At this period, in well-constituted women, the fat, being absorbed with less activity, is accumulated in the cellular tissue under the skin and elsewhere; and this effaces any wrinkles which mighthave begun to furrow the skin, rounds the outlines anew, and again restores an air of youth and freshness. Hence, this period is called “the age of return.”
This plumpness, though juvenile lightness and freshness be wanting, sustains the forms, and sometimes confers a majestic air, which, in women otherwise favorably organized, still interests for a number of years.
The shape certainly is no longer so elegant; the articulations have less elasticity; the muscles are more feeble; the movements are less light; and in plump women we observe those broken motions, and in meager ones that stiffness, which mark the walk or the dance at that age.
At this period occurs a remarkable alteration in the organs of voice. Women, therefore, to whom singing is a profession, ought to limit its exercise.
When women pass happily from the third to the fourth age, their constitution, as every one must have observed, changes entirely; it becomes stronger: and nature abandons to individual life all the rest of existence.
Beauty, however, is no more; form and shape have disappeared; the plumpness which supported the reliefs has abandoned them; the sinkings and wrinkles are multiplied; the skin has lost its polish; color and freshness have fled for ever.
These injuries of time, it has been observed, commonly begin by the abdomen, which loses its polish and its firmness; the hemispheres of the bosom no longer sustain themselves; the claviclesproject; the neck becomes meager; all the reliefs are effaced; all the forms are altered from roundness and softness to angularity and hardness.
That which, amid these ruins, still survives for a long time, is the entireness of the hair, the placidity or the fineness of the look, the air of sentiment, the amiable expression of the countenance, and, in women of elegant mind and great accomplishments, caressing manners and charming graces, which almost make us forget youth and beauty.
Finally, and especially in muscular or nervous women, the temperament changes, and the constitution of woman approaches to that of man; the organs become rigid; and, in some unhappy cases, a beard protrudes.
Old age and decrepitude finally succeed.
The crossing of races is often spoken of as a means of perfecting the form of man, and of developing beauty; and we are told that it is in this manner that the Persians have become a beautiful people, and that many tribes of Tartar origin have been improved, especially the Turks, who now present to us scarcely anything of the Mongol.
In these general and vague statements, however, the mere crossing of different races is always deemed sufficient; whereas, every improvement depends on the circumstance that the organization of the races subjected to this operation is duly suited to each other. It is in that way only, that we can explain the following facts stated by Moreau:—
In one of the great towns of the north of France, the women, half a century ago, were rather ugly than pretty; but a detachment of the guards being quartered there, and remaining during several years, the population changed in appearance, and, favored by this circumstance, the town is now indebted to strangers for the beauty of the most interesting portion of its inhabitants.
The monks of Citeaux exercised an influence noless remarkable upon the beauty of the inhabitants of the country around their monastery; and it may be stated, as the result of actual observation, that the young female-peasants of their neighborhood were much more beautiful than those of other cantons. And, adds this writer, “there can be no doubt that the same effect occurred in the different places whither religious houses attracted foreign inmates, whom love and pleasure speedily united with the indigenous inhabitants!”
The other circumstances which contribute to female beauty, are, a mild climate, a fertile soil, a generous but temperate diet, a regular mode of life, favorable education, the guidance and suppression of passions, easy manners, good moral, social, and political institutions, and occupations which do not injure the beautiful proportions of the body.
Beauty, accordingly, is more especially to be found in certain countries. Thus, as has often been observed, the sanguine temperament is that of the nations of the north; the phlegmatic is that of cold and moist countries; and the bilious is that of the greater part of the inhabitants of southern regions. Each of these has its degree and modification of beauty.
The native country of beauty is not to be found either in regions where cold freezes up the living juices, or in those where the animal structure is withered by heat. A climate removed from the excessive influence of both these causes constitutes an essential condition in the production of beauty;and this, with its effect, we find between the 35th and 65th degree of northern latitude, in Persia, the countries bordering upon Caucasus, and principally Tchercassia, Georgia and Mongrelia, Turkey in Europe and Asia, Greece, Italy, some part of Spain, a very small part of France, England, Holland, some parts of Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and a part of Norway and even of Russia.
Even under the same degree of latitude, it is observed that the position of the place, its elevation, its vicinity to the sea, the direction of the winds, the nature of the soil, and all the peculiarities of locality which constitute the climate proper to each place, occasion great differences in beauty.
In relation to the causes of beauty, some observations which seem to be important, arise out of the remarks of de Pauw on the Greeks.
De Pauw endeavored to show, that, though the men of ancient Greece were handsome, the women of that country were never beautiful. He thence accounted for the excessive admiration which there prevailed of courtesans from Ionia, &c.
This, however, was so contrary to the notions formed of the beauty of that people from what was known of their taste, that it was considered as a paradox. Travellers, accordingly, sought for such beauty in the women of modern Greece. They were disappointed in not finding it.
What rendered this the more remarkable was, that in various places they found the ancient and beautiful cast of countenance among the men, and not among the women of that country—thuscorroborating in all respects the doctrine of de Pauw.
On considering that doctrine, however, and comparing it with more extended observations, it would seem to be only a particular application of a more general law unknown to de Pauw—that, in most countries, one of the sexes excels the other in beauty.
Thus, in some parts of the highlands of Scotland, we find the men as remarkable for beauty as the women for ugliness; while, in some eastern counties of England, we find precisely the reverse. The strong features, the dark curled hair and the muscular form, of the highlander, are as unsuitable to the female sex, as the soft features, the flaxen hair, and the short and tapering limbs, of the woman of the eastern coast, are unsuitable to the male.
If the soil, climate, and productions, of these countries be considered, we discover the causes of the differences alluded to. The hardships of mountain life are favorable to the stronger development of the locomotive system, which ought more or less to characterize the male; and the luxuriance of the plains is favorable to those developments of the nutritive system, which ought to characterize the female.
This is illustrated even in inferior animals. Oxen become large-bodied and fat in low and rich soils, but are remarkable for shortness of legs; while, in higher and drier situations, the bulk of the body is less, and the limbs are stronger and more muscular.
The quantity and quality of the aliments are another cause, not less powerful in regard to beauty. Abundance, or rather a proper mediocrity, as to nutritious food, contributes to perfection in this respect.
