Romantic Love and Personal Beauty Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiarities (part 3 of 3)

Romantic Love and Personal Beauty Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiarities (part 3 of 3)

“Failure properly to mould the cranium of her offspring,” says Bancroft, “gives to the Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy and undutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of their young companions, so despotic is fashion.”

Food for thought will also be found in these remarks by Darwin. Ethnologists believe, he says, “that the skull is modified by the kind of cradle in which infants sleep;” and Schaffhausen is convinced that “in certain trades, such as that of a shoemaker, where the head is habitually held forward, the forehead becomes more round and prominent.” If this is true, then we have one reason, at least, why authors have such large foreheads.

WRINKLES

Wrinkles in the face are signs of advanced age, or disease, or habits of profound meditation, or frequent indulgence in frowning and grief. The wrinkles on a thinker’s forehead do not arouse our disapproval, because they are often eloquent of genius, which excuses a slight sacrifice of the smoothness of skin that belongs to perfect Beauty. In women, however, we apply a pure and strict æsthetic standard, wherefore all wrinkles are regarded as regrettable inroads on Personal Beauty. Old women, of course, form an exception, because in them we no longer look for youthful Beauty, and are therefore gratified at the sight of wrinkles and folds as stereotyped forms of expression bespeaking a life rich in experiences, and associated with the veneration due to old age. Such wrinkles are characteristic but not beautiful; and it may be stated, by the way, that Alison’s whole book on Taste is vitiated by the ever-recurring argument in which he forgets that we may take a personal and even an artistic interest in a thing which is characteristic without being beautiful.

In youth, while the skin is firm and elastic, the wrinkles on the forehead or around the eyes, caused by a frown or smile, pass away, leaving no more trace than the ripples on the surface of a lake. With advancing age the skin becomes looser and less elastic, so that frequent repetition of those movements which produce a fold in the skin finally leaves an indelible mark on the furrowed countenance. Woman’s skin, being commonly better “padded” with fat than man’s, is not so liable to wrinkles, provided attention is paid to the laws of health. Mantegazza suggests that the simplest antidote for wrinkles would be to distend the folded skin again by fattening up. The daily use of good soap and slight friction helps to ward off wrinkles by keeping the facial muscles toned up and the skin elastic.

The (voluntary) mobility of the skin of the forehead, to which we owe our wrinkles, affords an interesting illustration of the way in which facial muscles, once “useful,” have been modified for mere purposes of expression. “Many monkeys have, and frequently use, the power of largely moving their scalps up and down.” This may be of use in shaking off leaves, flies, rain, etc. But man, with his covered head, needs no such protection; hence most of us have lost the power of moving our scalps. A correspondent wrote to Darwin, however, of a youth who could pitch several heavy books from his head by the movement of the scalp alone; and many other similar cases are on record, attesting our simian relationship. But lower down on the forehead, our skin has universally retained the power of movement, as shown in frowning and the expression of various emotions.

At first sight it is somewhat difficult to understand why meditation should wrinkle the skin; but Darwin explains it by concluding that frowning (which, oft repeated, results in wrinkles) “is not the expression of simple reflection, however profound, or of attention, however close, but of something difficult or displeasing encountered in a train of thought or in action. Deep reflection can, however, seldom be long carried on without some difficulty, so that it will generally be accompanied by a frown.”

Fashionable women sometimes endeavour (unsuccessfully) to distend the skin and remove wrinkles by pasting court-plaster on certain spots in the face. But the repulsive fashion of wearing patches of court-plaster all over the face as an ornament (“beauty-spots!”), doubtless had its origin in the desire of some aristocratic dame to conceal pimples or other skin blemishes. At one time women even submitted to the fashion of pasting on the face and bosom paper flies, fleas, and other loathsome creatures.

The African monkeys who held an indignation meeting when they first heard of Darwin’s theory of the descent of man, had probably just been reading a history of human Fashions.

THE COMPLEXION

WHITE VERSUS BLACK

“The charm of colour, especially in the intricate infinities of human flesh, is so mysterious and fascinating, that some almost measure a painter’s merit by his success in dealing with it,” says Hegel; and again: “Man is the only animal that has flesh in its display of the infinities of colour.” “No loveliness of colour, even of the humming birds or the birds of Paradise, is living, is glowing with its own life, but shines with the lustre of light reflected, and its charm is from without and not from within” (Æsthetics, Kedney’s edition).

For a metaphysician, trained to scornfully ignore facts, the difference between man and animals is in these sentences pointed out with commendable insight. Regard for scientific accuracy, it is true, compels us to qualify Hegel’s generalisation, for not only have monkeys bare coloured patches in their faces, and elsewhere, which are subject to changes, but the plumage of birds, too, is dulled by ill-health and brightened by health, reaching its greatest brilliancy in the season of Courtship, thus showing a connection between internal states and external appearances. Nevertheless, these correspondences in animals are transient and crude; and man is the only being whose nude skin is sufficiently delicate and transparent to indicate the minute changes in the blood’s circulation brought about by various phases of pleasure and pain.

To understand the exact nature of these tints of the complexion, which are so greatly admired—though different nations, as usual, have different standards of “taste”—it is necessary to bear in mind a few simple facts of microscopic anatomy.

To put the matter graphically, it may be said that our body wears two tight-fitting physiological coats, called the epidermis or overskin, and the cutis or underskin.

The overskin is not simple, but consists of an outside layer of horny cells, such as are removed by the razor on shaving, and an inside mucous layer, as seen on the lips, which have no horny covering.

The underskin contains nerves, fat cells, hairbulbs, and numerous blood-vessels, some as fine as a hair, all embedded in a soft, elastic network of connective tissue.

The overskin has none of these blood-vessels; but as it is very delicate and transparent, it allows the colour of the blood to be seen as through a veil. In the extremely blond races of the North nothing but the blood can be seen through this veil; but in the coloured races the lower or mucous layer of the overskin contains a number of black, brown, or yellowish pigment cells. The colours of these cells blend with that of the blood, thus producing, according to their number and depth of coloration, the brunette, black, yellow, or red complexion. The palm of the negro’s hand is whiter than the rest of his body, because there the horny epidermis is so thick that the black pigmentary matter cannot be seen through it. And the reason why every negro is born to blush unseen is because the pigmentary matter in his skin is so deep and abundant that it neutralises the colour of the blood.

Now, why do the races of various countries differ so greatly in the colour of their skin? This is the most vexed and difficult question in anthropology, on which there are almost as many opinions as writers.

The oldest and most obvious theory is that the sun is responsible for dark complexions. Are not those parts of our body which are constantly exposed to sunlight—the hands, face, and neck—darker than the rest of the body? and does not this colour become darker still if we spend a few weeks in the country or make a trip across the Atlantic? Do we not find in Europe, as we pass from the sunny South to the cloudy North, that complexion, hair, and eyes grow gradually lighter? And not only are the Spaniards and Italians darker than the Germans, but the South Germans are darker than the North Germans, and the Swedes and Norwegians lighter still than the Prussians.

The same holds true not only of South America as compared to North America, but of the southern United States compared to the northern. It also holds true of the East, where, as Waitz tells us, “The Chinese from Peking to Canton show every shade from a light to a dark-copper colour, while in the Arabians, from the desert down to Yemen, we find every gradation from olive colour to black.” Moreover, aristocratic ladies in Japan and China are almost or quite white, whereas the labouring classes, as with us, are of a darker tint.

These and numerous similar facts, taken in connection with the circumstance that the blackest of all races lives in the hottest continent, and that Jews may be found of all colours according to the country they inhabit, lead almost irresistibly to the conclusion that it is the sun who paints the complexion dark.

Nevertheless there are numerous and striking exceptions to the rule that the warmer the climate the darker the complexion. To obviate this difficulty, Heusinger in 1829, Jarrold in 1838, and others after them, have endeavoured to show that the moisture and altitude, as well as the direct action of the sun, had to be taken into consideration. But since “D’Orbigny in South America, and Livingstone in Africa, arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions with respect to dampness and dryness,” Darwin excogitated the theory (which, he subsequently found, had already been advanced in 1813 by Dr. Wells), that inasmuch as “the colour of the skin and hair is sometimes correlated in a surprising manner with a complete immunity from the action of certain vegetable poisons, and from the attacks of parasites ... negroes and other dark races might have acquired their dark tints by the darker individuals escaping from the deadly influence of the miasma of their native countries, during a long series of generations.”

The testimony on this point being, however, conflicting and unsatisfactory, Darwin gave up this notion too, and fell back on the theory that differences in complexion are due to differences in taste, and were created through the agency of Sexual Selection. “We know,” he says, “from the many facts already given that the colour of the skin is regarded by the men of all races as a highly important element in their beauty; so that it is a character which would be likely to have been modified through selection, as has occurred in innumerable instances with the lower animals. It seems at first sight a monstrous supposition that the jet-blackness of the negro should have been gained through sexual selection; but this view is supported by various analogies, and we know that negroes admire their own colour.”

Doubtless there is some truth in Darwin’s view, but it does not cover the whole ground. Natural as well as Sexual Selection has been instrumental in producing the diverse colours of various races. Hitherto the trouble has been that no one could understand how a black skin could be useful to an African negro. It ought to make him feel uncomfortably hot—for is it not well known that black absorbs heat more than any other colour? and do we not feel warmer in summer if we wear black than if we wear white clothes?

No doubt whatever. But it so happens that the skin is not made of dead wool or felt. It contains, among various other ingenious arrangements, a vast number of minute holes or pores, through which, when we are very warm, the perspiration leaks, and, in changing into vapour, absorbs the body’s heat and leaves it cool, or even cold. Now, in a negro’s skin these pores are both larger and more numerous than in ours, which partly accounts for his indifference to heat, and the fact that his temperature is lower than ours. Yet it does not solve the problem in hand; for there is no visible reason why Natural Selection should not succeed in enlarging the number and size of the pores in a white skin as easily as in a black one.

A year or two ago Surgeon-Major Alcock sent a communication to Nature in which, as I believe, he for the first time suggested the true reason why tropical man is black, and why his blackness is useful to him. He pointed out that since the pigment-cells in the negro’s skin are placed in front of the nerve terminations, they serve to lessen the intensity of the nerve vibrations that would be caused in a naked human body by exposure to a tropical sun; so that the pigment plays the same part as a piece of smoked glass held between the sun and the eyes.

This ingenious theory at once explains some curious and apparently anomalous observations communicated to Nature by Mr. Ralph Abercrombie from Darjeeling. They are that “In Morocco, and all along the north of Africa, the inhabitants blacken themselves round the eyes to avert ophthalmia from the glare off hot sand;” that “In Fiji the natives, who are in the habit of painting their faces with red and white stripes as an ornament, invariably blacken them when they go out fishing on the reef in the full glare of the sun;” and that “In the Sikkim hills the natives blacken themselves round the eyes with charcoal to palliate the glare of a tropical sun on newly-fallen snow.”

How, on the other hand, are we to account for the white complexion of northern races? It is well known that there is a tendency among arctic animals to become white. This, in many cases, can be accounted for by the advantage white beasts of prey, as well as their victims, thus gain in escaping detection. But it is probable that another agency comes into play, first suggested by Craven in 1846, and thus summarised by a writer in Nature, 2d April 1885: “It is well known that white, as the worst absorber, is also the worst radiator of all forms of radiant energy, so that warm-blooded creatures thus clad would be better enabled to withstand the severity of an arctic climate—the loss of heat by radiation might, in fact, be expected to be less rapid than if the hairs or feathers were of a darker colour.”

This argument, which may be applied to man as well as to animals, is greatly strengthened by a circumstance which at first appears to oppose it—the fact, namely, that insects in northern regions, instead of being light-coloured, show a tendency toward blackness. But this apparent anomaly is easily explained. Insects, being cold-blooded, cannot lose any bodily heat through radiation; whereas a black surface, by absorbing as much solar heat as possible while it lasts, adds to their comfort and vitality.

The question now arises, Which was the original colour of the human race, white or black? This question, too, we are enabled to answer with the aid of a principle of evolution which, so far, has stood every test,—the principle that the child’s development is an epitome of the evolution of his race. Before birth there is no colouring matter at all in the skin of a negro child. “In a new-born child the colour is light gray, and in the northern parts of the negro countries the completely dark colour is not attained till towards the third year,” says Waitz; and again, in speaking of Tahiti: “The children are here (as everywhere in Polynesia) white at birth, and only gradually assume their darker colour under the influence of sunlight; covered portions of their bodies remain lighter, and since women wear more clothes than men, and dwell more in the shade, they too are often of so light a colour that they have red cheeks and blush visibly.”

So we are entitled to infer that primitive man was originally white, or whitish. As he moved south, Natural Selection made him darker and darker by continually favouring the survival of those individuals whose colour—owing to the spontaneous variation found throughout Nature—was of a dark shade, and therefore better able to dull the ardour of the sun’s rays. In the north, on the contrary, a light complexion was favoured for its quality of retaining the body’s heat. The yellow and red varieties need not be specially considered, for it has been shown that the different tints of the iris are merely due to the greater or less quantity of the same pigmentary matter; and as the colouring matter of the complexion and the hair is similar to that of the eye, it is probable that the same holds true of different hues of the skin; so that yellowish, brown, and reddish tints may be looked upon as mere intermediate stages between white and black. A trace of pigment, indeed, is found even in our skins; and I believe that the reason why we become brown on exposure to the sun is that the skin, when thus exposed and irritated, secretes a larger amount of this colouring matter, to serve, like a dimly-smoked glass, as a protection against scorching rays.

From all these considerations we may safely infer that the particular hue of man’s skin in each climate is useful to him, and not merely an ornamental product of “taste,” as Darwin believed. Yet to some extent Sexual Selection, doubtless, does come into play in most cases. At a low stage of culture each race likes its special characteristics in an exaggerated form,—a trait which would lead the more vigorous men to persistently select the darkest girls as wives, and thus cause their gradual predominance over the others: while the men, too, would, of course, inherit a darker tint from their mothers. But a still more important consideration is this, that, as Dr. Topinard points out, “Dark colour in the negro is a sign of health,”—naturally, since the darker the dermal pigment, the better are the nerves of temperature protected against the enervating solar rays. Concerning the Polynesians, too, Ellis (cited by Waitz) “notes expressly that a dark colour was more admired and desired because it was looked upon as a sign of vigour.”

These facts yield us a most profound insight into the methods of amorous selection. The erotic instinct, whose duty is the preservation of the species, is above all things attracted by Health, because without Health the species must languish and die out. In a climate where—under the circumstances in which negroes live—a light complexion is incompatible with Health, it is bound to be eliminated.

Fortunately, the negro’s taste is not sufficiently refined to make him feel the æsthetic inferiority of the ebony complexion imposed on him by his climate. Wherein this æsthetic inferiority consists is graphically pointed out in these words of Figuier: “The colour of the skin takes away all charm from the negro’s countenance. What renders the European’s face pleasing is that each of its features exhibits a particular shade. The cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin of the white have each a different tinge. On an African visage, on the contrary, all is black, even the eyebrows, as inky as the rest, are merged in the general colour; scarcely another shade is perceptible, except at the line where the lips join each other.”

Nor is this all. Not only do we look in vain, in the monotonous blackness of the negro’s face, for those varied tints which adorn a white maiden’s face, borrowing one another’s charms by insensible gradations, but also for those subtle emotional changes which, even if they existed in the negro’s mind, could not paint themselves so delicately on his opaque countenance, betraying every acceleration or retardation in the heart’s beats, indicating every nuance of hope and despair, of pleasure or anguish.

In our own latitude, luckily, Natural Selection favours, in the manner indicated, the survival of the translucent white complexion. And what Natural Selection leaves undone, Sexual Selection completes. Romantic Love is the great awakener of the sense of Beauty, and in proportion as Love is developed and unimpeded in its action, does the complexion become more beautiful and more appreciated. Savages, blind to the delicate tints of a transparent skin, daub themselves all over with mixtures of grease and paint. The women of ancient Greece had taste enough to feel the ugliness of the pallor caused by being constantly chaperoned and locked up, but not enough to know that no artificial paint can ever replace the natural colour of health. Hence, as Becker tells us, “painting was almost universal among Grecian women.” Perhaps they did not use any rouge at home, but it “was resumed when they were going out, or wished to be specially attractive.” The men, apparently, had better taste, for we read that “Ischomachos counselled his young wife to take exercise, that she might do without rouge, which she was accustomed constantly to use.”

Coming to more recent times, we find men still protesting in vain against the feminine fashion of bedaubing the face with vulgar paint. More than two centuries ago La Bruyère informed his countrywomen pointedly that “If it is the men they desire to please, if it is for them that they paint and stain themselves, I have collected their opinions, and I assure them, in the name of all or most men, that the white and red paint renders them frightful and disgusting; that the red alone makes them appear old and artificial; that men hate as much to see them with cherry in their faces, as with false teeth in their mouth and lumps of wax in the jaws.”

It is needless to say that women who paint their faces put themselves on a level with savages; for they show thereby that they prefer hideous opaque daubs to the charm of translucent facial tints. Masculine protestation, combined with masculine amorous preference for pure complexions, has at last succeeded in banishing paint from the boudoir of the most refined ladies; and this, combined with compulsory vaccination against smallpox, accounts for the increasing number of good complexions in the world.

But, the important question now confronts us, Is there no limit to the evolution of whiteness of complexion? Will Sexual Selection continue to favour the lighter shades until the hyperbolic “milk and blood” complexion will have been universally realised?

An emphatic “No” is the answer. An exaggerated white is as objectionable as black,—more so, in fact, because, whereas the deepest black indicates good health, extreme whiteness suggests the pallor of ill-health, and will therefore always displease Cupid, the supreme judge of Personal Beauty. Moreover, in a very white face the red cheek suggests the confusing blush or the hectic flush rather than the subtle tints of health and normal emotion. And again, the Scandinavian rose-and-lily complexion is inferior to the delicate and slightly-veiled tint of the Spanish brunette, because the latter suggests the mellowing action of the sun’s rays, which promises more permanence of beauty. Hence it is that in the marriage market a decided preference is shown for the brunette type, as we shall see in the chapter on Blondes and Brunettes.

COSMETIC HINTS

We are now in a position to understand the extreme importance of the complexion from an amorous point of view, and to see why the care of the complexion has almost monopolised the attention of those desiring to improve their personal appearance, as shown by the fact that the word “cosmetic,” in common parlance, refers to the care of the skin alone.

Books containing recipes for skin lotions, ointments, and powders are so numerous, that it is not worth while to devote much space to the matter here. As a rule, the best advice to those about to use cosmetics is Don’t. Every man whose admiration is worth having will infinitely prefer a freckled, or even a pallid or smallpox-marked, face to one showing traces of powder or greasy ointments, or lifeless, cadaverous enamel, opaque as ebony blackness.

If a woman’s skin is so morbidly sensitive as to be injured by ordinary water and good soap, it is a sign of ill-health which calls for residence in the country and the mellowing rays of the sun. Where this is unattainable, the water may be medicated by the addition of a slice of lemon, cucumber, or horse-radish, to all of which magic effects are often attributed. The black spots on the sides of the nose may be removed in a few weeks by the daily application (with friction) of lemon juice. For pimples and barber’s itch a camphor and sulphur ointment, which may be obtained of any chemist, is the simplest remedy. For a shiny, polished complexion, and excessive redness of the nose, cheeks, and knuckles, the following mixture is recommended by a good authority:—Powdered borax, one half ounce; pure glycerine, one ounce; camphor-water, one quart. Borax, indeed, is as indispensable a toilet article as soap or a nail-brush. After washing the face, exposure to the raw air should always be avoided for ten or fifteen minutes.

“A certain amount of friction applied to the face daily will do much,” says Dr. Bulkley, “to keep the pores of the sebaceous glands open; and, by stimulating the face, to prevent the formation of the black specks and red spots so common in young people, I generally direct that the face be rubbed to a degree short of discomfort, and that the towel be not too rough.” Slight friction also helps to ward off wrinkles.

Two or three weekly baths—hot in winter, cold in summer—are absolutely necessary for those who wish to keep their skin in a healthy condition; and no elixir of youth and beauty could produce such a sparkling eye and glow of rosy health as a daily morning sponge bath, followed by friction—care being taken, in a cold room, to expose only one part of the body at a time. The importance of keeping open the pores of the skin by bathing is seen by the fact that if a man were painted with varnish he would suffocate in a few hours; for the skin is a sort of external lung, aiding its internal colleague in removing effete products, dissolved in the perspiration, from the system.

The debris and oily matter brought to the surface of the skin and deposited there by the perspiration cannot be completely removed without soap. Unfortunately, this article has done more to ruin complexions than almost any other cause, except smallpox and the superstitious dread of sunshine. Many people have a peculiar mania for economising in soap. If they can buy a piece of soap for a farthing, they consider themselves wonderfully clever, regardless of the fact that it may not only ruin their complexion, but produce a repulsive skin disease which it will cost much gold to cure. Do they ever realise that these soaps, which they thus smear over the most delicate parts of their body every day, are made of putrid carcasses of animals, rancid fat, and corrosive alkalies? Has no one ever told them that if a soap is both cheap and highly perfumed it is certain to be of vile composition, and injurious to the skin? After washing yourself wait a moment till the soap’s artificial odour has disappeared, and then smell your hands. That vile rancid odour which remains—if you knew its source, you would immediately run for a Turkish bath to wash off the very epidermis to which that odour has adhered.

What has ruined so many complexions is not soap itself, but bad soap. A famous specialist, Dr. Bulkley, says that “there is no intrinsic reason why soap should not be applied to the face, although there is a very common impression among the profession, as well as the laity, that it should not be used there.... The fact is, that many cases of eruptions upon the face are largely due to the fact that soap has not been used on that part; and it is also true that, if properly employed, and if the soap is good, it is not only harmless, but beneficial to the skin of the face, as to every other part of the body.”

“A word may be added in reference to the so-called ‘medicated soaps,’ whose number and variety are legion, each claiming virtues far excelling all others previously produced.... Now all or most of this attempt to ‘medicate’ soap is a perfect farce, a delusion, and a snare to entrap the unwary and uneducated.... Carbolic soap is useless and may be dangerous, because the carbolic acid may possibly become the blind beneath which a cheap, poor soap is used; for in all these advertised and patented nostrums the temptation is great to employ inferior articles that the pecuniary gain may be greater. The small amount of carbolic acid incorporated in the soap cannot act as an efficient disinfectant.”

FRECKLES AND SUNSHINE

Soap is not the only cosmetic that has been tabooed in the face because of illogical reasoning. There is a much more potent beautifying influence—viz., the mellowing rays of the sun—of which the face has long been deprived, chiefly on account of an unscientific prejudice that the sun is responsible for freckles. In his famous work on skin diseases Professor Hebra of Vienna, the greatest modern authority in his specialty, has completely disproved this almost universally accepted theory. The matter is of such extreme importance to Health and Beauty that his remarks must be quoted at length:—

"It is a fact that lentigo (freckles) neither appears in the newly-born nor in children under the age of 6-8 years, whether they run about the whole day in the open air and exposed to the bronzing influence of the sun, or whether they remain confined to the darkest room; it is therefore certain that neither light nor air nor warmth produces such spots in children....

“If we examine the skin of an individual who is said to be affected with the so-called freckles only in the summer, at other seasons of the year with sufficient closeness in a good light, and with the skin put on the stretch by the finger, we shall detect the same spots, of the same size but of somewhat lighter colour than in summer. In further illustration of what has just been said, I will mention that I have repeatedly had the opportunity of seeing lentigines on parts of the body that, as a rule, are never exposed to the influence of the light and sun....

”A priori, it is difficult to understand how ephelides can originate from the influence of sun and light in the singular form of disseminated spots, since these influences act not only on single points, but uniformly over the whole surface of the skin of the face, hands, etc. The pigmentary changes must appear, therefore, in the form of patches, not of points. Moreover, it is known to every one that, if the skin of the face be directly exposed, even for only a short time, to a rough wind or to intense heat, a tolerably dark bronzing appears, which invades the affected parts uniformly, and not in the form or disseminated, so-called summer-spots (freckles). It was, therefore, only faulty observation on the part of our forefathers which induced them to attribute the ephelides to the influence of light and sun."

But the amount of mischief done by this “faulty observation of our forefathers” is incalculable. To it we owe the universal feminine horror of sunshine, without which it is as impossible for their complexion to have a healthy, love-inspiring aspect, as it is for a plant grown in a cellar to have a healthy green colour. How many women are there who preserve their youthful beauty after twenty-five—the age when they ought to be in full bloom? They owe this early decay partly to their indolence, mental and physical, partly to their habit of shutting out every ray of sunlight from their faces as if it were a rank poison instead of the source of all Health and Beauty. If young ladies would daily exercise their muscles in fresh air and sunshine, they would not need veils to make themselves look younger. Veils may be useful against very rough wind, but otherwise they should be avoided, because they injure the eyesight. Parasols are a necessity on very hot summer afternoons, but “the rest of the year the complexion needs all the sun it can get.”

Were any further argument needed to convince us that the sun has been falsely accused of creating freckles, it would be found in the fact that southern brunette races, though constantly exposed to the sun, are much less liable to them than the yellow and especially the red-haired individuals of the North. Professor Hebra regards freckles as “a freak of Nature rather than as a veritable disease,” and thinks they are “analogous to the piebald appearances met with in the lower animals.” As has just been noted, they exist in winter as well as in summer. All that the summer heat does is to make them visible by making the skin more transparent. As the heat itself causes them to appear any way, it is useless to taboo the direct sunlight as their source.

Inasmuch as freckles appear chiefly among northern races, whose skin has been excessively bleached and weakened in its action by constant indoor life, it seems probable, notwithstanding Dr. Hebra’s opinion, that they are the result of an unhealthy, abnormal action of the pigment-secreting apparatus which exists even in the white skin. If this be so, then proper care of the skin continued for several generations would obliterate them. The reason why country folks are more liable to freckles than their city cousins would then be referable, not to the greater amount of sunlight in the country, but to the rarity of bath-tubs, good soap, and friction-towels. My own observation leads me to believe that freckles are rarer in England than on the continent, and the English are proverbially enamoured of the bath-tub and open-air exercise.

For those who, without any fault of their own, have inherited freckles from their parents, there is this consoling reflection that these blemishes reside in a very superficial layer of the skin, and can therefore be removed. Several methods are known; but as no one should ever use them without medical assistance, they need not be described here (see Hebra’s Treatise, vol. iii.) Any one who wishes to temporarily conceal skin-blemishes may find this citation from Hebra of use: “Perfumers and apothecaries have prepared from time immemorial cosmetics whose chief constituent is talcum venetum, or pulvis aluminis plumosi (Federweiss), which, when rubbed in, in the form of a paste, with water and alcohol, or a salve with lard, or quite dry, as a powder, gives to the skin an agreeable white colour, and does not injure it in the least, even if the use of the cosmetic be continued throughout life.”

It is probable that electricity will play a grand rôle in future as an agent for removing superfluous hairs, freckles, moles, port-wine marks, etc. Much has already been done in this direction, and the only danger is in falling into the hands of an unscrupulous quack. In vol. iii. No. 4 of the Journal of Cutaneous and Venereal Diseases, Dr. Hardaway has an interesting article on this subject.

THE EYES

In one of the Platonic dialogues Sokrates points out the relativity of standards of Beauty. “Is not,” he asks in effect, “the most beautiful ape ugly compared to a maiden? and is not the maiden, in turn, inferior in beauty to a goddess?”

Regarding most of the human features it may be conceded that Sokrates is right in his second question. To find a human forehead, nose, or mouth that could not be improved in some respect, is perhaps impossible. But one feature must be excepted. There are human eyes which no artist with a goddess for a model could make more divine. And of these glorious orbs there are so many, in every country, that one cannot help concluding that Schopenhauer made a great mistake in placing the face, with the eyes, so low down in his list of love-inspiring human qualities. On the contrary, I am convinced that no feminine charm so frequently and so fatally fascinates men as lovely eyes, and that it is for this reason that Sexual Selection has done more to perfect the eyes than any other part of the body.

When Petruchio says of Katharina that “she looks as clear as morning roses newly washed with dew,” he compliments her complexion; but when the Persian poet compares “a violet sparkling with dew” to “the blue eyes of a beautiful girl in tears,” the compliment is to the violet. A woman’s eye is the most beautiful object in the universe; and what made it so is man’s Romantic Love.

Putting poetry aside, we must now consider a few scientific facts and correct a few misconceptions regarding the eye, its colour, lustre, form, and expression.

COLOUR

To say of any one that he has gray, blue, brown, or black eyes, is vague and incorrect from a strictly scientific point of view, inasmuch as there are no really gray or black eyes, and, as a matter of fact, every eye, if closely examined, shows at least five or six different colours.

There is, first, the tough sclerotic coat or white of the eye, which covers the greater part of the eyeball, and is not transparent, except in front where the coloured iris (or rainbow membrane) is seen through it. This central transparent portion of the sclerotic coat is called the cornea, and is slightly raised above the general surface of the eyeball, like the middle portion of some watch-glasses.

The white of the eye is sometimes slightly tinged with blue or yellow, and sometimes netted with inflamed blood-vessels. All these deviations are æsthetically inferior to the pure white of the healthy European, because suggestive of disease, and conflicting with the general cosmic standards of beauty. The bluish tint is a sign of consumption or scrofulous disorders, being caused by a diminution of the pigmentary matter in the choroid coat which lines the inside of the sclerotic. The yellowish tint, in the European, is indicative of jaundice, dyspepsia, or premature degeneracy of the white of the eye. It is normal, on the other hand, in the healthy negro; but if a negro should claim that, inasmuch as a yellowish sclerotic is to him not suggestive of disease, he has as much right to consider it beautiful as we our white sclerotic, the simple retort would be, that we are guided in our æsthetic judgment by positive as well as negative tests. Disease is the negative test; the positive lies in the fact that in inanimate objects, where disease is altogether out of the question—as in ivory ornaments (which no one associates with an elephant’s tusk)—we also invariably prefer a pure snowy white to a muddy uncertain yellow. It is these two tests in combination which have guided Sexual Selection in its efforts to eliminate all but the pure white sclerotic,—a tint which, moreover, throws into brighter relief the enchanting hues of the “sunbeamed” iris.

