The whiteness, the transparency, and the color of the skin, have, in all highly civilized nations, been deemed essential conditions of beauty.
The ancients regarded whiteness, in particular, as the distinctive character of beauty; and they estimated that character so highly, that the name of Venus, from the Celticven,ben, orban, signifies white, or whiteness; and Venus herself is said to be fair and golden-haired.
Among the civilized moderns, also a taste which women seek always to satisfy, is that for whiteness of the skin: hence, the white lily, new-fallen snow, white marble, or alabaster, are the images which poetry employs, when the color of a woman is its subject. So greatly, indeed, does whiteness contribute to beauty, that many women deemed beautiful by us, have little other right to that epithet except what they derive from a beautiful skin.
Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
The branches of the great artery of the body, the aorta, supplying the abdomen and pelvis, are larger in woman than in man, as well as more habitually liable to variation in the quantity of their contents. The quantity of blood, also, which passes to the abdomen, is greater.
At the same time, the excretions are generally less in woman. Hippocrates says: “Nam corpusmuliebre minus dissipatur quam virile;” the expenditure of the body of woman is less than that of man.
It is evident, then, that the secretions, nutrition, in particular, must be greater. We actually know them to be so.
But the nourishment of the organs concerned in locomotion is less active, and that of the cellular and adipose substance is generally more active, than in man. And on this, important consequences depend.
Woman is subject to crises which would destroy all her organs, if they offered too powerful a resistance. Some parts of her body are exposed to great shocks, to alternate extensions, compressions, and reductions, which could not take place with impunity, but by means of this predominance of the cellular and adipose structure.
The cellular expansion, the general basis of the structure, appears then to be more abundant in woman, more lax and yielding, more dilated and fuller of liquids; and it is by yielding gradually, by decomposing and weakening shocks by means of the general suppleness of the different organs, thus procured, that nature seems, in woman, to avoid, or to destroy, every hurtful effort.
It is observed, moreover, that certain parts, naturally more loose, receive into all their vessels a more considerable quantity of liquid, and assume a particular enlargement, at the moment when their sympathy with the uterus causes them to enter into action in concert with it; and it is alsoobserved that they dilate more easily during pregnancy.
It is thus, then, that nature gives to all the parts of woman that suppleness which renders her capable of easily yielding to the great revolutions which affect her organization in regard to reproduction, as well as mark the different periods of her life.
The great development of the cellular and fatty tissue in woman is illustrated by the remarkable fact, that anciently the Romans, in order to burn the bodies of dead men, were obliged to join to them those of women, the fat of which greatly facilitated combustion.
Now, with the great purposes described above, beauty is naturally associated. It is principally this excess of the cellular and fatty tissues which gives to the members of woman those round and beautiful outlines, that soft and polished surface, which the body of man does not possess.
In every part, however, of the human figure, as observed by Reynolds, “when not spoiled by too great corpulency, will be found distinctness, the parts never appearing uncertain or confused, or as a musician would say, slurred; and all those smaller parts which are comprehended in the larger compartment are still found to be there, however marked.”
Now, while all this is the case, it appears that the true skin is much thinner and more delicate in woman than in man, and that it derives more or less of its clear whiteness from the quantity of fatwhich is below it; for meagerness inevitably tarnishes and dries it. Hence, to possess a fine, soft, white, and fresh skin, it is also indispensable to possess plumpness.
In relation to this purer white, it must also be observed, that transpiration, which might soil it, appears to be much less abundant in woman; and that the liver or vein-relieving gland, is very large. The excretions of the skin in women are indeed chiefly limited to certain parts; and it is thence that it has, in various parts, an odor which a French writer observes “it is difficult to describe, but which an exercised sense of smell easily succeeds in distinguishing in women who fully enjoy all the attributes of their sex, and who are women even in the atmosphere which exhales from them.”
While the skin is thus more white in women, it is also more transparent. The reticular tissue, or substance interposed between the true skin and scarf-skin, appears to have more clearness and turgescence, especially on the face, where, under the influence of various emotions, it easily permits a passage to the blood, as we see in blushing. It is in youth that this turgescence and clearness are most evident.
Hence, the skin in woman less conceals the veins, of which the color, only enfeebled or modified by the skin, “gives all those shades of azure which the charmed eye follows with so much pleasure on the surface of the bosom and of all the parts where the skin has least of thickness.”
All this constitutes freshness, or animation,which is nearly synonymous with health, and without which there is no beauty. When that quality, as observed by Roussel, “is wanting, all other attractions strike but feebly, because the prompt judgment, which instinct suggests, warns us that the woman whose person does not present all the characters of perfect health, is in a disposition little favorable to the plan of nature, relatively to the maintenance of the species.”
The whiteness and the animation of the skin, however, do not alone constitute its beauty: there is still another quality which is absolutely necessary to it. This is the softness and the polish which, as the reader has seen, is one of the first conditions of physical beauty. In woman, this is probably derived from a slight degree of oleaginous secretion. Hence, she has few asperities of the skin, especially on the surface of the bosom, and other parts, where the skin is excessively smooth.
Brown women, who probably have more of this oleaginous secretion, are said to possess in a greater degree the polish of skin which gives impressions so agreeable to the organ of touch; and hence, Winckelmann has said that persons who prefer brown women to fair ones allow themselves to be captivated by the touch rather than the sight. There is reason, however, to doubt the accuracy of this. Brown women appear to have greater softness, but less smoothness of skin.