Beauty is also, in some measure, a result of civilization. Women, accordingly, of consummate beauty, are found only in civilized nations.
Professions can rarely be said to favor beauty; but they do not impede its development when their exercise does not compel to laborious employments an organization suited only to sedentary occupations.
The ideas of the beautiful vary in different individuals, and in different nations. Hence, many men of talent have thought them altogether relative and arbitrary.
“Ask,” says Voltaire, “a Negro of Guinea [what is beauty]: the beautiful is for him a black oily skin, deep-seated eyes, and a broad flat nose.”
“Perfect beauty,” says Payne Knight, “taking perfect in its most strict, and beauty in its most comprehensive signification, ought to be equally pleasing to all; but of this, instances are scarcely to be found: for, as to taking them, or, indeed, any examples for illustration, from the other sex of our own species, it is extremely fallacious; as there can be little doubt that all male animals think the females of their own species the most beautiful productions of nature. At least we know this to be the case among the different varieties of men, whose respective ideas of the beauty of their females are as widely different as those of man, and any other animal, can be. The sable Africans view with pity and contempt the marked deformity of the Europeans; whose mouths are compressed, their nosespinched, their cheeks shrunk, their hair rendered lank and flimsy, their bodies lengthened and emaciated, and their skins unnaturally bleached by shade and seclusion, and the baneful influence of a cold humid climate.... Who shall decide which party is right, or which is wrong; or whether the black or white model be, according to the laws of nature, the most perfect specimen of a perfect woman?... The sexual desires of brutes are probably more strictly natural inclinations, and less changed or modified by the influence of acquired ideas, or social habits, than those of any race of mankind; but their desires seem, in general, to be excited by smell, rather than by sight or contact. If, however, a boar can think a sow the sweetest and most lovely of living creatures, we can have no difficulty in believing that he also thinks her the most beautiful.”
“Among the various reasons,” says Reynolds, “why we prefer one part of nature’s works to another, the most general, I believe, is habit and custom; custom makes, in a certain sense, white black, and black white; it is custom alone determines our preference of the color of the Europeans to the Ethiopians, and they, for the same reason, prefer their own color to ours. I suppose nobody will doubt, if one of their painters were to paint the goddess of beauty, but that he would represent her black, with thick lips, flat nose, and woolly hair; and it seems to me, he would act very unnaturally if he did not; for by what criterion will any one dispute the propriety of his idea? We indeed say,that the form and color of the European are preferable to those of the Ethiopian; but I know of no other reason we have for it, but that we are more accustomed to it.”
The coquetry of several tribes, it has been observed, leads them to mutilate and disfigure themselves, to flatten their forehead, to enlarge their mouth and ears, to blacken their skin, and cover it with the marks of suffering.—We make ugliness in that way, says Montaigne.
But, to confine our observations to individual nations, and these civilized ones; we every day see irregular or even common figures preferred to those which the enlightened judge deems beautiful.
How, then, it is asked, amid these different tastes, these opposite opinions, are we to admit ideas of absolute beauty?
These are the strongest objections against all ideas of absolute and essential beauty in woman.
To establish, in opposition to these objections, a standard of womanly beauty, equal talent has been employed; but the reasoning, though sufficient for such objections, has been rather of a vague description. As, however, the subject is of great importance, I shall endeavor to abridge and concentrate the arguments of which it consists, before I point out the surer method which is founded on the Elements of Beauty already established.
To refute these objections, it has been thought sufficient to examine the chief conditions which are necessary, in order to appreciate properly the impression of those combinations, which womanpresents, and to expose the principal circumstances which are opposed to the accuracy of opinions, and judgments respecting them.
The conditions necessary to enable us to pronounce respecting the real attributes of beauty, are, first, a temperate climate, under which nature brings to perfection all her productions, and gives to their forms and functions, generally, and to those of man in particular, all the development of which they are capable, without excess in the action of some, and defect in that of others;—secondly, in man in particular, a brain capable of vigorous thought, sound judgment, and exquisite taste;—and thirdly, a very advanced civilization, without which these faculties cannot be duly exercised or attain any perfection.
It is evident enough that none of these conditions are to be met with in the whimsical judgments and tastes of many nations.
The consequence of the absence of these conditions, in relation to the uncivilized and ignorant inhabitants of hot climates, is marked in their deeming characteristics of beauty, the thick lips of Negresses, the long and pendent mammæ of the women in several nations both of Africa and America, or the gross forms of those of Egypt.
The consequence of the absence of these conditions, in relation to the uncivilized and ignorant inhabitants of cold climates, is equally marked in their deeming characteristics of beauty the short figures of the women of icy regions, in which, deprived of the vivifying action of heat and light, living beings appear only in a state of deformityand alteration; and in their similarly deeming beautiful the obliquely-placed eyes of the Chinese and Japanese, and the crushed nose of the Calmucs, &c., &c.
Those who take these views, which are true, though somewhat vague and inconclusive, should, I think, have seen and added, that the deviations from beauty in the forms of the women of hot climates are commonly inexcess, owing to the great development of organs of sense or of sex; while the deviations from beauty, in the forms of the women of cold climates, are commonly indefect, owing to the imperfect development of organs of sense, and of the general figure.
This view renders it more clear that both these kinds of deviation are deformities, incompatible with the consistent and harmonious development of the whole. And without this view, the preceding arguments are indeed too vague to be easily tenable.
In relation more especially to the second of the preceding conditions, the possession of a brain capable of vigorous thought, sound judgment, and exquisite taste, Hume observes that the same excellence of faculties which contributes to the improvement of reason, the same clearness of conception, the same exactness of distinction, the same vivacity of apprehension, are essential to the operations of true taste.
Here, again, those who take these true, but vague and inconclusive views, should, I think, have seen and added that this excellence of the thinking faculties is incompatible with the obviously constrictedbrain, which is a defect common both to the Negro and the Mongol—adefectwhich is incompatible with beauty either of form or function, and which I have shown, in my work on physiognomy, to be intimately connected with climate. This renders the argument sufficiently strong.