More objectionable still than a yellowish or bluish sclerotic is a bloodshot eye, not only because the inflamed blood-vessels which swell and flood the white surface of the eye deface the marble purity of the sclerotic (in a manner not in the least analogous to marble “veins”), but because the red, watery blear eye generally indicates the ravages of intemperance or unrestrained passions. However, a bloodshot eye may be the result of mere overwork, or reading in a flickering light, or lack of sleep; hence it is not always safe to allow the disagreeable æsthetic impression given by inflamed eyes to prognosticate moral obliquity. But, after all, the intimate connection between æsthetic and moral judgments is in this case based on a correct, subtle instinct; for is not a man who ruins the health and beauty of his eyes by intemperance in drink or night-work sinning against himself? If attempts at suicide are punished by law, why should not minor offences against one’s Health at least be looked upon with moral disapproval? If this sentiment could be made universal, there would be fifty per cent more Beauty in the world after a single generation.

In the centre of the white sclerotic is the membrane which gives the eyes their characteristic variations of colour,—the iris or rainbow curtain. If we look at an eye from a distance of a few paces, it seems to have some one definite colour, as brown or blue. But on closer examination we see that there are always several hues in each iris. The colour of the iris is due to the presence of small pigment granules in its interior layer. These granules are always brown, in blue and gray as well as in brown eyes; and the greater their number and thickness, the darker is the colour of the iris. Blue eyes are caused by the presence, in front of the pigment-layer, of a thin, almost colourless membrane, which absorbs all the rays of light except the blue, which it reflects, and thus causes the translucent iris to appear of that colour.

The Instructions de la Société d’Anthropologie, says Dr. Topinard, "recognise four shades of colour,—brown, green, blue, and gray; each having five tones—the very dark, the dark, the intermediate, the light, and the very light. The expression “brown” does not mean pure brown; it is rather a reddish, a yellowish, or a greenish brown, corresponding with the chestnut or auburn colour, the hazel and the sandy, made use of by the English. The gray, too, is not pure; it is, strictly speaking, a violet more or less mixed with black and white."

“The negro, in spite of his name, is not black but deep brown,” as Mr. Tylor remarks; and what is true of his complexion is also true of his eyes; “what are popularly called black eyes are far from having the iris really black like the pupil; eyes described as black are commonly of the deepest shades of brown or violet.”

The pupil, however, is always jetblack, not only in negroes, but in all races. For the pupil is simply a round opening in the centre of the iris which allows us to see clear through the lens and watery substance of the eyeball to the black pigment which lines its inside surface. The iris, in truth, is nothing but a muscular curtain for regulating the size of the pupil, and thus determining how much light shall be admitted into the interior of the eye. When the light is bright and glaring, a little of it suffices for vision, hence the iris relaxes its fibres and the pupil becomes smaller; whereas, in twilight and moonlight, the eye needs all the light it can catch, so the muscles of the iris-curtain contract and enlarge the pupil-window. This mechanism of the iris in diminishing or enlarging the pupil can be neatly observed by looking into a mirror placed on one side of a window. If the hand is put up in such a way as to screen the eye from the light, the pupil will be seen to enlarge; and if the hand is then suddenly taken away, it will immediately return to its smaller size. For the muscles of the iris have the power, denied to other unstriped or involuntary muscles, of acting quite rapidly.

Thus we find in the eyeball three distinct zones of colour—the white of the eye, sometimes slightly tinted blue, yellow, or red; the iris, which has various shades of brown, green, blue, and gray, commonly two or three in each eye; and the central black pupil. Add to this the flesh-colour of the eyelid and surrounding parts, and the light or dark lashes and eyebrows, and we see that the eye in itself is a perfect colour-symphony.

Can we account for the existence of all these colours? The easiest thing in the world, with the aid of the principles of Natural and Sexual Selection. There are reasons for believing that the sense of sight is merely a higher development from the sense of temperature, adapted to vibrations so rapid that the nerves of temperature can no longer distinguish them. In its simplest form, among the lowest animals, the sense of sight is represented by a mere pigment spot. And in the highest form of sight, after the development of the various parts of our complicated eye, we still find this pigment as one of the most essential conditions of vision. Its function, however, is not the same as that of the pigment in the human skin. There it is interposed between the sun and the underskin, in order to protect the nerves of temperature. The optic nerve needs no such protection; for the heat-rays of the sun cannot but be cooled on passing through the membranes, the lens, and the watery substance in the eye, before reaching the optic nerve, spread out on the retina. Consequently the eye-pigment, instead of being placed in front of the nerves, is put behind them; and their function is to absorb any excess of light that enters the eye. Were the membrane which contains this pigment whitish, all the light would be reflected back, and create such a glare and confusion that no object could be seen distinctly.

This view regarding the function of the pigment is strikingly supported by the anomalous case of Albinos. “The pink of their eyes (as of white rabbits) is caused by the absence of the black pigment,” says Mr. Tylor, “so that light passing out through the iris and pupil is tinged red from the blood-vessels at the back; thus their eyes may be seen to blush with the rest of the face.”

Bearing these facts in mind, it is obvious why it is an advantage in a sunny country to have as much pigmentary matter as possible in the eye, and why, therefore, Natural Selection makes the eyes blacker the nearer we approach the tropics. And, as with the complexion, so here, it is fortunate for the negro that he has not sufficient taste to feel the æsthetic inferiority of the monotonous black thus imposed on him by Natural Selection. “The iris is so dark,” says Figuier, “as almost to be confounded with the black of the pupil. In the European, the colour of the iris is so strongly marked as to render at once perceptible whether the person has black, blue, or gray eyes. There is nothing similar in the case of the negro, where all parts of the eye are blended in the same hue. Add to this that the white of the eye is always suffused with yellow in the Negro, and you will understand how this organ, which contributes so powerfully to give life to the countenance of the White, is invariably dull and expressionless in the Black Race.”

To the Esquimaux, living in the constant glare of ice and snowfields, a protective pigment is quite as necessary as to an African savage; hence their eyes are equally black. But among other northern races, who are less constantly exposed to the blinding rays of the sun, it suffices to have coal-black pigment in the back part of the eye, as seen through the pupil, while the iris need not be so absolutely opaque. This leaves room for the action of Sexual Selection in giving the preference to eyes less monotonously black. Our æsthetic sense craves variety and contrasts in colour; and as the sense of Beauty originally stood in the service of Love almost exclusively, it is to Cupid’s selective action that we doubtless owe the diverse hues of the modern iris.

To what kind of an iris does modern Love or æsthetic selection give the preference? Doubtless to that which has the deepest and most unmistakable colour—to dark brown, or deep blue, or violet. One reason why we care less for the lighter, faded tints of the iris is because they present a less vivid contrast to the white of the eye; and another reason, as Dr. Hugo Magnus suggests, lies in the disagreeable impression produced in us by the difficulty of making out the exact character of the various indistinct shades of gray, yellow, green, or blue.

The consideration of the question whether amorous selection shows any further preference for one of its two favourite colours—dark brown and deep blue—must be deferred to the chapter on Blondes and Brunettes.

LUSTRE

But Cupid is not guided by colour alone in his choice. However beautiful the colour of an eye, it loses half its charm if it lacks lustre. A bright, sparkling eye is the most infallible index of youthful vigour and health, whereas the lack-lustre eyes of ill-health can never serve as windows from which Cupid shoots his arrows. No wonder that the poets have searched all nature for analogies to the lustre of a maiden’s eye, comparing it to sun and stars, to diamonds, crystalline lakes, the light of glow-worms, glistening dewdrops, etc.

What is the source of this light which shines from the eye and intoxicates the lover’s senses? Several answers to this question have been suggested. Twenty-five hundred years ago Empedokles taught that “there is in the eye a fine network which holds back the watery substance swimming about in it, but the fiery particles penetrate through it like the rays of light through a lantern” (Ueberweg). And a notion similar to this, that there is a kind of magnetic or nervous emanation which beams from the eye and is a direct efflux of the soul, was entertained in recent times by Lavater and Carus. It was apparently supported by the peculiar light which may be seen occasionally in the eyes of cats, dogs, and horses in the twilight; but this has been proved to be a purely physical phenomenon of reflection, due to an anatomical peculiarity in the eyes of these animals.

Some writers have attempted to account for the lustrous fire of the eye by attributing it to the increased tension of the eyeball brought about through certain joyous and exciting emotions. Dr. Hugo Magnus, however, denies that these emotions ever increase the tension of the eyeball: “We know from numerous exceedingly minute measurements that there is no such thing whatever as a rapid change of tension in the eye, as long as it is in a healthy condition.” In some diseases, especially in cataract or glaucoma, such an increased tension does occur, indeed, but it does not in the least impart to the eye the sparkle of joyous excitement. Hence Professor Magnus concludes that “the mimic significance of the eye cannot be conditioned by changes in the form of the eyeball, through tension or pressure on it.”

His own theory (as developed in his two interesting pamphlets, Die Sprache der Augen and Das Auge in seinen aesthetischen und culturgeschichtlichen Beziehungen) is that the greater or less brilliancy of the eyes depends entirely on the movements of the eyelids. Instead of calling the eye the window of the soul, it is more correct to say that the cornea is a mirror which, like any other mirror, reflects the light that falls on it. The higher the eyelids are raised the larger becomes the mirror, and the more light is therefore reflected. Now it is well known that exciting emotions like joy, enthusiasm, anger, and pride have a tendency to raise the eyelids, while the sad and depressing emotions cause them to sink and partially cover the eyeball; hence joy makes the eyes sparkling, while grief renders them dull and lustreless.

The old poetic and popular notion that the lustre of the eye is a direct emanation of the human soul must therefore be abandoned. The sparkling eye is a mere physical consequence of the involuntary raising of the eyelids brought about through exhilarating or exciting emotions.

This theory of Dr. Magnus doubtless comes nearer the truth than the others referred to; and the fact that snakes’ eyes, though small, are proverbially glistening, apparently because they are lidless, may be used as an additional argument in his favour, which he overlooked. Yet his view does not cover the whole ground; for it does not explain why, after weeping, or when we are weary or ill, we may open our eyes as widely as we please without making them appear lustrous.

This difficulty suggested to me the theory that, though partly dependent on the movements of the eyelids, the lustre of the eyes is due originally to the tension and moisture of the conjunctiva.

The conjunctiva, though consisting of 6-8 layers of cells, is an extremely thin and highly sensitive, transparent membrane, which lines the surface of the eyeball as well as the inside of the eyelids. In this membrane is located the pain which we feel if dust, etc., flies into our eyes. In order to wash out any particles that may get into the eye, and to prevent the lid from sticking to the eyeball, the lachrymal glands constantly secrete the water, which, during an emotional shower, consolidates into tear-drops.

Now, just as “the rose is sweetest washed with morning dew,” so the eye is brightest and most fascinating which glistens in an ever fresh supply of lachrymal fluid. After weeping, this supply is temporarily exhausted, hence not only are the eyes “sticky” and the lids difficult to raise, but even if they are raised there is no lustre; you look in vain for “Cupid’s bonfires burning in the eye.” But when we wake up from refreshing sleep in the morning, or when we take a walk in the bracing country air, the eye sparkles its best and “emulates the diamond,” because at such a time all the vital energies, including of course those of the lachrymal glands, are incited to fresh activity, which they lose again after prolonged use of the eye, thus making it appear duller in the evening.

Thus we can readily account for those lights in the eye “that do mislead the morn.” Yet it is probable that (although in a less degree than dewy moisture) the tension and translucency of the conjunctiva are also concerned in the production of a liquid, lustrous expression. Though the eyeball itself may not undergo any changes in tension, the conjunctiva doubtless does. The eyeball rests on a bed of fatty tissue which shrinks after death, owing to the emptying of the blood-vessels and the consolidation of the fat, which makes a corpse appear “hollow-eyed.” The same effect, to a slighter degree, is caused by disease and excessive fatigue, making the eyes sink into their sockets. This sinking must diminish the tension of the conjunctiva, both under the eyelids and on the surface of the eyeball; and in shrinking it becomes less transparent and glistening.

The following observations of Professor Kollmann indirectly support my theory that the conjunctiva is the source of the eye’s lustre: “After death this transparent membrane (the conjunctiva) becomes turbid, the eye loses its lustre and becomes veiled. The surface reflects but a faint degree of light, the eye is ‘broken.’” The loss of lustre extends to the white of the eye, but is less noticeable, perhaps because there lustre does not blend with colour, as in the iris region.

Fashionable young ladies who dance throughout the night several times a week may well be disgusted with the blue rings which appear around their sunken eyes. These rings are a warning that they need “beauty sleep” and fresh air to fill up the sockets again with healthy fat and red blood, so as to increase the tension of the conjunctiva and stimulate the flow of dewy moisture on which the lustre of the eye depends. There are tears of Beauty as well as of anguish and joy.

FORM

Of the beauty of the eye as conditioned by its form, Dr. Magnus has made such an admirable and exhaustive analysis that I can do little more than summarise his observations. He points out, in the first place, that the form of the eyeball itself is of subordinate importance. The differences in the size and shape of eyeballs are insignificant, and are, moreover, liable to be concealed by the shape of the eyelids; hence it is to the lids and brows that the eye chiefly owes its formal beauty.

“The form of the eye is conditioned exclusively by the cut of the lids and the size of the aperture between them.... The countless individual differences in this aperture give to the eyeballs the most diverse shapes, so that we speak of round eyes, wide eyes, almond-shaped, elongated, and owl eyes, etc.”

The first condition of beauty in an eye is size. Large eyes have been extolled ever since the beginnings of poetry. The Mahometan heaven is peopled with “virgins with chaste mien and large black eyes,” and the Arabian poets never tire of comparing their idols’ eyes to those of the gazelle and the deer. The Greeks appear to have considered large eyes an essential trait of beauty as well as of mental superiority; hence Sokrates as well as Aspasia are described as having had such eyes; and who has not read of Homer’s ox-eyed Juno? Juvenal specially mentions small eyes as a blemish.

Large eyes, however, are not beautiful if the aperture between the lids is too wide, or if the white can be seen above the iris. They must owe their largeness to the graceful curvature of the upper eyelid. As Winckelmann remarks, “Jupiter, Apollo, and Juno have the opening of their eyelids large and vaulted, and less elongated than is usual, so as to make the arch more pronounced.”

At the same time we are sufficiently catholic in taste to admire eyes which are not quite round but somewhat elongated. One favourite variety is that in which “the upper lid shows, in the margin adjoining the inner corner of the eye, a rather decided curvature, which, however, diminishes toward the outer corner in an extremely graceful and pleasing wavy line. As the lower lid has a similar, though less decided, marginal curve, the eyeball which appears within this aperture assumes a unique oval form, which has been very aptly and characteristically named ‘almond-shaped.’ The Greeks compared the graceful curve of such lids to the delicate and pleasing loops formed by young vines, and therefore called an eye of this variety ἑλικοβλέφαρος. Winckelmann has noted that it was the eyes of Venus, in particular, that the ancient artists were fond of adorning with this graceful curve of the lids.... Italian, and especially Spanish eyes, are far-famed for their classical and graceful oval form.”

Almond eyes are peculiar to the Semitic and ancient Aryan races. Some of the bards of India sing the praises of an eye so elongated that it reaches to the ear; and in Assyrian statues such eyes are common. The ancient Egyptians had a similar taste; and Carus relates that some Oriental nations actually enlarge the slit of the eye with the knife; while others use cosmetics to simulate the appearance of very long eyes. According to Dr. Sömmering, the eye of male Europeans is somewhat less elongated than that of females.

Round or oval marginal curvature, however, is not the only condition of beauty in an eyelid. The surface, too, must be kept in a tense, well-rounded condition. Sunken, hollow eyes displease us not only because they suggest disease and age, but because they destroy the smooth surface and curvature of the eyelids. Thus do we find the laws of Health and Beauty coinciding in the smallest details.

The position of the eye also largely influences our æsthetic judgment. What strikes us first in looking at a Chinaman is his obliquely-set eyes, with the outer corner drawn upwards, which displeases us even more than their excessive elongation and small size. Oblique eyes are a dissonance in the harmony of our features, and almost as objectionable as a crooked mouth. True, our own eyes are rarely absolutely horizontal, but the deviation is too minute to be noticed by any but a trained observer. Sometimes, as Mantegazza remarks, the opposite form may be noticed, the outer corner of the eye being lower than the inner. “If this trait is associated with other æsthetic elements, it may produce a rare and extraordinary charm, as in the case of the Empress Eugénie.”

The eyelashes and eyebrows, though strictly belonging in the chapter on the hair, must be referred to here because they bear such a large part in the impression which the form of the eye makes on us. The short, stiff hairs, which form “the fringed curtain of the eye,” are attached to the cartilage which edges the eyelids. They are not straight but curved, downward in the lower, upward in the upper lid. And the Beauty-Curve is observed in still another way, the hairs in the central part of each lid being longer than they are towards the ends. In the upper lid the hairs are longer than in the lower. Their æsthetic and physiognomic value will be considered presently under the head of Expression.

In the eyebrows the Curve of Beauty is again the condition of perfection. It must be a gentle curve, however, or else it imparts to the countenance a Mephistophelian expression of irony. Eyebrows were formerly held to be peculiar to man, but Darwin states that “in the Chimpanzee, and in certain species of Macacus, there are scattered hairs of considerable length rising from the naked skin above the eyes, and corresponding to our eyebrows; similar long hairs project from the hairy covering of the superciliary ridges in some baboons.”

The existence of the eyebrows may be accounted for on utilitarian grounds. Natural Selection favoured their development because they are, like the lashes, of use in preventing perspiration and dust from getting into the eyes. Their delicately curved form, however, they probably owe to Sexual Selection. Cupid objects to eyebrows which are too much or not sufficiently arched, and he objects to those which are too bushy or which meet in the middle. The ancient Greeks already disliked eyebrows meeting in the middle, whereas in Rome Fashion not only approved of them, but even resorted to artificial means for producing them. The Arabians go a step farther in the use of paint. They endeavour to produce the impression as if their eyebrows grew down to the middle of the nose and met there. The Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, and Indians also used paint to make their eyebrows seem wider, but they did not unite them. On the outside border the eyebrows should extend slightly beyond the corner of the eye.

EXPRESSION

In the chapter on the nose reference was made to our disposition to seize upon any sensation experienced inside the mouth and label it as a “taste,” whereas psychologic analysis shows that in most cases the sense of smell (excited during exhalation) has more to do with our enjoyment of food than taste; and that the nerves of temperature and touch likewise come into play in the case of peppermint, pungent condiments, alcohol, etc. We are also in the habit of including in the term “feeling” or “touch” the entirely distinct sensations of temperature, tickling, and some other sensations, to the separate study of which physiologists are only now beginning to devote special attention.

Similarly with the eyes. Being the most fascinating part of the face, on which we habitually fix our attention while talking, they are credited with various expressions that are really referable to other features, which we rapidly scan and then transfer their language to the eyes. Nor is this all. Most persons habitually attribute to the varying lustre of the eyeball diverse “soulful” expressions which, as physiologic analysis shows, are due to the movements of the eyeball, the eyebrows, and lashes. The poets, who have said so many beautiful things about the eyes, are rarely sufficiently definite to lay themselves open to the charge of inaccuracy. But there can be little doubt that the popular opinion concerning the all-importance of the eyeball is embodied in such expressions as these: “Love, anger, pride, and avarice all visibly move in those little orbs” (Addison). “Her eye in silence has a speech which eye best understands” (Southwell). “An eye like Mars to threaten or command.” “The heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, ’gainst which the world cannot hold argument.” “Behold the window of my heart, mine eye.” “Sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages.” “For shame, lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.” “If mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.” “There’s an eye wounds like a leaden sword.” The last three of these Shaksperian lines were evidently echoing in Emerson’s mind when he wrote that “Some eyes threaten like a loaded and levelled pistol, and others are as insulting as hissing or kicking; some have no more expression than blueberries, while others as deep as a well which you can fall into.” “Glances are the first billets-doux of love,” says Ninon de L’Enclos.

In order to make perfectly clear the mechanism by which the eye becomes an organ of speech, it is advisable to consider separately these six factors, which are included in it—(a) Lustre; (b) Colour of the Iris; (c) Movements of the Iris or Pupil; (d) Movements of the Eyeball; (e) Movements of the Eyelids; (f) Movements of the Eyebrows.

(a) Lustre.—"The physiological problem whether the surface of the eyeball, independent of the muscles that cover and surround it, can express emotion, a near study of the American girl seems to answer quite in the affirmative." Dr. G. M. Beard remarks, without, however, endeavouring to specify what emotions the surface of the eyeball expresses, or in what manner it does express them.

Dr. Magnus, on the other hand, who has made a more profound study of this question than any other writer, is emphatic in his conviction that “the eyeball takes no active part in the expression of emotions, which is entirely accomplished by the muscles and soft parts surrounding it.” His view is supported by the fact that although some of the ancient sculptors endeavoured by the use of jewels or by chiselling semi-lunar or other grooves into the eyeball to simulate its lustre by means of shadows, yet as a rule sculptors and painters strangely neglect the careful elaboration of the eyeball; and in the Greek works of the best period, including those of Phidias, the eyeball was left smooth and unadorned, the artists relying especially on the careful chiselling of the lids and brows for the attainment of the particular characteristic expression desired.

Nevertheless Dr. Magnus goes too far in denying that ocular lustre can be directly expressive of mental states without the assistance of the movements of the eyebrows and lids. His own observations show that he has overstated his thesis. We can indeed, he says, infer from the appearance of the eyeball, “whether the soul is agitated or calm, but we have to rely on the facial muscles to specify the emotion. This is the reason why we can never judge the sentiments of one who is masked; for the fire in his eye can only indicate to us his greater or less agitation, but not its special character. That we could only read in the features which the mask conceals. It is for this reason that the orthodox Mahometan makes his women cover up their face with a veil which leaves nothing exposed but the eyes, because these cannot, without the constant play of the facial muscles, indicate the emotional state. The lustre of the corneal mirror therefore indicates to us only the quantity, but never the quality of emotional excitement.”

Herein Dr. Magnus follows the assertion of Lebrun, a contemporary of Louis XIV., that “the eyeball indicates by its fire and its movements in general that the soul is passionately excited, but not in what manner.”

No doubt the Turk attains his object in leaving only the eyes of his women open to view, for thus the passing stranger cannot tell whether her eye flashes Love or anger. But he can tell whether she is agitated or indifferent: and is not that a language too? Do we not call music the “language of emotions,” although it can only indicate the quantity of emotion, and rarely its precise quality—just like the eyes? Therefore Dr. Magnus is wrong in denying to the eyeball the power of emotional expression. Vague emotion is still emotion.

It has already been intimated in what manner emotional excitement increases the eye’s lustre. It causes the blood-vessels in the sockets of the eye to swell, thus increasing the tension of the conjunctiva and the flow of the lachrymal fluid.

Besides quantitative emotion there is another thing which ocular lustre expresses, and that is Health. It is true that consumption, fever, and possibly other diseases may produce a peculiar temporary transparency of complexion and ocular lustre; but, as a rule, a bright eye indicates Health and abundant vitality.

As Health is the first condition of Love, and as the ocular lustre which indicates Health cannot be normally secured without it, women of all times and countries have been addicted to the habit of increasing the eye’s sparkle artificially by applying a thin line of black paint to the edge of the lids. The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Hindoos, Greeks, and Romans followed this custom. But the natural sparkle which comes of Health and Beauty-sleep [i.e. before midnight, with open windows] is a thousand times preferable to such dangerous methods of tampering with the most delicate and most easily injured organ of the body.

Still another way in which the eyeball itself can express emotion is by the varying amount on it of the lachrymal fluid, to which, in my opinion, its lustre is chiefly owing. There is a supreme and thrilling sparkle of the eye which can only come of the heavenly joys of Love; but there is also “a liquid melancholy” of sweet eyes, to use Bulwer’s words. Scott remarks that “Love is loveliest when embalmed in tears;” and Dr. Magnus attests that “especially in the eyes of lovers we often find a slight suspicion of tears.” He traces to this fact a peculiar charm that is to be found in the eyes of Venus, which the Greeks called ὑγρὸν (liquid, swimming, languishing). The sculptors produced this expression by indicating the border between the lower lid and the eyeball but slightly, thus giving the impression as if this border were veiled by a liquid line of tear-fluid.

What enables the lid to keep this fluid line in place is the fact that its edge is lined with minute glands secreting an oily substance. The presence of these glands in the upper lid, where they cannot serve to retain lachrymal fluid, suggests the important inference that the lustre of the eye may be partly due to a thin film of oil spread over the cornea by the up-and-down movements of this lid. Indeed, this may possibly be the chief cause of ocular lustre.

When the lachrymal fluid habitually present in the eye becomes too abundant it ceases to express amorous tenderness, and becomes instead indicative of old age, or, worse still, of intemperance. Alcoholism has a peculiarly demoralising effect on the lower eyelid, which becomes swollen and inflamed. This probably overstimulates the action of the oil glands in the lids, thus accounting for the watery or blear eye, eloquent of vice.

(b) Colour of the Iris.—There is nothing in which popular physiognomy takes so much delight as in pointing out what particular characteristics are indicated by the different colours of eyes. All such distinctions are the purest drivel. We have seen that differences in the colour of eyes are entirely due to the varying amount of the same pigmentary matter present in the iris. Now, what earthly connection could a greater or less quantity of this colouring matter have with our intellectual or moral traits? It is necessary thus to trace facts to their last analysis in order to expose the absurdities of current physiognomy.

Inasmuch as black-eyed southern nations are, on the whole, more impulsive than northern races, it may be said in a vague, general way that a black eye indicates a passionate disposition. But there are countless exceptions to this rule—apathetic black-eyed persons, as well as, conversely, fiery blue-eyed individuals. Nor is this at all strange; for the black colour is not stored up in some mysterious way as a result of a fiery temperament, but is simply accumulated in the iris through Natural Selection, as a protection against glaring sunlight.

Although, therefore, the brilliancy of the eye may vary with its colour, the colour itself does not express emotion, either qualitatively or quantitatively. In reading character no assistance is given us by the fact that eyes are “of unholy blue,” “darkly divine,” “gray as glass,” or “green as leeks.” Shakspere calls Jealousy a “green-eyed monster”; and the green iris has indeed such a bad reputation that blondes in search of a compliment commonly abuse their “green” eyes, to exercise your Gallantry, and give you a chance to defend their “celestial blue” or “divine violet.”

Dr. Magnus suggests that the reason why we dislike decidedly green or yellow eyes is simply because they are of rare occurrence, and therefore appear anomalous; for in animals we do not hesitate to pronounce such eyes beautiful. He also explains ingeniously why it is that we are apt to attribute moral shortcomings to persons whose eyes are of a vague, dubious colour. Such eyes displease our æsthetic sense, and this displeasure we transfer to the moral sense, and thus confound and prejudice our judgment. In the same way our dislike of unusual green eyes disposes us to accuse their owners of irregularities of conduct. Moral: Keep your æsthetic and ethical judgments apart.

Conversely, in the case of snakes, our fear and horror make it difficult for us to appreciate the æsthetic charm of their colours. And all these cases show that the æsthetic sense, if properly understood and specialised, is independent of moral and utilitarian considerations: which knocks the bottom out of the theory of Alison, Jeffrey, and Co.

One more abnormality of colour in the iris must be referred to. It happens not infrequently that the colour of the two eyes is not alike, one being brown, the other blue or gray. In such cases, though each eye may be perfect in itself, we dislike the combination. What is the ground of this æsthetic dislike? Simply the fact that the dissimilarity of the eyes violates one of the fundamental laws of Beauty—the law of Symmetry, which demands that corresponding parts on the two sides of the body should harmonise.

(c) Movements of the Iris.—The jetblack pupil of the eye, as already noted, is not always of the same size. It becomes smaller if an excess of light causes the iris to relax, larger if diminution of light makes the iris contract its fibres. Another way of altering the size of the pupil is by gazing at a distant object, which causes it to enlarge, while gazing at a near object makes it smaller. According to Gratiolet and some other writers, there is still another way in which the pupil is affected, namely, through emotional excitement. Great fear, for instance, enlarges the pupil, according to Gratiolet. Dr. Magnus, however, remarks that, apart from the fact that some observers have denied that the pupil is affected by emotions, the alterations in its size are as a rule too insignificant to be noted by any but a trained observer; so that they could not play any important physiognomic rôle.

Yet a large pupil is everywhere esteemed a great beauty, and is often credited with a special power of amorous expression. “Widened pupils,” says Kollmann, “give the eye a tender aspect; they seem to increase its depth, and fascinate the spectator by the strangeness this imparts to the gaze. Oriental women put atropine into their eyes, which enlarges the pupil. They do this in order to give their eyes the soulful expression which they believe is imparted by large pupils, distinctly foreshadowing the joys of love.”

Whether emotionally expressive or not, so much is certain that large pupils are more beautiful than small ones, for the same reason that large eyes are more beautiful than small ones, i.e. because we cannot have too much of a thing of Beauty.

Finally, there is this to be said regarding the lustre, colour, and size of pupil and iris, that they emphasise the language of the eye. If we play a love-song on the piano, we may admire it; but if it is sung or played on the violoncello, it makes a doubly deep impression; and why? Because the superior sensuous beauty of the voice, or the amorous tone-colour of the ’cello, paints and gilds the bare fabric of the song. A small dull-coloured eye, similarly, may speak quite as definite a language of command or entreaty, pride or humility, as any other; but the flashing large pupil and the lustrous deep-dyed iris intensify the emotional impressiveness of this language a hundredfold, by adding the incalculable power of sensuous Beauty. Thus lustre and colour are for the visible music of the spheres what orchestration is to audible music.