The body of woman is nearly deprived of hairs upon all parts, except the head, axillæ, &c.; andthe hair of her head is generally long, fine, and flexible.
The quantity and the color of the hair are always in relation to the constitution of the individual to which it belongs, and generally to the temperature of the place. The people of northern countries have the hair of a silken fineness and of surprising length.
The hair which is most admired is not only very fine and flexible, but light colored. Fair golden hair was, of all its teints, that which the ancient artists preferred.
In woman, the hair of the head whitens and falls later than in man.
It is curious that, in regard to the hair, the distinctive characters of the sexes should not always have been preserved. Though nature gives long hair to woman, it has sometimes been the fashion to wear it short; and though man has naturally shorter hair, it has sometimes been the fashion to cherish its growth, and to shave the beard from his face. The latter has especially been the case in degenerate and effeminate times; and this has sometimes been accompanied by remarkable consequences.
One of the greatest misfortunes, says a French writer, which France ever had to lament, the divorce of Louis le Jeune from Elinor of Guyenne, resulted from the fashion, which this prince wished to introduce, of shaving his chin and cropping his head. The queen, his wife, who appears to have possessed, with a masculine beauty, considerable acuteness ofintellect, observed with some displeasure, that she imagined herself to have espoused a monarch, not a monk. The obstinacy of Louis in shaving himself, and the horror conceived by Elinor at the sight of a beardless chin, occasioned France the loss of those fine provinces which constituted the dowry of this princess; and which, devolving to England by a second marriage, became the source of wars which desolated France during four hundred years.
The habit of wearing the beard is a manly and noble one. Nature made it distinctive of the male and female; and its abandonment has commonly been accompanied not only by periods of general effeminacy, but even by the decline and fall of states. They were bearded Romans who conquered the then beardless Greeks; they were bearded Goths who vanquished the then beardless Romans; and they are bearded Tartars who now promise once more to inundate the regions occupied by the shaven and effeminate people of western Europe.
In farther illustration of the manliness of this habit we may observe, that throughout Europe, wars have generally led to its temporary and partial introduction, as at the present day. Those assuredly blunder, who ridicule the wearing of the beard. Silly affectation, on the contrary, is imputable only to those who, by removing the beard, take the trouble so far to emasculate themselves! and who think themselves beautified by an unnatural imitation of the smoother face of woman!
As appendages of the skin, the nails may herebe noticed. Their beauty consists in their figure, their surface, and their color.
By their figure, they serve as a defence to the delicate extremities of the fingers, which would otherwise be easily hurt against hard bodies. They form at once shields and supporting arches to the fingers; and they give facility in laying hold of bodies which would escape from their smallness. They ought accordingly to be arched, and to extend as far as the flesh which terminates the fingers.—The form of the nails depends much on the care employed in cutting them during infancy, and still more on the mode of employing the hand.
The nails ought also to be smooth and polished, somewhat transparent, and rose-colored. Their rosy color seems to show that their texture has less density and more transparence.
It is in this view of the nutritive system and the characteristics which render it beautiful, and especially after this portion of it which regards the organs and functions of secretion, that the mammæ and their beauty should be considered.
In woman, the bust is smaller and more rounded than in man; and it is distinguished by the volume and the elegant form of the bosom.
The external and elevated position of the mammæ is by far the most suitable for a nursling, which, no longer deriving subsistence from within the mother, nor yet able of itself to find it without, must be gently and softly borne toward her; an admirable position, says a French writer, “which,in keeping the infant under the eyes and in the arms of the mother, establishes between them an interesting exchange of tenderness, of cares, and of innocent caresses, which enables the one the better to express its wants, and the other to enjoy the sacrifices which she makes, in continually contemplating their object.”
According to Buffon, in order that the mammæ be well placed, it is necessary that the space between them should be as great as that from the mammæ to the middle of the depression between the clavicles, so that these three points form an equilateral triangle.
The two portions of the mammæ should be well detached. The whole presents, in beautiful models, more elegance than volume; and the areola, it may be observed, is red in fair women and deeper colored in brown ones.
Winckelmann observes that, in the antique statues, the mammæ terminate gently in a point, and that they have always virginal forms, as a consequence of the system of the ancient artists, which consists in not recalling in the ideal the wants and the accidents of humanity.
Finally on this particular head, I must observe that the reproduction of the species is, in woman, the most important object of life, and that every thing in her physical organization has evident reference to it. Of all the passions in woman, says Richerand, “love has the greatest sway: it has even been said to be her only passion. All the others are modified by it, and receive from it apeculiar cast, which distinguishes them from those of man.... Fontenelle used to say of the devotion of some women, ‘One may see that love has been here.’ It has been said, in speaking of St. Theresa, ‘To love God, is still to love.’ Thomas maintains that, ‘With women a man is more than a nation.’—‘Love,’ says Madame de Stael, ‘is but an episode in the life of man; it is the whole history of the life of woman.’”
TheTHIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the secreting vessels being active, not only cause the plumpness, &c., necessary to beauty, but furnish the mammary and uterine secretions, on which progeny is dependant. This must inevitably be followed by moderate excretions.
It should not pass unobserved that there exist, in some women, a fair skin and dark hair, forming a rather extraordinary and striking combination. As such women have the skin remarkably smooth and moist, this is probably connected with some peculiarity of secretion and excretion.
It is evidently theUNIONof all that is good in these varieties which renders beauty in the vital system perfect.
This union is nowhere so frequently to be seen, as in England and in Holland.
