But as much could also be said in passing, against the bane of ephemeral self-assertion that under the slogan of body culture has taken possession of the intrinsically healthy idea of sports, and still more could be said against the particular feminine form of this evil, beauty culture. Lindner flattered himself that here, too, he was one of the few who knew how to properly allot light and shadow, and just as he was always prepared to detect an unspoiled core in the spirit of the times, he also recognized the moral obligation of appearing as healthy and agreeable as he possibly could. He himself carefully groomed his beard and hair every morning, kept his nails short and meticulously clean, sprinkled some brilliantine on his head and put protective lotion on his feet, to offset the stress they endured on his daily rounds: but who, on the other hand, would wish to deny that the amount of attention lavished on the body in the course of a worldly woman’s day is exorbitant? But if there really was no other way—he gladly made gentle concessions to women, not least because there might be wives of important men among them—than having baths and facials, ointments and wraps, manicures and pedicures, masseurs and coiffeurs succeed one another in almost unbroken sequence, he advocated as a counterweight to such one-sided care of the body the concept of inner beauty culture, inner beauty for short, which he had formulated in a public speech. Let the cleansing of the body, for instance, remind us of inner purity; its anointing, of our obligations to the soul; the masseur’s manipulations, of the hand of fate; and let the filing of toenails remind us that even in our lowlier aspects, we should be a beautiful sight. Thus he transferred his image to women, but left it to them to adapt the details to the needs of their sex.

Of course it might have happened that someone unprepared for the sight Lindner presented with his ministrations to health and beauty, and even more while he was washing and drying himself, would be moved to laughter: for seen merely in their physical aspect, his movements conjured the image of a multifariously turning and twisting swan’s neck, which moreover did not consist of curves but of the sharp element of knees and elbows; his shortsighted eyes, freed from their glasses, looked into the distance with a martyred expression, as if their gaze had been cut off close to the eye, and beneath the beard his soft lips pouted with the pain of exertion. But an observer gifted with spiritual perception might well experience the spectacle of inner and outer forces engaged in a carefully choreographed dance of mutual begetting; and when, while performing that ritual, Lindner thought of those poor women who spend hours in their bathrooms and dressing rooms heating up their imagination with a one-sided cult of the body, he could rarely refrain from considering how much good it would do them if just once they could watch him. Harmless and pure, they welcome modern body culture and go along with it, because in their ignorance they do not suspect that such great attention devoted to the animal part all too easily awakens expectations in it that could destroy life if not strictly held in subservience to higher purposes!