Like the Viennese, the English afford an illustration of what can be
done with Teutonic stock by a judicious admixture of dark blood.
Although the mysteries of English ethnology have not been completely
unravelled, the original inhabitants of the British Islands appear to
have been “composed of the long-headed dark races of the Mediterranean
stock, possibly mingled with fragments of still more ancient races,
Mongoliform or Allophylian” (Dr. Beddoe). In the later history of the
race Romans, Germans, Danes, and Normans added their blood to this
mixture. The Celtic-speaking people who in the time of the Roman
Conquest inhabited South Britain, partook, according to Dr. Beddoe,
“more of the tall blond stock of Northern Europe than of the thickset,
broad-headed, dark stock which Broca has called Celts.” But the true
Blonde invasion of Britain did not occur till towards the beginning of
the fifth century, when the Low-Dutch tribes, the Angles and Saxons,
came over from the river Elbe and the coast region, and drove the
Britons to the west of the island, where they were called the Welsh,
which is an old German appellation for foreigners.
The inference naturally suggests itself that the predilection for
Blondes shown in English literature up to a recent date (as noted in the
chapter on Blondes and Brunettes) may be traced to this fact that the
conquering race was fair, and that consequently dark hair and eyes
stigmatised their possessor as belonging to the conquered race. This
condemnation of the Brunette type (on _non-æsthetic_ grounds, be it
noted) is forcibly illustrated by the following lines of the shepherdess
Phebe in _As You Like It_—
“I have more cause to hate him than to love him;
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black and my hair black,
And, now I am remember’d, scorned at me.”
But when this temporary aristocratic ground of preferring the Blond type
was neutralised through the lapse of time, and Romantic Love, that
potent awakener of the æsthetic sense, appeared on the scene and opened
men’s eyes to the inferior beauty of that type, then began the reaction
in favour of Brunettes, which has been going on ever since. This view is
strikingly confirmed by the following remarks of Mr. Charles Roberts in
_Nature_, January 7, 1885:—
“American statistics show that the blonde type is more subject to all
the diseases, except one (chronic rheumatism), which disqualify men for
military service, and this must obviously place blondes at a great
disadvantage in the battle of life, while the popular saying, ‘A pair of
black eyes is the delight of a pair of blue ones,’ shows that sexual
selection does not allow them to escape from it. It is more than
probable, therefore, from all these considerations, that the darker
portion of our population is gaining on the blond, and this surmise is
borne out by Dr. Beddoe’s remark that the proportion of English and
Scotch blood in Ireland is probably not less than a third, and that the
Gaelic and Iberian races of the West, mostly dark-haired, are _tending
to swamp the blond Teutonic of England by a reflex migration_.”
Obviously, the ideal Englishwoman of the future will be a Brunette.
Thackeray had a prophetic vision of her when he described Beatrix
Esmond: “She was a brown beauty: that is, her eyes, hair, and eyebrows
and eyelashes were dark; her hair curling with rich undulations, and
waving over her shoulders” [note that]; “but her complexion was as
dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which were a
bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson ... a
woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was love, whose voice was the
sweetest love-song, whose shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision,
activity, whose foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm but
flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect
grace,—agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen—now melting; now imperious,
now sarcastic—there was no single movement of hers but was beautiful. As
he thinks of her, he who writes feels young again and remembers a
paragon.”
Sexual Selection, however, has not limited its efforts to the
improvement of the colour of the hair, eyes, and complexion; the form of
the features and figure has also been gradually altered and refined. An
examination of the portraits in the National Gallery showed to Mr.
Galton “what appear to be indisputable signs of one predominant type of
face supplanting another. For instance, the features of the men painted
by and about the time of Holbein have unusually high cheek-bones, long
upper lips, thin eyebrows, and lank dark [?] hair. It would be
impossible, I think, for the majority of modern Englishmen so to dress
themselves, and clip and arrange their hair, as to look like the
majority of these portraits.” And again: “If we may believe
caricaturists, the fleshiness and obesity of many English men and women
in the earlier years of this century must have been prodigious. It
testifies to the grosser conditions of life in those days, and makes it
improbable that the types best adapted to prevail then would be the best
adapted to prevail now.”
Yet this improvement in the British figure and physiognomy is far from
universal. The English are beyond all dispute the finest race in the
world, physically and mentally; but the favourable action of the four
Sources of Beauty, to which they owe this supremacy, does not extend to
all classes. The lowest-class Englishman or Irishman is the most hideous
and brutal ruffian in the world. Of Mental or Moral Culture not a trace;
and whereas “the Spaniard, however ignorant, has naturally the manners
and the refined feelings of a gentleman” (_Macmillan’s Magazine_, 1874),
as well as a love of the beautiful forms and colours of nature; the
Englishman of the corresponding class has nerves and senses so coarse
that he is absolutely impervious to any impressions which do not come
under the head of mere brutal excitement. In this class there is no
Mixture of Races, but a worse than barbarian promiscuity; Romantic Love
is of course miles beyond the conception of imaginations so filthy and
sluggish; and Hygienic neglect here finds its most hideous examples in
the Western World.
