Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman

It is evidently the influence of the organs distinguishing the two sexes, which is the primary cause of their peculiar beauty.

As the liquid which, in man, is secreted in certain vessels for the purpose of reproduction, communicates a general excitement and activity to the character, so when, in woman, the periodical excretion appears, the breasts expand, the eyes sparkle, the countenance becomes more expressive, but at the same time more timid and reserved, and a character of flexibility and grace distinguishes every motion.

Conformably with this view, the appearance and the manners of eunuchs approach to those of women, by the softness and feebleness of their organization, as well as by their timidity, and by their acute voice.

The very opposite is naturally the result of the extirpation of the ovaries in women. Pott, giving an account of the case of a female, in whom both the ovaries were extirpated, says, the person “has become thinner, and more apparently muscular; her breasts, which were large, are gone; nor has she ever menstruated since the operation, which is now some years.” Haighton found that, by dividing the Fallopian tubes, which connect the ovaries with the womb, sexual feelings were destroyed, and the ovaries gradually wasted.

The women, also, in whom the uterus and the ovaries remain inert during life, approximate in forms and habits to men. It is stated, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1805, that an adult female, in whom the ovaries were defective, presented a corresponding defect in the state of the constitution.

To the same general principle, it has been observed, we must refer the partial growth of a beard on females in the decline of life, and the circumstance that female-birds, when they have ceased to lay eggs, occasionally assume the plumage, and, to a certain extent, the other characters of the male.

Under the influence of this cause, the first exercise of her new faculty determines remarkable modifications in woman. Her neck swells and augments in size—

“Non illam nutrix orienti luce revisensHesterno collum poterit circumdare filo;31

her voice assumes another expression; her moral habits totally change: and many women owe to love and marriage more splendid beauty.

The women thus happily constituted are not those of hot climates, but those of cooler regions and calmer temperament, whose placid features and more elastic forms announce a gentler and more passive love.

Impassioned women, on the contrary, do not so long preserve their freshness: the expansive force, from which the organs derived their form and coloring, abates; and a less agreeable flaccidity succeeds to the elasticity with which they were endowed, if the plumpness which adult age commonly brings does not sustain them.

During pregnancy and suckling, the firstmentioned class of women retain a remarkable freshness and plumpness.

The lastmentioned class of women most frequently become meager, and lose their freshness during the continuance of these states.

If, however, during these states, suitable precautions and preservative cares be not employed, it is the first class who most suffer from traces of maternity.

Conception, pregnancy, delivery, and suckling, being renewed more or less frequently during the second age, hasten debility in feeble and ill-constituted women; especially if misery or an improper mode of life increase the influence of these causes.

In the third age of woman, extending generally from forty to sixty, the physical form does not suddenly deteriorate; and, as has often been observed, “when premature infirmities or misfortunes, the exercise of an unfavorable profession, or a wrong employment of life, have not hastened old age, women during the third age preserve many of the charms of the preceding one.”

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 might have 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 clavicles project; 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.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE CAUSES OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN

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 no less 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—thus corroborating 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.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN

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 noses pinched, 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 woman presents, 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 deformity and 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 in excess, 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 in defect, 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 constricted brain, which is a defect common both to the Negro and the Mongol—a defect which 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 most remarkable 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 rate the 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.