SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY--BEAUTY OF THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM.
With the vital system of woman, the capacity of the pelvis, and the
consequent breadth of the haunches, are still more connected than with the
locomotive system; for, with these, all those functions which are most
essentially feminine--impregnation, gestation, and parturition--are
intimately connected.
Camper, in a memoir on physical beauty, read to the Academy of Design, at
Amsterdam,[34] showed, that, in tracing the forms of the male and female
within two elliptical areas of equal size, the female pelvis extended
beyond the ellipsis, while the shoulders were within; and the male
shoulders reached beyond their ellipsis, while the pelvis was within.--The
pelvis of the African woman is said by some to be greater than that of the
European.
The abdominal and lumbar portion of the trunk, as already said, is longer
in woman. In persons above the common stature, there is almost half a
face more in the part of the body which is between the mammæ and the
bifurcation of the trunk.
The abdomen, placed below the chest, has more projection and roundness in
woman than in man: but it has little fulness in a figure capable of
serving as a model; and the slightest alteration in its outlines or its
polish is injurious.
The waist, which is most distinctly marked in the back and loins, owes all
its advantages to its elegance, softness, and flexibility.
The neck should, by the gentlest curvature, form an almost insensible
transition between the body and the head. It should also present fulness
sufficient to conceal the projection of the flute part of the throat in
front, and of the two large muscles which descend from behind the ears
toward the pit above the breast-bone.[35]
Over all these parts, the predominance of the cellular tissue, and the
soft and moderate plumpness which is connected with it, are a remarkable
characteristic of the vital system in woman. While this facilitates the
adaptation of the locomotive system to every change, it at the same time
obliterates the projection of the muscles, and invests the whole figure
with rounded and beautiful forms.
It has been well observed that the principal effect of such forms upon
the observer must be referred to the faculties which they reveal; for, as
remarked by Roussel, if we examine the greater part of the attributes
which constitute beauty, if reason analyze that which instinct judges at a
glance, we shall find that these attributes have a reference to real
advantages for the species. A light shape, supple movements, whence spring
brilliance and grace, are qualities which please, because they announce
the good condition of the individual who possesses them, and the greater
degree of aptitude for the functions which that individual ought to
fulfil.
Beauty, then, of the nutritive system in woman, depends especially upon
these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus
distinguish her from man.
In the woman possessing THIS SPECIES of beauty, therefore, the face is
generally rounded, to give greater room to the cavities connected with
nutrition;--the eyes are generally of the softest azure, which is
similarly associated;--the neck is often rather short, in order intimately
to connect the head with the nutritive organs in the trunk;--the shoulders
are softly rounded, and owe any breadth they may possess rather to the
expanded chest, containing these organs, than to any bony or muscular size
of the shoulders themselves;--the bosom, a vital organ, in its luxuriance
seems laterally to protrude on the space occupied by the arms;--the waist,
though sufficiently marked, is, as it were, encroached on by that
plumpness of all the contiguous parts, which the powerful nutritive
system affords;--the haunches are greatly expanded for the vital purposes
of gestation and parturition;--the thighs are large in proportion;--but
the locomotive organs, the limbs and arms, tapering and becoming delicate,
terminate in feet and hands which, compared with the ample trunk, are
peculiarly small;--the complexion, dependant upon nutrition, has the rose
and lily so exquisitely blended, that we are surprised it should defy the
usual operation of the elements;--and there is a luxuriant profusion of
soft and fine flaxen or auburn hair.--The whole figure is soft and
voluptuous in the extreme.
To this class belong all the more feminine, soft, and exquisitely-graceful
women.
The kind of beauty thus characterized is seen chiefly in the Saxon races
of our eastern coast; and it is certainly more frequent in women of short
stature.
The vital system is peculiarly the system of woman; and so truly is this
the case, that any great employment, either of the locomotive or mental
organs, deranges the peculiar functions of woman, and destroys the
characteristics of her sex.
Women who greatly occupy the locomotive organs, acquire a coarse and
masculine appearance; and so well is this incompatibility of power, in the
use of locomotive organs with the exercise of vital ones, known to the
best female dancers, that, during the time of their engagements, they
generally live apart from their husbands.
