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

SECTION II.

CAUSE OF LAUGHTER

This has been partly explained by Beattie, partly by Hobbes; and it is chiefly to vindicate the latter, who knew much more of the human mind than the people who have attacked him, that I write the pages immediately following.

Speaking of the quality in things, which makes them provoke the pleasing emotion or sentiment of which laughter is the external sign, Beattie says: “It is an uncommon mixture of relation and contrariety, exhibited, or supposed to be united, in the same assemblage.” And elsewhere he says: “Laughter arises from the view of two or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assemblage, or as acquiring a sort of mutual relation from the peculiar manner in which the mind takes notice of them.”

“The latter may arise from contiguity, from the relation of cause and effect, from unexpected likeness, from dignity and meanness, from absurdity, &c.

“Thus, at first view, the dawn of the morning and a boiled lobster seem utterly incongruous, but when a change of color from black to red is suggested, we recognise a likeness, and consequently a relation, or ground of comparison.

“And here let it be observed, that the greater the number of incongruities that are blended in the same assemblage, the more ludicrous it will probably be. If, as in the last example, there be an opposition of dignity and meanness, as well as of likeness and dissimilitude, the effect of the contrast will be more powerful, than if only one of these oppositions had appeared in the ludicrous idea.”

The first part of the subject seems, indeed, so clear as to admit of no objection.

Hobbes, viewing more particularly the act of the mind, defines laughter to be a “sudden glory, arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.” And elsewhere he says: “Men laugh at jests, the wit whereof always consisteth in the elegant discovering and conveying to our minds, some absurdity of another.”18

Dr. Campbell objects that “contempt may be raised in a very high degree, both suddenly and unexpectedly, without producing the least tendency to laugh.” But if there exist that incongruity in the same assemblage described as the fundamental cause of this sudden conception of our own superiority, laughter, as Beattie has shown, “will always, or for the most part, excite the risible emotion, unless when the perception of it is attended with some other emotion of greater authority,” dependant on custom, politeness, &c.

Dr. Campbell also observes, that “laughter may be, and is daily, produced by the perception of incongruous associations, when there is no contempt.

“We often smile at a witty performance or passage, such as Butler’s allusion to a boiled lobster, in his picture of the morning, when we are so far from conceiving any inferiority or turpitude in the author, that we greatly admire his genius, and wish ourselves possessed of that very turn of fancy which produced the drollery in question.

“Many have laughed at the queerness of the comparison in these lines,

who never dreamed that there was any person or party, practice or opinion, derided in them.

“If any admirer of the Hobbesian philosophy should pretend to discover some class of men whom the poet here meant to ridicule, he ought to consider, that if any one hath been tickled with the passage to whom the same thought never occurred, that single instance would be sufficient to subvert the doctrine, as it would show that there may be laughter where there is no triumph or glorying over anybody, and, consequently, no conceit of one’s own superiority.

Now, the class of men laughed at in both cases is the same, namely, poets, whose lofty allusions are ridiculed by the former, and silly rhymes by the latter; nor can any one duly appreciate or be pleased with either, to whom this intention of the writer is not obvious. Who ever dreamed of “turpitude in the author,” as Dr. Campbell supposes!

“As to the wag,” says Beattie, “who amuses himself on the first of April with telling lies, he must be shallow, indeed, if he hope, by so doing, to acquire any superiority over another man whom he knows to be wiser and better than himself; for, on these occasions, the greatness of the joke, and the loudness of the laugh, are, if I rightly remember, in exact proportion to the sagacity of the person imposed on.”—No doubt; but it is because he is thrown into an apparent and whimsical, though momentary inferiority; and the greater his sagacity, the more amusing does this appear.

“Do we not,” says he, “sometimes laugh at fortuitous combinations, in which, as no mental energy is concerned in producing them, there cannot be either fault or turpitude? Could not one imagine a set of people jumbled together by accident, so as to present a laughable group to those who know their characters?”—Undoubtedly; but then the slouch of one, and the rigidity of the other, &c., make both contemptible, as to physical characteristics at least, and there is no need of turpitude in either.