Those who employ these arguments as to a standard of beauty in woman, proceed to show the modes in which defects of this kind unfit persons to judge of beauty; and though their farther arguments are similarly vague, they nevertheless tend to support the truth.
If, say they, among the forms and the features which we compare, some are associated by us with certain qualities or sentiments which please us, they equally lead us to a predilection or prejudice, in consequence of which the most common or the least beautiful figure is preferred to the most perfect. In this case, the imagination has perverted the judgment.
Winckelmann truly observes, that young people are most exposed to such errors: placed under the influence of sentiment and of illusion, they often regard, as very beautiful, women who have nothing capable of charming, but an animated physiognomy, in which breathe desire, voluptuousness, and languor. The results of this as to life may easily be foreseen.
Of the excess to which such prejudice may go, a good instance is adduced in Descartes, who preferred women who squinted to the most perfect beauties, because squinting was one of the mostremarkable features of the woman who was the first object of his affections.
Winckelmann observes that even artists themselves have not always an exquisite sentiment of beauty: their first impressions have often an influence which they cannot overcome, nor even weaken, especially when, at a distance from the admirable productions of the ancients, they cannot rectify their first judgments.
Circumstances of profession, it is truly observed, may also lead to associations of ideas capable of deceiving us in our opinions respecting beauty. Men are apt to refer everything to their exclusive knowledge and the mode of judging which it employs. The “what does that prove” of the mathematician, when judging the finest products of imagination, has passed into a proverb. And every one knows of that other cultivator of the same science, who declared that he never could discover anything sublime in Milton’s Paradise Lost, but that he could never read the queries at the end of one of the books in Newton’s Optics, without his hair standing on end and his blood running cold.
The necessity of the third condition, namely, advanced civilization, to a right judgment respecting a standard of beauty in woman, is evident, when we consider that it requires a taste formed by the habit of bringing things together and of comparing them.
One accustomed to see, says Hume, “and examine, and weigh the several performances, admired in different ages and nations, can alone ratethe merits of a work exhibited to his view, and assign its proper rank among the productions of genius.”
From all this, it is certainly evident—not merely that that which pleases us is not always beautiful; that numerous causes may form so many sources of diversity and of error on this subject; and that we cannot thence conclude that the ideas of beauty are relative and arbitrary—but that certain conditions are indispensable to form the judgment respecting beauty; and that the principal of these conditions are, a temperate climate and fertile soil, a well-developed brain, sound judgment, and delicate taste, and a highly-advanced civilization.
This is perfectly conformable with the practical fact that it was under a most delightful climate, among a people of unrivalled judgment, genius, and taste, and amid a civilization which the world has never since witnessed, that the laws of Nature as to beauty were discovered, and applied to the production of those immortal forms which the unfavorable accidents occurring to the existence of all beings, have never permitted Nature herself to combine in any one individual.
Though I have endeavored to amend these arguments respecting a standard of beauty in woman, I prefer those which may be founded on the doctrine I have laid down respecting the Elements of Beauty. It will be found that the greatest number of these elements are combined in the woman whom we commonly deem the most beautiful.
To illustrate this, it will be sufficient to examine their most striking and distinctive characteristic, namely, their fair complexion, which is intimately connected with all their other characteristics, and which gives increased splendor and effect to their form and features.
It is remarkable that even Alison, though the advocate of all beauty being dependant on association, grants that the pure white of the countenance is expressive to us, according to its different degrees, of purity, fineness, gayety; that the dark complexion, on the other hand, is expressive to us of melancholy, gloom, or sadness; and that so far is this from being a fanciful relation, that it is generally admitted by those who have the best opportunities of ascertaining it, the professors of medical science. He also observes that black eyes are commonly united with the dark, and blue eyes with the fair complexion; and that, in the color of the eyes, blue, according to its different degrees, is expressive of softness, gentleness, cheerfulness, or severity; and black, of thought, or gravity, or of sadness.
Even this, however, is less conclusive than the pathological or physiological facts stated by Cheselden, as to the boy restored by him to sight, namely, that the first view of a black object gave him great pain, and that that of a negro-woman struck him with horror.
Independently of this, white, as every one is aware, is the color which reflects the greatest number of luminous rays; and, for that reason, itbestows the brilliance and splendor upon beautiful forms with which all are charmed.
Winckelmann, indeed, observes that the head of Scipio the elder, in the Palazzo Rospigliosi, executed in basalt of a deep green, is very beautiful. But, in that case, it is the form, not the color, of the head, that is beautiful. While greenness of complexion would not be beautiful in a man, it would certainly be hideously ugly in a woman.
Moreover, while, in a dead black or any dark color of face, it cannot be pretended that, considering its color only, we should have more than blackness or darkness for admiration, it is evident that, in a fair complexion, we have, in addition to its general brilliance or splendor, the infinite variety of its teints, their exquisite blendings, and the beautiful expression of every transient emotion.
I have now only to expose the sophistry which Payne Knight has employed upon this subject.
“I am aware,” he says, “indeed, that it would be no easy task to persuade a lover that the forms upon which he dotes with such rapture, are not really beautiful, independent of the medium of affection, passion, and appetite, through which he views them. But before he pronounces either the infidel or the skeptic guilty of blasphemy against nature, let him take a mould from the lovely features or lovely bosom of this masterpiece of creation, and cast a plum-pudding in it (an object by no means disgusting to most men’s appetite), and I think he will no longer be in raptures with the form, whatever he may be with the substance.”
Now, it happens that a grosser incongruity can scarcely be supposed than that which exists between lovely features or a lovely bosom and a plum-pudding, or between the sentiment of love and the propensity to gluttony; and therefore to place the substance of the pudding, in which internal composition is alone of importance, and shape of none, under the form of features or a bosom, in which internal structure is unknown or unthought of, and shape or other external properties are alone considered, is a gross and offensive substitution, intended, not to enlighten judgment respecting form, but to pervert it, and to degrade the higher object by comparison with the lower one. The shape, moreover, is a true sign in the one case, and a false one in the other.—Of nearly similar character is the following:—
“If a man, perfectly possessed both of feeling and sight—conversant with, and sensible to the charms of women—were even to be in contact with what he conceived to be the most beautiful and lovely of the sex, and at the moment when he was going to embrace her, he was to discover that the parts which he touched only were feminine or human; and that, in the rest of her form, she was an animal of a different species, or a person of his own sex, the total and instantaneous change of his sentiments from one extreme to another, would abundantly convince him that his sexual desires depended as little upon that abstract sense of touch, as upon that of sight.”