It is curious that cleanliness among women seems necessarily to increase with the development of this system; and that, in general slovenliness and filth increase as we pass from Englandand Holland, toward France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, even among women of the highest condition.
Of the temperaments of the ancients, which, as already said, are only partial views of some of the varieties I am now describing, two, thephlegmatic temperamentand thesanguine temperament, appear to belong fundamentally tothis species. It has been supposed, that the first affects the absorbent, the second the circulating system. They appear to me to be exactly opposite affections of the whole nutritive system at least.
The phlegmatic temperament may exist in both sexes. The causes which tend to develop it, are infancy, humidity with cold, the absence of light, indolence, and the feeble influence of the reproductive functions upon the general system.
In this temperament, there exists an excess in the proportions of the absorbent vessels; the pulse is weak, slow, and soft; there is a turgescence of the cellular tissue, and a more marked development of the glands; the internal stimulants, having less energy than in the other temperaments, life is less active, and all its actions are more or less languid; even the uterus is not endowed with suitable energy.
But these characteristics are not confined to the nutritive system: they extend to the thinking one. The attention is not continuous; the perceptions succeed with some difficulty; the memory is not to be trusted; the imagination is weak; and the propensities, the appetites, and the passions, are solanguid, as to be scarcely capable of troubling the quietude and the indolence which depend on such a constitution.
These characteristics of the phlegmatic temperament, present to us forms more rounded and less expressive, a general softness, a feeble color of the skin, a sort of etiolation, a pale countenance, a light and abundant hair, and, generally, an insurmountable inclination to sloth, averse alike to labors of the mind and body.
It has been observed, that the sanguine temperament, so generally met with among northern nations, is the necessary consequence of the continual and very energetic reaction of the powers of circulation, against the effects of external cold; that it is only by the constant activity of the heart and vessels that calorification can be effected with the necessary vigor: and that the effects of this redoubled action are the same to the organs of circulation as to the muscles, under the influence of volition; exertion in both increasing the power of the organs exerted.
In the sanguine temperament, the lymphatic, circulating, and secreting systems appear to be in a sort of equilibrium; the chest is larger, and the lungs more voluminous; the circulation is more rapid, the arterial predominance is obvious; the pulse is sharp, frequent, and regular; the complexion is ruddy; all the vital actions are extremely easy; and the health is rarely altered.
The mental functions correspond. The conception is quick; the memory is prompt; theimagination is lively; the judgment has more readiness than depth and extent; the mind, easily affected by the impressions of outward objects, passes rapidly from one idea to another; the tastes, propensities, appetites, passions, are equally ephemeral; and there is much activity, but the strength is soon exhausted.
In persons of this temperament, the countenance is animated; the hair is fair, and inclining to chestnut; the shape is good; the form is softened, though distinct; and the muscles are of tolerable consistence, and moderate development. The whole appearance is generally so amiable, that this temperament may be called that of health, beauty, and happiness.
In the women who present the attributes of their sex with the greatest unity, we distinguish, especially during youth and adult age, the traits of the sanguine temperament, which may be regarded as the most suitable to the organization of woman.
In woman, the organs of sense are proportionally larger, and the sensibility is more quick and delicate than in man.
Hence, also, the mental quickness and delicacy of woman are greater. Her perceptions succeed with rapidity and intenseness; and the last of them generally predominates. In well-organized women, accordingly, the forehead and the observing faculties are peculiarly developed.
The general nervous system of woman is likewise far more mobile than that of man.
Beauty of the thinking 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, accordingly, the greater development of its upper part gives to the head, in every view, a pyriform appearance;—the face is generally oval;—the high and pale forehead announces the excellence of the observing faculties;—the intensely expressive eye is full of sensibility;—in the lower features, modesty and dignity are often united;—shehas not the expanded bosom, the general plumpness, or the beautiful complexion, of the second species of beauty;—and she boasts easy and graceful motion, rather than the elegant proportion of the first.—The whole figure is characterized by intellectuality and grace.
This species of beauty is less proper to woman, less feminine, than the preceding. It is not the intellectual system, but the vital one, which is, and ought to be most developed in woman.
First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
In woman, the nervous extremities appear to be larger than in man; a pulpy appearance is more remarkable in them; and the papillæ in which they terminate, appear to have less rigidity.
The organs of sense are proportionally larger, and more delicately outlined. There is indeed in woman more development in the organs of sensation, than in that of understanding, reasoning, and judging; while the contrary is the case in man. The sensations, accordingly, are in woman more acute, and their minute differences are more easily discerned. Man reflects more than he feels: woman always feels more than she reflects.
TheFIRST MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the organs of sense is proportionally large, and the sensibility greater.
It ought to be observed, that though, in woman, when well organized, the whole head isproportionally less than in man, yet, the organs of sense will be found to be proportionally larger. This sufficiently indicates the importance of such proportional development. Upon it, indeed, depend that increased sensibility and quickness of observation, which are essential to the female character.
Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
Of all parts of the brain in woman, when well formed, the forehead, especially, is found to be large. Without this, she would have sensibility without observation, a most unhappy condition of the nervous system.
In woman, the brain partakes of the softness of all the other parts of her structure. The cellular tissue which covers it, and which descends between its convolutions, is more abundant, mucous, and loose.
The mind, correspondingly, is more impressed by any new object of thought; the whole nervous system is more extensively affected by impressions on the brain; the propensity to emotion is stronger, and women are more habitually under its influence.
The intimate connexion of the thinking, with a peculiar modification of the reproductive faculties, inspires in woman the want of maternity, which is more powerful than life, and which renders her capable of every sacrifice. Associated with this, are her affection, tenderness, and compassion.