The strongest apparent objection, however, is that of Dr. Campbell, who says: “Indeed, men’s telling their own blunders, even blunders recently committed, and laughing at them, a thing not uncommon in very risible dispositions, is utterly inexplicable upon Hobbes’s system. For, to consider the thing only with regard to the laugher himself, there is to him no subject of glorying, that is not counterbalanced by an equal subject of humiliation (he being both the person laughing, and the person laughed at), and these two subjects must destroy one another.”

But he overlooks the precise terms employed by Hobbes, who says: “The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory, arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly. For men laugh at the follies of themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance, except they bring with them any present dishonor.”

It is not therefore true, as Dr. Campbell says, that “with regard to others, he appears solely under the notion of inferiority, as the person triumphed over.” He, on the contrary, appears as achieving a very glorious triumph, that, namely, over his own errors.

This shows also the error of Addison’s remarks, that “according to this account, when we hear a man laugh excessively, instead of saying that he is very merry, we ought to tell him that he is very proud.”—A man may contemn the errors both of himself and others, without pride: and, indeed, in contemning the former, he proves himself to be far above that sentiment, and verifies Dr. Campbell’s remark that no two characters more rarely meet in the same person, than that of a very risible man, and a very self-conceited supercilious man.

It is curious to see a great man, like Hobbes, thus attacked by less ones, who do not even understand him.

SECTION III.

CAUSE OF THE PLEASURE RECEIVED FROM REPRESENTATIONS EXCITING PITY

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain this cause.

According to the Abbé Du Bos,19 in order to get rid of listlessness, the mind seeks for emotions; and the stronger these are the better. Hence, the passions which in themselves are the most distressing, are, for this purpose, preferable to the pleasant, because they most effectually relieve the mind from the less endurable languor which preys upon it during inaction.

The sophistry of this explanation is evident. Pleasant passions, as Dr. Campbell has shown, ought in every respect to have the advantage, because, while they preserve the mind from this state of inaction, they convey a feeling which is agreeable. Nor is it true that the stronger the emotion is, so much the fitter for this purpose; for if we exceed a certain measure, instead of a sympathetic and delightful sorrow, we excite only horror and aversion. The most, therefore, that can be concluded from the Abbé’s premises, is, that it is useful to excite passion of some kind or other, but not that the distressing ones are the fittest.

According to Fontenelle,20 theatrical representation has almost the effect of reality: but yet not altogether. We have still a certain idea of falsehood in the whole of what we see. We weep for the misfortunes of a hero to whom we are attached. In the same instant, we comfort ourselves by reflecting, that it is nothing but a fiction.

The short answer to this is, that we are conscious of no such alternation as that here described.

According to David Hume, whose hypothesis is a kind of supplement to the former two, that which “when the sorrow is not softened by fiction, raises a pleasure from the bosom of uneasiness, a pleasure which still retains all the features and outward symptoms of distress and sorrow, is that very eloquence with which the melancholy scene is represented.”

In reply, Dr. Campbell has shown that the aggravating of all the circumstances of misery in the representation, cannot make it be contemplated with pleasure, but must be the most effectual method for making it give greater pain; that the detection of the speaker’s talents and address, which Hume’s hypothesis implies, is in direct opposition to the fundamental maxim, that “it is essential to the art to conceal the art;” and that the supposition that there are two distinct effects produced by the eloquence on the hearers, one the sentiment of beauty, or of the harmony of oratorical numbers, the other the passion which the speaker purposes to raise in their minds, and that when the first predominates, the mixture of the two effects becomes exceedingly pleasant, and the reverse when the second is superior, is altogether imaginary.

According to Hawkesworth,21 the compassion in question may be “resolved into that power of imagination, by which we apply the misfortunes of others to ourselves;” and we are said “to pity no longer than we fancy ourselves to suffer, and to be pleased only by reflecting that our sufferings are not real; thus indulging a dream of distress, from which we can awake whenever we please, to exult in our security, and enjoy the comparison of the fiction with the truth.”

This hypothesis is evidently too gross to need reply.

Dr. Campbell has answered the preceding hypotheses at great length, and quite satisfactorily. I regret to say that his own is as worthless, as well as remarkably confused and unintelligible.

To Burke, who wrote at a later period, it falls to my lot to reply at greater length.