(d) Movements of the Eyeball.—The socket of the eye contains (besides the fat-cushion in which the eyeball is imbedded, the blood-vessels, and other tissues) seven muscles; one for raising the upper lid, and six for moving the eyeball itself upwards, downwards, inwards, outwards, or forwards and obliquely. To the action of these muscles the eye owes much of its expressiveness.

It has been noted that elating emotions have a tendency to raise the features, depressing emotions to depress them. The eyeball is no exception. Persons who are elated by their real or apparent superiority to others turn their eyes habitually from the humble things beneath them; hence the muscle which turns the eyeball upwards has long ago received the name of “pride-muscle”; while its antipode, the musculus humilis, is so called because humility and modesty are characterised by a downward gaze.

The muscle which turns the eyeball towards the inner corner, nosewards, is much used by persons who are occupied with near objects. If this convergence of the eyes is too pronounced, it gives one a stupid expression; whereas, if moderate, the expression is one of great intellectual penetration, as Dr. Magnus points out. He believes that the trick, made use of by some portrait-painters, of making the eyes appear to follow you wherever you go depends on this medium degree of convergence of the eyes.

Slight divergence of the eyeballs, on the other hand, is characteristic of children and of great thinkers—an item which Schopenhauer forgot to note when he pointed out that genius always retains certain traits of childhood. “Donders,” says Dr. Magnus, “has always observed this divergent position of the eyes in persons who meditate deeply. And the artists make use of this position of the eyes to give their figures the expression of a soul averted from terrestrial affairs, and fixed on higher spiritual objects. Thus the Sistine Madonna has this divergent position of the eyes, as well as the beautiful boy she carries on her arm.” It is also found in Dürer’s portrait of himself, and in a bust of Marcus Aurelius in the Vatican.

If, however, this divergence becomes too great, it loses its charm, for the eyes then appear to fix no object at all, and the gaze becomes “vacant,” as in the eyes of the blind or the sick. To appreciate the force of these remarks it must be borne in mind that there is only one part of the retina, called the “yellow spot,” with which we can distinctly fix an object. What we see with other parts of the retina is indistinct, blurred.

These details are here given because many will be glad to know that by daily exercising the muscles of the eyeballs before the mirror, they can greatly alter and improve their looks. Every day one hears the remark, “She has beautiful eyes, but she does not know how to use them.” When we read of a great thinker, like Kant, fixing his gaze immovably on a tree for an hour, we think it quite natural; nor does any one object to “the poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,” for we all know that a poet is merely an inspired madman. But a young lady who wishes to charm by her Beauty must learn to fix her wandering eyes calmly on others, while avoiding a stony stare. One of the greatest charms of American girls is their frank, steady gaze, free from any tinge of unfeminine boldness. Such a charming natural gaze can only be acquired in a country where girls are taught to look upon men as gentlemen, and not as wolves, against whom they must be guarded by dragons.

Eye-gymnastics are as important to Beauty as lung-gymnastics to Health, and dancing-lessons to Grace. But of course there is a certain number of fortunate girls who can dispense with such exercises, because they gradually learn the proper use of their eyes, as well as general graceful movements, from the example of a refined mother.

Goldsmith’s pretty line about “the bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love,” is not a mere poetic conceit, but a scientific aperçu; for, as Professor Kollmann remarks, “the external straight muscle of the eye was also called the lover’s muscle, musculus amatorius, because the furtive side-glance is aimed at a beloved person.”

Nor is this the only way in which the movements of the eyeball are concerned with Romantic Love. By constantly exercising certain muscles of the eyeball in preference to others, the eyes gradually assume, when at rest, a fixed and peculiar gaze which distinguishes them from all other eyes. It is comparatively easy to find two pairs of eyes of the same colour or form, but two with the same gaze, i.e. characteristic position of the eyeballs, never. Hence Dr. Magnus boldly generalises Herder’s statement that “Every great man has a look which no one but he can give with his eyes,” into the maxim that “Every individual has a look which no one else can make with his eyes.”

Bungling photographers commonly spoil their pictures by compelling their victims to fix their eyes in an unwonted position. The result is a picture which bears some general resemblance to the victim, but in which the characteristic individual expression is wanting.

Our habit of masking our eyes alone when we wish to remain unrecognised, and leaving the lower part of the face exposed, affords another proof of the assertion that the eye is the chief seat of individuality. For though the eyeball itself remains visible, the surrounding parts are covered, so that its characteristic position cannot be determined.

Now we know that Individual Preference is the first and most essential element of Romantic Love. Hence Dante was as correct in calling the eyes “the beginning of Love,” as in terming the lips “the end of Love.” And Shakspere agrees with Dante when he speaks of “Love first learned in a lady’s eyes”; and again: “But for her eye I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes.”

(e) Movements of the Eyelids.—Although the foregoing pages considerably qualify Dr. Magnus’s thesis that the eyeball owes all its life and expressiveness to the movements of the eyelids and brows, yet the physiognomic and æsthetic importance of lids, lashes, and brows can hardly be too much emphasised. A very large proportion of the pleasure we derive from beautiful eyes is due to the constant changes in the apparent size of the eyeball, and the gradations in its lustre, produced by the rapid movements of the upper lid. This is strikingly proved by the fact, noted by Dr. Magnus, “that the eyes of wax figures, be they ever so artistically finished, always give the impression of death and rigidity,” whereas “artificial eyes, such as are often inserted by physicians after the loss of an eye, have, thanks to the constant play of the lids, an appearance so animated and lifelike that it requires the trained eye of a specialist to detect the dead, lifeless glass-eye in this apparently so animated orb.”

A complete emotional scale is symbolised in these movements of the upper eyelids. A medium position indicates rest or indifference. Joyous and other exciting emotions raise them, so that the whole of the lustrous iris becomes visible. Thus we get the eye “sparkling with joy” or the “angry flash of the eye,” as well as Cupid’s darts: “He is already dead; stabbed with a white wench’s black eye.” “Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords.”

But if the lids are raised too high, so that the white above the iris becomes visible, the expression changes to one of affectation, or maniacal wildness, or extreme terror. There are persons, says Magnus, in whom the aperture between the lids is naturally so wide as to reveal the upper white of the eyes; and in consequence we are apt to accuse them of hollow pathos. I have seen not a few beautiful pairs of eyes marred by the habitual tendency to raise the lids too much—a fault that can be readily overcome by deliberate effort and practice before the mirror.

On the other hand, if the aperture between the lids is too small, that is, if the lids are naturally (or only transiently) lowered too much, we get an apathetic, drowsy expression. The Chinese eye displeases us not only by its oblique set, and the narrowness of the lid, but also because the natural smallness of the eyeball is exaggerated by the narrow palpebral aperture. The negro appears more wide awake to us, because in his eyes this aperture is wider—so wide, in fact, that he is apt to displease us by showing too much of the white sclerotic.

A very drooping eyelid being expressive of fatigue, physical or mental, blasé persons affect it in order to indicate their nil admirari attitude. But there is another secret reason why they drop their eyelids. If we lower the head and open our eyes widely, they retire within their sockets and appear hollow, suggesting dissipation or disease; whereas, if we raise the head, throwing it slightly backwards, and lowering the eyelids, we obliterate this hollow, and give the impression of languid indifference. This, rather than the “raising of the eyebrows,” is what constitutes the “supercilious” expression.

It cannot be said that a supercilious appearance is specially attractive, yet the obliteration of the eyes’ hollowness is an advantage; and it may be added that, since perfect health is not a superabundant phenomenon, the same reasoning explains why many faces are so much more fascinating in a reclining or semi-reclining position than when upright. Fashion, of course, being the handmaid of ugliness, does not object to hollow eyes encircled by blue rings, but even cultivates them. Yet in her heart of hearts every fashionable woman knows that nothing so surely kills masculine admiration—not to speak of Love—as sunken eyes with blue rings.

A slight drooping of the eyelids, on the other hand, gives a pleasing expression of amorous languor. The lid, with its lashes, in this case, coyly veils the lustre of the eye, without extinguishing it. Hence, in the words of Dr. Magnus, the sculptors of antiquity made use of this slight lowering of the lid to express sensuous love; and accordingly it was customary to chisel the eyes of Venus with drooping lids and a small aperture.

In their task of moderating and varying the lustre of the eyeball, the lids are greatly assisted by the lashes. An eye with missing or too short lashes is apt to appear too fiery, glaring, or “stinging.” Long dark eyelashes are of all the means of flirtation the most irresistible. Note yonder artful maiden. How modestly and coyly she droops her eyes, till suddenly the fringed curtain is raised and a glorious symphony of colour and lustre is flashed on her poor companion’s dazed vision! No wonder he staggers and falls in love at first sight.

“White lashes and eyebrows are so disagreeably suggestive,” we read in the Ugly Girl Papers, “that one cannot blame their possessor for disguising them by a harmless device. A decoction of walnut juice should be made in season, and kept in a bottle for use the year round. It is to be applied with a small hair-pencil to the brows and lashes, turning them to a rich brown, which harmonises with fair hair.” Another recipe given, by a good authority, is as follows: “Take frankincense, resin, pitch, of each one half ounce; gum mastic, quarter of an ounce; mix and drop on red-hot charcoals. Receive the fumes in a large funnel, and a black powder will adhere to its sides. Mix this with fresh juice of alderberries (or Cologne water will do), and apply with a fine camel-hair brush.”

Those who wish to make their lashes longer and more regular may find the following suggestions, by Drs. Brinton and Napheys, of use: “The eyelashes should be examined one by one, and any which are split, or crooked, or feeble, should be trimmed with a pair of sharp scissors. The base of the lashes should be anointed nightly with a minute quantity of oil of cajuput on the top of a camel-hair brush, and the examination and trimming repeated every month. If this is sedulously carried out for a few months the result will be gratifying.”

All such operations should be performed by another person, for the eye is a most delicate organ. Yet, not even this organ has been spared by deforming Fashion. The fact that some Africans colour their eyelids black may have a utilitarian rather than a cosmetic reason. But what shall we say to the Africans who eradicate their eyebrows, and the Paraguayans, who remove their eyelashes because they “do not wish to be like horses?”

Twin sisters ever are Fashion and Idiocy.

(f) Movements of the Eyebrows.—Herder called the arched eyebrow the rainbow of peace, because if it is straightened by a frown it portends a storm. In plain prose, the eyebrow partakes of the general upward movement from joyous excitement, and the downward movement in grief. If the eyebrows are too bushy, they overshadow the eye and produce a gloomy or even ferocious appearance. The Chinese, possibly from an instinctive perception that their eyes are not too large or bright, shave their eyebrows, leaving only a narrow fringe. Dr. Broca also notes that the eyebrow adds to the oblique appearance of the Chinese eye through a particular movement, the two internal thirds of the eyebrows being lower, and the external third higher than with us.

Though not, perhaps, directly concerned in the expression of Love, the eyebrow is not to be under-rated. No detail of Beauty escapes Cupid’s eyes; for do we not read of “the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’s eyebrows”?

COSMETIC HINTS

As modern lovers disapprove of eyebrows meeting over the nose, superfluous hairs should be removed. Coarse irregular hairs in any part of the eyebrow should be pulled out or kept in position by a fixateur. “It is not well to trim the eyebrow generally, as it makes it coarse.... When it is desired to thicken or strengthen them, two or three drops of oil of cajuput may be gently rubbed into the skin every other night; but here, and always when wiping them, the rubbing should be in the direction of the hair, from the nose outward, and never in the reverse direction.” Among harmless dyes, pencils of dark pomatum or walnut-bark, steeped in Cologne for a week, are recommended; or, for a transient effect, a needle smoked over the flame of a candle may be used.

Regarding the general hygienic care of the eye, the following rules should be borne in mind. Never read or work in a too weak or too glaring light, or when lying down, or with the book too near the eye. Rest the muscles occasionally by looking at a distant object. Bathe the eyes every morning in cold water, keeping them closed. For disorders, consult a physician immediately; a day’s delay may be fatal to ocular beauty. For ordinary inflammation, an external application of witch-hazel extract, mixed with a few drops of Cologne, is very soothing. Never sleep with your eyes facing the window. Ninety-nine persons in a hundred do so; hence the large number of weak, lustreless eyes, early disturbances of slumber, and morning headaches. Large numbers of tourists in Switzerland constantly suffer from headaches, and lose all the benefits of their vacation, simply because they fail to have their head at night in the centre of the room, where it ought to be, because the air circulates there more freely than near the wall.

THE HAIR

CAUSE OF MAN’S NUDITY

“From the presence of the woolly hair or lanugo on the human fœtus, and of rudimentary hairs scattered over the body during maturity,” Darwin inferred that “man is descended from some animal which was born hairy and remained so during life.” He believed that “the loss of hair is an inconvenience and probably an injury to man, even in a hot climate, for he is thus exposed to the scorching in the sun, and to sudden chills, especially during wet weather. As Mr. Wallace remarks, the natives in all countries are glad to protect their naked backs and shoulders with some slight covering. No one supposes that the nakedness of the skin is any direct advantage to man; his body, therefore, cannot have been divested of hair through Natural Selection.” Accordingly, he concludes that man lost his hairy covering through Sexual Selection, for ornamental purposes.

But if it can be shown that the nakedness of his skin is in some way of advantage to man, this argument falls to the ground. There are sufficient reasons, I think, for believing that Natural Selection aided Sexual Selection in divesting man of his hairy coat.

With his usual candour Darwin noticed the evidence which seemed to tell against his view. Mr. Belt, he says, “believes that within the tropics it is an advantage to man to be destitute of hair, as he is thus enabled to free himself of the multitude of ticks (acari) and other parasites with which he is often infested, and which sometimes cause ulceration.” Darwin doubts, however, whether this evil is of sufficient magnitude to have led to the denudation of the body through Natural Selection, “since none of the many quadrupeds inhabiting the tropics have, as far as I know, acquired any specialised means of relief.” But as primitive man’s habits of cleanliness are much inferior to those of animals, this objection loses its force; and it is, moreover, weakened by the testimony of Sir W. Denison that “it is said to be a practice with the Australians, when the vermin get troublesome, to singe themselves.” We also know that the ancient Egyptians shaved off their hair from motives of cleanliness.

However, it is not likely that the superior advantages of cleanliness and freedom from parasites would alone have sufficed to produce so great a change in man as the loss of his hair. It is more probable that the sun was the chief agent in accomplishing this transformation. I fail to see the force of Darwin’s contention that the fact that “the other members of the order of Primates, to which man belongs, although inhabiting various hot regions, are well clothed with hair, generally thickest on the upper surface, is opposed to the supposition that man became naked through the action of the sun.” For these animals commonly live in forests and on trees, where they are protected from the rays of the sun, which is not the case with man.

Furthermore, Darwin himself mentions some circumstances which point to the conclusion that the sun is the cause of man’s nudity. He says, for instance, that “elephants and rhinoceroses are almost hairless; and as certain extinct species which formerly lived under an arctic climate were covered with long wool or hair, it would almost appear as if the existing species of both genera had lost their hairy covering from exposure to heat. This appears the more probable as the elephants in India which live on elevated and cool districts are more hairy than those on the lowlands.”

Bearing in mind what was said in the chapter on the Complexion regarding the negro’s skin, there is no difficulty in understanding why Natural Selection should eliminate the hairy covering of the skin while favouring a dark complexion. Hair not only absorbs the sun’s heat, but retains that of the body; hence a hairy man not living on trees would be very uncomfortable in Africa, and likely to succumb to the enervating effects of high temperature. The negro’s naked skin, on the other hand, is, as we have seen, specially devised as a body-cooler. The black pigment protects the underlying nerves of temperature, while the solar heat absorbed by this pigment is immediately radiated in the form of perspiration. Now we can see not only why the negro’s skin is more velvety, smooth, and hairless than our own, but why its sweat-pores are larger and more numerous than in our skin.

At a later stage of evolution Sexual Selection probably came in to aid in this process of denudation. We may infer this, in the first place, from the analogous case of apes who have denuded and variously-coloured patches on the head and elsewhere, which they use for purposes of display, to attract the notice of the opposite sex; in the second place, from the fact that there are not a few tribes who pluck out their hairs. “The Fuegians threatened a young missionary, who was left for a time with them, to strip him naked, and pluck the hairs from his face and body, yet he was far from being a hairy man;” and “throughout the world the races which are almost completely destitute of a beard, dislike hairs on the face and body, and take pains to eradicate them.” Darwin also notes some facts which, by analogy, seem to make it probable that “the long-continued habit of eradicating the hair may have produced an inherited effect.”

In the case of the white race we cannot rely so much on the action of the sun as accounting for the absence of hair, but must place more especial emphasis on Sexual Selection. We are warranted in doing this by the consideration that Taste for Beauty is more developed in the white race, and therefore has more influence in controlling the choice of a mate. “As the body in woman is less hairy than in man, and as this character is common to all races, we may conclude” with Darwin “that it was our female semi-human ancestors who were first divested of hair,” this character being then transmitted by the mothers to their children of both sexes.

The two universal traits of Beauty which chiefly guided man in the preference of a hairless skin were evidently Smoothness and Colour. One need only compare for a moment the face of a female chimpanzee, its leathery folded skin and straggling hairs, with the smooth and rosy complexion of a European damsel, to understand that, leaving touch out of consideration, sight alone would have sufficed to give the preference to the hairless skin. But since we derive less direct advantage than the tropical races from such a skin, cases of reversion to the hairy type are more common among us than with them, and our bodies in general are more hairy.

BEARDS AND MOUSTACHES

The elimination of hair from those parts of the body where it is less beautiful than a nude skin, is only one of the functions of Sexual Selection. Another equally important function is the preservation and elongation of the hair in a few places for ornamental purposes.

“We know from Eschricht,” says Darwin, “that with mankind the female as well as the male fœtus is furnished with much hair on the face, especially round the mouth; and this indicates that we are descended from progenitors of whom both sexes were bearded. It appears, therefore, at first sight, probable that man has retained his beard from a very early period, whilst woman lost her beard at the same time that her body became almost completely divested of hair.”

A long beard serves, to some extent, to protect the throat, but a moustache serves no such use, and it seems therefore more probable that beards as well as moustaches were developed in man for ornamental purposes, as in many monkeys (see, for some very curious pictures of bearded monkeys, Descent of Man, chap. xviii.) But why should women have lost their beards while men retained theirs? Because of the importance of emphasising the secondary sexual differences between man and woman, on which the degree of amorous infatuation depends. The tendency of evolution, as we have seen, has been to make the sexes more and more different in appearance; and as man chooses his mate chiefly on æsthetic grounds, he habitually gave the preference to smooth-faced women, whereas woman’s choice, being largely based on dynamic grounds, fell on the bearded and moustached men, since a luxurious growth of hair is commonly a sign of physical vigour. Hence the humiliation of the young man who cannot raise a moustache, and the reciprocal horror of the young lady who finds the germs of one on her lip. Both are instinctively afraid of being “boycotted” by Cupid, and for ever debarred from the pleasures of mutual Romantic Love.

Women are quite right in dreading hair in the face as a blemish, for it is not only objectionable as a masculine trait, but also as a characteristic of old age, a hairy face being quite a common attribute of aged females. But with men the case is different. Though women may still be often influenced in their amorous choice by a beard, it is not, as just pointed out, on æsthetic grounds; and it is indeed very dubious if the beard can be accepted as a real personal ornament. True, the ancient Greeks respected a beard as an attribute of maturity and manhood, but their ideal of supreme beauty was nevertheless an unbearded youth: Apollo has neither beard nor moustache. The ancient Egyptians had a horror of the bearded and long-haired Greeks. “No Egyptian of either sex would on any account kiss the lips of a Greek,” and whenever the Egyptians “intended to convey the idea of a man of low condition, or a slovenly person, the artists represented him with a beard” (Wilkinson). Similarly, in the second edition of his Anatomy of Expression (1824), Sir Charles Bell wrote that “When those essays were first written there was not a beard to be seen in England unless joined with squalor and neglect, and I had the conviction that this appendage concealed the finest features. Being in Rome, however, during the procession of the Corpus Domini, I saw that the expression was not injured by the beard, but that it added to the dignity and character of years.”

These two sentences contain the whole philosophy of beards. The expression of character is not injured, but rather increased by a beard; but if it conceals the fine features of youth it is objectionable. There are men whose faces are too wide, and whose appearance is therefore improved by a chin-beard; and there are others whose faces are too narrow, and who consequently look better with side-whiskers. But in a well-shaped youthful masculine face a beard is as great a superfluity, if not a blemish, as in a woman’s face.

Now, since the faces of civilised races are undoubtedly becoming more beautiful as time advances, it is comforting to know that, notwithstanding female selection, the beard is gradually disappearing. Very few men are able to raise a fine beard to-day, even with the artificial stimulus of several years’ daily shaving; and the time, no doubt, is not very distant when men will go to the cosmetic electrician to have their straggling hairbulbs in the chin killed. This may produce an inherited effect on their children; and the always smooth-faced mother, too, cannot but exert some hereditary influence on her sons as well as her daughters. The women, in turn, will inherit some of the superior æsthetic Taste of the men, and begin to see that there is more charm in a smooth than in a bearded face; while there will still be room enough for those sexual differences in facial Beauty which feed the flame of Love.

The following newspaper paragraph, though it may be a mere jeu d’esprit, is amusing and suggestive: “A Frenchman sent a circular to all his friends asking why they cultivated a beard. Among the answers 9 stated, ‘Because I wish to avoid shaving’; 12 ‘Because I do not wish to catch cold’; 5 ‘Because I wish to conceal bad teeth’; ‘Because I wish to conceal the length of my nose’; 6 ‘Because I am a soldier’; 21 ‘Because I was a soldier’; 65 ‘Because my wife likes it’; 28 ‘Because my love likes it’; 15 answered that they wore no beards.”

Moustaches are much more common to-day than beards, and it is barely possible that they may escape æsthetic condemnation, and survive to the millennium. Persons with very short upper lips or flat noses, it is true, only emphasise their shortcomings by wearing a moustache; but in broad faces with prominent noses a well-shaped, not too drooping, moustache is no doubt an ornament, relieving the gravity of the masculine features and adding to their expression. As Bell remarks: “Although the hair of the upper lip does conceal the finer modulations of the mouth, as in woman, it adds to the character of the stronger and harsher emotions.” “I was led to attend more particularly to the moustache as a feature of expression,” he says, “in meeting a handsome young French soldier coming up a long ascent in the Côte d’Or, and breathing hard, although with a good-humoured, innocent expression. His sharp-pointed black moustache rose and fell with a catamount look that set me to think on the cause.”

Young men may find in Bell’s remarks a suggestion as to how they may make the moustache a permanent ornament of the human race. The movements of the moustache are dependent on the muscle called depressor alæ nasi. By specially cultivating this muscle men might in course of time make the movements of the moustaches subject to voluntary control. Just think what a capacity for emotional expression lies in such a simple organ as the dog’s caudal appendage, aptly called the “psychographic tail” by Vischer: and moustaches are double, and therefore equal to two psychographic appendages!

Sexual Selection would not fail to seize on this “new departure” in moustaches immediately in order to emphasise the sexual differences of expression in the face, and thus increase the ardour of romantic passion. A few days ago I came across an attempt in a German paper to explain the meaning of the word Flirtation. The writer derives the word from an old expression meaning to toss or cast about. This he refers to the eyes, and thinks that the proper translation of Flirtation is äugeln, i.e. to “make eyes.” We, of course, know that flirting is a fine art which includes a vast deal besides äugeln; but “making eyes” is certainly one of its tricks. Now, is it not probable that by and by, when young men will have properly trained their depressor alæ nasi, they will look upon the making of eyes as a feminine attribute, and, instead of winking at their sweethearts, express their admiration by some subtle and graceful movement of the moustaches? This would obliterate Darwin’s assertion that Love has no special means of expression.

BALDNESS AND DEPILATORIES

Superficial students of Darwinism are constantly making owlish predictions that ere many generations will have passed bald heads will be the normal aspect of man. But, as we have just seen in the case of beards, it is not utility or Natural Selection so much as Sexual, Æsthetico-Amorous Selection on which the evolution of Personal Beauty depends. If Natural Selection were at work alone we should, indeed, ultimately become bald; for as soon as man begins to cover his head with a cap or hat, he takes away the chief function of the hair on the top of the head, where it serves as a protection against wind and weather. But Sexual Selection now steps in and says that the hair must remain, because without it the head looks decidedly ugly, whatever its shape.

“Eschricht states that in the human fœtus the hair on the face during the fifth month is longer than that on the head; and this indicates that our semi-human progenitors were not furnished with long tresses, which must therefore have been a late acquisition. This is likewise indicated by the extraordinary difference in the length of the hair in the different races: in the negro the hair forms a mere curly mat; with us it is of great length, and with the American natives it not rarely reaches to the ground. Some species of Semnopithecus have their head covered with moderately long hair, and this probably serves as an ornament, and was acquired through sexual selection. The same view may perhaps be extended to mankind, for we know that long tresses are now and were formerly much admired, as may be observed in the works of almost every poet; St. Paul says, ‘If a woman have long hair it is a glory to her;’ and we have seen that in North America a chief was elected solely from the length of his hair” (Darwin).

Inasmuch as Sexual Selection or Love is impeded in its action not only by pecuniary and social considerations, but by the fact that it cannot be guided by any particular feature alone, its action is slow and sometimes uncertain. Hence the increase of bald heads. It is therefore necessary to supplement the beautifying results of Sexual Selection by means of hygienic precautions, such as avoiding air-tight, warm, high hats, badly ventilated rooms, intemperate habits, and other causes of baldness. Hereditary baldness is difficult to arrest in its course; but even in such cases much may be accomplished by beginning in childhood to take proper care of the hair. Most persons—especially men—seem to imagine that combs and brushes are made solely for the purpose of arranging the hair in some approved fashion; whereas, if properly used, a brush adds as much to the sensuous beauty of the hair as to its formal appearance. To remove all the dust from the hair, and give it gloss and healthy colour, about fifty daily strokes, or more even, are recommended. Avoid irritating the scalp with fine combs or hard bristles, and wash it once or twice a week with a weak solution of ammonia or borax. Hair that is properly brushed is always glossy with its natural oil, and needs no vulgar ointment, offensive to the smell and suggestive of uncleanliness. If with these hygienic precautions the hair refuses to become beautiful, it is time to get medical advice; for the dull colour and dryness of the hair which lead to baldness are often due to constitutional disease.

Powdering the hair is fortunately no longer in vogue as it was formerly. It is a most unæsthetic habit, not only because white or gray hair is naturally suggestive of old age, grief, and decrepitude, but because the flour forms with the perspiration and with the oil of the hair a nasty compound. William Pitt “estimated, in 1795, that the amount of flour annually consumed for this purpose in the United Kingdom represented the enormous and incredible value of six million dollars.”

It is estimated that the average number of hairs on the head is 120,000. This allows one to look with considerable indifference on the loss of a few hundred, all the more as in ordinary cases, even after illness, every hair lost is replaced by another. But when the papilla at the base of the hair cavity is destroyed, then baldness is inevitable. It follows from this that the only certain way of removing hair permanently from places where it is not desired is to destroy this papilla. “Plucking hair out by the root” does not destroy it. “If they are pulled out with the tweezers there is a still greater stimulus given,” says Dr. Bulkley (The Skin in Health and Disease), “and the hairs return yet more coarse and obtrusive.” The various Oriental and Occidental pastes for removing the hair have no more permanent effect than shaving. “Superfluous hairs can be removed either by the introduction of an irregularly-shaped needle into the follicle (after the extraction of the hair), which is then twisted so as to break up the papilla and produce a little inflammation, which closes the follicle; or a needle can be inserted, and a current from a battery be turned on, when the follicle is destroyed by what is known as electrolysis. These procedures could be done only by a physician.”

Concerning electrolysis Dr. S. E. Woody says in the American Practitioner and News that the number of hairs to return and demand a second removal will decrease with the skill of the operator and the thoroughness of the operation. He usually expects the return of about 5 per cent, but when these are in turn removed the cure is complete. “You should have the patient come only on bright days, for good light is necessary.”

ÆSTHETIC VALUE OF HAIR

If not the most beautiful part of the head, hair certainly is the most beautifying. To improve the shape of mouth, nose, chin, or eyes requires time and patience, but the arrangement of the hair can be altered in a minute, not only to its own advantage, but so as to enhance the beauty of the whole face. By clever manipulation of her long tresses, a woman can alter her appearance almost as completely as a man can by shaving off his long beard or moustache.

But, alas! If the prevalence of the bustle and wasp-waist allowed any doubt to remain as to the woful rarity of æsthetic taste among women, it would be found in the arrangement of the hair and the kind of head-dresses they commonly adopt at the behest of Fashion. “Because women as a rule do not know what beauty means,” says Mrs. Haweis (The Art of Beauty), “therefore they catch at whatever presents itself as a novelty.... They do not pause to consider whether the old fashion became them better—whether the new one reveals more clearly the slight shrinking of the jaw, or spoils the pretty colour still blooming in the cheek.”

The latest head-dress foisted on the feminine world by Parisian Fashion shows most strikingly how Fashion is the Handmaid of Vulgarity as well as of Ugliness. Heaven knows, the high silk hats worn by men are bad enough, on hygienic as well as æsthetic grounds. They promote baldness and destroy all the artistic proportions of stature, making the head look by one half too high. But silk hats are a harmless trifle compared with the shapeless straw-towers, ornamented with bird-corpses, that have been worn of late by almost all women in countries which slavishly follow Parisian example. And there is this great difference between man’s silk hat and woman’s bird-sarcophagus—the former only results in ugliness, the second is also evidence of heartlessness, and leads to vulgarity. For what is it but vulgarity if women continue to go to the theatre for two winters with hats which make it quite impossible for those sitting behind them to see the scenery and enjoy the play—and all this in spite of innumerable sarcastic and angry protests in the journals? Is not the first rule of etiquette and good manners regard for the feelings and pleasures of others?

What would women say to a man who kept on his tall hat in a theatre until the ushers threw him out? Would they not all pronounce him either intoxicated or ineffably vulgar? Would not Schopenhauer, if he could go to an American theatre to-day, be justified in saying that women are not only the “unæsthetic sex,” but also the “ill-bred sex”? And can the women who are so devoid of courtesy towards the men wonder that masculine gallantry towards women on street-cars and elsewhere seems to be on the wane?