Upon the whole, sensibility in woman is greater than understanding; the involuntary play of theimagination, more active than its regulated combinations; and passion, generally of the gentler kind, predominates rather than resolve or determination. She has, therefore, more finesse and activity, than depth or force of thought; and her nervous system is also more frequently deranged by accidents unknown to man.
The extent of the brain, anteriorly, is measured by the different degrees of the opening of an angle, which Camper has called the facial angle; and so far it is favorable to woman well conformed; but it gives no notion of the magnitude of the brain superiorly, posteriorly, or laterally.[38]
The brain of woman, however, in general, extends a good deal posteriorly as well as anteriorly, though it narrows in the former of these directions; and, to the proportional length thus acquired, is owing that intensity in her functions, which I have just described. Superiorly, centrally, and laterally, the brain of woman is generally much less than that of man; and hence the want of elevation, depth, and endurance, in her mental faculties.[39]
Upon the whole, the brain of woman is less than that of man, and it is especially less in its superior, central, and, intellectually considered, more important portions.
TheSECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development ofthe brain is proportionally small. This is an evident corollary from what we have just stated as to the first modification of this species; for it is not possible that the organs of sense should be proportionally large, without the rest of the head being proportionally small.
This is not quite conformable with the wishes of phrenology; but we must leave any dispute between that art and nature to its own issue. A Venus, moreover, with a small, yet beautifully proportioned head, is often seen to be the mother of a boy who has a large head; the difference of sex causing a vast modification and difference of development.
Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
From what has been already said, it may be concluded that, in action or conduct, women are less guided by intellect, and are more biased by feeling and emotion; and it may also be concluded, that all their movements to fulfil the purposes of feeling and emotion, are made in a manner more easy and more prompt, though less sustained. This is increased by the ready obedience of the muscular fibre, and the relative shortness of the stature.
This more easy and less forcible action is perfectly conformable physically with the small and elongated form of the cerebel, or organ of the will, in woman; as it is morally with the part which woman performs in life, and her desire to please, while it is that of man to protect and to defend.
Conformably with the smaller size of the cerebel, and especially with its smaller breadth (the influence of which is explained in the work last referred to), the disposition of woman to sustained exertion, whether mental or bodily, is much less; and hence the character “varium et mutabile semper fœmina.”
It is, then, the prompt and easily-affected sensibility of woman, not her understanding or force of mind, which renders her so eminently fit to be interested in infancy, which enables her to surmount maternal pains by the sentiment of affection and pity, and which makes agreeable to her the cares and the details of housekeeping; and it is this which sometimes renders nothing too irksome or too painful for a mother, a wife, or a mistress, to endure.
Hence, the constitution of woman is perfectly adapted to these functions; hence, her existence is more sedentary than man’s; hence, she has more gentleness of character than he; and hence, she is less acquainted with great crimes.
TheTHIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the cerebel or organ of the will, as well as the muscles which it actuates, is proportionally small.
The situation of this considerable organ is in the back and lower part of the head, and may be pretty accurately indicated by saying, that a line passing through it would complete, posteriorly, a longer line passing backward from the nose through the lower part of the ear.
When this organ, which is that of the will, is high, and more especially when it is large, a determination and force seem to be given by it to the character, which render it the reverse of feminine.
Having spoken here of the ready exercise of the will in woman, and its adaptation to her wish to please, it seems to be here that some circumstances dependant on these should be noticed.
With this ready exercise of the will and desire to please, are evidently connected the light carelessness, the graceful ease, and the gentle softness, which add so much to the power of beauty. Hence, artists give to woman the bending form which associates so well with all her characteristics; for all feel with Hogarth that undulating lines are more or less formed in all movements executed with the intention of expressing sentiments of courtesy, respect, benevolence, or love.
But it is grace that we must especially consider here—grace which directly emanates from this ready exercise of the will and desire to please, especially when combined with observing faculties so perfect and so perpetually active as those of woman.
“Gracefulness,” says Burke, “is an idea not very different from beauty; it consists in much the same thing.... Gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflexion of the body; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to encumber each other, nor to appear divided by sharp and sudden angles. In thisease, this roundness, this delicacy of attitude and motion, it is that all the magic of grace consists, and what is called ‘je ne scais quoi.’”
It is not in these mere physical qualities, that all the magic of grace consists, which, in the state of Burke’s knowledge, he might indeed well call “je ne scais quoi!” Let the reader hear what is said on this subject by a man who could look a little deeper than Burke, and who owed no fame to the little art of substituting a flash of words for depth of thought, and serving by it a venal purpose as little as the art itself.
“What grace,” says Smith, “what noble propriety do we not feel in the conduct of those who exert that recollection and self-command which constitute the dignity of every passion, and which bring it down to what others can enter into! We are disgusted with that clamorous grief, which, without any delicacy, calls upon our compassion with sighs and tears, and importunate lamentation. But we reverence that reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow, which discovers itself only in the swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks, and in the distant, but affecting address of the whole behavior. It imposes the like silence upon us; we regard it with respectful attention, and watch over our whole behavior, lest, by any impropriety, we should disturb that concerted tranquillity which it requires so great an effort to support.” This is eloquence, indeed.
