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

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.; and the 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 of intellect, 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 here be 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 a peculiar 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.’”

The third 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 the union of 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 England and 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, the phlegmatic temperament and the sanguine temperament, appear to belong fundamentally to this 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 so languid, 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; the imagination 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.