“The fate of innumerable girls has been decided by a slight upward or
downward curvature of the nose,” says Schopenhauer; and Pascal points
out that if Cleopatra’s nose had been but a trifle larger, the whole
political geography of this planet might have been different. Owing to
the fact that the nose occupies the most prominent part of the face,
Professor Kollmann remarks that “the partial or complete loss of the
nose causes a greater disfigurement than a much greater fault of
conformation in any other part of the face.” And Winckelmann thus bears
witness to the importance of the nose as an element of Personal Beauty:
“The proof, easy to be understood, of the superiority of shape of the
Greeks and the present inhabitants of the Levant lies in the fact that
we find among them no flattened noses, which are the greatest
disfigurement of the face.”
Yet here again we find that “tastes differ.” Thus we read in Darwin
“that the ancient Huns during the age of Attila were accustomed to
flatten the noses of their infants with bandages, ‘for the sake of
_exaggerating a natural conformation_’” [note the stamp of Fashion];
that, “with the Tahitians, to be called _long-nose_ is considered as an
insult, and they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for
the sake of beauty;” and that “the same holds true with the Malays of
Sumatra, the Hottentots, certain Negroes, and the natives of Brazil.”
But the _ne-plus-ultra_ of nasal ugliness is found among the Tartars and
Esquimaux. “European travellers in Tartary in the Middle Ages,” says
Tylor, “described its flat-nosed inhabitants as having no noses at all,
but breathing through holes in the face.” And among the Esquimaux, as
Mantegazza remarks, a rule can be placed on both the cheeks at once
without touching the nose. Flat noses, says Topinard, “are either
depressed as a whole, as among Chinese, or only in the lower half, as
among Malays. Negroes have both forms.”
The yellow and black races, who naturally have flat noses, consider it
fashionable to have them _very_ flat. The same is true with our modern
Fashion regarding wasp-waists and feet. But in regard to the face the
white races—including even the women—have emancipated themselves from
the tyranny of fashionable exaggeration. Hence, though we admire
prominent noses, we do not admire them more and more in proportion to
their size. On the contrary, every one looks upon the very large Jewish
nose as ugly. The reason is that in judging of the face Fashion has been
displaced by æsthetic Taste, whose motto is Moderation, and which is
based on a knowledge of the cosmic laws of beauty. Savages have Fashion
but no Taste. We have both; but Taste is gradually demolishing Fashion,
like other relics of barbarism.
Sometimes our estimate of the nose, as of other features, may be
influenced by non-æsthetic considerations—by prejudices of race,
aristocracy, etc. “In Italy,” says Mantegazza, “we call a long nose
aristocratic (especially if it is aquiline) perhaps because conquerors
with long noses, Greeks and Romans, have subjected the indigenous
small-nosed inhabitants.” But the Italians are not the only people who,
if asked to choose between a nose too large or one too small, would ask
for the former. And the cause of this preference is suggested very
forcibly in these remarks of Grose: “Convex faces, prominent features,
and large aquiline noses, though differing much from beauty, still give
an air of dignity to their owners; whereas concave faces, flat, snub, or
broken noses, always stamp a meanness and vulgarity. _The one seems to
have passed through the limits of beauty, the other never to have
arrived at them._”