Although there are no two heads in which the most pleasing effect is secured by precisely the same arrangement of the hair and the same style of hat, it may be laid down as a universal rule that a very high hat or arrangement of the hair is becoming to no one, for the reason above indicated. Let it be observed, says Mr. Buskin, “that in spite of all custom, an Englishman instantly acknowledges, and at first sight, the superiority of the turban to the hat.” “Guido,” says Mrs. Haweis, “probably felt the peculiar charm of the turban when he placed one upon the quiet melancholy head of Beatrice Cenci.” For full and bright young faces the Tam o’ Shanter is the loveliest of all head-dresses. But this subject is too large to be discussed in a paragraph. In Mrs. Haweis’s Art of Beauty may be found some elegant illustrations of head-dresses placed near fashionable monstrosities; and young ladies would do well to devote an hour a day for a year or two to the study of some history of costume. Nothing awakens the sense of Beauty so rapidly as good models and comparisons.

Concerning the arrangement of the hair two more points may be noted. Is it not about time to do away with the venerable absurdity of parting the hair? If entire baldness is voted ugly, why should partial baldness be courted? The hair should be allowed to remain in its natural direction of growth. It does not part itself naturally, nor again—and this is a much more important point—does it grow backward from the forehead. The Chinese coiffure disfigures every woman who adopts it; and the habit of combing back the hair tightly from the forehead, moreover, often causes neuralgic headache, the cause of which is unsuspected; not to speak of the fact that such a coiffure raises the eyebrows, and thus gives a fixed expression of amazed stupefaction. The hair naturally falls over the forehead, and fringes it as beautifully as a grove does a lake.

The ancient Greek notions on this subject are worthy of attentive consideration. “Women who had a high forehead placed a band over it, with the design of making it thereby seem lower,” says Winckelmann. Not only in women but in mature men the hair was so arranged as to cover up “the receding bare corners over the temples, which usually enlarge as life advances beyond that age when the forehead is naturally high.” The modern fringe or “bang” is, however, an improvement even on the Greek curve of the hair over the temples. It improves the appearance of all women except those whose forehead is very low naturally; but in all cases exaggeration must be avoided.

A writer in the London Evening Standard thinks it is strange that the English, “who have the poorest hair in Europe, make the least attempt to show what they have,” and that it has now “come to such a pass that a maiden of twenty thinks it almost indecent to wear her hair loose.” He traces this to the tyranny of Fashion—the ugly majority having compelled the beautiful minority to conceal their charms. But we may be sure that ere long Beauty will revolt against Fashion. It will be another French revolution, practically,—an emphatic protest against Parisian dictation and vulgarity.

BRUNETTE AND BLONDE

“In the old time black was not counted fair, Or if it were it bore not beauty’s name; But now is black beauty’s successive heir.”—SHAKSPERE.

BLONDE VERSUS BRUNETTE

Becker tells us that among the ancient Greeks “black was probably the prevailing colour of the hair, though blond is frequently mentioned”; and he adds that both men and women used dyes, and “the blond or yellow hair was much admired.” Mr. Gladstone, in his work on Homer, remarks that “dark hair is a note of the foreigner and of Southern extraction.... I have been assured that, in the Greece of to-day, light hair is still held as indicating the purest Hellenic blood.” According to Winckelmann, “Homer does not even once mention hair of a black colour”; and again: "Flaxen, ξανθὴ hair has always been considered the most beautiful; and hair of this colour has been attributed to the most beautiful of the gods, as Apollo and Bacchus, not less than to the heroes; even Alexander had flaxen hair."

That the Romans agreed with the Greeks in giving the preference to light hair seems probable from the extensive importations of yellow German hair for the Roman ladies, as also from the fact that “Lucretius, when speaking of the false flatteries addressed to women, quotes one in illustration, namely, that a maiden with black hair is μελίχροος (honey-coloured)—thus ascribing to her a beauty which she does not possess.”

When the fair-haired Teuton overran the South a new motive for preferring blond hair arose, as a writer in the London Standard remarks: “Whatever the feeling of the men, we may be sure that the dark beauties of those climes felt a natural inclination to resemble the wives and daughters of the conqueror, and when we perceive their likenesses again, at the revival of art in Italy, not a black tress is to be seen. Is there a single Madonna not blond?—or ten portraits of women by the great masters? In all the gallery of Titian, we think only of a figure, naked to the waist, in the Uffizi, described as one of his mistresses.... But we know that the blond tint was artificial in a majority of cases—the deep black of eye and brow would show it if no evidence were forthcoming. But evidence turns up at every side ... a hundred recipes are found in memoirs, correspondence, and treatises of the time.”

Hear another witness: “Southern Europe,” says Mr. R. G. White, “is peopled with dark-skinned, dark-haired races, and the superior beauty of the blond type was recognised by the painters, who always, from the earliest days, represented angels as of that type. The Devil was painted black so much as a matter of course that his pictured appearance gave rise to a well-known proverb; ordinary mortals were represented as more or less dark; celestial people were white and golden-haired: whence the epithet ‘divinely fair.’”

And the poets were quite as partial as the artists to the light type. Petrarch’s sonnets are addressed to a blue-eyed Laura. Krimhild of the Nibelungenlied is blue-eyed, like Fricka, the Northern Juno, and Ingeborg of the Frithjof’s Saga, and the Danish princess Iolanthe, as Dr. Magnus points out; and in the French folk-songs “the girls are almost as invariably blond as in the songs of Heine,” as a writer in the Saturday Review (1878) remarks, adding that “there is even such an expression as aller en blonde, ‘to go a-wooing,’ which proves the universality of the belief in fair beauties.”

Concerning England, a writer in the Quarterly Review declares that Shakspere mentions black hair only twice throughout his plays; and that in the National Gallery of that date (1853) there was not a single female head with black hair.

BRUNETTE VERSUS BLONDE

Thus we have evidence showing that during the epoch preceding the general prevalence of Romantic Love, the blond type was considered the ideal of beauty throughout Europe—in Greece and Italy as well as in Germany, Scandinavia, France, and England. And where the hair was not naturally blond, artificial means were used to make it so.

But as soon as Love appears on the scene and sharpens the æsthetic sense, we find a reaction in favour of brunettes. There can be no doubt of this, for it is attested not only by personal opinions and observations, but by accurate statistics. The Quarterly Review just referred to believed that blondes were gradually decreasing in England, and the Saturday Review asserts that “some years ago Mr. Gladstone, whom nothing escapes, declared that light-haired people were far less numerous than in his youth. Many middle-aged persons will probably agree with him.” “The time was,” the writer adds, “when the black-haired, black-eyed girl of fiction was as dark of soul as of tresses, while the blue-eyed maiden’s character was of ‘heaven’s own colour.’ Thackeray damaged this tradition by invariably making his dark heroines nice, his fair heroines treacherous sirens.” Byron, we may add, also showed a passionate preference for brunettes; and does not another great love-poet, Moore, speak of “eyes of unholy blue”?

Speaking of the Germans, the anthropologist Waitz remarks that “the blond and red hair, the blue eyes and light complexion, which most of them had at the period of the Roman wars, have not disappeared, it is true, but certainly diminished greatly in frequency. In Jarrold we find the analogous statement that as late as the time of Henry VIII. red hair predominated in England, and that at the beginning of the fifteenth century gray eyes were more common, dark eyes and dark hair less common, than now.” As this change is correlated in both these countries with a gradual refinement of the features, does it not indicate that modern æsthetico-amorous selection favours the brunette type?

Waitz’s assertion regarding the gradual decrease in the number of blondes in Germany is strikingly confirmed by the results of a series of statistical investigations undertaken under the supervision of Professor Virchow. Almost eleven million school children were examined in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium, and the results showed that Switzerland has only 11·10, Austria 19·79, and Germany 31·80 per cent of pure blondes. Thus the very country which, since the days of ancient Rome has been proverbially known as the home of yellow hair and blue eyes, has to-day only 32 pure blondes in a hundred; while the average of pure brunettes is already 14·05 per cent (and in some regions as high as 25 per cent). The 53·15 per cent of the mixed type are evidently being slowly transformed into pure brunettes, thanks to intermarriages with the neighbours who are of the dark variety east and west, as well as south of Germany.

In England Dr. Beddoe has collected a number of statistics which also bear out the theory that brunettes are gaining on blondes. Among 726 women examined he found 369 brunettes and 357 blondes. Of the brunettes he found that 78·5 per cent were married, while of the blondes only 68 per cent were married. Thus it would seem that a brunette has ten chances of getting married in England to a blonde’s nine. Hence Dr. Beddoe reasons that the English are becoming darker because the men persist in selecting the darker-haired women as wives.

In France a similar view has been put forth by M. Adolphe de Candolle in the Archives des Sciences. He found that when both parents have eyes of the same colour 88·4 per cent inherit this colour. "But the curious fact comes out that more females than males have black or brown eyes, in the proportion, say, of 49 to 45 or of 41 to 39. Next, it appears that with different coloured eyes in the two parents, 53·09 per cent of the progeny followed the fathers in being dark-eyed, and 55·09 per cent followed their mothers in being dark-eyed. An increase of 5 per cent of dark-eyed in each generation of discolorous unions must tell heavily in the course of time. It would seem," adds Science, to which I owe this summary of De Candolle’s views, “that, unless specially bred by concolorous marriages, blue-eyed belles will be scarce in the millennium.”

WHY CUPID FAVOURS BRUNETTES

How are we to account for this undeniable change in favour of brunettes? Is it merely a matter of Taste and Fashion? Are we simply going through a period of brunette-worship which in turn will be followed by a century or two of blonde-worship, and so on ad infinitum? or are there reasons for believing that Cupid will abide by his present decision, and continue to eliminate blondes? There are several such reasons, which may best be discussed separately, under the heads of Complexion, Hair, and Eyes.

(1) Complexion.—The dark skin is more soft and velvety than the light skin, and therefore more agreeable to the touch; hence, as Winckelmann remarks, “he who prefers dark to fair beauty is not on that account to be censured; indeed, one might approve his choice, if he is attracted less by sight than by the touch.” But the eye, too, is likely to be more pleased by a brunette than a pure blond complexion. In the dark skin the pigmentary matter tones down the too vivid red of the translucent blood, wherefore the brunette complexion appears more mellow and delicate in its tints than the Scandinavian blonde, in which a blush suggests a hectic flush, and its normal whiteness the pallor of ill-health or a lack of invigorating and beautifying sunshine.

The brunette complexion, in a word, suggests to the mind the idea of stored-up sunshine, i.e. Health; and as Health is what primarily attracts Cupid, this, combined with his taste for delicate tints and veiled blushes, partly accounts for his preference of the dark type. Youthful freshness is another bait which tempts Cupid; and it is well known that the dark complexion does not, as a rule, fade so soon as the blond.

That the brownish skin is commonly healthier than the white is also shown by its being less subject to the irregularity in the secretion of pigmentary matter which causes freckles. These blemishes, like smallpox marks, are much rarer among the dark than among blond races and individuals.

The skin of blondes who are exposed to a hot sun and raw weather becomes red, inflamed, and decidedly unbeautiful, while a brunette’s complexion only becomes a shade darker, and possibly all the more attractive. This suggests another reason why the brunettes have an advantage over blondes in the country, where love-making is chiefly carried on in summer. Yet it will not do for the blondes to avoid the sunshine on this account, for that will make them anæmic and prematurely old.

There is a class of extreme blondes to whom sunlight is not only irritating, but positively painful. They are called albinos, because there is no brown pigment whatever in any part of their body—skin, hair, or iris. The Dutch call them Kakerlaken or cockroaches, because, like these animals, they avoid the light. Such anomalous individuals occur also among animals; and Darwin has noted regarding birds that albinos do not pair, apparently because they are rejected by their normally-coloured comrades. This fact has a remote bearing on our argument, for blondes are intermediate between albinos and brunettes.

It would appear, indeed, as if not only the complexion but the general constitution of the dark type were superior to that of the blond type. In the chapter on the Complexion it was stated that a dark hue is regarded in Australia and elsewhere as evidence of superior strength. The ancient Greeks, Winckelmann tells us, although they called the young with fair complexions “children of the gods,” looked upon a brown complexion in boys as an indication of courage. Professor Topinard states that “the fair races are especially adapted to temperate and cool regions, and the South is looked upon as almost forbidden ground. The brown races, on the contrary, have a remarkable power of becoming acclimatised.” Several writers have even endeavoured to account for the gradual increase in the proportion of brunettes by connecting it with the modern tendency towards centralisation of the population in large cities, where the blondes, being unable to resist their unsanitary surroundings, are eliminated, while the more vigorous and fertile brunettes survive and multiply.

One reason why tourists are more impressed by the prevalence of beauty in southern than in northern regions, is because the working classes are more beautiful in the South than in the North; and the working classes, of course, constitute the vast majority of the population everywhere. “In northern countries,” says Mr. Lecky, “the prevailing cast of beauty depends rather on colour than on form. It consists chiefly of a freshness and delicacy of complexion which severe labour and constant exposure necessarily destroy, and which is therefore rarely found in the highest perfection among the very poor. But the southern type is essentially democratic. The fierce rays of the sun only mellow and mature its charms. Its most perfect examples may be found in the hovel as in the palace, and the effects of this diffusion of beauty may be traced both in the manners and the morals of the people.”

Another advantage to the study and development of Personal Beauty lies in the fact, noted by Ruskin, “that in climates where the body can be more openly and frequently visited by sun and weather, the nude both comes to be regarded in a way more grand and pure, as not of necessity awakening ideas of base kind (as pre-eminently with the Greeks), and also from that exposure receives a firmness and sunny elasticity very different from the silky softness of the clothed nations of the North.”

(2) Hair.—"That noble beauty," says Winckelmann, “which consists not merely in a soft skin, a brilliant complexion, wanton or languishing eyes, but in the shape or form, is found more frequently in countries which enjoy a uniform mildness of climate.” “This difference shows itself even in the hair of the head and of the beard, and both in warm climates have a more beautiful growth even from childhood, so that the greater number of children in Italy are born with fine curling hair, which loses none of its beauty with increasing years. All the beards, also, are curly, ample, and finely shaped; whereas those of the pilgrims who come to Rome from the other side of the Alps are generally, like the hair of their heads, stiff, bristly, straight, and pointed.”

Nevertheless, the hair is the blonde’s one feature in which, so far as the head itself is concerned, she may dispute the supremacy with the brunette. Light hair is finer than dark hair, and there is more of it to the square inch; and as for the colour, who will say that a girl with “golden locks which make such wanton gambols” is inferior in beauty to one who is “robed in the long night of her deep hair”?

But if the positive tests of Beauty—Colour, Lustre, Smoothness, Delicacy, etc.—do not permit us to give the preference to dark hair, it is otherwise when we come to the negative tests. A fine head of blond hair may be as beautiful as a head of brown hair, but it is not so apt to be beautiful; it has a tendency to become “stiff, bristly, straight, and pointed.” There are various reasons for believing that light hair as a rule is not so healthy, not so well-nourished, as dark hair. Every reader must have noticed among his friends that the blondes are much more likely than the brunettes to complain of dry and refractory hairs, and difficulty in keeping them in shape.

“The end of long hair is usually lighter in colour than its beginning,” as Professor Kollmann remarks: “at a distance from the skin the hairs lose their natural oil as well as the nourishing sap which comes from their roots.” This implies that the colour of the hair becomes darker with increasing vigour and vitality. We have seen that the same is true of the colour of animals in general, the healthiest being the most vividly coloured, and the males commonly darker than the less vigorous females; and as for plants, who has not noticed how easy it is to trace the course of an invisible brooklet in a meadow, not only by the greater luxuriance, but the much darker colour of the grass which lines its banks?

Once more, we know that old age, great sorrow, terror, headaches, or insanity, diminish the pigmentary matter in the hair and make it lighter—gray or white; and that by frequently brushing blond hair we not only make it more glossy and shapely, but at the same time darker.

Red hair is probably an abnormal variety of blond hair, since it does not occur among the darker races. It is disliked not only because it is so often associated with freckles, but because it is commonly dry, coarse, and bristly. The Brahmins were forbidden to marry a red-haired woman; and the populace of most countries, confounding moral with æsthetic impressions, accuses red-haired people of various shortcomings. “Sandy hair, when well brushed and kept glossy with the natural oil of the scalp, changes to a warm golden tinge. I have seen,” says the author of the Ugly Girl Papers, “a most obnoxious head of colour so changed by a few years’ care that it became the admiration of the owner’s friends, and could hardly be recognised as the withered, fiery locks once worn.”

An American newspaper paragraph, for the truthfulness of which I cannot vouch, recently stated that twenty-one men in Cincinnati, who had married red-haired women, were found to be colour-blind. A person who is colour-blind mistakes red for black.

(3) Eyes.—But it is when we leave the scalp that the superiority of dark over light hair becomes most manifest. That black eyelashes and eyebrows are infinitely more beautiful than light-coloured ones, is admitted without a dissentient voice; and it is needless to add that brunettes, whether gray or black-eyed, are almost certain to have dark eyelashes, while blondes are almost certain not to have them. Hence the painting of light eyelashes has been a common artifice among all nations and at all times; and Mrs. Haweis goes so far as to sanction the use of nasty gray hair powder because it “makes the eyebrows and eyelashes appear much darker than they really are.” I have, however, seen black eyelashes on several young ladies who could hardly be classed as brunettes, and who assured me on their conscience that they had not dyed them. Can it be possible that Sexual Selection (i.e. the æsthetic overtone in Romantic Love) is endeavouring to evolve a type of Beauty in which golden locks will be allowed to remain, while the eyelashes will be changed to black? The only objection to this surmise is that the hair in other parts of the face (chin and upper lip), though rarely of the same colour as that on the scalp, is almost always lighter in hue. But, whether or not Love can accomplish the miracle of making black lashes universal, the fact remains that they are in all cases a thousand times more charming than yellow or red lashes, and also more apt to be long and delicately curved, coyly veiling the mysterious lustre and fire of the iris.

Concerning the iris, in turn, it cannot be denied that it is most beautiful when black (dark brown), or so deeply blue or violet as to be easily taken for black. This superiority of the dark hue is due partly to the fact that a brown eye is commonly more lustrous than a light eye, and partly to the law of contrast; for a light-coloured iris obviously does not present such a vivid contrast to the white of the eye as a brown iris, and is therefore apt to seem vague, watery, and superficial in expression. The light blue or gray eye appears shallow. All its beauty seems to be on the surface, whereas the “soul-deep eyes of darkest night” appear unfathomable through their bewitching glamour.

What is the etymology of the word bella donna? Was it given to the plant on account of the beauty of its cherry-like berries? or was it not rather chosen by some poet who noted the wondrous effect of these poisonous berries in changing all eyes into black eyes by enlarging the pupils, thus making every donna a bella donna, or “beautiful lady”? Great, indeed, must be the fascination of a large pupil, since so many women have braved the danger to health, and the certainty of impairment of vision, which follow the use of this poison as a cosmetic.

It was noted in an earlier part of this volume that young men are led to propose chiefly in the evening, because the twilight enlarges the pupil, thus not only beautifying her eyes, but enabling him to see his own divine image reflected in them, proving his Monopoly of her soul. A brunette’s dark eyes on such an occasion appear to be all pupil: how, then, can you wonder that brunettes are gaining on blondes?

However, let not the blondes despair. As they become scarcer they will for that very reason be valued the more as curiosities, and the last of them, should she fail to find a husband, will be able to command a handsome salary in a museum or as a comic opera singer.

Moreover, there is no reason why physiologists should not ere long discover the secret of changing the tint of the skin, hair, and iris to suit one’s taste. All children are born with light eyes, but a great many exchange them for dark eyes as soon as they realise their mistake. We also know that ill-health temporarily changes the colour of the hair. According to the Popular Science Monthly, “Prentiss records a case of a patient to whom muriate of pilocarpine was administered hypodermically, and whose hair was changed from light blond to nearly jet black, and his eyes from light blue to dark blue.” The eating of sorghum is also said to favour the evolution of a brunette colour. But it is to the electricians that we must look for a harmless and efficient method of stimulating the secretion of pigmentary matter in the iris, skin, and hair. The man who first discovers how to change blondes to brunettes will acquire a fame as great as Newton’s or Shakspere’s, and when he dies Cupid will appoint him his private secretary.

“John,” we can hear a woman say to her husband twenty years hence—"John, Laura is now five years old. Don’t you think it is time to send her over to Dr. Electrode? I don’t object to her yellow hair, but I do think her complexion, iris, and eyelashes should be made several shades darker. She will then stand a better chance in the marriage-market when she gets older."

NATIONALITY AND BEAUTY

Beauty, like Love, has its national peculiarities, based on climate, customs, traditions, mental and physical. As the description of all these differences between the various peoples in the world would require several volumes the size of this, it cannot, of course, be attempted here even roughly. Nor is this necessary, for most of these national peculiarities are variations which have more ethnologic than æsthetic interest. Many of them have been considered in the preceding pages to illustrate the Evolution of Personal Beauty; and something has been said episodically regarding Greek, Hebrew, Georgian, and Mediæval Beauty. Polish women are famous for their beauty, but as I have never been in Poland nor in Russia, I do not feel competent to pronounce judgment on the common verdict, and will therefore limit my observations to the six nations whose Love-customs I have endeavoured to describe. And even in these cases I cannot claim that the following remarks have any greater value than such as attaches to mere casual jottings. In most European countries the nations are as wildly mixed as in the United States, though less recently; and it is therefore extremely difficult to draw any general conclusions, as is shown by the conflicting opinions of tourists. Moreover, each nation is variously subdivided, so that some things are, e.g. true of North Germany which are not true of South Germany, and so in other countries. Yet there are a few points on which travellers commonly agree, and these will be briefly considered here. The highest beauty is pretty much the same the world over—in Japan as in France; and even among the savages of Africa young girls are to be found who, but for their colour, would be pronounced beauties in Europe. Most nations are on their way towards this highest type of Beauty, and they occupy different stages of evolution according to their attitude and advantages regarding the four principal sources of Personal Beauty—Hygienic Habits, Mixture of Nationalities, Romantic Love, and Mental Refinement.

FRENCH BEAUTY

Widely as tourists commonly differ in their opinions as to the prevalence of Beauty in various countries, on one point there seems to be a universal agreement—viz. that nowhere in Europe is it so rare as in France. Thackeray notes that nature has “rather stinted the bodies and limbs of the French nation.” Walker, in his work on Beauty, remarks that “the women of France are among the ugliest in the world”; and Sir Lepel Griffin puts the truth pointedly in these words: “National vanity, where inordinately developed, may take the form of asserting that black is white, as in France, where the average of good looks, among both men and women, is perhaps lower than elsewhere in Europe. If a pretty woman be seen in the streets of Paris, she is almost certainly English or American; yet if a foreigner were to form an estimate of French beauty from the rapturous descriptions of contemporary French novels, or from the sketches of La Vie Parisienne, he must conclude that the Frenchwoman was the purest and loveliest type in the world in face and figure. The fiction in this case disguises itself in no semblance of the truth.”

Yet there have been French writers who felt the shortcomings of their nation in regard to Personal Beauty. One of them says that you find in the Frenchman “the love of the graceful rather than the beautiful”; and in the following characterisation of his countrywomen, by M. Figuier, it is easy to see that he lays much more emphasis on their grace and the expressiveness of their features than on their Beauty proper: “There is in her face much that is most pleasing, although we can assign her physiognomy to no determinate type. Her features, frequently irregular, seem to be borrowed from different races; they do not possess that unity which springs from calm and majesty, but are in the highest degree expressive, and marvellously contrived for conveying every shade of feeling. In them we see a smile though it be shaded by tears; a caress though they threaten us; and an appeal when yet they command. Amid the irregularity of this physiognomy the soul displays its workings. As a rule the Frenchwoman is short of stature, but in every proportion of her form combines grace and delicacy. Her extremities and joints are fine and elegant, of perfect model and distinct form, without a suspicion of coarseness. With her, moreover, art is brought wonderfully to assist nature” (The Races of Man).

It appears, indeed, as if Frenchwomen, who are naturally bright and quickwitted, endeavoured to make up in grace what they lack in beauty. Hence nothing is more common than Frenchwomen who are so fascinating with their graceful little ways and movements that one almost or quite forgets their homeliness. No French girl ever needs to be taught how to use her eyes to best advantage; and, as a clever newspaper writer has remarked, French girls “can say more with their shoulders than most girls can with their eyes; and when they talk with eyes, hands, shoulders, and tongue at once, it takes a man of talent to keep up.”

Of course it would be absurd to say that no specimens of supreme Beauty are to be found in France; but they are scarce as strawberries in December. The general tendency of women to become either too stout or too lean after they have got out of their teens, is apparently more pronounced in France than elsewhere in Europe. And as for the men, they can be recognised anywhere, either by their almost simian hairiness or their puny appearance. What a difference in stature and general manly aspect between a regiment of French and one of English or German soldiers! And the superiority of the English soldiers to the French in vigour and beauty is more than “skin-deep”; it appears to extend to the very chemical composition of their tissues; for Professor Topinard remarks in his Anthropologie that he enunciated more than twenty years ago “a fact which was more or less confirmed by others, namely, that the mortality after capital operations in English hospitals was less by one-half than in the French. We attributed it to a better diet, to their better sanitary arrangements, and to their superior management. There was but one serious objection offered to our statement. M. Velapeau, with his wonderful acumen, made reply, at the Academy of Medicine, that the flesh of the English and of the French differed; in other words, that the reaction after operations was not the same in both races. It is, in effect, an anthropological character.”

Thus the “wonderful acumen” of two French scientists has established the fact that French deterioration is shown not only in a surprisingly low birth-rate, but in the general inferiority of the French constitution: for the ability to resist the effects of wounds or illness is evidence of a sound constitution.

That the chief cause of French ugliness, degeneration, and infertility lies in their contemptuous treatment of Romantic Love, must be apparent to any one after reading the preceding chapter on French Love. French parents may point triumphantly to cases of genuine Conjugal attachment in their sons and daughters, whose marriages were based on social or pecuniary considerations. But they forget the grandchildren. It is they who suffer from these ill-assorted, fortuitous unions. Only the children of Love are beautiful and destined to multiply.

French indifference to the claims of Love also explains why another leading source of Beauty—the mixture of races—is inoperative in their country. The French are a very mixed nation. In the North, says Dr. Topinard, “we find the descendants of the Belgæ, the Walloons, and other Kymri; in the East, those of Germans and Burgundians; in the West, Normans; in the centre, Celts, who at the same epoch at which their name took its origin consisted of foreigners of various origins and of the aborigines; in the South, ancient Aquitanians and Basques; without mentioning a host of settlers like the Saracens, who are found here and there, Tectosages, who have left at Toulouse the custom of cranial deformities, and the traders who passed through the Phocæan town of Marseilles.” But the advantages which might result to Personal Beauty from such a mixture of peoples are neutralised through the universality of money-marriages, notwithstanding that these must in some cases bring together the descendants of different races. For a mixture of races is not necessarily and always an advantage, but only when it enables a lover to profit by the greater physiognomic variety in finding a mate whose qualities will blend harmoniously with his own.

In the case of a third primal source of Beauty—Mental Culture—we find again that its action is impeded through the anomalous position of Love in France. Inasmuch as adulterous love-making is the only kind of Love-making sanctioned by French custom and described in French literature, it is necessary to withhold most books and periodicals from the young of both sexes, who are thus compelled to grow up in ignorance. “The burden of ignorance presses sorely upon her,” says M. Figuier of the Frenchwoman: “It is a rare thing for a woman of the people to read, as only those of the higher classes have leisure, during their girlhood, to cultivate their minds. And yet even they must not give themselves up too much to study, nor aspire to honour or distinction. The epithet bas bleu (‘blue-stocking’) would soon bring them back to the common crowd—an ignorant and frivolous feminine mass.”

Note that this is the confession of a patriotic Frenchman. The fact that there have been a few brilliant Frenchwomen, famous for their salons, has created the impression that most Frenchwomen are brilliant, whereas the majority appear to be utterly without intellectual interests or ambition. Nor could this possibly be otherwise, considering the extremely superficial education which even the most favoured receive in the nuns’ schools. And not a few of them bring home from these schools something worse than ignorance, viz. the constitution and habits of an invalid. Not only the girls, even the boys in French schools are never allowed to play without supervision. Healthy romping is considered undignified in young girls, and when they get a little older the high-heeled, pointed shoes prescribed by Fashion take away any desire they may feel to indulge in beautifying exercise. Uncomfortable shoes and clothing, combined with the necessity of having a chaperon, even to simply cross the street, prevent French girls from indulging in those long walks to which English girls owe their fine physique. Nor do the French show such a devotion to the bath-tub and other details of Personal Hygiene as their neighbours across the channel.

Thus we see that the French, thanks to their conservative, Oriental customs, are placed at a disadvantage as regards every one of the four main sources of Beauty—Romantic Love, Mixture of Races, Mental Culture, and Hygiene. And it is not only Personal Beauty that suffers. A writer in La Réforme Sociale complains that “family feeling is dying out, the moral sense is growing weaker ... the country is falling into a state of anæmia.” And another writer in the same periodical, after noting the alarming fact that although France has gained eight million inhabitants since 1805, the number of births is no larger than it was then, calls upon those interested in these symptoms of national decay to investigate the local causes of it.

But it is needless to look for “local causes.” The disease is a national one, and calls for constitutional treatment. Let the French, in the first place, instead of locking up their girls till they are ready to be sold to a rich roué, initiate them into the arts of Anglo-American Courtship, and then allow Romantic Love to take the place of money as a matchmaker. That the effect of such a change would be miraculous may be inferred from the fact that the products of a few generations of American love-making—French girls in Canada and the United States—are vastly superior in Beauty and Health to their transatlantic cousins.