Alison duly appreciates this earliest definition of grace. “It is,” he says, “this ‘recollection andself-command,’ which in such scenes constitute what even in common language is called the graceful in behavior or deportment; and it is the expression of the same qualities in the attitude and gesture, which constitutes, in my apprehension, the grace of such gestures or attitudes.... Wherever, in the movements of the form, self-command or self-possession is expressed, some degree of grace, at least, is always produced.... Whenever in such motions grace is actually perceived, I think it will always be found to be in slow, and, if I may use the expression, in restrained or measured motions.
“The motions of the horse, when wild in the pasture, are beautiful; when urged to his speed, and straining for victory, they may be felt as sublime; but it is chiefly in movements of a different kind that we feel them as graceful, when, in the impatience of the field, or in the curvetting of the manege, he seems to be conscious of all the powers with which he is animated, and yet to restrain them, from some principle of beneficence or of dignity. Every movement of the stag almost is beautiful, from the fineness of his form and the ease of his gestures; yet it is not in these or in the heat of the chase that he is graceful: it is when he pauses upon some eminence in the pursuit, when he erects his crested head, and when, looking with disdain upon the enemy who follows, he bounds to the freedom of his hills. It is not, in the same manner, in the rapid speed of the eagle when hedarts upon his prey, that we perceive the grace of which his motions are capable. It is when he soars slowly upward to the sun, or when he wheels with easy and continuous motion in airy circles in the sky.
“In the personification which we naturally give to all inanimate objects which are susceptible of movement, we may easily perceive the influence of the same association. We speak commonly, for instance, of the graceful motions of trees, and of the graceful movements of a river. It is never, however, when these motions are violent or extreme, that we apply to them the term of grace. It is the gentle waving of the tree in slow and measured cadence which is graceful, not the tossing of its branches amid the storm. It is the slow and easy winding which is graceful in the movements of the river, and not the burst of the cataract, or the fury of the torrent.
“It is only in the perfection of the human system, in the age when the form has assumed all its powers, and the mind is awake to the consciousness of all the capacities it possesses, and the lofty obligations they impose, that the reign of physical grace commences; and that the form is capable of expressing, under the dominion of every passion or emotion, the high and habitual superiority which it possesses, either to the allurements of pleasure or the apprehensions of pain. It is this age, accordingly, which the artists of antiquity have uniformly represented, when they sought to display the perfection of grace, and when they succeeded in leavingtheir compositions as models of this perfection to every succeeding age.”
It is evidently theUNIONof all that is good in the varieties now described which renders beauty, in the thinking system, perfect.
This is well illustrated in the Minerva of the Giustiniani gallery, which, in this respect, is scarcely the less valuable because it is draped, for it is the head that ever bears the greatest impress of intellectuality.
This union is by no means perfect in the English female head, although, from the considerable development of the forehead and the moderate one of the backhead, the general form of that head is beautiful. As to the French female head, a Frenchman, writing under the name of Count Stendhal, scruples not to say: “The form of the head in Paris is ugly; the cranium approaches to that of the ape; and this occasions the women to have the appearance of age very early in life.” The women of Paris differ not, in this respect, from those of France generally. Nearly all have the character here described.
It is under this species that thenervous temperamentfalls, which is constituted by great sensibility and corresponding mobility, and therefore belongs to thefirst and the last of those varieties; a temperament chiefly to be found among women.
This temperament scarcely exists in the athletic, is weak in the phlegmatic, is moderate in the sanguine, and is rather active in the bilious.
It is characterized by the smallness and the emaciation of the muscles, the quickness and intensity of the sensations, and the suddenness and fickleness of the determinations.
It is seldom natural, but commonly depends on a sedentary and inactive life, on a diseased condition of the brain produced by reading works of imagination, and on habits of sensual indulgence. In confirmation of this, we are told that the Roman ladies became subject to nervous affections only in consequence of those depraved manners which marked the decline of the empire; and that these affections were extremely common in France in the licentious times preceding the fall of the corrupt and corrupting monarchy.
Another partial view falling under this species, and properly under thesecond variety, is thecerebral temperament, which results from the energy and influence of the brain.
This temperament, being thus determined by an excess in the power of the brain, has been called the temperament of genius. When it is increased by education and habits, the other organs are generally more feeble.
In woman, the cerebral temperament is more particularly characterized by a predominance of imagination, which is evidently dependant on the organization which has already been described.
It has been truly observed, that to contribute to the perfection of reason as well as to the preservation of health, the brain ought to be exercised and developed in every direction; that the mereexercise of memory carried too far renders persons foolish; that the predominance of imagination disposes to nervous affections, and even to alienation; that meditation alters the digestive functions; and that the dry and minute contention which business requires, disposes, when joined to a defect of exercise (and I may add the vinous excesses in which men of business indulge), to apoplexy and to paralysis.
“It is probable,” says Dr. Prichard, “that the natural idea of the beautiful in the human person has been more or less distorted in almost every nation. Peculiar characters of countenance, in many countries, accidentally enter into the ideal standard. This observation has been made particularly of the negroes of Africa, who are said to consider a flat nose and thick lips as principal ingredients of beauty; and we are informed by Pallas that the Kalmucs[40]esteem no face as handsome, which has not the eyes in angular position, and the other characteristics of their race. The Aztecs of Mexico have ever preferred a depressed forehead,[41]which forms the strongest contrast to the majestic contour of the Grecian busts: the former represented their divinities with a head more flattened than it is ever seen among the Caribs, and the Greeks, on the contrary, gave totheir gods and heroes a still more unnatural elevation.”
Knowing, as the reader now does, what constitutes the worth, the dignity, and the beauty, of the various organs, this statement tends to show the value of that standard of beauty which we owe to the Greeks. I proceed to illustrate it in regard to theFACE.