“To examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner,” says that writer, “we must previously consider how we are affected by the feelings of our fellow-creatures in circumstances of real distress. I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others; for, let the affection be what it will in appearance, if it does not make us shun such objects, if on the contrary it induces us to approach them, if it makes us dwell upon them, in this case I conceive we must have a delight or pleasure of some species or other in contemplating objects of this kind.... Our delight in cases of this kind is very greatly heightened, if the sufferer be some excellent person who sinks under an unworthy fortune.... The delight we have in such things hinders us from shunning scenes of misery; and the pains we feel, prompt us to relieve ourselves, in relieving those who suffer.... In imitated distress, the only difference is the pleasure resulting from the effects of imitation.”

A more monstrous doctrine than this was never perhaps enunciated. A very little analysis will expose its fallacy.

In relation to events of this kind, there are three very distinct cases—real occurrence, subsequent inspection or historical narration, and dramatic representation; in each, the affection of the mind is very different; and nearly all the errors on this subject seem to have occurred from confounding them. Burke has done this in the greatest degree.

The real occurrence of unmerited suffering is beheld with no delight, but with unmixed pain, by every well-constituted mind. Hume,22 therefore, justly observes, that “the same object of distress, which pleases in a tragedy, were it really set before us, would give the most unfeigned uneasiness.” It is only by confounding this with the next case, of subsequent inspection or historical narration, that Burke gets into error here.

“We do not,” says Burke, “sufficiently distinguish what we would by no means choose to do [or to see done—he should have added] from what we should be eager enough to see if it was once done. We delight in seeing things [after they are done—he should have added], which, so far from doing, our heartiest wishes would be to see redressed.”

That the additions I have made, more truly state the case, seems as evident, as it is, that they afford a very different conclusion from Burke’s, of our beholding unmerited suffering with delight. But he himself proves this by the very instance which he gives in illustration of his doctrine.

“This noble capital,” he says, “the pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is so strangely wicked as to desire to see destroyed by a conflagration or an earthquake, though he should be removed himself to the greatest distance from the danger. But suppose such a fatal accident to have happened, what numbers from all parts would crowd to behold the ruins, and among them many who would have been content never to have seen London in its glory!”

Here the words which I have put in italics clearly show that I was right in the additions I suggested in his previous statement, and that he there confounded delight in seeing the infliction of unmerited suffering, with delight in seeing it after infliction, or of seeing it historically narrated; for, in this his illustration, it is the latter, and not the former, that he supposes—nay he now says “no man is so strangely wicked as to desire to see destroyed!” &c. Indeed, it is quite plain that, supposing an attempt made to destroy London, so far would every one be from being delighted to see it done, that he would eagerly prevent it. There is here, therefore, on the part of this writer, only his common and characteristic confusion of ideas.

“Choose a day,” he says, “on which to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have; appoint the most favorite actors; spare no cost upon the scenes and decorations; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting, and music; and when you have collected your audience, just at the moment when their minds are erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state-criminal, of high rank, is on the point of being executed in the adjoining square; in a moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of the real sympathy.”

This presents only another instance of want of discrimination. If the “state-criminal, of high rank,” were not a real criminal—if he were an unmerited sufferer, the place of execution, supposing his rescue impossible, would assuredly be fled from by every person of feeling and honor; as we read of in the public papers, lately, when a murder of that kind was perpetrating by some one of the base little jailor-princes of Germany. And we know that, in the case of legal perpetrations of that kind in England, even upon real criminals, none but the most degraded wretches go to witness such scenes.

In tragic representation, then, we know that the suffering is not real, else should we fly. There have, indeed, in such cases, been instances of a sort of momentary deception, but it is only children, and very simple people, utter strangers to theatrical amusements, who are apt to be so deceived; and as their case always excites the surprise and laughter of every one, it clearly proves that others are under no sort of deception.

Even Burke, notwithstanding his want of discrimination, and his monstrous hypothesis, says: “Imitated distress is never so perfect, but we can perceive it is imitation, and on that principle are somewhat pleased with it.” And his case of desertion of the theatre, if it occur under any circumstances, illustrates this.