As to intellectual ladies, they either seldom become mothers, or they
become intellectual when they cease to be mothers.
These few facts are worth a thousand hypotheses and dreams, however
amiable they may be.
The vital system is relatively largest in little women, especially after
they have been mothers. The shorter stature of woman ensures, indeed, in
almost all, a relative excess of the vital system after, if not before,
they become mothers; for, whatever the stature, the mammæ, abdomen, &c.,
necessarily expand. In those of short stature, these parts, of course,
become nearly as large as in the tall; and this circumstance causes them
to touch on the limits of each other in little women.
As, in pregnancy and suckling, the abdomen and mammæ necessarily expand,
and as they would afterward collapse and become wrinkled, were not a
certain degree of plumpness acquired, that acquisition is essential to
beauty in mothers. Meagerness in them, accordingly, becomes deformity.
A French writer indeed says: "Most of our fashionables are extremely
slender; they have constituted this an essential to beauty; leanness is in
France necessary to the _air élégant_." It must be remembered, however,
that the vital system--that which we have just said is peculiarly the
system of woman--is, in its most beautiful parts, peculiarly defective in
France; and that, owing in a great measure to that circumstance, the women
of France are among the ugliest in Europe.--But of that in its proper
place.
_First Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty._
It may here be observed, that the varieties of beauty of the locomotive
system, and also those of beauty of the mental system, are easily
explicable, because these systems are, in some respects, more limited and
simple. The varieties of beauty of the vital system are, on the contrary,
more difficult of explanation, because that system is, in some respects,
more diffused and complicated.
Even the preparatory vital organs and functions differ somewhat in the two
sexes.
Woman has frequently a smaller number of molar teeth than man; those
called wisdom teeth not always appearing. Mastication is also less
energetic in woman.
The stomach, in woman, is much smaller; the appetite for food is less;
hunger does not appear to press her so imperiously; and her consumption of
food is much less considerable.[36] Hence, indubitable cases of long
abstinence from food, have generally occurred in females.
In the choice and the preference of certain aliments, woman also differs
much from man. In general, women prefer light and agreeable food, which
flatters the palate by its perfume and its savor. Their appetites are also
much more varied.
Women, whom vicious habits have not depraved, use also beverages less
abundantly than men. Fermented, vinous, and spirituous beverages are
indeed used only by the monsters engendered in the corruptions of
towns--amid the insane dissipation of the rich, or the wretched and
pitiable suffering of the poor; and both are then brought to one
humiliating level, marked by the red and pimpled, or the pallid face, the
swimming eye, the haggard features, the pestilential breath. The
scarf-skin in these cases divides all that may be worthy from all that is
utterly worthless: the worthy part may be external to the cuticle, in
substantial, though polluted clothing; the worthless is the yet living
portion, which, whether called body or soul, is no longer worth picking
off a dunghill.[37]
Digestion in woman is made, however, with great rapidity; and the whole
canal interested in that process, possesses great irritability.
The absorbent vessels in woman are much more developed, and seem to enjoy
a more active vitality. The circumstances of pregnancy and suckling,
appear also to augment the energy of these vessels.
The FIRST MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in
which the digestive and absorbent system is small but active; for the
great purpose of life in woman is secretion, whether it regard the
formation of the superficial adipose substance which invests her with
beautiful and attractive forms, or the nutrition of the new being which
is the object of her attractions and of her life.
Hence it is, that women naturally and instinctively affect abstemiousness
and delicacy of appetite. Hence it is, that they compress the waist, and
endeavor to render it slender.
_Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty._
Women have, in greater abundance than men, several of the fluids which
enter into the composition of the body. They appear to have a greater
quantity of blood; and they certainly have more frequent and more
considerable hemorrhages. There is less force in the circulation and
respiration; but the heart beats more rapidly. The pulse also is less
full, but it is quicker.
In woman, the purer lily and more vivid rose of complexion, depend on
various causes.