The beauty of the human countenance is described by various writers, as including the beauty of form, in the various features of the face; the beauty of color, in the shades of the complexion; the beauty of character, in some distinctive and permanent relations; and the beauty of expression, in some immediate and temporary feeling.
In regard to the form of the face, considered as a whole, the opening of the facial angle of Camper, in measuring geometrically the extent of the upper part of the head, marks the development of the brain or organ of thought, and shows the proportion which it bears to the middle and lower part of the face, or to the organs of sense and expression.
This development of the upper part of the head contributes essentially to beauty, by giving to the whole head that pyriform appearance already described, by which in every view it is larger at the superior part, diminishes gradually as it descends, and terminates by the agreeable outline of the chin.
In the most beautiful race of men, the facial angle extends to eighty-five degrees, acquiring anincrease of ten degrees above the inferior varieties; the face is diminished; the eyes are better placed; the nose assumes a more elegant form; and all appearance of muzzle vanishes.
In the Greek ideal head, the development presenting a facial angle of ninety degrees, confers the highest beauty of the form of the head, the majesty of the forehead, the position of the eyes upon a line which divides the face into two equal parts, the elegant projection of the nose, the absence of all tumidity of the lips.—But of that, in the sequel.
In the face, generally, as observed by Winckelmann, beauty of form depends greatly upon the profile, and particularly on the line described by the forehead and nose, by the greater or less degree of the concavity or declivity of which, beauty is increased or diminished. The nearer the profile approaches to a straight line, the more majestic, and at the same time softer, does the countenance appear, the unity and simplicity of this line being, as in everything else, the cause of this grand, yet soft harmony.
The face being the seat of several organs, each must be examined in its turn.
Winckelmann observes, that “a large highFOREHEAD[an excess, in this respect] was regarded by the ancients as a deformity.”—And “Arnobius says, that those women who had a high forehead, covered a part of it with a fillet.” The reason of this will afterward be pointed out.
The sense ofTOUCHresides in all parts of theface, but especially in the lips. It is most perfect, however, at the tips of the fingers.
A thinner skin permits to the touch of woman, more vivacity, delicacy, and profoundness. It seizes the details which generally escape the touch of man. It is more easily hurt by hard, rough and angular, cold or hot bodies.
Hence, woman requires vestments which are light and smooth; and she enjoys more than man the pleasure of reposing on flocculent substances which softly resist her pressure.
In the face, the lips are peculiarly the organ of touch.
Of all the organs of sense, the mouth admits, I believe, of the greatest beauty and the greatest deformity. Considered in repose, nothing certainly is more lovely than this organ when beautifully formed in a beautiful woman. And in action, during speech, the simplest words passing through it receive a charm altogether peculiar.
The mouth ought to be small, and not to extend much beyond the nostrils: a large mouth and thick lips are contrary to beauty. The curve of the upper lip is said to have served as a model to the ancient artists for the bow of Love. The lower lip should be most developed, rounded and turned outward; so as to produce, between it and the chin, that beautiful hollow which assists so much in giving the latter a more perfect rotundity. Both, but especially the upper, should become thin toward the angle of the mouth.
Although we see many lips without evident andoffensive defects, there are very few of them really beautiful; and indeed it is only persons of great delicacy and of refined taste who attach the highest value to perfect beauty of the lips.
Lips of beautiful form and of vermillion hue, teeth which are small, equal, slightly rounded, white, clean, and well arranged, and a pure breath, are the circumstances which constitute a beautiful mouth.
The sense ofTASTEis more delicate and more exquisite in woman than in man. She accordingly seeks for savors which are less rough and irritating than those which are agreeable to him.
TheNOSEis the most prominent and conspicuous feature of the face; it is the central fixed point around which are arranged all its other parts; and it is thus essential to the regularity of the features. When these, moreover, are in action, the nose, by its immobility, marks the degree of change which they undergo, and renders intelligible all the movements produced by admiration, joy, sadness, fear, &c.
To perfect beauty of the nose, it is necessary that it should be nearly in the same direction with the forehead, and should unite with that part, without leaving more than a slight inflexion to be seen. This constitutes the Greek profile; and the various degrees of deviation from it constitute, as to this organ, the various degenerations from beauty the most consummate to ugliness the most disgusting.
Nature says Winckelmann, is sparing of thisbeauty both in burning climates and in frozen regions.[42]
The same writer says: “The flat compressed nose of the Kalmucs, Chinese, and other distant nations, is also a defect, because it destroys the harmony of forms, according to which all the other parts are constructed: nor is there any reason why nature should compress and hollow it, instead of continuing the straight line begun in the forehead.” The fact is true; the reasoning false, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter, to which this point properly belongs.
Under the influence of passion, the nostrils expand and are drawn upward; and these two motions are the only ones of which the lower and moveable part of the nose is capable.
The sense of smell, like that of taste, is more delicate and more exquisite in woman than in man. Woman accordingly enjoys more, and suffers more, by that sense than man does; and its influence is said to dispose her more than man to those pleasures which have remarkable relations to that sense.
To beauty of theEYE, magnitude and elongated form contribute more perhaps than color: if its form be bad, no color will render it beautiful. In woman, however, the most beautiful eyes, in relation to color, are those which appear to be blue,hazel, or black. But no color of the eye is beautiful without clearness in every part.
