Burke, in his chapter on “Gradual Variation” as a characteristic of
Beauty, begs us to “observe that part of a beautiful woman where she is
perhaps the most beautiful, about the neck and breasts; the smoothness,
the softness, the easy and insensible swell; the variety of the surface,
which is never for the smallest space the same; the deceitful maze
through which the unsteady eye slides giddily, without knowing where to
fix, or whither it is carried. Is not this a demonstration of that
change of surface, continual, and yet hardly perceptible at any point,
which forms one of the greatest constituents of beauty?”
There is reason to believe that the beautifully-rounded form of the
female bosom is a result of æsthetico-sexual selection; for primitive
human tribes resemble in this respect the lower animals. Says the famous
anatomist Hyrtl: “It is only among the white and yellow races that the
breasts, in their compact virginal condition, have a hemispheric form,
while those of negresses of a corresponding age and physique are more
elongated, pointed, turned outwards and downwards; in a word, more like
the teats of animals.” Even the Arabian poets sing of the charms of a
goatlike breast. In the Soudan older women, when at work, sometimes
throw their breasts over the shoulder to prevent them from being in the
way; and “the women of the Basutos, a Kaffir tribe, carry their children
on the back, and pass the breast to them under the arm.”
It is a very interesting and important fact that not only do we find
more beauty among the higher than among the lower races of mankind, but
the superior beauty of civilised races is also _of a more permanent
kind_. This truth is admirably illustrated in the following remarks by
Dr. Peschuel Lœschke: The breasts of the Loango negress, he says,
“approach the conic rather than the hemispheric form; they often have a
too small and insufficiently gradated basis, and in rare extreme cases
have almost the appearance of teats, besides being unequally developed.
Breasts of such a shape are naturally much more easily affected by the
law of gravitation, and soon become changed into the pendent bags which
we find so ugly, especially among Africans, although they also occur
among other tribes, and are not unknown among civilised peoples. The
superior form, with a broad basis, is naturally the more enduring, and
remains in many cases an ornament of women of a more advanced age.”
Savages and Orientals, being deficient in æsthetic taste, admire an
excessively-developed bust. Europeans, on the other hand, long ago
recognised the connection between such a bust and clumsy, unhealthy
corpulence, suggesting advanced age. The same appears to have been true
of the most refined nations of antiquity. Says Professor Kollmann: “The
ancient as well as the modern inhabitants of the Nile region appear, in
the majority of cases, like those of India, to possess hemispheric
breasts, for neither in the sphinxes or other superhuman beings, nor in
the images of human beauties, do we come across pointed breasts.... The
Romans did not consider large bosoms a mark of beauty. Among European
women the Portuguese are said to have the largest busts, the Castilians
the smallest. To judge by Rubens’s nude figures, the Netherland women
appear to rival the Portuguese in exuberant bosoms.”
In Greek works of art, says Winckelmann, “the breast or bosom of female
figures is never exuberant.” “Among ideal figures, the Amazons alone
have large and fully-developed breasts.” “The form of the breasts in the
figures of divinities is virginal in the extreme, since their beauty was
made to consist in the moderateness of their size. A stone, found in the
Island of Naxos, was smoothly polished and placed upon them for the
purpose of repressing an undue development.”
Modern Fashion, for a wonder, endorses the Greek standard of beauty as
regards a moderately-developed bust. But it was not always thus. It is
Fashion that induces some savages whose breasts are naturally long and
hanging to use bandages which make them still more hanging and elongated
in form. In Spain, during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and in
other parts of Europe, on the contrary, Fashion prescribed flat chests.
Plates of lead were tied on the breasts of young girls with such force
that sometimes the natural form was replaced by an actual depression
where “love’s pillows” should have been. In some parts of South Germany
and the Tyrol a similar fashion prevails to the present day among the
lower classes, the result being not only a sacrifice of beauty, but a
great mortality among the children, that have to be reared artificially
in consequence of it.
But if modern Fashion has a correct standard of taste in this matter, it
nevertheless encourages practices which lead to as disastrous results as
the Spanish fashions of three centuries ago. “The horrible custom of
wearing pads,” says the author of the _Ugly Girl Papers_ “is the ruin of
natural figures, by heating and pressing down the bosom.... A low, deep
bosom, rather than a bold one, is a sign of grace in a full-grown woman,
and a full bust is hardly admirable in an unmarried girl. Her figure
should be all curves, but slender, promising a fuller beauty when
maturity is reached. One is not fond of over-ripe years.... Due
attention to the general laws of health always has its effect in
restoring the bust to its roundness.... Weakness of any kind affects the
contour of the figure, and it is useless to try to improve it in any
other way than by restoring the strength where it is wanting.”
The same author, whose book is brimful of useful advice, not only to
“ugly girls,” but to those who have beauty and wish to preserve it, also
recommends battledore, swinging the skipping-rope over the shoulder,
swinging by the hand from a rope, as well as playing ball, “bean bags,”
pillow fights, and especially daily vocal exercises with corset off and
lungs deeply inflated—as excellent means of improving the bust.
If women could be made to realise how rarely they succeed, even with the
aid of the cleverest milliner, in counterfeiting a properly developed
chest, they would, perhaps, be more willing to submit to the exercise or
regimen requisite for the acquirement and preservation of Personal
Beauty. Flat chests are a consequence of insufficient muscular exercise,
insufficient fresh air, and insufficient food. The main reason why the
majority of girls in the world are over-delicate and fragile is because
they do not get enough properly-cooked food in which _fat is introduced
in such a way as to be palatable and digestible_. The adipose layer
between the skin and the muscles contributes so much to the undulating
roundness of contour peculiar to feminine beauty, that Kollmann places
it among the differentiating sexual characteristics.
Too exuberant busts, on the other hand, are the result of too much
indulgence in fattening food, combined with lack of exercise in the open
air, which would consume the fat. Maternity, with proper hygienic
precautions, is never fatal to a fine bust.
That savages, like their civilised brethren and sisters, owe their
deformed chests entirely to their indolence and neglect of the laws of
health, is shown by the fact that there are notable exceptions—energetic
tribes living healthy lives, and therefore blessed with beautiful
figures. Thus Mr. A. R. Wallace tells us regarding some of the Amazon
valley Indians that “their figures are generally superb; and I have
never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue as at these
living illustrations of the beauty of the human form. The development of
the bust is such as I believe never exists in the best-formed European,
exhibiting _a splendid series of convex undulations, without a hollow in
any part of it_.” And what he says in another place regarding a
neighbouring tribe explains the secret of this Beauty: “Though some of
them were too fat, most of them had splendid figures, and many of them
were very pretty. Before daylight in the morning all were astir and came
to the river to wash. It is the chilliest hour of the twenty-four, and
when we were wrapping our sheet or blanket more closely around us, we
could hear the plunges and splashings of these early bathers. Rain or
wind is all alike to them: their morning bath is never dispensed with.”