In his _English Note-Books_ Hawthorne speaks as follows of “a countless
multitude of little girls” taken from the workhouses and educated at a
charity school at Liverpool: “I should not have conceived it possible
that so many children could have been collected together, without a
single trace of beauty or scarcely of intelligence in so much as one
individual; such mean, coarse, vulgar features and figures betraying
unmistakably a low origin, and ignorant and brutal parents. They did not
appear wicked, but only stupid, animal, and soulless. It must require
many generations of better life to wake the soul in them. All America
could not show the like.”
“Climate,” he says in another place, “no doubt has most to do with
diffusing a slender elegance over American young women; but something,
perhaps, is also due to the circumstance of classes not being kept apart
there as they are here: they interfuse amid the continual ups and downs
of our social life; and so, in the lowest stations of life, you may see
the refining influence of gentle blood.”
Taine, in his _Notes on England_, thus sketches the lowest of the
Englishmen: “Apoplectical and swollen faces, whereof the scarlet hue
turns almost to black, worn-out, bloodshot eyes like raw lobsters; the
brute brutalised. Lessen the quantity of blood and fat, while retaining
the same bone and structure, and increasing the countrified look; large
and wild beard and moustache, tangled hair, rolling eyes, truculent
muzzle, big, knotted hands; this is the primitive Teuton issuing from
his woods; after the portly animal, after the overfed animal, comes the
fierce animal, the English bull.” “The lower-class women of London,”
says another French writer, Mr. Max O’Rell, “are thin-faced or
bloated-looking. They are horribly pale; there is no colour to be seen
except on the tips of their noses.”
Personal Beauty in England diminishes in quality and frequency, not only
as we go from the upper to the lower classes, but also if we leave
London and go to other cities. How far sanitary and educational
differences account for this state of affairs, and how much is due to a
habitual and natural immigration of Beauty to a place where it is most
sure of appreciation, it is not easy to say. Hawthorne thus records the
impression made on his artistic eyes by an excursion party of Liverpool
manufacturing people: “They were paler, smaller, less wholesome-looking,
and less intelligent, and, I think, less noisy than so many Yankees
would have been.... As to their persons,” the women “generally looked
better developed and healthier than the men; but there was a woeful lack
of beauty and grace,—not a pretty girl among them, all coarse and
vulgar. Their bodies, it seems to me, are apt to be very long in
proportion to their limbs—in truth, this kind of make is rather
characteristic of both sexes in England.”
A French writer, quoted by Figuier, Dr. Clavel, makes a similar
statement: “The level plains, which are as a rule met with in England,
are not favourable to the development of the lower extremities, and it
is a fact that the power of the English lies, not so much in their legs,
as in the arms, shoulders, and loins.... The barely-marked nape of his
neck and the oval form of his cranium indicate that Finn blood flows in
his veins; his maxillary power and the size of his teeth evidence a
preference for an animal diet. He has the high forehead of the thinker,
but not the long eyes of the artist.... In dealing craftily with his
antagonist, he is well able to guard himself against the weaknesses of
feeling. His face rarely betrays his convictions, and his features are
devoid of the mobility which would prove disadvantageous.”
The Englishwoman, according to the same writer, “is tall, fair, and
strongly built. Her skin is of dazzling freshness; her features are
small and elegantly formed; the oval of her face is marked, but it is
_somewhat heavy toward the lower_ portion; her hair is fine, silky, and
charming; and her _long and graceful neck_ imparts to the movements of
her head a character of grace and pride. So far all about her is
essentially feminine; but upon analysing her bust and limbs we find that
the large bones, peculiar to her race, interfere with the delicacy of
her form, enlarge her extremities, and lessen the elegance of her
postures and the harmony of her movements.... She lacks a thousand
feminine instincts, and this lack is revealed in her toilette, the
posture she assumes, and in her actions and movements.”