In the second place, the French must give up the notion that disease is aristocratic. “In almost all countries,” says M. About, “there exists a class distinguished from the masses as the aristocracy. In this social miscellany the women have small white hands, because they wear gloves and do not work; a pale complexion, because they are never exposed to the sun; a sickly appearance and thin features, because they spend the four months of the winter at balls. Hence it follows that ‘distinction’ consists in a faded complexion, sickly appearance, a pair of white hands, and thin features. The Madonnas of Raphael are not ‘distingué,’ and the Venus of Milo also is very deficient in that quality.”

After they have ceased to ridicule Love and to worship Disease, it will be in order for the French to cultivate their æsthetic Taste. That of all European men Frenchmen show the worst taste in dressing is commonly admitted; but the preposterous superstition that French_women_ have a special instinct for dressing tastefully is so firmly rooted in the mind of women elsewhere, that nothing short of a miracle would be able to eradicate it. The reason why the roots of this superstition are so deep is this: Frenchwomen rarely have any great beauty of figure or features. Hence they devote all their time to devising means for hiding their formal defects and distracting the attention of men by some novelty or eccentricity of apparel. In America and Germany, where the majority of the women are also ugly, these tricks are eagerly copied; and the pretty girls are compelled to yield to the tyranny of the majority, as has been fully explained in the chapter on the Fashion Fetish.

Englishwomen have, to a large extent, emancipated themselves from Parisian Fashion Tyranny, aided by the protests of the men against self-inflicted ugliness. And it is one of the healthiest signs of the times that in America, too, the men are beginning to break the ice of gallant timidity, and telling the women plainly what they think of their hideous Parisian fashions. Not long ago an intelligent woman wrote to the Boston Transcript, asking: “Why will not the press, instead of growling and snarling at the poor women who cannot help themselves,” ask the theatre managers to compel the women to take off their high hats, which, she admits, ninety-nine in a hundred women consider a nuisance? Yet they “cannot help themselves!” The poor women! What a terrible slavery! the pretty women of America compelled to adopt the fashions originated by the ugliest women of Europe in order to hide their defects!

If American women must have models, let them go to Spain or Italy for them, especially in the matter of headdresses. Of the Spanish mantilla, which can be adapted to the style of every face, Prosper Mérimée says that “it makes ugly women pretty, and pretty ones enchanting.” And a German lady on her way to Spain bought on her way, as a matter of course, the latest Parisian hat. “But when I arrived in Madrid,” she writes, “my genuine Parisian hat seemed of such apelike ugliness that I felt actually ashamed to wear it. For my taste had been corrected and improved at sight of the first mantilla I saw; and I am convinced that a large majority of German women and girls possess quite as much sense of beauty as I, and will therefore prefer the Spanish mantilla to any hat made by the most noted modiste in Europe.”

ITALIAN BEAUTY

Although differences in form, complexion, and physiognomy are to be noted in different parts of France, they are less pronounced than in Italy, concerning which it is therefore more difficult to make general statements. “The barbarian invasions in the north, and the contact with Greeks and Africans in the south,” says M. Figuier, “have wrought much alteration in the primitive type of the inhabitants of Italy. Except in Rome and the Roman Campagna, the true type of the primitive Latin population is hardly to be found. The Grecian type exists in the South, and upon the eastern slope of the Apennines, while in the North the great majority of faces are Gallic. In Tuscany and the neighbouring regions are found the descendants of the ancient Etruscans.... The mixture of African blood has changed the organic type of the Southern Italian to such an extent as to render him entirely distinct from his Northern compatriots, the exciting influence which the climate has over the senses imparting to his whole conduct a peculiar exuberance.”

In their estimate of Italian Beauty tourists differ widely. The raptures and ecstasies of some writers are explained by others as due to the æsthetic intoxication produced by sudden contact with a new type; and they claim that a few years’ residence suffices to dispel these illusions. On the judgment of the Italians themselves it is not safe to rely, for that is tinged too much by local patriotism, the Milanese claiming the pre-eminence in Beauty for themselves, while the Venetians, Florentines, Romans, and Neapolitans blow their own horns respectively. Professor Mantegazza thinks that the men are handsomer in Italy than the women, of whom he allows only about ten per cent to have any claims to real Beauty. Sir Charles Bell notes that “Raphael, in painting the head of Galatea, found no beauty deserving to be his model; he is reported to have said that there is nothing so rare as perfect beauty in woman; and that he substituted for nature a certain idea inspired by his fancy.” Montaigne, who travelled in Italy in the latter part of the sixteenth century, expressed his surprise at the rarity of beauty in women and girls, who at that time were kept in more than French seclusion. A German author, Dr. J. Volkmann, wrote in 1770 that “there are few beautiful women in Rome, especially among the higher classes; in Venice and Naples more are to be seen. The Italian himself has a proverb which says that Roman women are not beautiful” (quoted by Ploss).

Byron, in one of his letters, gives a glowing description of an Italian beauty of the Oriental type whom he met, and then adds: “Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, I do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem pretty. The nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race—the gentry rather better.” In another place he writes that “the general race of women appear to be handsome; but in Italy, as on almost all the Continent, the highest orders are by no means a well-looking generation.”

Yet was it not Byron who wrote of Italy that it is “the garden of the world,” and that its “very weeds are beautiful”? And does not this apply to the race as well as the soil? It is because they constantly live in a garden, in the balmy air and mellowing sunshine, that Italians can to a certain extent defy the laws of personal Hygiene, and flourish under conditions which would torture us to death. Miss Margaret Collier remarks, in Our Home by the Adriatic, that in the rural communities, even among the well-to-do, to ask for a bath is to create alarm as to the state of your health. And Berlioz speaks somewhere of Italian peasant-girls “carrying heavy copper vessels and faggots on their heads; but all so wretched, go miserable, so tattered, so filthily dirty, that, in spite of the beauty of the race and the picturesqueness of their costume, all other feelings are swallowed up in one of utter compassion.”

Could the cosmetic value of fresh air and sunshine be more strikingly attested than by the fact that Berlioz could speak of “the beauty of the race,” notwithstanding the national indifference to the laws of cleanliness?

In regard to Romantic Love as a source of Beauty, the Italians also occupy a somewhat anomalous position. In the rural districts French matrimonial methods seem to be largely followed. Miss Collier mentions a young lady who visited her to receive her congratulations on her approaching marriage, and who, on being asked the name of her future husband, replied naïvely, “Oh, I don’t know; papa has not yet told me that.” The peasantry, however, are free to choose their own mates, and it is among them that Italian Beauty is accordingly most prevalent. In the cities the method of love-making is “operatic,” as we saw in the chapter on Italian Love; but the main point is that Individual Choice is not made impossible as in France, and that the Italians worship Love as a law instead of looking on it with contemptuous cynicism and ridicule.

The way in which the Mixture of Races affects Italian Beauty affords a fresh illustration of the superiority of the Brunette type. In Germany, by general consent, Beauty is much more frequent in the South, where brunettes abound, than in the North, where they are scarce. Hence we may conclude that the Blonde type is improved by the intermixture of the Brunette type. But is the Brunette type of Northern Italy improved to the same degree by the admixture of Northern Blondes? Not in my judgment. Venice and Milan and Bologna, it is true, boast many beautiful women; but has any tourist in writing about these cities ever expressed much admiration for Italian Blondes? And are not Naples and Capri, the paradise of Brunettes, commonly regarded as the region where Italian Beauty is seen at its best? Here it is chiefly dark races that have intermingled, hence the eyes are sure to be of a deep brown colour; whereas in Northern Italy the introduction of blonde blood produces the lighter, less decided tints of the iris which we do not admire. This disadvantage, it is true, is also encountered in South Germany, but it is neutralised by the gain of dark eyebrows, and long black lashes, and the more supple and rounded limbs of the South.

That mental culture adds much to Italian beauty cannot be said, for Italian women of all classes are noted for their intellectual indolence. But atonement is largely made for this by their extreme emotional susceptibility. Blue skies, rank vegetation, pretty scenery, and a natural love of music have softened and trained their feelings; and though the Italian climate does not favour profound artistic culture it warms the blood and incites the features to give expression to every passing mood. It is this habit of emotional expression that has given a unique charm and the power of graceful modulation to Italian features. As a German artist, Herr Otto Knille, remarks of the Italians, “They pose unintentionally. Their features, especially among the lower classes, have been moulded through mimic expression practised for thousands of years. Gesture-language has shaped the hands of many into models of anatomic clearness. They have a complete language of signs and gestures, which each one understands, as, for instance, in the ballet. Add to this the innate grace of this race ... and we see that the Italian artist has an abundance of material for copying, as compared with which the German artist must admit his extreme poverty. Whoever has lived in Italy is in a position to appreciate these advantages.... Think of the neck, the nape, and the bust of Italian woman, the fine joints and the elastic gait of both men and women. Nor are we much better endowed as regards the physiognomy. The German potato-face is not a mere fancy—the mirror which A. de Neuville has held up to us, though clouded with prejudice, shows us an image not entirely untrue to life. We artists know how rarely a head, especially one which lacks the enchanting charm of youth, can be used as a model for anything but flat realism. Most German faces, instead of becoming more clearly chiselled and elaborated with age, appear more spongy, vague, and unmeaning.”

Winklemann’s remarks on Italian Beauty are in the same vein: “We seldom find in the fairest portions of Italy the features of the face unfinished, vague, and inexpressive, as is frequently the case on the other side of the Alps; but they have partly an air of nobleness, partly of acuteness and intelligence; and the form of the face is generally large and full, and the parts of it in harmony with each other. The superiority of conformation is so manifest that the head of the humblest man among the people might be introduced in the most dignified historical painting, especially one in which aged men are to be represented. And among the women of this class, even in places of the least importance, it would not be difficult to find a Juno. The lower portion of Italy, which enjoys a softer climate than any other part of it, brings forth men of superb and vigorously-designed forms, which appear to have been made, as it were, for the purposes of sculpture.”

In confirmation of my statement that in Northern as in Southern Italy it is the Brunette type that chiefly excites the admiration of the tourist, I may finally cite Heine’s remarks on the women of Trent. For, although Trent is a town of the Austrian Tyrol, it yet is practically an Italian community. Had not business called him southwards, Heine relates in his Journey from Munich to Genoa, he would have felt tempted to remain in this town where “beautiful girls were moving about in bevies. I do not know,” he adds, “whether other tourists will approve of the adjective ‘beautiful’ in this case; but I liked the women of Trent exceptionally well. They were just of the kind I admire—and I do love these pale, elegiac faces with the large black eyes that gaze at you so love-sick; I love also the dusky tint of those proud necks which Phœbus already has loved and browned with his kisses; ... but above all things do I love that graceful gait, that dumb music of the body, those limbs with their exquisitely rhythmic movements, luxurious, supple, divinely careless, mortally languid, anon æthereal, majestic, and always highly poetic. I love such things as I love poetry itself; and these figures with their melodious movements, this wondrous concert of femininity which delighted my senses, found an echo in my heart, and awoke in it sympathetic strains.”

SPANISH BEAUTY

In Spain, as in Italy, Germany, France, and the United States, we find more Personal Beauty in the Southern than in the Northern regions. This coincidence cannot be accidental, but attests the great cosmetic value of sunshine and plenty of fresh air. Perhaps no other portion of the globe has such a paradisiacal climate as Andalusia, where the inhabitants practically pass all their time in the open air,—on verandahs and in their cosy little galleries, and fragrant orange groves, in whose shade they can spend the hot part of the day, while the nights are cooled by balmy mountain or sea breezes. To these natural hygienic advantages add the unusually happy mixture of nationalities, and the fact that Romantic Love is much less impeded in its sway than in France or Italy, and we see at a glance to what the young Andalusian owes the undulating lines and luscious plumpness of her figure, her ravishing facial beauty, and her graceful gait, or “melodious movements,” as Heine would say.

Surely the goddess of Beauty herself mixed the national colours that make up the Spanish type. When Spain was added to the Roman dominion she was, as Mr. E. A. Freeman remarks, “the only one of the great countries of Europe where the mass of the people were not of the Aryan stock. The greater part of the land was still held by the Iberians, as a small part is even now by their descendants the Basques. But in the central part of the peninsula Celtic tribes had pressed in, and ... there were some Phœnician colonies in the south, and some Greek colonies on the east coast. In the time between the first and second Punic Wars, Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, and Hannibal had won all Spain as far as the Ebro for Carthage.” Among the other nations which successively overran the country were the Goths, Vandals, Suevi, and Moors; to whom must be added large numbers of Jews and Gypsies, of which latter race Spain still possesses about 50,000.

Most of these nations had some favourable physical traits which Sexual Selection had the opportunity to fix upon and perpetuate; while sundry incongruities must have been neutralised and obliterated by the intermingling of races. And another important consideration is, that this intermingling of nations was effected so many centuries ago that it is now no longer a heterogeneous physical mixture, but a true “chemical,” or physiological, fusion, in which dissonances and incongruities are less likely to occur than in countries where the mixture is more recent.

That the addition of Greek and Roman blood, redolent of ancient civilisation, to the original Spanish stock was an advantage is obvious. The Goth brought his manly vigour; the Gypsy his concentrated essence of Brunetteism; the Arab his oval face, dusky complexion, the straight line connecting nose and forehead, the small mouth and white teeth, the dark and glossy hair, the delicate extremities and gracefully-arched foot, and above all, the black eyes and long black eyelashes. If Shakspere is right in saying that there is no author in the world “teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye,” then Andalusia easily leads the world in Personal Beauty. The prosiest tourist becomes poetic in describing the Andalusian’s “black eye that mocks her coal-black veil.” Large and round are these eyes, like those of Oriental Houris; long and dense their black lashes, which yet cannot smother the mysterious fire and sparkle which their iris appears to have borrowed of the Gypsies. In many cases there is a vague, piquant indication of the almond-shaped palpebral aperture—one of the Semitic traits derived from the Phœnicians, Jews, and Saracens. And then, what woman can make such irresistibly fascinating use of her eyes as the Spanish brunette?

M. Figuier thus sums up the physical characteristics of the Spanish woman: “She is generally brunette, although the blonde type occurs much more frequently than is usually supposed. The Spanish woman is almost always small of stature. Who has not observed the large eyes, veiled by thick lashes, her delicate nose, and well-formed nostrils? Her form is always undulating and graceful; her limbs are round and beautifully moulded, and her extremities of incomparable delicacy. She is a charming mixture of vigour, languor, and grace.”

“The appearance of a Spanish woman,” says Bogumil Goltz, “is the expression of her character. Her fine figure, her majestic gait, her sonorous voice, her black, flashing eye, the liveliness of her gesticulations, in a word, her whole external personality indicates her character.”

It is to be noted that whereas French Beauty appears to be visible to French eyes only, and regarding Italian Beauty opinions differ, all nations unite in singing the praises of “Spain’s dark-glancing daughters.” To the French and German testimony just cited may now be added a few Italian, English, and American witnesses.

Signor E. de Amicis, in his interesting work on Spain, says of the women of Madrid that “they are still the same little women so besung for their great eyes, small hands, and tiny feet, with their very black hair, but skin rather white than dark, so well-formed, erect, lithe, and vivacious.” But, like all other tourists, he reserves most of his remarks on Spanish women for his chapters on Andalusia, although this is the part of Spain which also offers the richest material for description in its architecture and scenery. Concerning the women and girls of Seville, as seen in the large tobacco factory which employs 5000 females, he says: “There are some very beautiful faces, and even those that are not absolutely beautiful, have something about them which attracts the eye and remains impressed upon the memory—the colouring, eyes, brows, and smile, for instance. Many, especially the so-called gitane, are dark brown, like mulattoes, and have protruding lips: others have such large eyes that a faithful likeness of them would seem an exaggeration. The majority are small, well-made, and all wear a rose, pink, or a bunch of field-flowers among their braids.... On coming out of the factory, you seem to see on every side for a time, black pupils which look at you with a thousand different expressions of curiosity, ennui, sympathy, sadness, and drowsiness.”

The same writer found that “The feminine type of Cadiz was not less attractive than that celebrated one at Seville. The women are a little taller, a trifle stouter, and rather darker. Some fine observer has asserted that they are of the Greek type; but I cannot see where. I saw nothing, with the exception of their stature, but the Andalusian type; and this sufficed to make me heave sighs deep enough to have blown along a boat and obliged me to return as soon as possible to my ship, as a place of peace and refuge.”

Mr. G. P. Lathrop’s description (in Spanish Vistas) of the girls in the Seville factory is pitched in a somewhat lower key than Signor de Amicis’s: “Some of them,” he writes, “had a spendthrift, common sort of beauty, which, owing to their southern vivacity and fine physique, had the air of being more than it really was.... There were some appalling old crones.... Others, on the contrary, looked blooming and coquettish. Many were in startling deshabille, resorted to on account of the intense (July) heat, and hastened to draw pretty pañuelos of variegated dye over their bare shoulders when they saw us coming.... The beauty of these Carmens has certainly been exaggerated. It may be remarked here that, as an offset to occasional disappointment arising from such exaggerations, all Spanish women walk with astonishing gracefulness, and natural and elastic step; and that is their chief advantage over women of other nations.”

A writer in Macmillan’s Magazine (1874), after referring to “the stately upright walk of the Spanish ladies, and the graceful carriage of the head,” notes that a mother will not allow her daughter to carry a basket, so as not to destroy her “queenly walk”; and “her dull eye too will grow moist with a tear, and her worn face will kindle with absolute softness and sweetness, if an English señor expresses his admiration of her child’s magnificent hair or flashing black eyes.”

The description given by the same writer of a scene he witnessed along the Guadalquiver, suggests one reason of the healthy physique and vitality of Spanish women: “An old mill-house, with its clumsy wheel and a couple of pomegranates, shaded one corner of this part of the river; and under their shade, sitting up to their shoulders in the water, on the huge round boulders of which the bottom of the river is composed, were groups of Spanish ladies. Truly it was a pretty sight! They sat as though on chairs, clothed to the neck in bathing-gowns of the gaudiest colours—red, gray, yellow, and blue; and, holding in one hand their umbrellas, and with the other fanning themselves, they formed a most picturesque group.”

Washington Irving, in a private letter, paints this picture of a Spanish beauty whom he saw on a coast steamer: “A young married lady, of about four or five and twenty, middle-sized, finely-modelled, a Grecian outline of face, a complexion sallow yet healthful, raven black hair, eyes dark, large, and beaming, softened by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy red, yet finely chiselled, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. Her hand ... is small, exquisitely formed, with taper fingers, and blue veins. I never saw a female hand more exquisite.” The husband of this young lady, noticing that Mr. Irving was apparently sketching her, questioned him on the matter. Mr. Irving read his sketch to the man, who was greatly pleased with it; and this led to a delightful though brief acquaintance.

in another letter, Washington Irving writes to a friend: “There are beautiful women in Seville as ... there are in all other great cities; but do not, my worthy and inquiring friend, expect a perfect beauty to be staring you in the face at every turn, or you will be awfully disappointed. Andalusia, generally speaking, derives its renown for the beauty of its women and the beauty of its landscape, from the rare and captivating charms of individuals. The generality of its female faces are as sunburnt and void of bloom and freshness as its plains. I am convinced, the great fascination of Spanish women arises from their natural talent, their fire and soul, which beam through their dark and flashing eyes, and kindle up their whole countenance in the course of an interesting conversation. As I have had but few opportunities of judging them in this way, I can only criticise them with the eye of a sauntering observer. It is like judging of a fountain when it is not in play, or a fire when it lies dormant and neither flames nor sparkles.”

Byron, in Childe Harold, waxes enthusiastic over the Spanish woman’s “fairy form, with more than female grace”—

“Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much Hath Phœbus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek, Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch! Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, and weak!”

But in a letter from Cadiz Byron notes the weak as well as the strong points of Spanish women. “With all national prejudice, I must confess, the women of Cadiz are as far superior to the English women in beauty, as the Spaniards are inferior to the English in every quality that dignifies the name of man.... The Spanish women are all alike, their education the same.... Certainly they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of their lives is intrigue.... Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman used to the drowsy, listless air of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world, render a Spanish beauty irresistible.”

“Their minds have only one idea,” is an exaggeration, for the Andalusian women are famed for a considerable amount of innate wit, rivalling the brightness of their eyes. Yet of deeper intellectual interests there are none. Of the total population of Spain only a quarter can read and write; for although schools exist in abundance, they are very generally neglected; and the estimation in which teachers are held is seen from the fact that out of 15,000 one half receive an annual salary of less than twenty pounds sterling.

Mental Culture avenges itself bitterly on the women of Spain, as of other Southern countries, for this neglect of its claims. While the freshness of youthful Beauty remains, all is well, for then the sensuous charms are so great that intellectual claims can be ignored. But when this freshness fades, then it is that the features begin to show a lack of mental training. Intellectual apathy masks the face, and gives it an expression of vacuity; exercise is neglected, and indolence, combined with excessive indulgence in fattening food, soon destroy the lovely contours of the figure and the fairy-like gait. “A Spanish woman of forty appears twice as old,” says Goltz.

Thus we see that for perfect and permanent Beauty all its sources must be kept open and utilised.

Attention must finally be called to one feature of Andalusian Beauty which all tourists emphasise, namely, the small stature of the women, to which they largely owe their exceptional grace of gait. And there are reasons for believing that the perfected woman of the millennium will resemble the Andalusian Brunette, not only in complexion, hair, eyes, gait, and tapering plumpness of figure, but also in stature. In other words, it seems that Sexual Selection is evolving the petite Brunette as the ideal of womanhood.

Among the ancient Greeks who were not swayed by Romantic Love, Amazons were greatly admired, as previously noted; and Mr. Gladstone remarks that “stature was a great element of beauty in the view of the ancients, for women as well as for men; and their admiration of tallness, even in women, is hardly restrained by a limit.”

From this Greek predilection modern æsthetico-amorous Taste differs, for several weighty reasons. The first is that a very tall and bulky woman, though she may be stately and majestic, cannot be very graceful; and Grace, as we know, is as potent a source of Love as formal Beauty. Again, there is something incongruous and almost comic in the thought of a very large woman submitting to Love’s caresses; and le ridicule tue. Thirdly, great stature is rarely associated with delicate joints and extremities. But the principal reason why the modern lover disapproves of Amazonian women, mental and physical, is because they are quasi-masculine. Romantic Love tends to differentiate the sexes in stature as in everything else. True, Mr. Galton, after making observations on 205 married couples, came to the conclusion that “marriage selection takes little or no account of shortness and tallness. There are undoubtedly sexual preferences for moderate contrasts in height; but the marriage choice appears to be guided by so many and more important considerations that questions of stature exert no perceptible influence upon it.... Men and women of contrasted heights, short and tall or tall and short, married just about as frequently as men and women of similar heights, both tall or both short; there were 32 cases of one to 27 of the other.”

But Mr. Galton’s argument is rather weak. He admits that “there are undoubtedly sexual preferences for moderate contrast in height”; and his own figures show 32 to 27 in favour of mixed-stature marriages, in most of which the women must have been shorter, owing to the prevalent feminine inferiority in size. And in course of time the elimination of non-amorous motives of marriage will assist the law of sexual differentiation in suppressing Amazons.

The modern masculine preference for petite female stature is, furthermore, attested by an irrefutable philological argument which will be found in the following citation from Crabb’s English Synonymes: “Prettiness is always coupled with simplicity; it is incompatible with that which is large; a tall woman with masculine features cannot be pretty. Beauty is peculiarly a female perfection; in the male sex it is rather a defect; a man can scarcely be beautiful without losing his manly characteristics, boldness and energy of mind, strength and robustness of limb; but though a man may not be beautiful or pretty, he may be fine or handsome.” “A woman is fine who with a striking figure unites shape and symmetry; a woman is handsome who has good features, and pretty if with symmetry of feature be united delicacy.”

Burke believed that it is possible to fall in love with a very small person, but not with a giant. There is, indeed, a natural prejudice in the modern mind against very tall statue even in men. Thus, we read in Fuller’s Andronicus: “Often the cockloft is empty in those whom Nature hath built many stories high”; and Bacon is reported to have said that “Nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high, and therefore that exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads.” An apparent scientific confirmation of this belief is found in Professor Hermann’s Nervensystem (ii. 195), where we read that “when the body becomes abnormally large, the brain begins to decrease again, relatively, as Langer found in measuring giant skeletons.” And, another sign of regression is found in the fact that tall men are apt to have relatively too have jaws.

GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN BEAUTY

Although the Germans of to-day are by no means a pure and distinct race, they are less thoroughly and variously mixed than most other European nations; and this is one of the main reasons why Personal Beauty is comparatively rare in the Fatherland. It is rarest in the northern and central regions, where the original Blonde type is best preserved, and becomes more frequent the nearer we approach the Brunette neighbours of Germany—Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Poland—whose women have been aptly called “the Spaniards of the north.” France forms an exception. There, thanks to the imprisonment of Cupid, ugliness is so rampant that intermarriage only intensifies the natural homeliness,—a fact of which any one may convince himself by spending a few days in the borderland between France and Germany.

Partly owing to this lack of variety in the national composition of the Germans, partly to the custom of chaperonage, Romantic Love has not as wide a scope of selective action as elsewhere; and as if these impediments to the increase of Beauty were not sufficient, they are augmented in a wholesale fashion by the parental illusion that the Love-instinct is a less trustworthy guide to a happy marriage than “Reason,” i.e. the consideration that the bride has a few thousand marks and belongs to the same social clique as the bridegroom. Like their French neighbours, the Germans in these cases forget the claims of the grandchildren to Health and Beauty—i.e. the harmonious fusion of the complementary parental qualities by which Love is inspired.

But in regard to the third source of Beauty—Mental Culture—the Germans surely are pre-eminent among nations, it will be claimed. In one sense, no doubt, they are. Almost all Germans can read and write, and no race equals them in special erudition. But erudition is not culture. The German system of education is exceedingly defective, because it cultivates too largely the lowest of the mental faculties—the Memory. The number of scientific, historic, and philological facts a German schoolboy knows by heart is simply astounding; but he has not digested them, and cannot apply them practically. No attempt is made to cultivate his higher faculties—his imagination, originality, or the gift of expressing a thought in elegant language. Were a candidate to show the wit and brilliancy of a Heine or a Shakspere, it would not add one grain to the weight his pedantic professors attach to his work. They will not favour the growth of qualities in which they themselves are so conspicuously deficient. Note, for example, the vast contempt with which the pedants of the University of Berlin look down on “the German Darwin,” Professor Haeckel, because he dares not only to be original, but to write his books in a language clear as crystal, and adorned with wit, satire, and literary polish.

Other nations are proud of their great men even before they are dead; not so the Germans. Nor are the Germans really a literary nation, as a whole. Many books are written there, but they rarely come under the head of literature; and their circulation, on the average, is not one-tenth that of English, French, and American books. Beer is more popular than books.

No, the pedantic erudition, which alone is officially honoured in Germany, is not synonymous with Mental Culture. It does not vivify the features sufficiently to mould them into plastic shape. Hence the prevalence of the “spongy features” and Teutonic “potato-faces” referred to by a German artist quoted in the chapter on Italian Beauty. “The true national character of the Germans is clumsiness,” says Schopenhauer; and again: “The Germans are distinguished from all other nations by the slovenliness of their style, as of their dress.” And the Swiss Professor, H. F. Amiel, remarks in his Journal Intime that “the notion of ‘bad taste’ seems to have no place in German æsthetics. Their elegance has no grace in it; they cannot understand the enormous difference there is between distinction (which is gentlemanly, ladylike) and their stiff Vornehmheit. Their imagination lacks style, training, education, and knowledge of the world; it has an ill-bred air even in its Sunday dress. The race is poetical and intelligent, but common and ill-mannered.”

It must be admitted, however, that the Germans have made great progress in external refinement and manners since their late war with France, one of the greatest advantages of which to them was that it destroyed the mystic halo which had for many generations surrounded the important Parisian Fashion Fetish. What the Germans need now is a period of Anglomania. They have already ceased to laugh at the Englishman for travelling with his bath-tub, and have found it worth while to provide him with that commodity in the hotels. In course of time bath-tubs in private German houses may be expected to become more common than they are now; and after a generation or two shall have given proper attention to skin-hygiene, freckles and other cutaneous blemishes will be less prevalent than at present. In their houses the Germans are really as tidy as any nation; but their indifference to the appearance of their collars and cuffs often leads one to suspect the contrary.

The next thing the Germans ought to learn of the English is greater gallantry toward the women, who are too apt to be looked upon as household drudges, whom it is not necessary to educate or amuse. Especially ruinous to female Beauty is the hard field labour required of the women who have the misfortune to belong to a nation which has not yet outgrown its condition of mediæval militarism. A German physician, quoted by Dr. Ploss, notes the fact that the beauty and bloom of youth last but a short time with the working classes of North Germany: “The hard labour performed before the body is fully developed too easily destroys the plumpness, which is an essential element of beauty, draws furrows in the face, and makes the figure stiff and angular. Often have I taken a mother who showed me her child for its grandmother.”

The author of German Home Life remarks in a similar vein: “German girls are often charmingly pretty, with dazzling complexions, abundant beautiful hair, and clear lovely eyes; but the splendid matron, the sound, healthy, well-developed woman, who has lost no grain of beauty, and yet gained a certain magnificent maturity such as we in England see daily with daughters who might well be her youngest sisters—of such women the Fatherland has few specimens to show. The ‘pale unripened beauties of the North’ do not ripen, they fade.” And no wonder, for either the girls belong to the poorer classes and lose their beauty prematurely from overwork; or, if they are of the well-to-do classes, they get no Beauty-preserving exercise at all. “German girls,” the Countess Von Bothmer continues, “have no outdoor amusements, if we except skating when the winter proves favourable. Boating, riding, archery, swimming, croquet—all the active, healthy outdoor life which English maidens are allowed to share and to enjoy with their brothers is unknown to them.... Such diversions are looked upon by the girls themselves as bold, coarse, and unfeminine.... It is in vain that you tell them such exercises, far from unsexing them, fit them all the better for the duties of their sex; it is difficult for them to hear you out and not show the scorn they entertain for you.”