It would appear that, in women, the blood is in general carried less
abundantly to the surface and to the extremities, where also the white
vessels are more developed; and that, to this, as well as to the subjacent
adipose substance, the skin owes its whiteness.
In youth, however, one of the constituent parts of the skin, the reticular
tissue, or whatever the substance under the scarf-skin may be called,
appears to be more expanded, especially in women; and it would seem that
this tissue is then filled with a blood which is less dark, and which
forms the coloring of youth. This, differently modified by the
scarf-skin, gives the blue, the purple, and all the teints formed by these
and the color of the skin. Where the vessels are more patent, and the skin
more thin, delicate, and transparent, as in the cheeks, the hue of the
rose is cast over that of the lily. In addition to this, the slightest
emotions of surprise, of pleasure, of love, of shame, of fear, often
diversify all these teints.
Lightness of complexion, however, is probably dependant more particularly
on the arterial circulation, and darkness of complexion on the venous
circulation; for we know that in fairer woman the arteries possess greater
energy, while in darker man the veins are more developed, larger, and
fuller.
Farther confirmation of this is afforded by an observation, which
physiologists have neglected to make, that the kidneys, receiving arterial
blood, are the artery-relieving glands, while the liver, receiving venous
blood, is the vein-relieving gland. Now, it is certain that, in cold
climates, the urinary secretion and fairness prevail; while, in hot
climates, the hepatic secretion and darkness prevail. Many physiologists
have indeed made the insulated remark, that the dark complexion has much
to do with the hepatic secretion. The more abundant urinary and hepatic
secretions, however, may not be the causes, but only concomitant effects
of the same cause with fairness and darkness of complexion.
The SECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in
which the circulating vessels, being moderately active and finely
ramified, bestow upon the skin a whiteness, a transparency, and a
complexion, which are necessary to beauty.
The whiteness, the transparency, and the color of the skin, have, in all
highly civilized nations, been deemed essential conditions of beauty.
The ancients regarded whiteness, in particular, as the distinctive
character of beauty; and they estimated that character so highly, that the
name of Venus, from the Celtic _ven_, _ben_, or _ban_, signifies white, or
whiteness; and Venus herself is said to be fair and golden-haired.
Among the civilized moderns, also a taste which women seek always to
satisfy, is that for whiteness of the skin: hence, the white lily,
new-fallen snow, white marble, or alabaster, are the images which poetry
employs, when the color of a woman is its subject. So greatly, indeed,
does whiteness contribute to beauty, that many women deemed beautiful by
us, have little other right to that epithet except what they derive from a
beautiful skin.
_Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty._
The branches of the great artery of the body, the aorta, supplying the
abdomen and pelvis, are larger in woman than in man, as well as more
habitually liable to variation in the quantity of their contents. The
quantity of blood, also, which passes to the abdomen, is greater.
At the same time, the excretions are generally less in woman. Hippocrates
says: "_Nam corpus muliebre minus dissipatur quam virile_;" the
expenditure of the body of woman is less than that of man.
It is evident, then, that the secretions, nutrition, in particular, must
be greater. We actually know them to be so.
But the nourishment of the organs concerned in locomotion is less active,
and that of the cellular and adipose substance is generally more active,
than in man. And on this, important consequences depend.
Woman is subject to crises which would destroy all her organs, if they
offered too powerful a resistance. Some parts of her body are exposed to
great shocks, to alternate extensions, compressions, and reductions, which
could not take place with impunity, but by means of this predominance of
the cellular and adipose structure.
The cellular expansion, the general basis of the structure, appears then
to be more abundant in woman, more lax and yielding, more dilated and
fuller of liquids; and it is by yielding gradually, by decomposing and
weakening shocks by means of the general suppleness of the different
organs, thus procured, that nature seems, in woman, to avoid, or to
destroy, every hurtful effort.
It is observed, moreover, that certain parts, naturally more loose,
receive into all their vessels a more considerable quantity of liquid, and
assume a particular enlargement, at the moment when their sympathy with
the uterus causes them to enter into action in concert with it; and it is
also observed that they dilate more easily during pregnancy.