That, in detecting an imposture of this kind,admiration would give place to disgust, only proves that the external qualities which were admired were the natural and appropriate signs of the internal qualities expected to be found under them, and that they now cease to interest only because they have become, not naturally less the signs of these qualities, but because they have by a mere trick been rendered insignificant, because truth and nature have been violated, and because the mind feels only disgust at the imposture. I cannot help saying that if Knight was in earnest when he framed such arguments, his mind was sometimes dull as well as perverse.
“The redness of any morbid inflammation,” he says, “may display a gradation of teint, which, in a pink or a rose, we should think as beautiful as ‘the purple light of love and bloom of young desire;’ and the cadaverous paleness of death or disease, a degree of whiteness, which, in a piece of marble or alabaster, we should deem to be as pure, as that of the most delicate skin of the fairest damsel of the frigid zone: consequently, the mere visible beauty is in both the same; and the difference consists entirely in mental sympathies, excited by certain internal stimuli, and guided by habit.”
There is here the same confusion of heterogeneous and inconsistent objects, as in the preceding cases. To judge of beauty in simple objects, each quality may be separately considered; and in this view, if the inflammation presented the same teint as the pink or the rose, then, as a mereteint, abstracted from every other quality of the respective objects, it would be precisely as beautiful in the one as in the other; but as the color of a rose on the human body would indicate that flow of blood to the skin which can result only from excessive action, it ceases to be considered intrinsically, and is regarded only as a sign of disease. The same observations are applicable to the other case here adduced.
“The African black,” he says, “when he first beholds an European complexion, thinks both its red and white morbid and unnatural, and of course disgusting. His sunburnt beauties express their modesty and sensibility by variations in the sable teints of their countenances, which are equally attractive to him, as the most delicate blush of red to us.”
In treating of the Elements of Beauty, I have endeavored to show, that the more those simpler elements of beauty, which characterize inanimate bodies, are retained in more compound ones, the more beautiful these become; but that the latter retain these elements in very different degrees, dependant upon internal or external circumstances, and that such elementary beauty is often sacrificed to the higher ones of life or mind. Now, in the case of the African, he is born whitish, like the European, but he speedily loses such beauty for that of adaptation, by his color, to the hot climate in which he exists. The latter beauty is the higher and more important one, and forms for the African a profitable exchange; but the European is stillmore fortunate, because, in the region he inhabits, the simple and elementary beauty is compatible with that of adaptation to climate. The climate of Africa, the cerebral structure of its inhabitants, and the degree of their civilization, are as unfavorable to the existence of beauty as to the power of judging respecting it. What he adds as to variation in sable countenances is a mere exaggeration.
“Were it possible for a person to judge of the beauty of color in his own species, upon the same principles and with the same impartiality as he judges of it in other objects, both animal, vegetable, and mineral, there can be no doubt that mixed teints would be preferred; and a pimpled face have the same superiority over a smooth one, as a zebra has over an ass, a variegated tulip over a plain one, or a column of jasper or porphyry over one of a common red or white marble.”
Here the same mistake is committed. Elementary beauty is preferred to that of adaptation to climate, fitness for physiognomical expression, &c. Knight’s other arguments all involve similar errors, and admit of similar answers.
These have been already briefly mentioned. They are repeated and illustrated here.
The view which is given of them will throw light on the celebrated temperaments of the ancients. It will appear that all the disputes which have occurred respecting these, have arisen from their being founded, not on precise data, but on empirical observation, at a time when the great truths of anatomy and physiology were unknown; that, to the rectification of the doctrine of temperaments, the arrangement of these sciences, laid down in a preceding chapter, is indispensable; that some of these temperaments are comparatively simple, and consist in an excessive or a defective action of locomotive, nutritive, or thinking organs; that others, which have been confounded with these, are, on the contrary, compound; and that, from this want of classification, their nature has been imperfectly understood.
To make this clear, it is necessary to lay before the reader a succinct view of the doctrine of temperaments.
The ancients classed individuals in one or other of four temperaments, founded on the hypothesis of four humors, of which the blood was supposed to be composed—the red part, phlegm, yellow and black bile. These were regarded as the elements of the body, and their respective predominance passed for the cause of the differences which it presented. Hence were derived the names of the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, and the melancholic temperament.
Although the hypothesis on which this doctrine was founded is universally discarded, the phenomena which observation had taught the ancients, and which they had hypothetically connected with these elements, were so true, that that classification has been more or less employed in all the hypotheses which have since been invented to explain their cause; and their nomenclature has continued in use to the present day.
A temperament may be defined a peculiar state of the system, depending on the relative proportion of its different masses, and the relative energy of its different functions, by which it acquires a tendency to certain actions.
The predominance of any particular organ or system of organs, its excess of force, extends its sphere of activity to all the other functions, and modifies them in a peculiar manner. Thus, conforming in the illustration to the preceding arrangement, in one person, the muscles are more frequently employed than the brain; in another, the stomach or the organs of reproduction aremore employed than the muscles; and in a third, the brain and nerves are more employed than either. This predominance or excess establishes the temperament.
The relative feebleness of any organ or system of organs, similarly forms modifications not less important. Thus in one person, the organs of the abdomen are less employed; in another, those of the chest; in a third, the brain.
Disease, it is observed, “commonly enters into the organization by these feeble points: death even attacks them first; extends afterward from one to another; and makes progress more or less rapid, according to the importance of the organ primitively affected.”
Temperaments, however, vary infinitely. It may be said that every individual has a peculiar one, to which he owes his mode of existence and his degree of health, ability, and happiness.
The temperament, moreover, of each individual is not always characterized by well-marked symptoms; and even where it has been strongly marked by nature, education, age, the influence of climate, the exercise of professions and trades, and various habits, produce in it infinite changes.
