This checking of excessive development in the direction at first
prescribed by the cosmic laws of beauty is indeed one of the main
functions of Sexual Selection, without which our mouths would gradually
become too small, our eyes and noses too large, our foreheads too high,
our hair too scant, etc.
Why, for instance, have the Jews such large noses compared with the
Greeks? Evidently because Taste—which, though commonly associated with
Romantic Love, may, in a highly æsthetic nation, act independently of
it—did not restrain the excessive development of the Jewish nose. The
ancient Hebrews were not an æsthetic nation, like the Greeks. The finest
works of sculpture ever created were made by the Greeks, while the
Hebrews practically had no sculpture at all—not even such works as were
produced by Assyrians and Egyptians. And if any further proof were
needed of the statement that the ancient Hebrews had little taste for
beauty it might be found in the fact that Solomon, esteemed a great
judge of feminine charms, compares his love’s nose to “the tower of
Lebanon, which looketh toward Damascus.”
The admission which I have just made that there may be a sort of
æsthetic selection independent of real Romantic Love, does not militate
against the general thesis of this book: that Love is the cause of
Beauty, as Beauty is the cause of Love. For though the Greek artists
knew what the shape and size of a beautiful nose should be, there are
cogent reasons for believing that “Greek noses” were rare even among the
ancient Greeks, thanks to their habit of sacrificing Romantic Love to
the dragon chaperon. Hear what Ruskin has to say, in his _Aratra
Pentelici_, about the Greek features in general: “Will you look again at
the series of coins of the best time of Greek art which I have just set
before you? Are any of these goddesses or nymphs very beautiful?
Certainly the Junos are not. Certainly the Demeters are not. The Siren
and Arethusa have well-formed and regular features; but I am quite sure
that if you look at them without prejudice, you will think neither
reaches even the average standard of pretty English girls. The Venus
Urania suggests at first the idea of a very charming person, but you
will find there is no real depth nor sweetness in the contours, looked
at closely. And remember, these are chosen examples; the best I can find
of art current in Greece at the great time; and even if I were to take
the celebrated statues, of which only two or three are extant, not one
of them excels the Venus of Melos; and she, as I have already asserted
in _The Queen of the Air_, has nothing notable in feature except dignity
and simplicity. Of Athena I do not know one authentic type of great
beauty; but the intense ugliness which the Greeks could tolerate in
their symbolism of her will be convincingly proved to you by the coin
represented in Plate VI. You need only look at two or three vases of the
best time to assure yourselves that beauty of feature was, in popular
art, not only unattained, but unattempted; and finally—and this you may
accept as a conclusive proof of the Greek insensitiveness to the most
subtle beauty—there is little evidence, even in their literature, and
none in their art, of their having ever perceived any beauty in infancy
or early childhood.”
Nevertheless, it was to the contours of childhood that the Greek artists
apparently went for their ideal of the divine nose. Greek beauty was
youthful masculine beauty; and the “Greek nose” is one which not only is
straight in itself, but forms a straight line with the forehead. In
other words, there is no hollow at the root of the nose, where it meets
the forehead. Now the absence of this cavity is characteristic of youth,
and is owing to the imperfect development of the brain cavities. Later
in life these cavities bulge forwards and produce the hollow, which,
therefore, is an indication of superior cranial development and higher
intellectual powers. Hence, as Professor Kollmann suggests, the object
of the Greek artists in making the nose of their deities form a straight
line with the forehead, was probably to give them the stamp of eternal
youth; which would thus appear to have been considered a more important
attribute even than the expression of superior _masculine_ intellectual
power, which we associate with the hollow at the junction of nose and
forehead, and for which reason we do not admire it in women if too
pronounced. Nevertheless, even in women the cosmic laws of Beauty call
for a gentle curve instead of a perfectly straight line; but the more
subtle the curve the greater is its beauty; whereas the nose itself may
be perfectly straight on its upper edge, because it forms a dividing
line of the face into two symmetric halves, and by its contrasting
straightness heightens the beauty of the surrounding facial curves.
To sum up: the Greeks admiration of such features as are naturally
associated with youthful masculine beauty no doubt led him, in choosing
a wife, to give the preference to similar features, including the
“Greek” nose. Yet in the absence of opportunities for courtship, Sexual
Selection could not operate very extensively; hence it is probable that
ungainly noses, though not so extravagant as among the Semitic races,
were common enough in Greece as in Rome. In the Dark Ages hideous noses
must have prevailed everywhere, as might be inferred from the facts that
Romantic Love was unknown, and physical beauty looked on as a sinful
possession, even if the painted and sculptured portraits did not prove
it to our eyes in most instances.
Regarding modern noses it may be said that the nose is such a prominent
feature that more has been done for its improvement, through the agency
of Love or Sexual Selection, than for the mouth or any other feature,
excepting the eye. The average Englishman’s nose of to-day, for example,
is a tolerably shapely organ, and yet his ancestors were not exactly
distinguished for nasal beauty, according to a close observer and
student of portraiture, Mr. G. A. Simcox, who remarks that “sometimes
both Danes and Saxons had their fair proportions of snub-noses and
pug-noses, but when they escaped that catastrophe the Danish nose tended
to be a beak (rather a hawk’s beak than an eagle’s), while the Saxon
nose tends to be a proboscis.”
Yet even at this date perfect noses are rare, and it is easy to see why.
In the first place, it takes many generations to wipe out entirely the
ugliness inherited from our unæsthetic ancestors; secondly, Romantic
Love, based on æsthetic admiration, is still very commonly ignored in
the marriage market in favour of considerations of rank and wealth; and
thirdly, a lover, infatuated by his sweetheart’s fascinating eyes, is
apt to overlook her large nose or mouth—till after the honeymoon.