It is thus, then, that nature gives to all the parts of woman that
suppleness which renders her capable of easily yielding to the great
revolutions which affect her organization in regard to reproduction, as
well as mark the different periods of her life.
The great development of the cellular and fatty tissue in woman is
illustrated by the remarkable fact, that anciently the Romans, in order to
burn the bodies of dead men, were obliged to join to them those of women,
the fat of which greatly facilitated combustion.
Now, with the great purposes described above, beauty is naturally
associated. It is principally this excess of the cellular and fatty
tissues which gives to the members of woman those round and beautiful
outlines, that soft and polished surface, which the body of man does not
possess.
In every part, however, of the human figure, as observed by Reynolds,
"when not spoiled by too great corpulency, will be found distinctness, the
parts never appearing uncertain or confused, or as a musician would say,
slurred; and all those smaller parts which are comprehended in the larger
compartment are still found to be there, however marked."
Now, while all this is the case, it appears that the true skin is much
thinner and more delicate in woman than in man, and that it derives more
or less of its clear whiteness from the quantity of fat which is below
it; for meagerness inevitably tarnishes and dries it. Hence, to possess a
fine, soft, white, and fresh skin, it is also indispensable to possess
plumpness.
In relation to this purer white, it must also be observed, that
transpiration, which might soil it, appears to be much less abundant in
woman; and that the liver or vein-relieving gland, is very large. The
excretions of the skin in women are indeed chiefly limited to certain
parts; and it is thence that it has, in various parts, an odor which a
French writer observes "it is difficult to describe, but which an
exercised sense of smell easily succeeds in distinguishing in women who
fully enjoy all the attributes of their sex, and who are women even in the
atmosphere which exhales from them."
While the skin is thus more white in women, it is also more transparent.
The reticular tissue, or substance interposed between the true skin and
scarf-skin, appears to have more clearness and turgescence, especially on
the face, where, under the influence of various emotions, it easily
permits a passage to the blood, as we see in blushing. It is in youth that
this turgescence and clearness are most evident.
Hence, the skin in woman less conceals the veins, of which the color, only
enfeebled or modified by the skin, "gives all those shades of azure which
the charmed eye follows with so much pleasure on the surface of the bosom
and of all the parts where the skin has least of thickness."
All this constitutes freshness, or animation, which is nearly synonymous
with health, and without which there is no beauty. When that quality, as
observed by Roussel, "is wanting, all other attractions strike but feebly,
because the prompt judgment, which instinct suggests, warns us that the
woman whose person does not present all the characters of perfect health,
is in a disposition little favorable to the plan of nature, relatively to
the maintenance of the species."
The whiteness and the animation of the skin, however, do not alone
constitute its beauty: there is still another quality which is absolutely
necessary to it. This is the softness and the polish which, as the reader
has seen, is one of the first conditions of physical beauty. In woman,
this is probably derived from a slight degree of oleaginous secretion.
Hence, she has few asperities of the skin, especially on the surface of
the bosom, and other parts, where the skin is excessively smooth.
Brown women, who probably have more of this oleaginous secretion, are said
to possess in a greater degree the polish of skin which gives impressions
so agreeable to the organ of touch; and hence, Winckelmann has said that
persons who prefer brown women to fair ones allow themselves to be
captivated by the touch rather than the sight. There is reason, however,
to doubt the accuracy of this. Brown women appear to have greater
softness, but less smoothness of skin.
The body of woman is nearly deprived of hairs upon all parts, except the
head, axillæ, &c.; and the hair of her head is generally long, fine, and
flexible.
The quantity and the color of the hair are always in relation to the
constitution of the individual to which it belongs, and generally to the
temperature of the place. The people of northern countries have the hair
of a silken fineness and of surprising length.
The hair which is most admired is not only very fine and flexible, but
light colored. Fair golden hair was, of all its teints, that which the
ancient artists preferred.
In woman, the hair of the head whitens and falls later than in man.