German men, as a rule, are much handsomer than their sisters, and they owe this superiority partly to the fact that their minds are not so vacant, and partly to the prolonged physical training which is the one redeeming feature of their military system. Nevertheless, especially in South Germany, the men too often lose their fine manly proportions in an enormous embonpoint, the penalty of drinking too much beer. Nor is the acquisition of a turnip shape the only bad result of the German habit of spending every evening in a tavern. The air in these beer-houses is so filthy, so soaked with vile tobacco smoke and nicotine, that after sitting in it for an hour the odour haunts one’s clothes for a week, and poisons the lungs for a month. It is this foul atmosphere, combined with the stupefying effect of the beer, that accounts for German heaviness and clumsiness in appearance, attitude, gait, and literary style.

These disadvantages might be to some extent neutralised if, on returning to his bedroom, the German would spend the rest of the night, at least, in fresh air. But no! He dreads the balmy night air as he would a dragon’s breath, although Professor Reclam and other great authorities on Hygiene have told him a million and sixty times that night air is more salubrious than day air, except in swampy regions.

Tourists in Switzerland often wonder why it is that the natives, notwithstanding their glorious Alpine air, are, with rare exceptions, so utterly devoid of Beauty. Partly this is due to the hard labour and scanty food to which most of them are condemned; but the main reason is that they enjoy their health-laden air only in the daytime and in summer. At night and in winter they close their windows hermetically, and in the morning the atmosphere in such a room is something which no one who has ever breathed it will ever forget.

When the Germans visit Switzerland they carefully imitate the example of these ignorant peasants, thus depriving themselves of all the benefits of an Alpine tour. An eye-witness last summer told me of the following encounter in a Swiss hotel between an English lady and a German. The dining-room being hot to suffocation, the English lady opened a window, whereupon the German immediately got up and closed it. The English lady opened it again, and again it was closed; whereupon she pushed her elbow through the glass, and thenceforth enjoyed the fresh, fragrant air, to the horror and indignation of the assembled Teutons.

All these remarks of course apply to the Germans only in a very general way. Among all classes in Germany specimens of Beauty may be found that could hardly be surpassed anywhere else. Pretty faces are more frequent than elegant figures, which commonly are too robust and masculine. German girls are the most domestic and amiable in the world, and it is their amiability and depth of feeling that gives their mouth such a sweet expression and refined outlines. When German girls are educated, as often they are in America, their faces beam in irresistible beauty. The most beautiful non-Spanish eyes I have ever seen belonged to a girl in Baden; and the most roguish blue eyes I have ever seen, to a Würtemberg girl. Regular Italian features are not uncommon in Bavaria, although snub-noses are most frequent there. The Bavarian complexion, though somewhat too pale, is beautifully clear; and I have almost come to the conclusion that this is in some way connected with the national habit of drinking beer three times a day. It might be worth while to inquire whether there is a beautifying ingredient in beer which might be obtained without its stupefying effects.

The Germans commonly consider the maidens along the Rhine their most favourable and abundant specimens of Beauty; but Robert Schumann, who had a fine eye for feminine Beauty, emphasized the amiability rather than the beauty of these maidens in the following passage from one of his private letters: “What characteristic faces among the lowest classes! On the west shore of the Rhine the girls have very delicate features, indicating amiability rather than intelligence; the noses are mostly Greek, the face very oval and artistically symmetrical, the hair brown. I did not see a single blonde. The complexion is soft, delicate, with more white than red; melancholy rather than sanguine. The Frankfort girls, on the other hand, have in common a sisterly trait—the character of German, manly, sad earnestness which we often find in our quondam free cities, and which toward the east gradually merges into a gentle softness. Characteristic are the faces of all the Frankfort girls: intellectual or beautiful few of them; the noses mostly Greek, often snub-noses; the dialect I did not like.”

Concerning the peasant women of Saxony, Mr. Julian Hawthorne remarks in his Saxon Studies: “Massive are their legs as the banyan root; their hips are as the bows of a three-decker. Backs have they like derricks: rough hands like pile-drivers.” And again: “Handsome and pretty women are certainly no rarity in Saxony, although few of them can lay claim to an unadulterated Saxon pedigree.” “We see lovely Austrians, and fascinating Poles and Russians, who delicately smoke cigars in the concert gardens. But it is hard for the peasant type to rise higher than comeliness; and it is distressingly apt to be coarse of feature as well as of hand, clumsy of ankle, and more or less wedded to grease and dirt. Good blood shows in the profile; and these young girls, whose faces are often pleasant and even attractive, have seldom an eloquent contour of nose and mouth. There is sometimes great softness and sweetness of eye, a clear complexion, a pretty roundness of chin and throat. Indeed, I have found scattered through half a dozen different villages all the features of the true Gretchen; and once, in an obscure hamlet whose name I have forgotten, I came unexpectedly upon what seemed a near approach to the mythic being.”

One thing must be admitted. The Germans are the most systematic and persevering nation in the world. They took music, for instance, from her Italian cradle, and reared her till she developed into the most fascinating of the modern muses. They lead the world in scientific research; and within a few years they have terrified the English monopolists by a sudden outburst of thorough-going Teutonic industrial activity and world-competition. Let but the Germans once make up their mind that they want Personal Beauty, and lo! they will have it in superabundance. The Professorships of Hygiene, which are now being established at the Universities, will doubtless bear rich fruit. If Bismarck discovered the full significance of Anglo-American Courtship, he would forthwith order an hour of it to be added to the daily academic curriculum; and if he realised the importance of racial mixture, he would order shiploads of South American and Andalusian brunettes to be distributed among his officers as wives. Nor would female education be any longer neglected, were it fully understood how essential it is to Personal Beauty and true Romantic Love, the basis of happy conjugal life.

What can be done with German stock if it is duly mixed with Brunette ingredients, is shown at Vienna, which, by the apparently unanimous consent of tourists, boasts more beautiful women than any other city in the world. Austria has about ten per cent more of the pure Brunette and fourteen per cent more of the mixed types than Germany. The dark blood of Italians, Hungarians, Czechs, flows in Viennese veins, and there is also a piquant suspicion of Oriental beauty. The Viennese woman combines Andalusian plumpness of figure and grace of movement, with American delicacy of features and purity of complexion. The bust is almost always finely developed and rarely too luxuriant; and the joints are the admiration of all tourists and natives. Speaking of England, Mr. Richard Grant White says that “Plump arms are not uncommon, but really fine arms are rare; and fine wrists are still rarer. Such wrists as the Viennese women have ... are almost unknown among women of English race in either country.” And the Countess von Bothmer thus describes the neighbours of Germany:—

"Polish, Hungarian, and Austrian women, whom we, in a general, inconclusive way, are apt to class as Germans, are ‘beautiful exceedingly’; but here we come upon another race, or rather such a fusion of other races as may help to contribute to the charming result. Polish ladies have a special, vivid, delicate, spirited, haunting loveliness, with grace, distinction, and elegance in their limbs and features that is all their own; you cannot call them fragile, but they are of so fine a fibre and so delicate a colouring that they only just escape that apprehension. Of Polish and Hungarian pur sang there is little to be found; women of the latter race are of a more robust and substantial build, with dark hair and complexion, fine flashing eyes, and pronounced type; and who that remembers the women of Linz and Vienna will refuse them a first prize? They possess a special beauty of their own, a beauty which is rare in even the loveliest Englishwomen; rare, indeed, and exceptional everywhere else; a beauty that the artist eye appreciates with a feeling of delight. They have the most delicately articulated joints of any women in the world. The juncture of the hand and wrist, of foot and ankle, of the nuque with the back and shoulders, is what our neighbours would call ‘adorable.’

“But alas that it should be so! The full gracious figures—types at once of strength and elegance—the supple, slender waists, the dainty little wrists and hands, become all too soon hopelessly fat, from the persistent idleness and luxury of the nerveless, unoccupied lives of these graceful ladies.”

ENGLISH BEAUTY

Like the Viennese, the English afford an illustration of what can be done with Teutonic stock by a judicious admixture of dark blood. Although the mysteries of English ethnology have not been completely unravelled, the original inhabitants of the British Islands appear to have been “composed of the long-headed dark races of the Mediterranean stock, possibly mingled with fragments of still more ancient races, Mongoliform or Allophylian” (Dr. Beddoe). In the later history of the race Romans, Germans, Danes, and Normans added their blood to this mixture. The Celtic-speaking people who in the time of the Roman Conquest inhabited South Britain, partook, according to Dr. Beddoe, “more of the tall blond stock of Northern Europe than of the thickset, broad-headed, dark stock which Broca has called Celts.” But the true Blonde invasion of Britain did not occur till towards the beginning of the fifth century, when the Low-Dutch tribes, the Angles and Saxons, came over from the river Elbe and the coast region, and drove the Britons to the west of the island, where they were called the Welsh, which is an old German appellation for foreigners.

The inference naturally suggests itself that the predilection for Blondes shown in English literature up to a recent date (as noted in the chapter on Blondes and Brunettes) may be traced to this fact that the conquering race was fair, and that consequently dark hair and eyes stigmatised their possessor as belonging to the conquered race. This condemnation of the Brunette type (on non-æsthetic grounds, be it noted) is forcibly illustrated by the following lines of the shepherdess Phebe in As You Like It—

“I have more cause to hate him than to love him; For what had he to do to chide at me? He said mine eyes were black and my hair black, And, now I am remember’d, scorned at me.”

But when this temporary aristocratic ground of preferring the Blond type was neutralised through the lapse of time, and Romantic Love, that potent awakener of the æsthetic sense, appeared on the scene and opened men’s eyes to the inferior beauty of that type, then began the reaction in favour of Brunettes, which has been going on ever since. This view is strikingly confirmed by the following remarks of Mr. Charles Roberts in Nature, January 7, 1885:—

“American statistics show that the blonde type is more subject to all the diseases, except one (chronic rheumatism), which disqualify men for military service, and this must obviously place blondes at a great disadvantage in the battle of life, while the popular saying, ‘A pair of black eyes is the delight of a pair of blue ones,’ shows that sexual selection does not allow them to escape from it. It is more than probable, therefore, from all these considerations, that the darker portion of our population is gaining on the blond, and this surmise is borne out by Dr. Beddoe’s remark that the proportion of English and Scotch blood in Ireland is probably not less than a third, and that the Gaelic and Iberian races of the West, mostly dark-haired, are tending to swamp the blond Teutonic of England by a reflex migration.”

Obviously, the ideal Englishwoman of the future will be a Brunette. Thackeray had a prophetic vision of her when he described Beatrix Esmond: “She was a brown beauty: that is, her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes were dark; her hair curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders” [note that]; “but her complexion was as dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which were a bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson ... a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was love, whose voice was the sweetest love-song, whose shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect grace,—agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen—now melting; now imperious, now sarcastic—there was no single movement of hers but was beautiful. As he thinks of her, he who writes feels young again and remembers a paragon.”

Sexual Selection, however, has not limited its efforts to the improvement of the colour of the hair, eyes, and complexion; the form of the features and figure has also been gradually altered and refined. An examination of the portraits in the National Gallery showed to Mr. Galton “what appear to be indisputable signs of one predominant type of face supplanting another. For instance, the features of the men painted by and about the time of Holbein have unusually high cheek-bones, long upper lips, thin eyebrows, and lank dark [?] hair. It would be impossible, I think, for the majority of modern Englishmen so to dress themselves, and clip and arrange their hair, as to look like the majority of these portraits.” And again: “If we may believe caricaturists, the fleshiness and obesity of many English men and women in the earlier years of this century must have been prodigious. It testifies to the grosser conditions of life in those days, and makes it improbable that the types best adapted to prevail then would be the best adapted to prevail now.”

Yet this improvement in the British figure and physiognomy is far from universal. The English are beyond all dispute the finest race in the world, physically and mentally; but the favourable action of the four Sources of Beauty, to which they owe this supremacy, does not extend to all classes. The lowest-class Englishman or Irishman is the most hideous and brutal ruffian in the world. Of Mental or Moral Culture not a trace; and whereas “the Spaniard, however ignorant, has naturally the manners and the refined feelings of a gentleman” (Macmillan’s Magazine, 1874), as well as a love of the beautiful forms and colours of nature; the Englishman of the corresponding class has nerves and senses so coarse that he is absolutely impervious to any impressions which do not come under the head of mere brutal excitement. In this class there is no Mixture of Races, but a worse than barbarian promiscuity; Romantic Love is of course miles beyond the conception of imaginations so filthy and sluggish; and Hygienic neglect here finds its most hideous examples in the Western World.

In his English Note-Books Hawthorne speaks as follows of “a countless multitude of little girls” taken from the workhouses and educated at a charity school at Liverpool: “I should not have conceived it possible that so many children could have been collected together, without a single trace of beauty or scarcely of intelligence in so much as one individual; such mean, coarse, vulgar features and figures betraying unmistakably a low origin, and ignorant and brutal parents. They did not appear wicked, but only stupid, animal, and soulless. It must require many generations of better life to wake the soul in them. All America could not show the like.”

“Climate,” he says in another place, “no doubt has most to do with diffusing a slender elegance over American young women; but something, perhaps, is also due to the circumstance of classes not being kept apart there as they are here: they interfuse amid the continual ups and downs of our social life; and so, in the lowest stations of life, you may see the refining influence of gentle blood.”

Taine, in his Notes on England, thus sketches the lowest of the Englishmen: “Apoplectical and swollen faces, whereof the scarlet hue turns almost to black, worn-out, bloodshot eyes like raw lobsters; the brute brutalised. Lessen the quantity of blood and fat, while retaining the same bone and structure, and increasing the countrified look; large and wild beard and moustache, tangled hair, rolling eyes, truculent muzzle, big, knotted hands; this is the primitive Teuton issuing from his woods; after the portly animal, after the overfed animal, comes the fierce animal, the English bull.” “The lower-class women of London,” says another French writer, Mr. Max O’Rell, “are thin-faced or bloated-looking. They are horribly pale; there is no colour to be seen except on the tips of their noses.”

Personal Beauty in England diminishes in quality and frequency, not only as we go from the upper to the lower classes, but also if we leave London and go to other cities. How far sanitary and educational differences account for this state of affairs, and how much is due to a habitual and natural immigration of Beauty to a place where it is most sure of appreciation, it is not easy to say. Hawthorne thus records the impression made on his artistic eyes by an excursion party of Liverpool manufacturing people: “They were paler, smaller, less wholesome-looking, and less intelligent, and, I think, less noisy than so many Yankees would have been.... As to their persons,” the women “generally looked better developed and healthier than the men; but there was a woeful lack of beauty and grace,—not a pretty girl among them, all coarse and vulgar. Their bodies, it seems to me, are apt to be very long in proportion to their limbs—in truth, this kind of make is rather characteristic of both sexes in England.”

A French writer, quoted by Figuier, Dr. Clavel, makes a similar statement: “The level plains, which are as a rule met with in England, are not favourable to the development of the lower extremities, and it is a fact that the power of the English lies, not so much in their legs, as in the arms, shoulders, and loins.... The barely-marked nape of his neck and the oval form of his cranium indicate that Finn blood flows in his veins; his maxillary power and the size of his teeth evidence a preference for an animal diet. He has the high forehead of the thinker, but not the long eyes of the artist.... In dealing craftily with his antagonist, he is well able to guard himself against the weaknesses of feeling. His face rarely betrays his convictions, and his features are devoid of the mobility which would prove disadvantageous.”

The Englishwoman, according to the same writer, “is tall, fair, and strongly built. Her skin is of dazzling freshness; her features are small and elegantly formed; the oval of her face is marked, but it is somewhat heavy toward the lower portion; her hair is fine, silky, and charming; and her long and graceful neck imparts to the movements of her head a character of grace and pride. So far all about her is essentially feminine; but upon analysing her bust and limbs we find that the large bones, peculiar to her race, interfere with the delicacy of her form, enlarge her extremities, and lessen the elegance of her postures and the harmony of her movements.... She lacks a thousand feminine instincts, and this lack is revealed in her toilette, the posture she assumes, and in her actions and movements.”

M. Taine also was convinced of the frequent lack of taste in dress and bearing in Englishwomen. Yet it is noticeable, and cannot be too much emphasised, that he goes to Spain and not to France for a comparison: “Compared with the supple, easy, silent, serpentine undulation of the Spanish dress and bearing, the movement here (in England), is energetic, discordant, jerking, like a piece of mechanism.” Nor does Taine in other respects venture to hold up his own countrywomen as models. He repeatedly refers to the superior beauty of the English complexion: “Many ladies have their hair decked with diamonds, and their shoulders, much exposed, have the incomparable whiteness of which I have just spoken, the petals of a lily, the gloss of satin do not come near to it.” And though he thinks that ugliness is more ugly in England than in France, he confesses that “generally an Englishwoman is more thoroughly beautiful and healthy than a Frenchwoman.” “Out of every ten young girls one is admirable, and upon five or six a naturalist painter would look with pleasure.” “Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who came to see the Court of the Regent in France, severely rallied our slim, painted, affected beauties, and proudly held up as a contrast ‘the natural charms and the lively colours of the unsullied complexions’ of Englishwomen.” “The physiognomy remains youthful here much later than amongst us, especially than at Paris, where it withers so quickly; sometimes it remains open even in old age; I recall at this moment two old ladies with white hair whose cheeks were smooth and softly rosy; after an hour’s conversation I discovered that their minds were as fresh as their complexions. Even when the physiognomy and the form are commonplace, the whole satisfies the mind; a solid bony structure, and upon it healthy flesh, constitute what is essential in a living creature.”

That is it precisely. The Englishman is the finest animal in the world; and it is because other nations so often forget that one must be a fine animal before one can be a fine man, that the English have outstripped them in colonising the world, and imposing on it their special form of culture and manners. As Emerson remarks, in his Essay on Beauty, “It is the soundness of the bones that ultimates itself in the peach-bloom complexion; health of constitution that makes the sparkle and the power of the eye.” “We are all entitled to beauty, should have been beautiful, if our ancestors had kept the laws,—as every lily and every rose is well.”

The London Times characteristically speaks of “that worst of sins in English eyes—uncleanliness”; and it is in England alone of all European countries that cleanliness is esteemed next to godliness. The Frenchman’s paradoxical exclamation, “What a dirty nation the English must be that they have to bathe so often!” is not so funny as it seems. The English, as can be seen in the uneducated classes, would be the dirtiest people in the world, thanks to their fogs and smoke, if they were not the most cleanly. It is the magic of tub and towel that has compelled M. Figuier to admit that although the Englishwomen “do not offer the noble appearance and luxurious figure of the Greek and Roman women,” yet “their skins surpass in transparency and brilliancy those of the female inhabitants of all other European countries.”

It is needless to dilate on the other hygienic habits to which the English owe their Health, notwithstanding their often depressing climate,—the passion for walking and riding, for tennis, boating, and other sports, which, moreover, have the advantage of bringing the sexes together, and enabling every Romeo to find his Juliet. One cannot help admiring the independence and common sense of the respectable London girls who go home on the top of the ’bus, enjoying the fresh air and varied sights, instead of being locked up in the foul-aired interior. They know very well, these clever girls, that their cheeks will be all the rosier, their smiles more bewitching, their eyes more sparkling after such a ride. In countries where there are fewer gentlemen such a thing would be considered as improper for a girl as it is for a man to give a girl a chance to choose her own husband. Do the French agree with the Turks that women have no souls, since, in Taine’s words, a Frenchman “would consider it indelicate to utter a single clear or vague phrase to the young girl before having spoken to her parents”? Taine imparts to his countrymen the curious information that in England men and women marry for Love, but he does not appear to realise how much of their superior Beauty—which he acknowledges—they owe to the habitual privilege of choosing their own wives for their personal charms, instead of having them selected by their parents for their money value. He does, however, realise the effect this system of courtship has on conjugal life; for in his History of English Literature he refers to the Englishwoman’s extreme “sweetness, devotion, patience, inextinguishable affection,—a thing unknown in distant lands, and in France especially; a woman here gives herself without drawing back, and places her glory and duty in obedience, forgiveness, adoration, wishing and pretending only to be melted and absorbed daily deeper and deeper in him whom she has freely and for ever chosen.”

And there is another English custom the value of which Taine realises and acknowledges: “In France we believe too readily,” he says, “that if a woman ceases to be a doll she ceases to be a woman.” True, it is only a decade or two since the superstition that a higher education would “destroy all the feminine graces” has been successfully combated even in England; but there has always been a vast amount of home education, and the girls have profited immensely by the unimpeded opportunity of meeting the young men and talking with them, and by the fact that the purity of tone which pervades English literature has made all of it accessible to them. Hence the charming intellectual lines which may be traced in an English woman’s face.

What the English still need is gastronomic and æsthetic training. After a few generations of sense-refinement the lower part of the English face will become as perfect as the upper part is now. Cultivation of the fine arts and freer facial expression of the emotions are the two great cosmetics which will put the finishing touch on English Beauty.

AMERICAN BEAUTY

England and America—which of these two countries has the most beautiful women, and which the largest number of them? Few questions of international diplomacy have been more frequently discussed than these problems in comparative æsthetics. But as in most cases patriotism has taken the place of æsthetic judgment in forming a verdict, few tangible results have been reached. There is too much exaggeration. Many English tourists have denied that there is any remarkable Beauty at all in the United States, and Americans have said the same of England.

If these sceptical Englishmen had only spent an hour on either side of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge at 6 P.M., they would have seen Beauty enough to bewilder all their senses; and if the American sceptics, next time they go to London, will spend a shilling in buying penny stamps at a dozen of those small post-offices so profusely scattered all over the city, they will see enough feminine Beauty in an hour to make them wish to stay in London the rest of their life,—especially if they remember that an advertisement for eleven girls to fill these postal clerkships has been answered by as many as 2000,—the majority of whom, presumably, were as good-looking as those who got the places, since postal clerks are not selected for their Beauty, but for their intelligence and efficiency.

A few specimens of the sweeping generalisations of tourists may here be cited. According to Richard Grant White, “The belief, formerly prevalent, that ‘American’ women had in their youth pretty doll faces, but at no period of life womanly beauty of figure, is passing away before a knowledge of the truth, and I have heard it scouted here by Englishmen, who, pointing to the charming evidence to the contrary before their eyes, have expressed surprise that the travelling bookwriters ... could have so misrepresented the truth.” Yet the same author indulges in the following absurdly extravagant statement: “Beauty is very much commoner among women of the English race than among those of any other with which I am acquainted; and among that race it is commoner in America than in England. I saw more beauty of face and figure at the first two receptions which I attended after my return than I had found among the hundreds of thousands of women whom I had seen in England.”

The late Dr. G. M. Beard, though an acute observer, allowed his patriotism a still more ludicrous sway over his imagination: “It is not possible,” he says, “to go to an opera in any of our large cities without seeing more of the representatives of the highest type of female beauty than can be found in months of travel in any part of Europe!”

Possibly Sir Lepel Griffin had read these lines when he was moved to pen the following counter-extravagances: “More pretty faces are to be seen in a day in London than in a month in the States. The average of beauty is far higher in Canada, and the American town in which most pretty women are noticeable is Detroit, on the Canadian border, and containing many Canadian residents. In the Western States beauty is conspicuous by its absence, and in the Eastern towns, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, it is to be chiefly found. In New York, in August, I hardly saw a face which could be called pretty.... In November New York presented a different appearance, and many pretty women were to be seen, although the number was comparatively small; and at the Metropolitan Opera House even American friends were unable to point out any lady whom they could call beautiful. A distinguished artist told me that when he first visited America he scarcely saw in the streets of New York a single face which he could select as a model, though he could find twenty such in the London street in which his studio was situated.”

Volumes might be filled with similar unscientific generalisations, but it would be a waste of space. My own general impression is that there are more pretty girls In America, and more beautiful women in England; that the average Englishwoman has a finer, healthier figure and colour, the American greater mobility and finer chiselling of the features. If English hands and feet are often somewhat large, American hands are just as often too small,—the greater blemish of the two, because it usually goes with too thin limbs. Irish girls of the best classes appear to be intermediate. Some of the finest figures and faces in the world belong to them; an Andalusian could hardly be more plump and graceful than many Irish and Irish-American girls. The Scotch, in the opinion of Hawthorne, “are a better-looking people than the English (and this is true of all classes), more intelligent of aspect, with more regular features. I looked for the high cheek-bones, which have been attributed, as a characteristic feature, to the Scotch, but could not find them. What most distinguishes them from the English is the regularity of the nose, which is straight, and sometimes a little curved inward; whereas the English nose has no law whatever, but disports itself in all manner of irregularity. I very soon learned to recognise the Scotch face, and when not too Scotch, it is a handsome one.”

Comparative Æsthetics is still in its infancy, and many years will doubtless elapse before it will become an exact science, in place of a collection of individual opinions based on vague impressions. The statistics which have lately been collected regarding the proportion of Blondes and Brunettes in various countries, may be regarded as the beginning of such a science. The next step should be the collection of a series of national composite portraits after the manner in which Mr. Galton has formed typical faces of criminals, etc. If in each country a number of individuals of pronounced national aspect were photographed on the same plate, the result would be a picture which would emphasise the typical national traits, and enable one to judge how far they deviate in each case from regular Beauty.

In most European countries it would be comparatively easy to obtain characteristic composite portraits of this kind. But in America the difficulties would perhaps be insurmountable. For there the mixture of nationalities is too great and too recent to have produced any national type. The women of Baltimore, New York, Boston, and San Francisco—what have they in common with one another any more than with their cousins in London? Almost one-third of the inhabitants of New York are foreign-born, including about half a million Irish and Germans. A fusion of these has been going on for generations, while others have retained their national traits; and to look, therefore, for a special type of New York Beauty would be absurd. Thanks to this large number of foreigners—not always of the most desirable classes—there is less Beauty in New York in proportion to the number of inhabitants than in most other cities of the United States. When people imagine they can tell from what American city a given woman comes, they are hardly ever influenced in their judgment by physiognomy or figure, but by peculiarities of dress, speech, or manner.

Dr. Weir Mitchell says that in America you may see “many very charming faces, the like of which the world cannot match—figures somewhat too spare of flesh, and, especially south of Rhode Island, a marvellous littleness of hand and foot. But look farther, and especially among New England young girls; you will be struck with a certain hardness of line in form and feature, which should not be seen between thirteen and eighteen at least. And if you have an eye which rejoices in the tints of health, you will miss them on a multitude of the cheeks which we are now so daringly criticising.” The notion that there is too much angularity of outline in New England faces and forms is a wide-spread one, and to some extent founded on truth; yet many of the plumpest, rosiest, and most charming American women come from Boston—as if to make amends for their antipodes, whom Mr. R. G. White describes as “certain women, too common in America, who seem to be composed in equal parts of mind and leather, the elements of body and soul being left out, so far as is compatible with existence in human form.”

Concerning the multitudinous mixture of nationalities in the United States one thing may be asserted confidently: that the finest ingredient in it is the English. Yet it has long been held that the English blood deteriorates in the United States; that the descendants of the English, like those of the Germans and other nations and their mixtures, gradually lose the sound constitution of their ancestors. Hawthorne, in his Scarlet Letter, was probably one of the first to give expression to this belief. Speaking of the New England women who two centuries ago waited for the appearance of Hester, he says: “Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for throughout that chain of ancestry every successive mother has transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and solidity, than her own.... The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England.”

Yet in his English Note-Books, written after the Scarlet Letter, he relates that he had a conversation with Jenny Lind: “She talked about America, and of our unwholesome modes of life, as to eating and exercise, and of the ill-health especially of our women; but I opposed this view as far as I could with any truth, insinuating my opinion that we were about as healthy as other people, and affirming for a certainty that we live longer.... This charge of ill-health is almost universally brought forward against us nowadays,—and, taking the whole country together, I do not believe the statistics will bear it out.” But why does he in another place speak of English rural people as “wholesome and well-to-do,—not specimens of hard, dry, sunburnt muscle, like our yeoman”? and on still another page: “In America, what squeamishness, what delicacy, what stomachic apprehension, would there not be among three stomachs of sixty or seventy years’ experience! I think this failure of American stomachs is partly owing to our ill-usage of our digestive powers, partly to our want of faith in them.”

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe exclaims that “the race of strong, hardy, cheerful girls ... is daily lessening; and, in their stead, come the fragile, easy-fatigued, languid girls of a modern age, drilled in book-learning, ignorant of common things.” Dr. E. H. Clarke writes in his Sex and Education, which should be read by all parents: “‘I never saw before so many pretty girls together,’ said Lady Amberley to the writer, after a visit to the public schools of Boston; and then added, ‘They all looked sick.’ Circumstances have repeatedly carried me to Europe, where I am always surprised by the red blood that fills and colours the faces of ladies and peasant girls, reminding one of the canvas of Rubens and Murillo; and I am always equally surprised on my return by crowds of pale, bloodless, female faces, that suggest consumption, scrofula, anæmia, and neuralgia.”

Dr. S. Weir Mitchell remarks that “To-day the American woman is, to speak plainly, physically unfit for her duties as woman.” Dr. Allen, quoted by Sir Lepel Griffin, remarks that a majority of American women “have a predominance of nerve tissue, with weak muscles and digestive organs”; and Mr. William Blaikie says that “scarcely one girl in three ventures to wear a jersey, mainly because she knows too well that this tell-tale jacket only becomes a good figure.”

Dr. Clarke relates that when travelling in the East he was summoned as a physician into a harem where he had the privilege of seeing nearly a dozen Syrian girls: “As I looked upon their well-developed forms, their brown skins, rich with the blood and sun of the East, and their unintelligent sensuous faces, I thought that if it were possible to marry the Oriental care of woman’s organisation to the Western liberty and culture of her brain, there would be a new birth and loftier type of womanly grace and form.”