Temperaments also combine together, so that all men are, in some degree, at once sanguine and bilious, or otherwise compound. Thus all intermediate shades of temperament are produced; and it is often difficult, or, under particular circumstances, impossible, to determine under which temperament individuals may be classed.
The simple temperaments are therefore abstractions, which it is difficult to realize; and the influence of any temperament is sometimes undiscoverable except in some extraordinary circumstances of disorder or disease, during which it may be observed.
Cullen admits the four temperaments of Hippocrates, and remarks concerning them, that it is probable they were first founded upon observation, and afterward adapted to the theory of the ancients, since we find they “have a real existence.”
Dr. Prichard remarks, that “this division of temperaments is by no means a fanciful distinction.”
To the four temperaments of Hippocrates, Gregory adds a fifth, the nervous temperament.
Thus are formed five temperaments generally admitted, namely, 1st, the phlegmatic or relaxed; 2d, the sanguine arterial; 3d, the sanguine venous or bilious; 4th, the nervous; and, 5th, the muscular or athletic.
Some writers join to these the partial temperaments which determine the ascendency of the functions exercised by particular organs; whence principally come the temperaments which they call the cerebral, epigastric, abdominal, hepatic, genital, &c.
As already said, it will in the sequel appear that some of these temperaments are comparatively simple, that others are compound, and that from this want of classification, their nature has been imperfectly understood.[32]
The average stature of woman, as already said, is two or three inches less than that of man.
The bones of woman remain always smaller than those of man; the cylindrical ones being more slender, and the flat ones thinner, while the former are also rounder. The muscles render the surfaces of the bones less uneven; the projections of the latter are less; and all their cavities and impressions have less depth. The bones of woman have likewise less hardness than those of man.
Such being the solid and fundamental parts of this system in woman, the most remarkable circumstances in their combination should next be noticed.
In woman, the magnitude of the pelvis or lower part of the trunk, has the greatest influence on the apparent proportion of parts, and on the general figure.
The most remarkable differences between the two sexes, in relation to this system, are consequently those presented by the inferior and superior part of the trunk in each. The breast and thehaunches are in an inverse proportion in the two sexes. Man has the breast larger and wider than that of woman: woman has the haunches less circumscribed than those of man.
The upper part of the body is also less prominent, and the lower part more prominent, in woman than in man; and therefore, when they stand upright, or lie on the back, the breast is most prominent in the male, and the pubes in the female. The indication this affords of the fitness of woman for impregnation, gestation, and parturition, is obvious.
From the same cause, the back of woman is more hollow.
Still farther to increase the capacity of the lower part of the body, woman has the loins more extended than man. This portion of her body is in every way enlarged at the expense of neighboring parts. Hence, the chest is shorter above; and the thighs and legs are shorter below.
The thigh-bones of woman are also more separated superiorly; the knees are more approximated; the feet are smaller; and the base of support is less extended.
The reader desirous of thoroughly understanding these matters, should compare the beautiful plates of the male and female skeletons by Albinus and Sœmmerring.
Beauty of the locomotive system in woman, depends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus distinguish her from man.
In the woman possessingTHIS SPECIESof beauty,therefore, the face is generally somewhat bony and oblong;—the neck, less connected with the nutritive system, is rather long and tapering;—the shoulders, without being angular, are sufficiently broad and definite for muscular attachments;—the bosom, a vital organ, is of but moderate dimensions;—the waist, enclosing smaller nutritive organs, is remarkable for fine proportion, and resembles, in some respects, an inverted cone;—the haunches, for the same reason, are but moderately expanded;—the thighs are proportional;—the arms, as well as the limbs, being formed chiefly of locomotive organs, are rather long and moderately tapering;—the hands and feet are moderately small;—the complexion, owing to the inferiority of the nutritive system, is often rather dark;—and the hair is frequently dark and strong.—The whole figure is precise, striking, and often brilliant.—From its proportions, it sometimes seems almost aerial; and we would imagine, that, if our hands were placed under the lateral parts of the tapering waist of a woman thus characterized, the slightest pressure would suffice to throw her into the air.
To this class belong generally the more firm, vigorous, and even actively-impassioned women: though it may doubtless boast many of greatly modified character.
First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
It may here be observed, that the varieties or modifications of each species of beauty naturallycorrespond with the greater or less development of some one of the various organs on which the species is founded. Thus, the modifications of beauty of the locomotive system correspond with the greater or less development of the bones, the ligaments, or the muscles; those of the nutritive system correspond with the greater or less development of the absorbents, the bloodvessels, or the glands; and those of the thinking system correspond with the greater or less development of the organs of sense, the brain, or the cerebel. A little reflection will show, that some of these modifications will be more, and others less beautiful.
To understand the present variety, the bony structure on which it especially depends, must now be more minutely described.
Commencing with the trunk of the body—the chest in woman is shorter but more expanded; the breast-bone is shorter but wider; the two upper ribs are flatter; the collar-bones are more straight or less curved, and do not present that prominent relief which appears on the chest of man; the shoulders are carried farther back, and project less from the trunk.
The haunches, as already stated, are proportionally wider in woman than in man, and the interior cavity of the pelvis, which is between them, being adapted to gestation, is more capacious. This greater capacity of the pelvis arises from the lateral parts having in woman more convexity outward; from the bones called ossa pubis, which form the anterior part, touching at a smaller number ofpoints, and running obliquely or forming a greater angle, to enlarge the space which is between them and the inferior extremity of the posterior part of the pelvis; from the arch of the pubis being larger; from the greater concavity and breadth of the os sacrum or posterior bone of the pelvis, its posterior part forming a greater prominence outward; and from the whole pelvis being thus wider and less deep, its circumference approaching more to the circular form. The cavities, it may be added, in which the heads of the thigh-bones are received, are of course farther apart: they are also oblique and less deep.
The arms of woman are shorter than in man.—As these members are well marked in beauty of the locomotive system, they may the more fully be considered here.—The arms, and especially their extremities, are susceptible of a degree of beauty of which we see few examples. Their bases, the bones, ligaments, and muscles, belong to the locomotive system; and their fundamental beauty consequently depends upon its proportions; but to the nutritive system are owing the circumstances that, in woman, the arm is fatter and more rounded, has softer forms and more flowing and purer outlines. The hand in woman is smaller, more plump, more soft, and more white. It is peculiarly beautiful when full; when it is gently dimpled over the first joints; when the fingers are long, round, tapering toward the ends; when the other joints are marked by slight reliefs and shadows; and when the fingers are delicate andflexible. Beauty of the hand becomes the more precious, because it is the principal organ of a sense which may be considered as the most valuable of all.
