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."