"Cleanliness is akin to godliness," it is said. It is not less closely related to gentility. First of all, then, keep yourself scrupulously clean—not your hands and face merely, but your whole person, from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot. Silk stockings may hide dirty feet and ankles from the eye, but they often reveal themselves to another sense, when the possessor little dreams of such an exposure. It is far better to dress coarsely and out of fashion and be strictly clean, than to cover a dirty skin with the finest and richest clothing. A coarse shirt or a calico dress is not necessarily vulgar, but dirt is essentially so. We do not here refer, of course, to one's condition while engaged in his or her industrial occupation. Soiled hands and even a begrimed face are badges of honor in the field, the workshop, or the kitchen, but in a country in which soap and water abound, there is no excuse for carrying them into the parlor or the dining-room.