In regard to the lower extremities, it has been observed, that the lateral convexity of the pelvis causes the bones of the thighs attached to them to be farther separated from each other; and this separation of the bones of the thighs causes an increase of the size of the haunches. It is over the posterior part of the space thus produced, that we observe the reliefs which the inferior members present superiorly, and which unite them with the trunk, by forms so beautifully rounded. The thighs are also proportionally larger, on account of this separation: they are more rounded, as well as much more voluminous: they are also more curved before than in man. At their inferior part, they approximate; and the knees project a little inward. It has been truly observed, that this conformation manifests, relatively to gestation and parturition, advantages of which the exterior expression is not found in the women who are commonly regarded as well made, and who, however, are not so, if the best conformation or beauty result from a direct and well-marked relation between the form of the organs and their functions. It is owing to the thighs of woman being thus carried more inward when she walks, that the change of the point of gravity which marks each step, is in her much more remarkable. All the other parts of the inferior members are in general distinguishedby forms more softly rounded; the leg is remarkable for its delicacy; the long line of the anterior bone is entirely hid under its envelope; its inferior part is shaped with more elegance; the foot is smaller; and the base of support is less extended. The feet, like the hands, are susceptible of a kind of beauty of which nature is sparing.
From all this it appears that the only bones which nature tends to enlarge in woman are those of the pelvis; that all the rest are small; and that they proportionally diminish in size, as we pass from that central part to the extremities.
TheFIRST MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the bones, those of the pelvis excepted, is proportionally small.
This character will be especially apparent where the long bones approach the surface; as in the arm immediately above the wrist, and, in the leg, immediately above the ankle. Its effect will be proportionally delicate and feminine.
Various subordinate modifications of this kind of beauty are found in various countries, and under the influence of various circumstances.
The women of Rome, we are told, present beauty of the shoulders in the highest degree, when they arrive at that period of life in which plumpness succeeds to juvenile elasticity.
It has been suggested, that the Greek or Ionian women, whose arms were of so perfect a form, owed that beauty in some measure to the custom of leaving them nude, or covered only by loosedrapery: as in that case, no pressure constricted the roundness of the fleshy parts, and prevented their development; no ligature, binding the upper part of the arm, altered the color of the skin; and the arm, being always uncovered, received at the toilet the same attention as other parts. Hence, it is supposed antique statuary has left us such admirable models of the beauty of this part.
It is certainly not improbable that we may attribute the absence of this beauty, in some measure, to a custom which, in many cases, medicine may approve, but which is unfavorable to the arm, that of wearing long sleeves; but want of exercise is its great cause.
The form of the hand often announces the occupation of the person to whom it belongs, and sometimes even her particular capabilities. There certainly are hands that we may call intellectual; and there are others that we may call foolish or stupid. Of the hand, Lavater says, that, whether in movement or in repose, its expression cannot be mistaken: its most tranquil position indicates our natural dispositions; its flexions, our actions and our passions.
The ancients, it has been observed, attached much importance to the form of the feet: the philosophers did not neglect it in the general view of the physiognomy; and the historians as well as the poets made mention of their beauty, in speaking of Polyxene, Aspasia, and others; as they did of their deformities in speaking of the emperor Domitian.
Perfection or deformity of the feet is no doubt in general hereditary; but good management will preserve the former of these, and repair the latter. We commonly deform these parts by means of our shoes: the second toe, observes a writer on this subject, which naturally projects most, as we see from the antique, is arrested in its development, and the foot, which ought, in the outline of its extremity, to approach to the elegant form of the ellipsis, is rounded without beauty, and is disfigured by our ridiculous compressions.[33]
Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
The joints generally are small in woman, and especially so in the extremities. The elbow joint is softly rounded; and the various joints of the fingers are marked chiefly by little reliefs and faint shadows. The articulation of the knee is feebly indicated; the ankles are disposed in such a manner as to offer only agreeable outlines; and there are dimples over the first joints of the toes, with exceedingly gentle indications of the other joints.
TheSECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the ligaments and the articulations they form, is proportionally small.
This conformation will be especially apparent—in the arm, at the wrist—and, in the leg, at the ankle. Its effect will be proportionally handsome.
Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
The muscles of women are more slender and feeble than those of man; their bundles are rounder; their fibres are finer, more humid, soft, and delicate, and less compact; their central parts or bellies are less prominent; their reliefs do not appear in any strength at the surface of the body; but being, on the contrary, surrounded on all sides by a loose cellular tissue, they only render that surface beautifully rounded.
Although, however, the muscular system of woman is weaker, and the muscles proportionally smaller, yet, as already said, in some parts the muscular system is more developed than in man. This, owing to the magnitude of the pelvis, is most remarkable about the thighs. The muscles of these parts having larger origins from the pelvis, and being less compressed by reciprocal contact, have more liberty to extend themselves. It is from this, that results much of the delicacy of the female form, as well as the ease, suppleness, and capability of grace in its movements.
It is otherwise in all parts remote from the pelvis. Women, accordingly, can less be said to have calves, than legs which, like their arms and fingers, gently taper.
TheTHIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the muscles is proportionally large around the pelvis, and delicate elsewhere.
This conformation being concealed by the drapery, may nevertheless be conjectured from the imperfect view of the hip, or of the calf of the leg, or more accurately by means of the external indications of forms which are given in a subsequent chapter. Its effect will be proportionally elegant.
Woman’s power of muscular motion being thus limited to the vicinity of the pelvis, that of her extremities is generally feeble.
Other causes contribute to this. Thus, with regard to the upper extremities, it has been observed, that the collar-bone, not separating so much the arm from the axis of the body, the extent of its movements is limited; and this circumstance explains why women, who wish to overcome great resistances with the superior members, experience difficulty in doing so—why, for example, when they wish to throw a stone, they are obliged to turn the body on the foot opposite to the arm with which they throw.