It is curious that, in regard to the hair, the distinctive characters of
the sexes should not always have been preserved. Though nature gives long
hair to woman, it has sometimes been the fashion to wear it short; and
though man has naturally shorter hair, it has sometimes been the fashion
to cherish its growth, and to shave the beard from his face. The latter
has especially been the case in degenerate and effeminate times; and this
has sometimes been accompanied by remarkable consequences.
One of the greatest misfortunes, says a French writer, which France ever
had to lament, the divorce of Louis le Jeune from Elinor of Guyenne,
resulted from the fashion, which this prince wished to introduce, of
shaving his chin and cropping his head. The queen, his wife, who appears
to have possessed, with a masculine beauty, considerable acuteness of
intellect, observed with some displeasure, that she imagined herself to
have espoused a monarch, not a monk. The obstinacy of Louis in shaving
himself, and the horror conceived by Elinor at the sight of a beardless
chin, occasioned France the loss of those fine provinces which constituted
the dowry of this princess; and which, devolving to England by a second
marriage, became the source of wars which desolated France during four
hundred years.
The habit of wearing the beard is a manly and noble one. Nature made it
distinctive of the male and female; and its abandonment has commonly been
accompanied not only by periods of general effeminacy, but even by the
decline and fall of states. They were bearded Romans who conquered the
then beardless Greeks; they were bearded Goths who vanquished the then
beardless Romans; and they are bearded Tartars who now promise once more
to inundate the regions occupied by the shaven and effeminate people of
western Europe.
In farther illustration of the manliness of this habit we may observe,
that throughout Europe, wars have generally led to its temporary and
partial introduction, as at the present day. Those assuredly blunder, who
ridicule the wearing of the beard. Silly affectation, on the contrary, is
imputable only to those who, by removing the beard, take the trouble so
far to emasculate themselves! and who think themselves beautified by an
unnatural imitation of the smoother face of woman!
As appendages of the skin, the nails may here be noticed. Their beauty
consists in their figure, their surface, and their color.
By their figure, they serve as a defence to the delicate extremities of
the fingers, which would otherwise be easily hurt against hard bodies.
They form at once shields and supporting arches to the fingers; and they
give facility in laying hold of bodies which would escape from their
smallness. They ought accordingly to be arched, and to extend as far as
the flesh which terminates the fingers.--The form of the nails depends
much on the care employed in cutting them during infancy, and still more
on the mode of employing the hand.
The nails ought also to be smooth and polished, somewhat transparent, and
rose-colored. Their rosy color seems to show that their texture has less
density and more transparence.
It is in this view of the nutritive system and the characteristics which
render it beautiful, and especially after this portion of it which regards
the organs and functions of secretion, that the mammæ and their beauty
should be considered.
In woman, the bust is smaller and more rounded than in man; and it is
distinguished by the volume and the elegant form of the bosom.
The external and elevated position of the mammæ is by far the most
suitable for a nursling, which, no longer deriving subsistence from within
the mother, nor yet able of itself to find it without, must be gently and
softly borne toward her; an admirable position, says a French writer,
"which, in keeping the infant under the eyes and in the arms of the
mother, establishes between them an interesting exchange of tenderness, of
cares, and of innocent caresses, which enables the one the better to
express its wants, and the other to enjoy the sacrifices which she makes,
in continually contemplating their object."
According to Buffon, in order that the mammæ be well placed, it is
necessary that the space between them should be as great as that from the
mammæ to the middle of the depression between the clavicles, so that these
three points form an equilateral triangle.
The two portions of the mammæ should be well detached. The whole presents,
in beautiful models, more elegance than volume; and the areola, it may be
observed, is red in fair women and deeper colored in brown ones.
Winckelmann observes that, in the antique statues, the mammæ terminate
gently in a point, and that they have always virginal forms, as a
consequence of the system of the ancient artists, which consists in not
recalling in the ideal the wants and the accidents of humanity.