Burke adds, indeed: “But then I imagine we shall be much mistaken if we attribute any considerable part of our satisfaction in tragedy to the consideration that tragedy is a deceit, and its representations no realities. [We seek no satisfaction of the kind: we know it to be a deceit throughout!] The nearer it approaches the reality, and the farther it removes us from all idea of fiction, the more perfect is its power.”

The nearest possible approach to reality, is only necessary to the success of fiction, to the pleasure of imagination. He himself has said: “Imitated distress is never so perfect, but we can perceive it is imitation!” Again, therefore, here is only Burke’s characteristic confusion of ideas.

My own doctrine on this subject is already obvious from the remarks made on others. We never cease to know that tragic representation is a mere deception; our reason is never imposed upon; our imagination is alone engaged; we are perfectly conscious that it is so; and we have all the sensibility, fine feeling, and generosity of pity, as well as the satisfaction of being thereby raised wonderfully in our own esteem, at the small cost of three shillings!

It is not a little curious, that this should not have been evident to those who have written so much about it. Dr. Campbell, alone, has approached it. “So great,” he says, “is the anomaly which sometimes displays itself in human characters, that it is not impossible to find persons who are quickly made to cry at seeing a tragedy, or reading a romance, which they know to be fictions, and yet are both inattentive and unfeeling in respect of the actual objects of compassion who live in their neighborhood, and are daily under their eye.... Men may be of a selfish, contracted, and even avaricious disposition, who are not what we should denominate hard-hearted, or unsusceptible of sympathetic feeling. Such will gladly enjoy the luxury of pity (as Hawkesworth terms it) when it nowise interferes with their more powerful passions; that is, when it comes unaccompanied with a demand upon their pockets.”—This should have led him to the simple truth, and should have prevented his framing the most confused, unintelligible, and worthless hypothesis upon this subject.

CHAPTER VII.

ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

To any inquiry respecting the beauty of woman, the replies are, in general, various, inconsistent, or contradictory. The assertion might, therefore, appear to be true, that, even under the same climate, beauty is not always the same.

Our vague perceptions, however, and our vague expressions respecting beauty, will be found to be, in a great measure, owing to the inaccuracy of our mode of examining it, and, in some measure, to the imperfect nomenclature which we possess for describing it.

Beauty, and even true taste, respecting it, are always the same; but, in the first place, we observe beauty partially and imperfectly; and in the second place, our actual preferences are dependant on our particular wants, and will be found to differ only because these wants differ in every individual, and even in the same individual at different periods of life.

The laws regulating beauty in woman, and taste respecting it in man, have not been attempted to be explained, except in the worthless work alluded to in the advertisement. Yet nothing perhaps is more universally interesting.

As, in this view, the kinds of beauty demand the first and chief attention, the following illustrations are necessary:—

We observe a woman possessing one species of beauty:—Her face is generally oblong; her neck is rather long and tapering: her shoulders, without being angular, are sufficiently broad and definite; her bosom is of moderate dimensions; her waist, remarkable for fine proportion, resembles in some respects an inverted cone; her haunches are moderately expanded; her thighs, proportional; her arms, as well as her limbs, are rather long and tapering; her hands and feet are moderately small; her complexion is often rather dark; and her hair is frequently abundant, dark, and strong.—The whole figure is precise, striking, and brilliant. Yet, has she few or none of the qualities of the succeeding species.

We observe, next, another species of beauty:—Her face is generally round; her eyes are generally of the softest azure; her neck is often rather short; her shoulders are softly rounded, and owe any breadth they may possess rather to the expanded chest, than to the size of the shoulders themselves; her bosom, in its luxuriance, seems laterally to protrude on the space occupied by the arms; her waist, though sufficiently marked, is, as it were, encroached on by the enbonpoint of all the contiguous parts; her haunches are greatly expanded; her thighs are large in proportion; but her limbs and arms, tapering and becoming delicate, terminate in feet and hands which, compared with the ample trunk, are peculiarly small; her complexion has the rose and lily so exquisitely blended, that we are surprised it should defy the usual operation of the elements; and she boasts a luxuriant profusion of soft and fine flaxen or auburn hair.—The whole figure is soft and voluptuous in the extreme. Yet has she not the almost measured proportions and the brilliant air of the preceding species; nor has she the qualities of the succeeding one.