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.