses, and the distractions of the sea-side, soothe his wearied soul, and fill his mind with other and happier thoughts. It is their triumph. They hurry off to visit _their_ beach, to contemplate _their_ sea, and to enjoy his admiration, which he, worthy man, just a little exaggerates, because he wishes them to be pleased. Yes! it is _their_ sea; having bathed in it, they have taken possession; and he, the toilworn husband and father, must share with them in their vast possession. The young woman no longer fears that crowd which formerly so much annoyed, and even alarmed, her; now that he is beside her she is not merely safe, but bold, daring; to say the truth, just a little presumptuous. She is quite familiar with the sea; familiar enough to be determined to learn to swim. At first she is supported by her active and bold boy. Supported by him, she swims--but I fear if left to herself her native timidity would return, and she would sink. Yet she is in love with the sea; yea, jealous of the sea. For, in fact, the sea inspires no moderate passions. There is I know not what of electric inspiration, of all-absorbing passion for the Sea, in all who truly know it.