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

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.

CHAPTER XIV.
THIRD SPECIES OF BEAUTY—BEAUTY OF THE THINKING SYSTEM

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 possessing this species of 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;—she has 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.

The first 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 is proportionally 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 the imagination, 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.

The second modification, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the 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.

The third 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 this ease, 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 and self-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 he darts 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 leaving their compositions as models of this perfection to every succeeding age.”

It is evidently the union of 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 the nervous temperament falls, which is constituted by great sensibility and corresponding mobility, and therefore belongs to the first 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 the second variety, is the cerebral 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 mere exercise 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.

CHAPTER XV.
BEAUTY OF THE FACE IN PARTICULAR

“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 Kalmucs⁴⁰ 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 to their 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 the face.

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 an increase 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 high forehead [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 of touch resides in all parts of the face, 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 and offensive 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 of taste is 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.

The nose is 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 this beauty 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 the eye, 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 the ear is 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 soft and 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, the muscles of 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 expression is 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.