There is, doubtless, much truth in these assertions. It is distressing to see the thin limbs of so many American children, and the anæmic complexions and frail, willowy forms of so many maidens. What the American girl chiefly needs is more muscle, more exercise, more fresh air. A large proportion of girls, it is true, become invalids because their employers in the shops never allow them to sit down and rest; and standing, as physiologists tell us, and as has been proved in the case of armies, is twice as fatiguing as walking. As if to restore the balance, therefore, the average well-to-do American girl never walks a hundred yards if a street car or ’bus is convenient; and the men, too, are not much better as a rule. One of the most disgusting sights to be seen in New York on a fine day is a procession of street cars going up Broadway, crowded to suffocation by young men who have plenty of time to walk home. In the case of the women, the cramping French fashions, which impede exercise, are largely to blame.

Fresh-air starvation, again, is almost as epidemic in America as in Germany. Although night air is less dreaded, draughts are quite as much; and people imagine that they owe their constant “colds” to the cold air with which they come into contact, whereas it is the excessively hot air in their rooms that makes them morbidly sensitive to a salubrious atmosphere. If young ladies knew that the hothouse air of their parlours has the same effect on them as on a bunch of flowers, making them wither prematurely, they would shun it as they would the sulphurous fumes of a volcano. Why should they deliberately hasten the conversion of the plump, smooth grape into a dull, wrinkled raisin?

It is through their morbid fondness for hothouse air and their indolence that American women so often neutralise their natural advantages: thanks to the fusion of nationalities and the unimpeded sway of Romantic Love, they are born more beautiful than the women of any other nation; but the beauty does not last.

It must be admitted, however, that a vast improvement has been effected within the last two generations. Beyond all doubt the young girls of fifteen are to-day healthier and better-looking than were their mothers at the same age. It is no longer fashionable to be pale and frail. Anglomania has done some good in introducing a love of walking, tennis, etc., as well as the habit of spending a large part of the year in the country.

Mr. Higginson, Mr. R. G. White, and many others, have insisted on this gradual improvement in the health and physique of Americans; and Dr. Beard remarks in his work on American Nervousness: “During the last two decades the well-to-do classes of America have been visibly growing stronger, fuller, healthier. We weigh more than our fathers; the women in all our great centres of population are yearly becoming more plump and more beautiful.... On all sides there is a visible reversion to the better physical appearance of our English and German ancestors.... The one need for the perfection of the beauty of the American women—increase of fat—is now supplied.” Yet the one cosmetic which 20 per cent of American women still need above all others is the ability to eat food which they scorn as “greasy,” but which is only greasy when badly prepared. It is to such food that Italian and Spanish women owe their luscious fulness of figure.

Dr. Clarke’s work on Sex and Education made a great sensation because he pointed out that the ill-health of American women is largely due to the brain-work imposed on them at school. Now the superior beauty of American women is admittedly largely due to the intelligent animation of their features, to the early training of their mental faculties. Is this advantage to be sacrificed? Dr. Clarke’s argument does not point to any such conclusion. He simply contended that the methods of female education were injurious. “The law has, or had, a maxim that a man and his wife are one, and that the one is the man. Modern American education has a maxim, that boys’ schools and girls’ schools are one, and that the one is the boys’ school.” Girls need different studies from boys to fit them for their sphere in life; and above all they need careful hygienic supervision and periods of rest.—Dr. Clarke’s book affords many irrefutable arguments in favour of one of the main theses of the present treatise: that the tendency of civilisation is to differentiate the sexes, mentally and physically. It is on this differentiation that the ardour and the cosmetic power of Romantic Love depend. Hence the hopelessness of the Virago Woman’s Rights Cause, especially in America, where the women are more thoroughly feminine than elsewhere. It is said that when the first female presidential candidate announced a lecture in a western town, not a single auditor appeared on the scene. American women, evidently, are in no immediate danger of becoming masculine and ceasing to inspire Love.

Women, however, must be educated and thoroughly, for it has been abundantly shown in the preceding pages that only an educated mind can feel true Romantic Love. But their education should be feminine. They need no algebra, Greek, and chemistry. What they need is first of all a thorough knowledge of Physiology and Hygiene, so that they may be able to take care of the Health and Beauty of their children. Then they should be well versed in literature, so as to be able to shine in conversation. Their artistic eye should be trained, to enable them to teach their children to go through the world with their eyes open. Most of us are half blind; we cannot describe accurately a single person or thing we see. Music should be taught to all women, as an aid in making home pleasant and refined, and as an antidote to care. Natural history is another useful feminine study which enlarges the sympathies by showing, for example, that birds love and marry almost as we do, wherefore it is barbarous to wear their stuffed bodies on one’s hat.

Education, Intermarriage, Hygiene, and Romantic Love will ultimately remove the last traces of the ape and the savage from the human countenance and figure. Climate will perhaps always continue to modify different races sufficiently to afford the advantages of cross-fertilisation or intermarriage. The remarkable fineness of the American complexion, for instance, has been ascribed to climatic influences, and with justice it seems, for, according to Schoolcraft, the skin of the native Indians is not only smoother, but more delicate and regularly furrowed than that of Europeans. The notion, however, that the climate is tending to make the American like the Indian in feature and form is nonsensical. The typical “Yankee” owes his high cheek-bones and lankness to his indigestible food; his thin colourless lips to his Puritan ancestry and lack of æsthetic culture.

Even if climate did possess the power to modify the forms of our features, it would not be allowed to have its own way where these modifications conflicted with the laws of Beauty. Science is daily making us more and more independent of crude and cruel Natural Selection, and of the advantages of physical conformity to our surroundings. Hence Sexual Selection has freer scope to modify the human race into harmony with æsthetic demands. Perhaps the time will come when the average man will have as refined a taste and as deep feelings as a few favoured individuals have at present; that epoch will be known as the age of Romantic Love and Personal Beauty.

INDEX

About, E.: fashionable disease, 510 Absence: effect on Love, 256 Addison: familiarity, 184, 258 Æsthetic sense: developed from utilitarian associations, 336; training the, 340; highest product of civilisation, 409, 479 Æsthetic suicide, 388, 390 Affection, impersonal, 11-16; for dismal scenery, 13 Affections, Personal: love for animals, 16-19; maternal love, 19; paternal, 20; filial, 22; brotherly and sisterly, 23; friendship, 24; romantic love, 26; differentiation of, 180 Age: which preferred by Cupid, 303; beauty of old, 334; and decrepitude, 334; ears in old, 430; eyebrows, 474; hair, 489, 493 Air: fresh, 317; necessary to Beauty, 186, 319, 397, 426, 446, 447, 492, 515 Albinos, 468, 501 Alcock, Dr.: colour of tropical man, 456 Alfieri: first love, 204, 214 Alison: on taste, 451 Allen, Grant: origin of æsthetic sense, 336 Amazons, 191 Ambidexterity, 408, 444 American beauty, 177, 300; South American, 319; quadroons, 321; rapid development of, 326; feet, 362; frank gaze, 481, 531, 535-543; complexion, 542 American Love: courtship, 118; flirtation, 122, 126; Gallantry, 158; and Beauty, 177; at eighteen, 193; replaces German and French courtship, 288, 294-301 Amicis, E. de: Spanish beauty, 517 Amiel, H. F.: on Germans, 523 Animals: love for, 16; ignored in Christian ethics, 18; love among, 33; jealousy, 39, 128; kissing, 227, 229; as tests of Beauty, 331; arctic, why white, 456 Apes, caressing, 225; kissing, 225, 228; ugliness of, 333; feet, 355, 359; gait, 357; legs, 371; abdomen, 385; arms, 402; hands, 405; jaws, 409; nude patches, 487; hair, 492 Apollo, 490 Arabian beauty, 516 Aryan Love, ancient, 72 Asceticism and ugliness, 314 Augustine, St.: love and jealousy, 128 Austrian beauty, 319, 516

Bach, A. B.: chest-exercise, 399 Bachelors, 194 Bacon: friendship, 25; amorous hyperbole, 162; celibacy and genius, 197; love and genius, 207; employment versus love, 257 Bain, Prof., 225, 341, 346. Baldness, 492 Ballet-dancing, 370 Ballrooms: unhealthy, 364, 402; for birds, 365 Balzac: prolonging Love, 218; how his love was won, 252; hand of great men, 405 “Bangs,” 388, 495 Banting, 384 Bathing, 461, 518, 524, 534 Beard, G. M.: diet, 384; eyeball, 476; American beauty, 536, 541 Beard, the, 489 Beauty, in flowers, origin of, 8; dependent on Health and Cross-fertilisation, 10 Beauty, Personal: the æsthetic overtone of Love, 32; admiration of, by animals, 43; by savages, 59; among Hebrews, 72; Hindoos, 74; Greeks, 83; Romans, 88; mediæval, 108; feminine versus masculine strength, 115; arouses jealousy, 133; when only skin-deep, 155; and intellect, 155; refines Love, 177-180; feminine, in masculine eyes, 177; masculine, in feminine eyes, 178; neglected after marriage, 185; lost prematurely, 186; “skin-deep,” 190; elimination of ugly and masculine women, 190; fatal to bachelors, 194; physical, a source of Love, 303; facial, 304; dependent on Health, 310; independent of utility, 311; Greek, 313; increased through Hygiene, 316, 335; effect of crossing on, 318; Jews, 320; quadroons, 321; increased through Love, 322, 323; as a fine art, 329, 417; tests of, negative, 331; positive, 338; human less frequent than animal, 391; lost in degradation, 333; and age, 334; expression versus form, 349; proportion, 354; feet, 355, 361; value of exercise, 362, 403; lower limbs, 371; Hygiene and civilisation, 372, 394; lacing fatal to, 381, 382; corpulence, 383; rare, 387; chest, 394, 396; increased by deep-breathing, 399; neglect of, a sin, 400; neck and shoulder, 400; finger-nails, 406; jaw, 408; characteristic, 411; dimples, 412; lips, 413; cheeks, 423; colour and blushes, 425; ears, 429; noses, 440; Greek, 440; arm and hand, 405, 408; cosmetic value of gastronomy, 446; of fragrant air, 447; of sunlight, 460, 462; skin, 453, 458, 488; eyes, 464 et seq., 516; beards and moustaches, 489; sexual selection preserves hair, 492; sensuous, of eyes, 480; of hair, 492, 493; versus Fashion, 387, 496; Brunette versus Blonde, 496; national traits, 505; race-mixture and Love, 508; and mental culture, 324, 520; stature, 520; beautiful and pretty, 521 Beauty-sleep, 317 Beauty-spots, 452 Beddoe, Dr.: brunettes and blondes, 499; races of Britain, 529 Beer, 525, 526 Beethoven: Love-affairs, 210, 212, 217 Bell, Sir Charles: the lips, 227; Greek beauty, 349; woman’s gait, 373; facial expression, 414; beards, 490 Bella donna, 504 Berlioz: love-affairs, 199, 206 Birds: affections of, 35; intermarriages, nuptial mass meetings, 37; courtship, 38; love-dances, 39, 52; jealousy, 39; coyness, 40; choice of a mate, 42; source of colours, 44; love-calls, 51; female seeks male, 51; display of ornaments, motives of, 52; æsthetic taste of, 53; murdered for vulgar women, 150; billing, 230 Blackie, Prof.: Goethe’s love-affairs, 212 Blaikie, W.: American physique, 540 Blind, why love is, 164, 202 Blonde versus Brunette, 496, 529 Blushes, 425; eyes of Albinos, 468 Bodenstedt: Oriental women, 185; Georgian women, 325 Bones, 410 Bothmer, Countess von: French Love, 269, 270; German women, 283; English flirtation, 293 Brain, the, 449, 522 Brandes, Georg: feminine Love at thirty, 193, 197 Breath, offensive, 423 Breathing, healthy, 380; deep, magic effects of, 397, 447 Brinton and Napheys, 379, 421, 432, 444, 484 Brotherly and sisterly love, 23 Browne, Lennox: corset ruins grace, 382; consumption, 399 Brunette versus Blonde, 305, 496, 513, 520, 526, 529 Bryant, 254 Büchner, L., 534 Bulkley, Dr.: care of skin, 460; removing hairs, 493 Bunyan: kissing, 284 Burke: delicacy, 343; smoothness, 344; neck and breasts, 394; love and stature, 521 Burns: Love and cosmic attraction, 6; amorous hyperbole, 162; first love, 205; ardour of his love, 208; fickleness, 211; undercurrents, 213; a lover’s dream, 220; kissing, 231 Burton, 4, 259 Bustle, the, 375, 494 Buxton, 259 Byron, Lord: affection for mountains, 13; epitaph on dog, 17; woman’s Love, 121; waltzing, 129; the coquette, 142; Romantic Love, 163; love-affairs, 202; first love, 204; a poet’s love, 210; Swift, 210; kissing, 236; refusals, 241; how to win love, 243, 252; sarcasm on marriage, 259; money and “love,” 263; Italian Love, 274; Love inspired by inferior beauty, 305; black eyes, 498; Italian beauty, 512

Calderwood: on affection, 11 Calisthenics, 397 Campbell, Sir G.: Aryan cheekbones, 424 Camper’s angle, 449 Canada: Love-matches and Beauty, 178, 373, 510 Capture of women, 56 Caresses, 225 Carew, 256 Celibacy: mediæval notions of, 92; bachelors, 195; and genius, 197 Cervantes, 202, 280 Chamfort, 224 Chaperonage: in Greece, 77; Rome, 87; mediæval, 103; modern, 119, 126, 174, 181, 186, 192; in France, 193, 266 et seq.; England, 268, 293; Italy, 274; Spain, 277; Germany, 285; America, 294, 296 Characteristic, the, 410 Cheeks, 423; colour and blushes, 425 Chemical affinities, 3-6 Chest, the, 304, 394, 397 Chesterfield: birth of “flirtation,” 124; flattery, 245 Children: head, 449; eyes, 480 Childs, Mrs,: Love and marriage, 122 Chin, 412 China: Love in, 118; jealousy, 129, 133; aristocracy of intellect, 210; standard of Beauty, 328; mutilation of the feet, 352; dancing, 366; cheeks, 423; eyes, 473, 483, 485 Chiromancy, 406 Chivalry: militant and comic, 98; poetic, 101 Choice, sexual. See Individual Preference Chopin: musician for lovers, 170 Christianity and Love, 97; sympathy, 149; and Beauty, 323 Circassian women, 320, 427 City air, 447; city life, injurious to health, 372 Civilisation: and Beauty, 424; and noise, 434 Clarke, E. H.: American Health and Beauty, 539; sex and education, 541 Clavel, Dr.: English Beauty, 532 Cleanliness, 96, 364, 533 Climate, 542 Clough, 227 “Colds,” 540 Coleridge: fruitless Love, 121; best marriages, 190; virtue and passion, 218; compliments, 245; love and absence, 256 Collier, Miss M.; Italian Love and Hygiene, 512 Collier, R. L.: English and American courtship, 292 Colour: a normal product, proportionate to vitality, 44; Typical and Sexual, 44; Protective and Warning, 48; means of recognition of species, 49; complementary, 172, 345; in cheeks, 425; ears, 432; skin, 453, 488; of man’s skin, original, 456; eyes, 465, 478 Complementary qualities: colours, 172; guide Love, 272, 305 Complexion: white versus black, 453; Scandinavian and Spanish, 459; cosmetic hints, 460; freckles, 462; brunette versus blonde, 500, 526; English, 533, 534; injured by hot air, 540 Compliments, 244 Confidence, value of, to lovers, 239, 242 Conjugal love: among animals, 34; savages, 182; Hebrews, 69; Greeks, 75; Romans, 86; troubadours, 102; self-sacrifice, 160; in France, 162; differs from Romantic, 180 et seq.; modern, 182; essence of, 183; feminine deeper than masculine, 186; and friendship, 258 Constable, 167 Consumption, nurseries of, 399 Coquetry: in birds, 40; and flirtation, 122; historic excuse for, 124; essence of, 142; masculine, 142; and high collars, 242 Corpulence, 304, 382; how to reduce, 384; in old England, 530 Corset: fatal to Beauty, 379 et seq.; causes corpulence, 382, 385; ruins chest, 400 Cosmetic hints (see also Hygiene and Exercise): how to refine the lips, 421; ears, 431; odours, 445; complexion, 460, 464; electricity, 464; eyelashes, 484; eyes, 485; hair, 491; scalp, 493; colour of eyes, 504; fresh air, 513 Cosmic attraction, 3-6 Costume, study of, 495 Court-plaster, 452 Courts of Love, 103 Courtship: among animals, 37; facilitated by love-calls, 50; display of ornaments, 53; among savages, 56; Hebrews, 70; Greeks, 77; Plato on, 78; advice to mediæval girls, 106; definition and value of, 118; playing at, 122; modern, 125, 126, 173; mediæval, 239; French, 268; Italian, 275; Spanish, 278; German, 282; American and English, 288, 292, 294, 299; the object of dancing, 364; needed in France, 509; Germany, 527 Cousins: Love and kissing, 235; as chaperons, 297 Coyness: an overtone of Love, 30; among animals, 40; among primitive maidens, 64; Hindoos, 74; Greeks, 77; mediæval, 100; modern, 114; et seq.; a feminine weapon, 115; disadvantages of, 118; lessens woman’s Love, 119; displaced by flirtation, 122; of fate, 170; after marriage, 185; varies, 253; how to overcome, 254; needed in Germany, 285 Crimes, against Health and Beauty, 400, 419 Criminal types, 324 Crinoline craze, the, 376 Cross-fertilisation: advantages to Health and Beauty, 8, 318 Crossing, 306; a source of Beauty, 318 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 274 “Cunning to be strange,” 115 Cupid’s arrows, 84 Curing Love, art of: 154, 196, 255; absence, 256; travel, 257; employment, 257; contemplation of married misery, 257; of feminine inferiority, 260; focussing her faults, 262; reason versus passion, 263; Love versus Love, 264 Curvature, 341, 355, 371, 379, 381, 393, 396, 400, 413, 473, 474

Dancing: love-dances of birds, 39, 52; and grace, 364; and courtship, 365; birds, 365; Greeks and Romans, 366; why men no longer care for, 367; evolution of dance-music, 367; dance of Love, 369; ballet, 370 Dante, 2, 109, 168, 198, 201, 215, 420 Darwin: on flowers and insects, 7; benefactor of animals, 18; birds, 35; animal jealousy, 39; coyness, 40; sexual selection, 43; love charms and calls, 50; birds displaying their ornaments, 53; English Beauty, 145; female tenderness, 150; masculine females, 190; expression of Love, 224; amorous desire for contact, 225; origin of kissing, 229; feminine inferiority, 260; taste, 326; symmetry in nature, 338; bird dances and courtship, 365; Hottentot bustle, or steatopyg, 375; jaws and hands, 409; lip mutilations, 416; expression of emotions, 418; Siamese notions of Beauty, 423; blushing, 427; Albinos, 501; movements of ears, 430, 433; point of, 431; mutilations, 432; the nose, 436; sense of smell, 446; Indian heads, 450; movements of the scalp, 452; complexion, 455; eyebrows, 474; loss of man’s hair, 486 Darwinism, new proof for, 389 Decrepitude, 334 Deformity: fatal to Love, 304; elimination of, 323 Degradation: a cause of ugliness, 333 Delicacy, 343, 410, 413 Depilatories, 492 De Quincy: inferiority of feminine imagination, 261 Diagnosis of Love, 254 Diderot: effects of Love, 242 Dimples, 405, 412 Disease: kills Love, 304; a cause of ugliness, 334, 341; resulting from tight shoes, 354; from lacing, 380, 381; hollow eyes, 473; and Fashion, 510, 541 Display of ornaments, by animals, 52 Don Juans, among birds, 36 Draughts, stupid fear of, 317 Drayton, 167 Dress, improprieties of, 380; woman’s for woman, 388; in France, 510 Dryden: on Love, 89, 166; Love versus Love, 264 Dühring, Dr.: German money-marriages, 282 Dürer, 481

Ears: a useless ornament, 429; physiognomic theories, 432 Eckstein: antiquity of Love, 1 Education of Girls, 156; the right kind, 195, 261; effect of on Beauty, 324, 541, 542 Egypt: Love in, 67 Electricity, as a cosmetic, 464, 493, 505 Eliot, George: on first Love, 138 Elopements, 61, 188 Elson, L. C.: Troubadours and Minnesingers, 104 Emerson: poetry and science, 9; lovers’ sympathy, 31; on lovers, 134; amorous hyperbole, 163, 165, 241; balm for rejected lovers, 255; ocular expression, 475; Health and Beauty, 533 Emotional differentiation, 180 Empedokles, 3, 180 Engagements, 293; broken, 300 English Beauty, 145; feet, 359, 362; open-air games, 373; mouths and chins, 419; nose, 442; beards, 489; Brunettes gaining on Blondes, 499; physique, 507, 509, 528 seq. English Love: courtship, 118; flirtation, 122, 126, 193, 196; kissing, 233, 237, 288-294; Goldsmith on, 299 Epicures: why handsome, 446 Erasmus: kissing in England, 233 Erotomania, 222 Evolution of Love, 111, 173, 180, 181; of Beauty, 327; of taste, 327; great toe, 359 Exaggeration: characteristic of bad taste, 61 Exclusiveness: amorous. See Monopoly Exercise: effects on Beauty, 186, 313, 372; reduces fatness but increases muscle, 384, 403; in France, 509, 520, 525 Exogamy, 56 Expression: improves form of features, 155; facial, of Love, 224; of lips, 227; of Beauty, 327, 347-352; mouth, 409; facial, 414, 458; of vice, 418; of lust, 418; ears, 433; eyes, 470, 475; dog’s tail, 491; Italian, 513 Eyes, 164, 262; smiling, 415; the most beautiful feature, 464; colour of, 465; lustre, 469; form, 472; lashes and brows, 474, 503, 483; expression of, 479; movements of iris, 475; of eyeball, 480; of lids, 482; of brows, 484; “making eyes,” 491; dark versus light, 503; Spanish, 516, 517

Face, the, 411, 448, 490 Factories: unhealthy, 400; whistles, 434 Fashion: the Handmaid of Ugliness, 328; a disease, 352; mutilates the feet, 352, 360; frustrates advantages of dancing, 365; prescribes absurd hours, 367; its essence vulgar exaggeration, 375; crinoline craze, 375; wasp-waist mania, 379; lacing, 380; Fashion Fetish analysed, 385; and Darwinism, 389; repeats itself, 389; ludicrous features, 390; masculine, 391, 393; disgusting pictures, 393; deforms the breasts, 395; finger-nails, 406; gloves, 407; right-handedness, 408; teeth, 415; powders and paints, 425, 458, 459; ears, 432; noses, 436, 443; versus Taste, 437; forehead, 431, 450, 451; court-plaster, 452; eyebrows, 474; hollow eyes, 483; mutilates eyes, 485; head-dresses, 494; tyranny of ugliness, 496; in France, 509; and bad manners, 510 Fat, cosmetic value of, 120, 132 Feet, the: size, 351; fashionable ugliness, 352; tests of Beauty, 354; not enlarged by graceful walking, 362 Feminine Beauty: in masculine eyes, 177; prematurely lost, 186, 312; rarer than masculine, 313; greater than masculine, 342; bosom, 342, 394, 400, 403; face, 411; nose, 441; forehead, 388, 448, 496; wrinkles, 451; skin, 488; beard, 489, 521 Feminine Inferiority, 260, 262, 274 Feminine Love: less deep than masculine, 120, 273; desire to please, 159; dynamic, not æsthetic, 178, 253, 303; at thirty, 193; expression of, 224; lessens delicacy, 254; Fichte on, 284, 401 Feminine virtues, 98; mediæval culture, 105; cruelty, 150; devotion, 160 Femininity, standard of, 290 Fichte: feminine Love, 284 Fickleness of genius, 210 Figuier, 458, 506, 509, 511, 517 Figure: a good, inspires Love, 154; Oriental, 540; plump, 541 Filial Love, 22 Finger-nails, 406 Fletcher, 167 Flirtation and coquetry, 122; definition of, 123; versus coyness, 123; in France, 273; in Spain, 278; Germany, 285; England, 293; with the eyes, 484, 491 Flower love and beauty, 7-11 Flower, Prof.: walking, 358; toes, 359; nose-rings, 443 Forehead, the, 388, 411; Beauty and brain, 448; fashionable deformity, 450, 496 Fragrance, a tonic, 447 France: the source of vulgar Fashions, 352 Franklin, B.: early marriages, 189; advantages of large families, 189 Freckles, not caused by sunshine, 462, 500, 524 French Beauty: rare as Love-marriages, 272; feet, 362; ugly fashions, 389; brunettes and blondes, 499; general 506; in America, 510; compared with English, 533 French Love: Chivalry, 99; Troubadours, 102; no flirtation, 123, 126; grandchildren sacrificed, 162; lower classes, 176; feminine, at thirty, 193, 196; killed by ridicule, 243, 265-274, 341, 508 French, T. R.: nose-breathing, 445 Freytag, G.: mediæval German marriages, 281 Friendship, 24; among animals, 34; female, in Greece, 81, 180; advantages over conjugal love, 258 Fringe, 388, 495

Gait, graceful, 357, 363; defects in woman’s, 373, 375, 376; in Spain, 518, 520, 533 Gallantry: an overtone of Love, 30; among animals, 39; among savages, 66; birth of, in Rome, 91; crazy mediæval, 100, 157; modern, 157; conjugal, 185; extravagant forms of, 221; feminine, 244; flattery in actions, 245; Italian, 274; Spanish, 278; German, 283; American, 298; true, 388; why on the wane, 495 Galton: on Coyness, 124; callous feelings, 148; morals and large families, 189; heredity of genius, 201; woman’s senses less delicate than man’s, 261; ancestral influences, 306; criminal types, 324; stature and marriage, 521; change in English physiognomy, 530 Gastronomy: cosmetic value of, 446; England, 535; America, 539 Gautier, Th.: woman has no sense of beauty, 124 Genius: emotional, 2, 90, 110; and Health, 179; and marriage, 197; and Love, 201, 217; modern, abundant, 203; in Love, 204; amorous precocity, 204; ardour, 207; versus rank and money, 209; fickleness, 210; multiplicity, 213; and Monopoly, 214; fictitiousness, 215 Georgian women, 60 German Beauty: 144; Bavarian corpulence, 385; Brunettes gaining on Blondes, 499; physiognomy, 514; general, 522-528 German Love: chivalry, 99; Minnesingers, 103; in Folksongs, 105; word for courtship, 118, 126; in novels, 143, 196; gallantry, 240; compared with French, 266, 280-288 Girls: of the Period, 119; plain, chances of getting married, 154; pretty, apt to be spoiled, 155, 200; wrong education, 156, 261; cages versus nets, 185; hints on men, 187; American and English, 188; best education for, 195; easily duped, 224; in France, 267; Germany, 283; know when they are ugly, 307; should skate, 373; how to acquire a fine figure, 385, 404 Gladstone: Greek hair, 496, 498; stature, 520 Godkin, E. L.: true character of milliners, 387 Goethe: Elective Affinities, 5; affection for nature, 15; ancient love, 116; first love, 136; intellect and Love, 157; love affairs, 202, 206, 212, 213; unhappy marriages, 258; transitoriness of Love, 287; aversion to noise, 435 Goldsmith: on Love, 116, 165; his first love, 211; English Love, 299 Grace, where found, 308, 343; of gait, 357; acquired by dancing, 364; destroyed by corsets, 382; movements of the head, 401; French, 507; Italian, 514; Spanish, 518, 520 Gradation, 42, 339, 355, 371, 394, 400, 404, 459 Grandchildren: sacrificed to money-marriages, 160, 162, 245, 260 Gratiolet, 479 Greek Beauty, 83; sources of, 313; animals as ideals, 332; no expression, 348, 349; feet, 356; gymnastics, 384; hands, 406; chin, 413; lips, 414; ears, 430, 433; beards, 489; arrangement of hair, 495; colour of hair, 495; stature, 520 Greek Love, 75, 116, 157, 180, 191 Griffin, Sir L.: French women, 506; American women, 536 Grose: noses, 437 Grote, G.: Platonic love, 80; Greek Beauty, 83; Amazons, 191 Gymnastics: among Greeks, 384 Gypsy, Spanish, 516

Haeckel, Prof., 431, 523 Hair: how to wear, 388, 530; on the arm, 403; cause of man’s nudity, 486; how to remove, 491; preserved by Sexual Selection, 492; æsthetic value of, 494; blonde and brunette, 496, 501; red, 503 Hamerton, P. G.: Love and age, 138; feminine sympathy, 156; embers of passion, 264; French Love, 267, 271, 272 Hammond, Dr. W.: Delirium of Persecution, 220; erotomania, 222 Hand, 402, 405, 408 Handel, 199 Harrison, J. P.: length of first and second toes, 359 Hartmann, E. von: pleasure and pain, 168; masculine and feminine Love, 284 Hats, tall, 393; hideous French, 388, 494 Haweis, Mrs.: Fashion versus Beauty, 494; turban, 495; hair-powder, 503 Hawthorne, N.: a love-letter, 250; English Beauty, 531; American physique, 538 Hawthorne, Julian: German Beauty, 526 Haydn, 198, 206 Hazlitt, 258 Head, the deformities of, 328; and hair, 492 Health: correlated with Beauty in flowers, 8, 10; in animals, 46; men and women, 178; source of Love, 303; source of Beauty, 310-317, 331, 534; and delicacy, 344; exercise, 372; lacing, 380; sins against, 419; and colour, 347, 453, 458; and lustre, 469, 477; eyelids, 473; and sunshine, 500; in Italy, 512; England, 534; America, 538. Hebra, Prof.: freckles, 462 Hebrews: Love among ancient, 69; sense of beauty, 72; absence of jealousy, 129; beauty and ugliness of, 320; noses, 438, 440 Hegel: colour of the skin, 453 Heine: flower and butterfly love, 10; the word love, 11; joy and torture, 32; persiflage of coyness, 118, 120; jealousy, 130, 132; on first Love, 137; his marriage, 157; poet for lovers, 170, 202; his first love, 205; his true love, 208; æsthetic love, 211; multiplicity, 213; wedding music, 259; woman’s character, 259; curing Love with Love, 264; French Love, 267; an emotional educator, 286; Italian Beauty, 515 Helmholtz: overtones, 29 Herder: Love, 71; eyes of great men, 482 Heredity: of genius, 201 Hetairai, 79 Higginson, T. W.: sexual likeness, 174; American physique, 541 Hindoo Love maxims, 73 History of Love, 67 Holland, F. W.: morals and large families, 189 Holmes, O. W.: feminine barbarity, 151; refined lips, 419 Homer: Helen’s Beauty, 314 Honeymoon, 164, 188 Horwicz, 16, 21, 240 Hottentots: notions of Beauty, 376 Howells, W. D.: monogamy, 133; feminine self-abnegation, 259; Italian courtship, 275-276; broken engagements, 300; playful flattery, 301 Hueffer, F.: Troubadours, 102 Hume: uncertainty augments passion, 124; mixed emotions, 172 Humphrey, Dr.: walking, 358 Hungarian Beauty, 319 Huxley: female education, 261; ape’s foot, 358 Hygiene, modern: a source of Beauty, 316; of the feet, 362; legs, 373; chest, 397, 398; fatal consequences of neglect, 399; eyes, 485, 527; hair, 493; in England, 534 Hyperbole: emotional, an overtone of Love, 32; in ancient Aryan Love, 74; modern, 162-166; after marriage, 184; pathologic analogies, 219, 221; contact, 225; and genius, 243; in America, 301