“The more obliquely, and at an angle to each other,” says Winckelmann, “that the eyes are placed, as in cats, the more their position is removed from the base, or from the fundamental lines of the human face, which form a cross that divides it into four parts, the nose dividing it perpendicularly into two equal parts, and the eyes dividing it horizontally. When the eyes are placed obliquely, they form an angle with a line parallel to that which we suppose to pass through their centre. And this indeed is doubtless the reason why it displeases us to see a mouth which goes awry, because it generally offends the eye to see two lines diverging from each other without any reason. Thus eyes placed obliquely, as may be seen sometimes among ourselves, and commonly among the Chinese, Japanese, and in Egyptian heads, are an irregularity and a deformity.”
Here, again, Winckelmann’s fact is true, and his reasoning false, or rather, perhaps, superficial. The real cause of the deformity of obliquely-placed eyes is, that the vital parts of the head preponderate. The cavities of the upper jaw, which open into the internal nose, are, in the Mongelic races, so large, that they raise the cheek-bones, throw the orbit upward at its lateral part, and encroach apparently upon the space which should contain a nobler organ, the brain. The causes assigned by Winckelmann are but consequences of this.
The eyelids in woman, when well formed,present the gentlest inflexions. The eyelashes, when long and silky, form a sign of gentleness, and sometimes of softness. The eyebrows ought to be furnished with fine hairs, arched, and separated: if they are too thin, they do not sufficiently protect the organ of sight: if they unite, they render the physiognomy sombre; their too-marked approximation, and their extreme separation, are real deformities.
The sense of sight in woman is rapid and active; yet, in her, the slow and languid motion of the eye is generally employed, and is more beautiful than a brisk one. Woman requires a mild light, and colors of moderate vividness, rather than otherwise.
The beauty of theEARis too little regarded. To an experienced eye it presents great beauties, and great deformities, in form, magnitude, and projection.
The size and prominence of the ear, which characterize several nomadic tribes, are contrary to beauty, not merely because they alter the regularity of the oval of the head, and surcharge its outline with prominences, but because they are in themselves ugly, indicating rather the coarse strength common to inferior animals than the delicacy to be found in man.
In woman, the ear is also more delicate, more sensible, but more feeble, than in man. Strong sounds, loud noises, which may be agreeable to the ear of man, are offensive to her. She prefers softand tender, gay, or pathetic music, to every other; and whatever may be the perfection of her musical education, she also prefers sweet and tender melody to the most complicated Sclavonic harmony.
Such are the organs of sense or those of impression, which form the first and most important portion of the face of woman.—The organs of expression, theMUSCLESof the face, on the contrary, are feeble in her; and correspondingly feeble and rounded are the bony points to which they are attached.
Woman presents very little prominence of the frontal sinuses; the cheek-bones display beautiful curves; the edges of the alveoli containing the teeth are much more elliptical than in man; and the chin is softly rounded. Of the chin, it should be observed that it is a distinctive character of the human species, and is not found in any other animal. When well formed, it is full, united, and generally without a dimple; and it passes gently and almost insensibly into the neighboring parts. In woman especially, the chin ought to be finely rounded; for when projecting, it expresses, owing to its connexion with muscular action and power, a firmness and a determination which we do not wish to discover in her character. “The apparent convexity of the cheeks,” says Winckelmann, “which in many heads appears greater than natural, contributes to this rotundity: it is not, however, ideal, but taken from natural beauty.”
The muscles of the face express all the shades of emotion and passion, not because such expressionis the primary, or the proper object of their motion, but because their various motions adapt the organs to the farther purposes required of them in consequence of preceding impressions; and these motions become expressive to us only because we are thus enabled to infer the feeling and purpose of the person in whom they occur. This is a fundamental principle of physiognomy; and its not being understood has led to many of our errors in that science.
In woman, the countenance is more rounded, as well as more abundantly furnished with that cellular and, fatty tissue which fills all the chasms, effaces, all the angles, and unites all the parts by the gentlest transitions. At the same time, the muscles are feebler, more mobile, resigned for a shorter time to the same contraction, and as inconstant as the emotions and passions which their rapid play expresses.
The result of all this is, that the muscles do not profoundly modify the face, which consequently has not so much of permanent character as that of a man, and which permits us more difficultly to discover, through the rounded, short, and shifting parts, the nature of her various feelings. As, however, the abundance of the cellular tissue diminishes with age, and as the sentiments become at the same time less ephemeral, the physiognomical character and expression of woman become more decided.
As toCOLORof the face, it may be observed that the forehead, the temples, the eyelids, the nose,the upper part of the superior lip, and the lower part of the inferior lip, ought in woman to be of a beautiful and rather opaque white. The approach to the cheeks and the middle of the chin ought to have a slight teint of rose-color, and the middle of the cheeks ought to be altogether rosy, but of a delicate hue.—Cheeks of an animated white are preferable to those of a red color, although less beautiful than those of rosy hue.
With regard to theHAIR, it may be observed, that sometimes, rising from its bulbs, it turns in irregular rings, and, by displaying a forehead rather large, confers a certain sanguine, as well as open air upon the physiognomy. This, however, is most frequently seen in men, and chiefly in men of exuberant vitality, rather than intellectuality: it indeed depends entirely on the former.
In other men, and almost always in women, the hair generally divides in a line extending from the crown to the forehead, and falls over the temples. The line thus formed, uniting with the median line, of the face in general, and that of the nose in particular, gives to the whole of the features a peculiar symmetry and beauty.