Thus also the largeness of the pelvis, and the approximation of the knees, influence the gait of woman, and render it vacillating and unsteady. Conscious of this, women, in countries where the nutritive system in general and the pelvis in particular are large, affect a greater degree of this vacillation and unsteadiness. An example of this is seen in the lateral and rotary motion which is given to the pelvis in walking, by certain classes of the women of London.
For the same reason, united to a smaller foot, and some other circumstances, women, it isobserved, who execute gentle and light movements with so much skill, do not attempt with advantage great evolutions, run with difficulty and without grace, and fly—in order to be caught, as Rousseau has said.
In woman, however, the muscular fibre is thus soft, yielding, feeble, and incapable of great evolutions, because it is necessary that it should easily adapt itself to remarkable changes.
From all this, from women having more address in the use of their fingers, from their aptitude for little and light domestic works, the care of children, and sedentary occupations, it is evident that they cannot devote themselves to toilsome labors without struggling against their organization, and suffering proportionally.
The voice being connected with the motive organs, it may here be noticed that the larynx or flute part of the throat in woman is more contracted and less prominent than in man; that the glottis does not enlarge in the same proportion; that the tongue-bone is much smaller; and that the tongue, its muscles, and the organs of speech in general, being, like all the other parts, more mobile, young girls articulate and pronounce much more quickly. Their voice is also so much more acute, that if man and woman sing in unison, there is always between them the relation of an octave, which forms the most natural and most agreeable consonance.
It is evidently theUNIONof all that is good in these varieties which renders beauty in the locomotive system perfect.
This is perfectly represented in the Diana of Grecian sculpture, in which, with admirable taste, it is neither the nutritive nor the thinking, but the locomotive system, which is developed.
I have already said, that the temperaments of the ancients are only partial views of some of the varieties I am now describing. Theathletic temperamentfalls under thelast of these varieties; and it is the only one that falls under this species. Happily, it does not occur in woman.
This temperament results from a great development of the bones and muscles, and it is that of mere physical strength. It is marked by all the outward signs of strength: the head is small, the neck thick behind, the shoulders broad, the chest expanded, the haunches firm, the intervals of the muscles deeply marked, the tendons apparent through the skin, and all the joints not covered by muscles, seemingly small.
In this temperament, muscular strength prevails over the functions of the other organs, and especially usurps the energies necessary to the production of thought; the perceptions are deficient in quickness, delicacy, accuracy, and strength; and all the mental functions are with difficulty excited; but the body is capable of great exertion, and it surmounts great physical resistance when roused.
The Farnese Hercules, says a French physiologist,exhibits a model of the physical attributes of this constitution; and that which fabulous antiquity relates of the exploits of this demi-god, gives us the idea of the moral dispositions that accompany it. In the history of his twelve labors, without reflection, and as by instinct, we see him courageous, because he is strong, seeking obstacles to conquer them, certain of overwhelming whatever resists him, but joining to such strength so little subtlety, that he is cheated by all the kings he serves, and by all the women he loves.
With the vital system of woman, the capacity of the pelvis, and the consequent breadth of the haunches, are still more connected than with the locomotive system; for, with these, all those functions which are most essentially feminine—impregnation, gestation, and parturition—are intimately connected.
Camper, in a memoir on physical beauty, read to the Academy of Design, at Amsterdam,[34]showed, that, in tracing the forms of the male and female within two elliptical areas of equal size, the female pelvis extended beyond the ellipsis, while the shoulders were within; and the male shoulders reached beyond their ellipsis, while the pelvis was within.—The pelvis of the African woman is said by some to be greater than that of the European.
The abdominal and lumbar portion of the trunk, as already said, is longer in woman. In persons above the common stature, there is almost half aface more in the part of the body which is between the mammæ and the bifurcation of the trunk.
The abdomen, placed below the chest, has more projection and roundness in woman than in man: but it has little fulness in a figure capable of serving as a model; and the slightest alteration in its outlines or its polish is injurious.
The waist, which is most distinctly marked in the back and loins, owes all its advantages to its elegance, softness, and flexibility.
The neck should, by the gentlest curvature, form an almost insensible transition between the body and the head. It should also present fulness sufficient to conceal the projection of the flute part of the throat in front, and of the two large muscles which descend from behind the ears toward the pit above the breast-bone.[35]
Over all these parts, the predominance of the cellular tissue, and the soft and moderate plumpness which is connected with it, are a remarkable characteristic of the vital system in woman. While this facilitates the adaptation of the locomotive system to every change, it at the same time obliterates the projection of the muscles, and invests the whole figure with rounded and beautiful forms.
It has been well observed that the principaleffect of such forms upon the observer must be referred to the faculties which they reveal; for, as remarked by Roussel, if we examine the greater part of the attributes which constitute beauty, if reason analyze that which instinct judges at a glance, we shall find that these attributes have a reference to real advantages for the species. A light shape, supple movements, whence spring brilliance and grace, are qualities which please, because they announce the good condition of the individual who possesses them, and the greater degree of aptitude for the functions which that individual ought to fulfil.
Beauty, then, of the nutritive system in woman, depends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus distinguish her from man.
In the woman possessingTHIS SPECIESof beauty, therefore, the face is generally rounded, to give greater room to the cavities connected with nutrition;—the eyes are generally of the softest azure, which is similarly associated;—the neck is often rather short, in order intimately to connect the head with the nutritive organs in the trunk;—the shoulders are softly rounded, and owe any breadth they may possess rather to the expanded chest, containing these organs, than to any bony or muscular size of the shoulders themselves;—the bosom, a vital organ, in its luxuriance seems laterally to protrude on the space occupied by the arms;—the waist, though sufficiently marked, is, as it were, encroached on by that plumpness of all the contiguousparts, which the powerful nutritive system affords;—the haunches are greatly expanded for the vital purposes of gestation and parturition;—the thighs are large in proportion;—but the locomotive organs, the limbs and arms, tapering and becoming delicate, terminate in feet and hands which, compared with the ample trunk, are peculiarly small;—the complexion, dependant upon nutrition, has the rose and lily so exquisitely blended, that we are surprised it should defy the usual operation of the elements;—and there is a luxuriant profusion of soft and fine flaxen or auburn hair.—The whole figure is soft and voluptuous in the extreme.