M. Taine also was convinced of the frequent lack of taste in dress and
bearing in Englishwomen. Yet it is noticeable, and cannot be too much
emphasised, that he _goes to Spain and not to France_ for a comparison:
“Compared with the supple, easy, silent, serpentine undulation of the
Spanish dress and bearing, the movement here (in England), is energetic,
discordant, jerking, like a piece of mechanism.” Nor does Taine in other
respects venture to hold up his own countrywomen as models. He
repeatedly refers to the superior beauty of the English complexion:
“Many ladies have their hair decked with diamonds, and their shoulders,
much exposed, have the incomparable whiteness of which I have just
spoken, the petals of a lily, the gloss of satin do not come near to
it.” And though he thinks that ugliness is more ugly in England than in
France, he confesses that “generally an Englishwoman is more thoroughly
beautiful and healthy than a Frenchwoman.” “Out of every ten young girls
one is admirable, and upon five or six a naturalist painter would look
with pleasure.” “Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who came to see the Court
of the Regent in France, severely rallied our slim, painted, affected
beauties, and proudly held up as a contrast ‘the natural charms and the
lively colours of the unsullied complexions’ of Englishwomen.” “The
physiognomy remains youthful here much later than amongst us, especially
than at Paris, where it withers so quickly; sometimes it remains open
even in old age; I recall at this moment two old ladies with white hair
whose cheeks were smooth and softly rosy; after an hour’s conversation I
discovered that their minds were as fresh as their complexions. Even
when the physiognomy and the form are commonplace, the whole satisfies
the mind; a solid bony structure, and upon it healthy flesh, constitute
what is essential in a living creature.”
That is it precisely. The Englishman is the finest _animal_ in the
world; and it is because other nations so often forget that one must be
a fine animal before one can be a fine man, that the English have
outstripped them in colonising the world, and imposing on it their
special form of culture and manners. As Emerson remarks, in his Essay on
_Beauty_, “It is the soundness of the bones that ultimates itself in the
peach-bloom complexion; health of constitution that makes the sparkle
and the power of the eye.” “We are all entitled to beauty, should have
been beautiful, if our ancestors had kept the laws,—as every lily and
every rose is well.”
The London _Times_ characteristically speaks of “that worst of sins in
English eyes—uncleanliness”; and it is in England alone of all European
countries that cleanliness is esteemed next to godliness. The
Frenchman’s paradoxical exclamation, “What a dirty nation the English
must be that they have to bathe so often!” is not so funny as it seems.
The English, as can be seen in the uneducated classes, _would be_ the
dirtiest people in the world, thanks to their fogs and smoke, if they
were not the most cleanly. It is the magic of tub and towel that has
compelled M. Figuier to admit that although the Englishwomen “do not
offer the noble appearance and luxurious figure of the Greek and Roman
women,” yet “their skins surpass in transparency and brilliancy those of
the female inhabitants of all other European countries.”
It is needless to dilate on the other hygienic habits to which the
English owe their Health, notwithstanding their often depressing
climate,—the passion for walking and riding, for tennis, boating, and
other sports, which, moreover, have the advantage of bringing the sexes
together, and enabling every Romeo to find his Juliet. One cannot help
admiring the independence and common sense of the respectable London
girls who go home on the top of the ’bus, enjoying the fresh air and
varied sights, instead of being locked up in the foul-aired interior.
They know very well, these clever girls, that their cheeks will be all
the rosier, their smiles more bewitching, their eyes more sparkling
after such a ride. In countries where there are fewer _gentlemen_ such a
thing would be considered as improper for a girl as it is for a man to
give a girl a chance to choose her own husband. Do the French agree with
the Turks that women have no souls, since, in Taine’s words, a Frenchman
“would consider it indelicate to utter a single clear or vague phrase to
the young girl before having spoken to her parents”? Taine imparts to
his countrymen the curious information that in England men and women
marry for Love, but he does not appear to realise how much of their
superior Beauty—which he acknowledges—they owe to the habitual privilege
of choosing their own wives for their personal charms, instead of having
them selected by their parents for their money value. He does, however,
realise the effect this system of courtship has on conjugal life; for in
his _History of English Literature_ he refers to the Englishwoman’s
extreme “sweetness, devotion, patience, inextinguishable affection,—a
thing unknown in distant lands, and in France especially; a woman here
gives herself without drawing back, and places her glory and duty in
obedience, forgiveness, adoration, wishing and pretending only to be
melted and absorbed daily deeper and deeper in him whom she has _freely
and for ever chosen_.”
And there is another English custom the value of which Taine realises
and acknowledges: “In France we believe too readily,” he says, “that if
a woman ceases to be a doll she ceases to be a woman.” True, it is only
a decade or two since the superstition that a higher education would
“destroy all the feminine graces” has been successfully combated even in
England; but there has always been a vast amount of home education, and
the girls have profited immensely by the unimpeded opportunity of
meeting the young men and talking with them, and by the fact that the
purity of tone which pervades English literature has made all of it
accessible to them. Hence the charming intellectual lines which may be
traced in an English woman’s face.
What the English still need is gastronomic and æsthetic training. After
a few generations of sense-refinement the lower part of the English face
will become as perfect as the upper part is now. Cultivation of the fine
arts and freer facial expression of the emotions are the two great
cosmetics which will put the finishing touch on English Beauty.