I have said, already, that symmetry is a characteristic of thinking beings, and I have explained the reason of this. The present case admirably illustrates it. This symmetrical arrangement of the hair bestows an intellectual air; and it well may, for, when natural, it derives its tendency to fall on each side, from the top of the head, either from the general elevation of the calvarium, or from theparticular elevation of the forehead, which is characteristic of beauty in woman.
It accordingly announces in the individual higher observing faculties: hence, the ancient sculptors never omitted this in their highest personages: hence, we find it in the heads of Raffaelle and Guido.
“A fair hue,ξανθὸς,” says Winckelmann, “has ever been regarded as the most beautiful; and flaxen-colored hair was assigned to the most beautiful, not only among the gods, as Apollo [χρυσοκόμαν Απόλλωνα, golden-haired Apollo] and Bacchus, but also among the heroes: Alexander the Great had flaxen hair.” The modern Italians call Cupid “Il biondo Dio.”
Having concluded what I have here to say of the parts of the face, I may observe, that thedifferent effects of the same face, even in a state of repose, have often been observed, never explained. I have, however, in another work, shown that the face is composed of motive, nutritive, and thinking parts or organs. Now, circumstances bring these variously into action; and the different effects alluded to, in reality depend on the motive, or the nutritive, or the intellectual expression being at the time, respectively, most apparent, or most attended to by us. The study of this subject, which I have not space here to develop, is of infinite importance to the man of taste, the physiognomist, and the artist. The latter cannot easily excel without understanding it.
Another curious fact, not hitherto observed, is,that though beauty of face is, owing to the power of the vital system, almost universal at a certain age, there is always afaulty feature, which the physiognomist may observe, and which ever continues to exaggerate, until it terminate in relative ugliness. Thus we scarcely observe the long upper lip during youth, in some women; and yet it afterward gives to them the sober grimace of baboons. We admire in youth the spirit of the piercing eye, and aquiline nose in others, to whom these afterward give the look of so many old hawks. In others, still, we are charmed with the round, rosy, and innocent cheeks, which, when they become paler and more pendent, confer on them the aspect either of seals or of mastiffs, according to other circumstances of temper and disposition. I could easily trace these, and many more, from youth to middle age, and illustrate them convincingly, by drawings: but I have no room for it here.
Each, indeed, of the subjects of the two immediately preceding paragraphs, is worthy of a volume; for the first is as essential to all judgment of existing beauty at the instant of its being before us, as the second is to all prescience of what beauty will very soon be—to all who have no love for a leap in the dark.
I add to this chapter but a few words on the verydifferent organization of the head and face, and the very different mind, of the Greeks and Romans.
Whoever, for the purpose of comparing the heads of these two nations, may walk into the BritishMuseum, will be struck with the difference between them.
The forehead is almost always rather narrow, and rather high, in the most illustrious Greeks; and this could not so uniformly have been so represented, in sculpture, unless it had been so also in fact. This is verified, in the third room of the Townley collection, by the heads of Homer, Hippocrates, Epicurus, Pericles, &c.—by the almost universal conformation of Greek heads, to which there are but few exceptions: Sophocles, in this room, and Demosthenes, in the eleventh, are rather broader.
On the contrary, the forehead, the face, the jaws, are excessively broad, and the cranium is depressed and low, in the Romans—in Severus, Nero, Caracalla, &c., in the sixth room, and in Tiberius and Augustus, in the eleventh; nor is this owing to the circumstance that these generally were men degraded in feeling or intellect, for nearly the same configuration is found in Trajan, Hadrian, &c., in the fourth, sixth, and other rooms. The faces of the Romans are not less ugly than their heads; and those of their women are absolutely detestable, as may be seen in Faustina, Plautilla, Sabina, Domitia, &c., in the sixth of these rooms.
If farther illustration of this be wanting, it may be found in the circumstance that, while the Greeks preferred the rather high forehead, and invented the ideal one, the Romans, on the contrary, preferred a little forehead and united eyebrows. Ovid assures us that the women of his time painted theireyebrows in such a manner, that they might appear to form only one.
In the work so often referred to, I have shown that the intensity of functions is as the length of their organs, and the permanence of functions as the breadth of their organs. No truth can be better illustrated than this is, in the organization and the faculties of the Greeks and Romans. With the higher and larger head of the Greeks was united an intensity of genius, which no other people has yet rivalled; and with the broader head of the Romans, a perseverance, equally obstinate and unfeeling, which has been similarly unrivalled.
A good illustration of the vaunted Roman virtue is recorded in Porcia, the daughter of Cato, the wife of Brutus, who plunged a toilet-knife into her thigh, and kept it eight days in the wound, without complaining, to prove to her husband that her courage and her discretion rendered her worthy of entering into the conspiracy, which he meditated; and who also destroyed herself by swallowing burning coals, when she heard of his defeat. Obstinacy and insensibility were great sources of the crimes either perpetrated, or, by their lying historians, pretended to be perpetrated, under the name of Roman virtue.
It would be out of place, here, to enter farther into the character and expression of the face. Those whom these remarks dispose to do so, may refer to the physiognomical work, which I havebeen so often compelled to allude to.[43]To those who are satisfied, neither with the vague, though tasteful inspirations of Lavater, nor with the empyrical or unreasoned manifestations of Gall and Spurzheim, but who desirethe assignment of a reason for every description of physiognomical character or expression, that work may afford some satisfaction.
That the Greeks, either intuitively or reasonedly, distinguished the three species of beauty as to the figure, has been already seen. The heads of Diana, Venus, and Minerva, respectively present beauty of the locomotive, vital, and mental systems.