Indians, American: wooing, 173; standard of Beauty, 327; muscular power, 371; deformed skulls, 450 Indifference, feigned: value to lovers, 241 Individual Preference: an overtone of Love, 30; among animals, 42; savages, 57, 59; Hebrews, 70, 78; Greeks, 79; Romans, 87; mediæval times, 94, 112; modern, 173-177, 188; in France, 268; Italy, 275; Spain, 278; Germany, 282; England, 288, 535; America, 300; Schopenhauer on, 310 Individualism versus Fashion, 389 Individuality, 174; and nationality, 300, 350, 482, 508 Individuals: sacrificed to species, 302, 308 Insanity and Love: analogies, 218; erotomania, 222 Intellect and Beauty, 61, 155, 217, 324, 326, 534 Intellect and Love, 61, 74, 79, 83, 90, 122, 154, 157, 193, 203, 209, 216, 285, 299, 304 Intoxication, amorous, 163, 197 Iris, 466, 479 Irving, Washington: transient Love, 211; intellect and Beauty, 324; Spanish Beauty, 519 Italian Beauty: 274, 276; feet, 359, 361; nose, 437; hair, 497, 502; complexion, 501; general, 511-515 Italian Love: chivalry, 101; no word for courtship, 118, 196, 274-277, 512

Jaeger, G.: personal perfumery, 446 James, Henry: American women, 158; Daisy Miller, 295 Japan: jealousy, 129, 133 Jaws, the, 408 Jealousy: an overtone of Love, 30; among animals, 39; moral mission of, 62; occasional absence among savages, 62; Greek, 77; mediæval, 103; modern, 127-133; retrospective and prospective, 131; aroused by Beauty, 133, 172; conjugal, 184; Oriental, 185; morbid, 221 Jeffrey: on Taste, 328; theory of Beauty, 335 Jews. See Hebrews Johnson, Dr.: second Love, 135; marriage and Love, 258 Jowett, Prof.: Sokrates, love and friendship, 258

Kant: women ensnared by counterfeit lovers, 243; value of smiles, 421 Karr, A.: Woman’s Love, 259 Keats: amorous hyperbole, 163; paradox, 168; Beauty and Love, 177; love-letters, 246-248 Kissing, 142, 227; among animals, 227; savages, 228; origin of, 229; ancient, 232; mediæval, 233; modern, 234; love-kisses, 235; art of, 237; varieties of, 414; on the ears, 432; cheeks, 425 Knight: Beauty and utility, 336, 340 Knille: Italian Beauty, 514 Kollmann, Prof.: feminine Beauty, 342; walking, 371; muscular development, 373; gait, 374; breasts, 395; face, 411; nose, 436; hair, 502; results of crossing, 320 Koran, the: on woman’s soul, 94 Krafft-Ebing: Insanity and Love, 173, 222

La Bruyère: how to win love, 244; on use of paint, 459 Lacing: fatal to Beauty, 379 Lamartine: genius and Love, 210; love-affairs, 252 Lamb, Chas.: amorous paradoxes, 166; love-affairs, 212 Language of Love: words, 223; facial expression, 224; caresses, 225; kissing, 227 La Rochefoucauld: Love and friendship, 26; and absence, 256 Lathrop, G. P.: Love-making in Spain, 278; Spanish Beauty, 518 Laughter, 421 Lavater: chin, 412; ocular lustre, 470 Lawson, F. P.: effect of education on Beauty, 324 Leanness, 304, 382; how to cure, 384 Lecky: on kindness to animals, 18; family affections among Greeks, 75; asceticism and chastity, 93; feminine devotion, 160; southern type of Beauty, 501 Lenau: love-letters, 248; music and Love, 257 Leo, Judah: on Love, 4 Lessing: every woman a shrew, 259 Life: prolonged through hygienic care, 316 Lips, 227, 231; expression of scorn, 410; refined, 413; lip language, 414; effect on, of æsthetic culture, 419 Liszt, 199 London, 435 Longfellow, 264 Love-charms (and calls): among animals, 50; for women, 250, 426 Love-dramas, among flowers, 9 Love-maxims: Hindoo, 11 Love, Romantic: a modern sentiment, 1, 180; superior to friendship, 26; to maternal love, 27; secures to man the benefits of cross-fertilisation, 28; overtones of, 29; a great moral, æsthetic and hygienic force, 28, 97; among animals, 33; savages, 54; Egyptians, 67; Hebrews, 69; ancient Aryans, 72; more traces of modern in Indian poetry than in Greek and Roman, 73; among Greeks, 75; origin of, 85; among Romans, 86; Mediæval, 92; wooing and waiting, 101; dependent on refinement, 101; maid versus married woman, 105; birth of modern, 109; order of development proved, 111; at the altar, 113; in novels, 113; pleasure of pursuit, 115; value of procrastination, 116, 118; coyness lessens woman’s, 119; masculine deeper than feminine, 120, 259, 272; modern jealousy, 127; passion or admiration, 130; is transient, 135, 180; is first best? 136; Heine on first, 137; first is not best, 137; individual versus the species, 139; coquetry, 142; opposed by rank, 143; intensifies emotions, 147; stimulates social sympathy, 149; selfish aspect of, 151; at first sight, 38, 152; inspired by a fine figure, 154; by sympathy, 156; responsible for general growth of Gallantry, 158; refines men, 159; impels toward self-sacrifice, 159, 161; in France, 162; emotional hyperbole, 162, 175; intoxication of, 163; honeymoon, 164; mixed moods and paradoxes, 166; course of true, 170; lunatic, lover, and poet, 172; and conjugal, 173; individual choice, 174; and culture, 176; idealised by Beauty, 177-180; responsible for Beauty, 177; differs from conjugal, 180; elements of, in conjugal affection, 184; makes men embarrassed, 187; free choice does not always imply Love, 188; eliminates ugly and masculine women, 190; inspired by Beauty, 194; a duty, 196; must be mutual, 196; genius is amorous, 201; a creative impulse, 202; imagined is real, 203; arouses genius, 204; precocious, 204; most intense in men of genius, 208; fickle, 210, 216; loving two at once, 213; “sublimed” by Beauty, 218; pathologic analogies, 218; erotomania, 222; language of, 223; facial expression of, 224; caresses, 225; kissing, 227; how to win, 237-255; feminine, and genius, 242; effects of, 242; compliments, 244; love-letters not necessarily slovenly, 247; extracts from, 247-250; charms for women, 251; masculine, and vanity, 252; opposed to viragoes, 252; proposing, 253; signs and tests of, 254; how to cure, 255; effect of absence on, 256; effects of marriage on, 257; poisoned by humiliation, 263; versus Love, 264; chances of recovery, 265; national peculiarities, 265; massacred in France, 266; Italian, 274, 276; Spanish, 277; German, 280; English, 288, 299; American, 294; a cause of Beauty, 280, 301, 309; points out woman’s sphere, 292; obedience to, a moral duty, 286; Schopenhauer’s theory of, 301-310; sources of, 303; complementary, explanation of, 307; leads to happy marriages, 309; a source of Beauty, 322; displaces cruel Natural Selection, 323, 424; is inspired by grace, 344, 357, 362; more concerned with form than with colour, 347; guided by subtle signs, 349; individualisation and “beauty-spots,” 350; neglects no detail of Beauty, 351; the object of dancing, 365; killed by fashionable deformity, 380; feminine and masculine, 401; maintains æsthetic proportion, 412; related to Health and Beauty, 415; beautifies the face, 324, 418; special expression of, 418; beautifies the lips, 420; the cheeks, 424; and fresh air, 426; and blushes, 429; inspired by a musical voice, 435; beautifies the nose, 440; eliminates high feminine foreheads, 448, 450; method of amorous selection, 458; awakens the sense of beauty, 458; banishes rouge, 459; inspired by eyes, 464, 482; beautifies the eyes, 469; eyebrows, 474, 485; large pupils, 479; musculus amatorius, 482; killed by sunken eyes, 483; preserves the hair, 492; favours brunettes, 305, 497, 529; eye-lashes, 503; and Beauty, 508; favours small women, 520; versus reason, 522; and Beauty in England, 534; sexual differentiation, 541; in America, 541; age of, 542 Lovers: selfish bores, 135, 147; quarrels, 170; musician and poet for, 169; falsetto, 224, 436 Love-sickness: real, 222 Love-stories; none in Greek literature, 76 Lubbock, Sir J.: on flowers and insects, 8; absence of certain emotions in savages, 55; kissing, 228 Lungs: hygiene of, 398 Lustre, 345; in eyes, 469, 476 Luther: and marriage, 97 Lynn-Linton, Mrs.: Girl of the Period, 187

Macaulay: Petrarch’s love, 216 Madonna, Sistine, 481; blond, 497 Magnus, Dr. Hugo: colour of the eye, 469; lustre, 470; expression, 475; portraits, 481; individuality, 481 Manicure secrets, 407 Manners: essence of good, 495; Spanish, 530 Mantegazza: on courtship, 118; caresses, 226; Esquimaux nose, 437; Italian noses, 437, 444; wrinkles, 452; Italian Beauty, 512 Manu, laws of: on woman, 72 Mariolatry: influence on woman’s position, 97 Marlowe: amorous hyperbole, 165; half-kisses, 238 Marriage: among animals, 36, 37; Egyptian trial, 68; modern ideal of, 68; in Greece, 78; in Rome, 93; and chivalry, 99, 103; Love versus expediency, 112; maiden versus wife, 115; through accident, 139; men becoming cautious, 156; Love not a motive in France, 162; of men of genius, 164, 197, 199; money versus Beauty, 177; “the sunset of Love,” 181; conditions of happy, 182; nets and cages, 185; of love, versus “reason,” 186, 522; hints, 188; chances for ugly women, 191; age for, advancing, 192; misery of, 257-260; in France, 268; Germany, 281; America, 301; based on Love, 302; and dancing, 367; and noses, 436; and complexion, 459; Albinos, 501; and stature, 521 Masculine Beauty: in feminine eyes, 177; more common than feminine, 312, 348, 397, 400, 403; face, 411; nose, 441; forehead, 448; wrinkles, 451; beard, 489, 490, 521; in Germany, 524 Masculine Love; deeper than feminine, 120, 259, 273; coquetry, 142; Gallantry, 158; beautifying impulse, 179; insincerity, 187; comic expression of, 224; won vid Vanity, 252; increases delicacy, 254; versus feminine, 284 Masculine vanity, 252 Masculine women: eliminated as old maids, 190, 253 Massage, 403 Maternal Love, 19; among animals, 34, 183 Mediæval Love, 92; celibacy, versus marriage, 92; woman’s lowest degradation, 93; negation of feminine choice, 95; Christianity and love, 97; chivalry, militant and comic, 99; poetic, 101; female culture, 105; Personal Beauty, 107; Spenser on Love, 108; Dante and Shakspere, 109 Mediæval Ugliness: causes of, 315 Meditation beautifies the face, 480 Mental culture: a source of Beauty, 324; France, 509; Italy, 513; Spain, 519, 520; Germany, 522; England, 534; America, 541 Middleton, 167 Mill, J. S.: female self-denial, 161; companionship in marriage, 184; woman’s sphere, 194 Milliners’ cunning, 387 Milton, 107, 198 Minnesingers, 103 Mitchell, Dr. W.: American physique, 538 Mitchell, P. C.: monkeys’ kisses, 228 Mixed Moods and Paradoxes of Love, 32, 166, 185 Mixture of races (see also Crossing): and Love, 508; in France, 508; Italy, 511; Spain, 515; Germany, 522; England, 516, 528, 538 Modesty: a source of Coyness, 115; and blushes, 164 Monogamy: favours the development of Love, 64; in Egypt, 68 Monopoly: an overtone of Love, 30; among savages, 63; in ancient Aryan Love, 74; modern, 133-141; and genius, 213; three are a crowd, 221; in Lenau’s love-letters, 249; masculine and feminine Love, 284, 504 Montagu, Lady: on woman, 259 Montaigne: on marriage, 259; Italian Beauty, 274 Moore, T.: genius and marriage, 197, 200; first love, 204 Moral impressions: confounded with æsthetic, 479 Mormons, 63 Mountains: feelings inspired by, 12 Mouth: muscles of, 413; self-made, 420 Muscles: development of, 303; use and disuse, 327; the plastic material of Beauty, 384; of an athlete, 403; facial, 417; mouth, 418 Music: of male birds, does it charm the females? 50; dance-music, 103; Chopin’s funeral march, 170; fans love, 257, 330, 339, 408, 419, 480

Nationality: and Beauty, 505; and Love, 266 Natural Selection: a cause of Beauty, 42 seq.; replaced by Love, 323, 424; blushes, 426; complexion, 455; eyebrows, 475; loss of hair, 486, 492 Neck, 400 Negroes: African, strangers to Love, 55; American, can they love? 66; ugliness of, 319; standard of Beauty, 328, 331; feet, 355; legs, 371, 405; teeth, 415; lips, 416; cause of blackness, 456; complexion, inferiority of, 458; eyes, 464, 467, 468, 483; hair, 492 New York: a silly fashion in, 390; noise in, 435, 447; effeminate men, 541 Nordau, Max: love in Germany, 176 Norton, C. E.: on Dante, 109 Nose, the: shape and size, 436; evolution of, 437; Greek and Hebrew, 440; fashion and cosmetic surgery, 442; important functions of, 445 Nose-breathing: importance of, 398, 445 Novels: Love in, 11 Novelty: and first Love, 140 Nudity: cause of man’s, 486

Odours: cosmetic value of, 446 Old Maids, 190 O’Rell, Max: French chaperonage, 269; English degraded women, 531 Origin of Love, 85 Ornamentation: non-æsthetic, 328 Ovid: on tricks of Gallantry, 1; rarity of Beauty in Rome, 88; art of making love, 90; Gallantry, 92; conception of Love, 118; enduring a rival, 129; estimate of, 201; loving two at once, 213; how to cure love, 255, 257, 262

Paradoxes of Love, 166-173, 210 Parasols, 463 Pascal: self-conscious lovers, 220 Paternal love, 20; animals, 34, 107, 183 Pepys: Spanish wooing, 278 Perfume: personal, 446; cosmetic value of, 446 Pessimism, erotic, 302, 310 Petrarch: as a love-poet, 215 Photographs: why inferior to portraits, 348; why so often bad, 482 Physiognomy: comparative, 331; ears, 433; colour of the eyes, 478; variety in, and Love, 508; language of passion, 153 Pity and Love, 150 Planché: wasp-waists, 379 Plato: on Courtship, 78, 295; “Platonic” Love, 80; origin of Love, 85; pre-matrimonial acquaintance, 127; mixed mood of love, 168; irrational love, 218; feminine inferiority, 260; Love and Beauty, 322 Pleasure and pain, 168 Ploss: love-charms, 251; Germanic marriages, 281 Plumpness: inspires Love, 304 Polish Beauty, 528 Polygamy: among animals, 36; conducive to Jealousy, 63; among Hebrews, 69; in India, 72; neutralizes conjugal love, 181 Portraits, 348, 480; typical, 537 Pretty: definition of, 521 Pride: in paternal love, 22; in Romantic Love, 31; and vanity, 141-145; in conjugal love, 184; masculine vanity, 215; wounded, cures Love, 263 Procrastination, 116 Proportion, 338; facial, 448; stature, 449 Proposing, 70, 142, 152, 242, 253 Prudery, 125, 388 Purchase of wives, 58 Puritans: sins of, against Health, 419

Quadroons: beauty of American, 321; graceful gait, 361

Railway whistles, 434 Raleigh: deep love, 224, 258 Rank: an enemy of Love, 143, 269 Raphael: on Beauty, 512 Realism: emotional, desirable in novels, 68 Reclam, Prof.: dust in lungs, 445; night air, 317, 525 Richardson, W. B.; the ideal city, 316 Right-handedness, 408 Roberts, Charles: brunettes and blondes, 529 Roberts, J. B.: nasal deformities, 444 Rochefoucauld, La: women, love, and friendship, 26; pleasure of love, 196 Roman Beauty, 88; hair, 497 Roman Love, 86-92 Rousseau: on woman’s Love, 120; his last love, 206, 252 Rückert: kissing, 236 Ruskin: poetry and science, 9; love of dismal scenery, 13; amorous paradoxes, 167; woman’s work, 291; health and beauty, 311; and utility, 311; happiness essential to beauty, 315; intellect beautifies the features, 324; taste of savages, 330; beauty and utility, 332; degradation and ugliness, 334; wild scenery, 337; symmetry, 338; curvature, 341; colour, 345, 347; moderation, 378; expression in the mouth, 410; virtue and Beauty, 421; Greek features, 440; turban, beauty of, 495; southern Beauty, 501 Russian old maids, 193

Sappho: as a Love-poet, 81 Savages: development of maternal love, 20; parental love, irregular, 21; filial love weak, 22; strangers to Romantic Love, 54; inferior to birds, 54; courtship, 56; regard for beauty, 60; Jealousy and Polygamy, 62, 128; Gallantry, 157; masculine women, 174; notions of Beauty, 179, 328; conjugal attachment, 182; kissing, 229; sense delicacy, 231; inferior to us in Health, 312; taste, 327, 409; tests of Beauty, 331, 485; ugliness of, 333; dancing, 365; muscular development, 371; noses, 437; paint, 458 Scalp: movements of, 451 Scandinavian complexion, 459, 500 Scherer: on mediæval German Love, 105 Scherr, J.: on witchcraft trials, 94; Wieland in love, 213; Petrarch, 216; mediæval courtship, 239; mediæval Spanish women, 277 Schiller: Minnesingers, 104 Schopenhauer: on the Will, 3; æsthetic enjoyment, 13; final cause of colour in animals, 50; love at first sight, 152; self-sacrifice, 161; torments, 169; celibacy and genius, 197; genius and woman’s love, 242; unhappy marriages, 259; theory of Love, 301-310; animal Beauty, 332; masculine and feminine beauty, 343; small feet, 354; the unæsthetic sex, 386; noise and culture, 435; noses and marriage, 436, 443; Germans, 523 Schumann, R.: 162; love-affairs, 214; on German Beauty, 526 Schweiger-Lerchenfeld: Italian women, 275; Spanish love-making, 278 Schwenninger cure for corpulence, 383 Scotch Beauty, 537 Scott, Sir W.: on Dryden and Love, 89; and marriage, 198, 217; masculine vanity, 252 Seeley, Prof.: Goethe on Love, 287 Selden: marriage, 261 Self-sacrifice: an overtone of Love, 31, 131, 157; conjugal, 160, 188; in feminine Love, 284; Schopenhauer on, 301, 309 Sellar, Prof.: Ovid, 201 Seneca: Beauty, 259 Sensuality and Romantic Love, 76 Service for a wife, 58 Sex: the unæsthetic, 386; and education, 541 Sexual differentiation, 174, 489, 520, 541 Sexual Selection (see also Love and Individual Preference): among animals, 44; primitive men, 59; effect on chest, 394; loss of hair, 403, 486; blushes, 426; ears, 429; noses, 440; complexion, 455; eyes, 464, 465; masculine and feminine, 489; preserves hair on head, 492; action uncertain, 493; versus Natural Selection, 542 Shakspere: treatment of Love, 2, 111; invests inanimate objects with human feelings, 3; on Beauty, 32; coyness and modesty, 115; woman’s Love, 120; amorous hyperbole, 162; course of true love, 170; what inspires love in women, 178; marriage of, 198; amorous character of, 201; blind love, 202; lunatic and lover, 218; kissing, 236; winning love, 238; refusals, 241; flattery, 244; unsought love, 254; tests of Love, 255; love never fatal, 255; reason as Love’s physician, 263; hereditary Beauty, 322; feet, 351; the beautiful and the characteristic, 410; poet of Love, 421; blushes, 426; expression in the eyes, 475, 483; love inspired by eyes, 482; Blondes and Brunettes, 496, 497 Shelley: paradox of Love, 167; loving and being loved, 196; amorous disposition of, 202, 217 Shoes: tight, objections to, 353; improvements in, 363 Shoulders, the, 400 Simcox, G. A.: on Gallantry, 92; mediæval ugliness, 315; noses, 442 Sisterly love, 23 Skating: effects on Beauty, 373 Skin. See Complexion. Sleep: and noise, 317, 434; refreshing, 398 Smoothness, 344, 394, 403, 432, 488, 490 Soap: should be used in the face, 452, 462; good and bad, 461 Solomon’s Song, 70 Sources of Love, 303 Southey: woman’s faith, 259 Southwell, 167 Spanish Beauty: feet, 362; grace, 374, 518, 533; chest deformed by Fashion, 395; lips, 419; mantillas, 388, 510; complexion, 501; general, 515-522; refinement, 524 Spanish Love: chivalry, 99; falling in love, 152, 196; extravagant Gallantry, 221; ardour, 275, 277-280 Spencer, Herbert: on primitive paternal love, 21; filial love, 22; analysis of Love, 31, 33; money-marriages, 113; woman’s sphere, 195; origin of kissing, 229; irregular mixture of ancestral qualities in children, 306; individuals versus the species, 308; female savages uglier than male, 312; intellectual and physical beauty, 320; evolution of Beauty, 327; muscular power of savages, 371; laziness of savages, 372; masculine Fashion, 392 Spenser: Love and friendship, 108 Staël, Mme. de: on Beauty and intellect, 32; Love versus parental dictation, 273 Stanton, Mrs. E. C., 97 Stature and Beauty, 520 Stays: for deformed women, 385 Steatopyga, 375 Steele: kissing, 227; love-letters, 247 Stenches and noises, 435 Stendhal: Love and age, 138; Love in France, 176; humiliation poisons Love, 263, 266 St. Jerome: on the education of girls, 96 Stockings: best kind, 363 Suckling: lovers’ pallor, 225 Suicide: from Love, 121 Sunshine: good for the complexion, 454; does not cause freckles, 462; and Health, 500, 512, 515 Surgery, cosmetic, 432, 443 Swift: marriage, 185; love-affairs, 210 Swiss, the, 525 Symmetry, natural tendency to, in flowers, 10, 73, 180, 216 Symonds: on Italian Love, 101; formal code of Love, 106; Petrarch, 216; Shelley, 217 Sympathy: and affection, 73; an overtone of love, 31, 145-157; development of, 147; in conjugal love, 183

Taine, H.: English Beauty and Love, 532 seq. Taste: æsthetic theories of, 327; disputing about, 339, 409, 417, 423; versus Fashion, 437; sense of, 446; non-æsthetic standard, 529 Teeth: 409, 411, 415; care of, 422 Tennyson: kissing, 235 Tests of Beauty: negative, 330; positive, 338 Thackeray: advice to lovers, 126; Love, 168; to women, 252; simpering Madonnas, 315; dark heroines, 498; French physique, 506 Thaxter, Mrs.: women and birds, 151 Thomson, 218 Toe, great, evolution of, 359 Topinard: early decrepitude of savages, 312; life prolonged in France, 316; crossing, 318, 320; nose, 437; deformed skulls, 450; dark races, 501; French nation, 508 Tourgenieff: on a dog’s love, 17; first love, 204 Trollope, A.: American Gallantry, 298 Troubadours, 102, 221, 222 Trousers, 392 Turks, 319 Tylor, E. B.: the ape’s gait, 357; arms, 402; negro’s finger-nails, 406; blushing, 427; ears, 433; nose, 437; skulls, 450 Tyranny of ugly women, 387, 496

Ugliness: follows ill-health in animals, 46; in women, 186; no bar to marriage, 191; mediæval, 314; due to simian resemblance, 331; savage features, 333; degradation, 333; decrepitude and disease, 334; tyranny of, 387; due to indolence, 397; a sin, 400; “beauty-spots,” 452 Use and disuse, effect of, on organs, 327 Utility and Beauty, 332, 336

Veils, 463 Vice: destroys Beauty, 418, 478 Viragoes, 175, 190 Virchow, Prof.: Brunettes and Blondes, 499 Virgil: Love-episode, 89 Vogt, Carl: sexual divergence, 174; negro’s feet, 356; females and animals, 360; thighs, 371 Voice, a musical, 435 Voltaire: on ancient and modern friendship, 26; standard of taste, 327

Wagner, R.: leading motives, literary application of, 114; analogies between Love and music, 140; feminine devotion, 160; marriage, 198; a musical kiss, 237, 330, 414 Waist, 378 Waitz: Magyars, 319; Chinese complexion, 454, 457; decrease in number of blondes, 498 Walker, A.: 259; woman’s gait, 375; French Beauty, 506 Walking, 357, 364 Wallace, A. R.: on choice exerted by animals, 43; Natural versus Sexual Selection, 43-50; beauty correlated with health in animals, 46; sources of colour in animals, 48; chest of Amazon Indians, 396; hair on arm, 403 Waltz: the dance of Love, 369 Warner, Chas. D.: women and birds, 151 Wasp-waist mania, the, 379, 494 Wealth, vulgar display of, 387 White, R. G.: blonde type, 497; Viennese Beauty, 528 Wieland: love-affair, 213 Wife: capture, 57; purchase, 58; service for, 58; capture and coyness, 114; selling, 289 Wilde, Oscar, 392 Winckelmann: Greek Beauty, 314, 332; curvature, 342; breasts, 395; Greek chest, 397; hand, 405; chin, 413; dimples, 413; lips, 415; ears, 431; nose, 436; eyes, 473; hair, 496, 502; dark complexion, 500, 501; Italian Beauty, 514 Winning Love, art of: 1, 41, 75, 115, 126, 129, 237-255; brass buttons, 238; confidence and boldness, 239; pleasant associations, 239; perseverance, 241; feigned indifference, 241; compliments, 245; Love-letters, 246; for women, 250; proposing, 253; how to meet coyness, 254; spicing flattery with burlesque, 301 Witchcraft, trials for, 94 Woe, ecstasy of, 168 Woman: weak in impersonal emotions, 16; strong in conjugal and maternal love, 19; inferior to man in Romantic Love, 19, 120; prefers manly to handsome men, 60; position in Egypt, 67; among Hebrews, 69; in India, 72; ancient Greece, 77; Rome, 87; mediæval degradation, 93; proverbs about, 96; oasis of culture, 105; position in France, 107; cruelty to birds, 150; intelligent, 155; in public life, 160, 175; loses Beauty prematurely, 186; employment problem, 195, 290; uniform worship, 237; discourages deep Love, 242; inferior to man, 259; Huxley’s ideal, 261; in mediæval Spain, 277; indifferent to loss of Health, and the consequences, 312; superior in Beauty to man, 342; deplorable conservatism, 367; penalty of indolence, 385; has no sense of beauty, 385, 388, 396, 401, 494; needs no stays, 385; deficient in taste, 386; duped by sly milliners, 387; object of dress, 388; needs æsthetic instruction, 389; riding hat, 392; fashion preferred to good manners, 495 Wooing. See courtship Woody, S. E.: electrolysis for removing hairs, 494 Wrinkles, 406, 451

Yankee, 542 Young, 198

Zimmermann, O.: Ecstasy of woe, 168 Zola, 420

THE END

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original. The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.

27.27 the lover[’]s concentrated affection Restored.

53.20 at their [b/h]oly places Replaced.

53.26 in displaying their beauty.[’/”] Replaced.

55.28 Letourne[a]u, in his Sociologie Inserted.

63.1 ‘the means of causing enmity’[”] Probable closing.

64.11 monog[o/a]my is the only marital relation Replaced.

67.26 mere passion linked with opportunity.[”] Added.

133.44 Prior[-]ity of discovery Removed.

138.12 as a woman of twenty-eight;[”] Probable closing.

138.18 the gay and thoughtless first love.[”] Added.

163.9 B[i/y]ron really feels Replaced.

178.19 their energy[,] courage, and manly prowess Added.

205.1 really attached since[’/”] Replaced.

241.18 Who listens once will listen twice[;] Added.

252.39 was promptly accepted.[”] Probable closing.

271.38 where they do not marry.[’/”] Replaced.

273.19 And power of love.’[”] Added.

272.4 not knowing wh[e/i]ther she was going? Replaced.

285.38 [“]O love, O fire! once he drew Added.

288.30 but the brigh[t]est of all is this Inserted.

323.4 [‘/“]with the ugly Eros Replaced.

393.19 considered fashionable[.] Added.

394.26 under the arm.[”] Added.

406.19 modified to their advantage[.] Added.

407.17 but glycerine [don’t] agree with every one Sic

424.43 have supplanted natural selection[.] Added.

459.34 An emphatic [“]No” is the answer. Added.

487.14 the ancient Egypt[ai/ia]ns Transposed.

506.19 in these words: [“]National vanity Added.

516.6 the central part of the peni[u/n]sula Inverted.

521.39 [“]A woman’ is fine Added.

522.3 said that [“]Nature did never Added.

539.6 in the atmosphere of New England.[”] Added.

The punctuation of the Index is occasionally irregular, and has been silently standardized.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us