To this class belong all the more feminine, soft, and exquisitely-graceful women.
The kind of beauty thus characterized is seen chiefly in the Saxon races of our eastern coast; and it is certainly more frequent in women of short stature.
The vital system is peculiarly the system of woman; and so truly is this the case, that any great employment, either of the locomotive or mental organs, deranges the peculiar functions of woman, and destroys the characteristics of her sex.
Women who greatly occupy the locomotive organs, acquire a coarse and masculine appearance; and so well is this incompatibility of power, in the use of locomotive organs with the exercise of vital ones, known to the best female dancers, that, during the time of their engagements, they generally live apart from their husbands.
As to intellectual ladies, they either seldombecome mothers, or they become intellectual when they cease to be mothers.
These few facts are worth a thousand hypotheses and dreams, however amiable they may be.
The vital system is relatively largest in little women, especially after they have been mothers. The shorter stature of woman ensures, indeed, in almost all, a relative excess of the vital system after, if not before, they become mothers; for, whatever the stature, the mammæ, abdomen, &c., necessarily expand. In those of short stature, these parts, of course, become nearly as large as in the tall; and this circumstance causes them to touch on the limits of each other in little women.
As, in pregnancy and suckling, the abdomen and mammæ necessarily expand, and as they would afterward collapse and become wrinkled, were not a certain degree of plumpness acquired, that acquisition is essential to beauty in mothers. Meagerness in them, accordingly, becomes deformity.
A French writer indeed says: “Most of our fashionables are extremely slender; they have constituted this an essential to beauty; leanness is in France necessary to theair élégant.” It must be remembered, however, that the vital system—that which we have just said is peculiarly the system of woman—is, in its most beautiful parts, peculiarly defective in France; and that, owing in a great measure to that circumstance, the women of France are among the ugliest in Europe.—But of that in its proper place.
First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
It may here be observed, that the varieties of beauty of the locomotive system, and also those of beauty of the mental system, are easily explicable, because these systems are, in some respects, more limited and simple. The varieties of beauty of the vital system are, on the contrary, more difficult of explanation, because that system is, in some respects, more diffused and complicated.
Even the preparatory vital organs and functions differ somewhat in the two sexes.
Woman has frequently a smaller number of molar teeth than man; those called wisdom teeth not always appearing. Mastication is also less energetic in woman.
The stomach, in woman, is much smaller; the appetite for food is less; hunger does not appear to press her so imperiously; and her consumption of food is much less considerable.[36]Hence, indubitable cases of long abstinence from food, have generally occurred in females.
In the choice and the preference of certain aliments, woman also differs much from man. In general, women prefer light and agreeable food, which flatters the palate by its perfume and its savor. Their appetites are also much more varied.
Women, whom vicious habits have not depraved,use also beverages less abundantly than men. Fermented, vinous, and spirituous beverages are indeed used only by the monsters engendered in the corruptions of towns—amid the insane dissipation of the rich, or the wretched and pitiable suffering of the poor; and both are then brought to one humiliating level, marked by the red and pimpled, or the pallid face, the swimming eye, the haggard features, the pestilential breath. The scarf-skin in these cases divides all that may be worthy from all that is utterly worthless: the worthy part may be external to the cuticle, in substantial, though polluted clothing; the worthless is the yet living portion, which, whether called body or soul, is no longer worth picking off a dunghill.[37]
Digestion in woman is made, however, with great rapidity; and the whole canal interested in that process, possesses great irritability.
The absorbent vessels in woman are much more developed, and seem to enjoy a more active vitality. The circumstances of pregnancy and suckling, appear also to augment the energy of these vessels.
TheFIRST MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the digestive and absorbent system is small but active; for the great purpose of life in woman is secretion, whether it regard the formation of the superficial adipose substance which invests her with beautiful and attractiveforms, or the nutrition of the new being which is the object of her attractions and of her life.
Hence it is, that women naturally and instinctively affect abstemiousness and delicacy of appetite. Hence it is, that they compress the waist, and endeavor to render it slender.
Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
Women have, in greater abundance than men, several of the fluids which enter into the composition of the body. They appear to have a greater quantity of blood; and they certainly have more frequent and more considerable hemorrhages. There is less force in the circulation and respiration; but the heart beats more rapidly. The pulse also is less full, but it is quicker.
In woman, the purer lily and more vivid rose of complexion, depend on various causes.
It would appear that, in women, the blood is in general carried less abundantly to the surface and to the extremities, where also the white vessels are more developed; and that, to this, as well as to the subjacent adipose substance, the skin owes its whiteness.
In youth, however, one of the constituent parts of the skin, the reticular tissue, or whatever the substance under the scarf-skin may be called, appears to be more expanded, especially in women; and it would seem that this tissue is then filled with a blood which is less dark, and which forms the coloring of youth. This, differently modifiedby the scarf-skin, gives the blue, the purple,andall the teints formed by these and the color of the skin. Where the vessels are more patent, and the skin more thin, delicate, and transparent, as in the cheeks, the hue of the rose is cast over that of the lily. In addition to this, the slightest emotions of surprise, of pleasure, of love, of shame, of fear, often diversify all these teints.
Lightness of complexion, however, is probably dependant more particularly on the arterial circulation, and darkness of complexion on the venous circulation; for we know that in fairer woman the arteries possess greater energy, while in darker man the veins are more developed, larger, and fuller.
Farther confirmation of this is afforded by an observation, which physiologists have neglected to make, that the kidneys, receiving arterial blood, are the artery-relieving glands, while the liver, receiving venous blood, is the vein-relieving gland. Now, it is certain that, in cold climates, the urinary secretion and fairness prevail; while, in hot climates, the hepatic secretion and darkness prevail. Many physiologists have indeed made the insulated remark, that the dark complexion has much to do with the hepatic secretion. The more abundant urinary and hepatic secretions, however, may not be the causes, but only concomitant effects of the same cause with fairness and darkness of complexion.
TheSECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the circulating vessels,being moderately active and finely ramified, bestow upon the skin a whiteness, a transparency, and a complexion, which are necessary to beauty.