Finally on this particular head, I must observe that the reproduction of
the species is, in woman, the most important object of life, and that
every thing in her physical organization has evident reference to it. Of
all the passions in woman, says Richerand, "love has the greatest sway: it
has even been said to be her only passion. All the others are modified by
it, and receive from it a peculiar cast, which distinguishes them from
those of man.... Fontenelle used to say of the devotion of some women,
'One may see that love has been here.' It has been said, in speaking of
St. Theresa, '_To love God, is still to love_.' Thomas maintains that,
'With women a man is more than a nation.'--'Love,' says Madame de Stael,
'is but an episode in the life of man; it is the whole history of the life
of woman.'"
The THIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in
which the secreting vessels being active, not only cause the plumpness,
&c., necessary to beauty, but furnish the mammary and uterine secretions,
on which progeny is dependant. This must inevitably be followed by
moderate excretions.
It should not pass unobserved that there exist, in some women, a fair skin
and dark hair, forming a rather extraordinary and striking combination. As
such women have the skin remarkably smooth and moist, this is probably
connected with some peculiarity of secretion and excretion.
* * * * *
It is evidently the UNION of all that is good in these varieties which
renders beauty in the vital system perfect.
This union is nowhere so frequently to be seen, as in England and in
Holland.
It is curious that cleanliness among women seems necessarily to increase
with the development of this system; and that, in general slovenliness and
filth increase as we pass from England and Holland, toward France, Italy,
Spain, and Portugal, even among women of the highest condition.
* * * * *
Of the temperaments of the ancients, which, as already said, are only
partial views of some of the varieties I am now describing, two, the
_phlegmatic temperament_ and the _sanguine temperament_, appear to belong
fundamentally to _this species_. It has been supposed, that the first
affects the absorbent, the second the circulating system. They appear to
me to be exactly opposite affections of the whole nutritive system at
least.
The phlegmatic temperament may exist in both sexes. The causes which tend
to develop it, are infancy, humidity with cold, the absence of light,
indolence, and the feeble influence of the reproductive functions upon the
general system.
In this temperament, there exists an excess in the proportions of the
absorbent vessels; the pulse is weak, slow, and soft; there is a
turgescence of the cellular tissue, and a more marked development of the
glands; the internal stimulants, having less energy than in the other
temperaments, life is less active, and all its actions are more or less
languid; even the uterus is not endowed with suitable energy.
But these characteristics are not confined to the nutritive system: they
extend to the thinking one. The attention is not continuous; the
perceptions succeed with some difficulty; the memory is not to be trusted;
the imagination is weak; and the propensities, the appetites, and the
passions, are so languid, as to be scarcely capable of troubling the
quietude and the indolence which depend on such a constitution.
These characteristics of the phlegmatic temperament, present to us forms
more rounded and less expressive, a general softness, a feeble color of
the skin, a sort of etiolation, a pale countenance, a light and abundant
hair, and, generally, an insurmountable inclination to sloth, averse alike
to labors of the mind and body.
It has been observed, that the sanguine temperament, so generally met with
among northern nations, is the necessary consequence of the continual and
very energetic reaction of the powers of circulation, against the effects
of external cold; that it is only by the constant activity of the heart
and vessels that calorification can be effected with the necessary vigor:
and that the effects of this redoubled action are the same to the organs
of circulation as to the muscles, under the influence of volition;
exertion in both increasing the power of the organs exerted.
In the sanguine temperament, the lymphatic, circulating, and secreting
systems appear to be in a sort of equilibrium; the chest is larger, and
the lungs more voluminous; the circulation is more rapid, the arterial
predominance is obvious; the pulse is sharp, frequent, and regular; the
complexion is ruddy; all the vital actions are extremely easy; and the
health is rarely altered.
The mental functions correspond. The conception is quick; the memory is
prompt; the imagination is lively; the judgment has more readiness than
depth and extent; the mind, easily affected by the impressions of outward
objects, passes rapidly from one idea to another; the tastes,
propensities, appetites, passions, are equally ephemeral; and there is
much activity, but the strength is soon exhausted.
In persons of this temperament, the countenance is animated; the hair is
fair, and inclining to chestnut; the shape is good; the form is softened,
though distinct; and the muscles are of tolerable consistence, and
moderate development. The whole appearance is generally so amiable, that
this temperament may be called that of health, beauty, and happiness.
In the women who present the attributes of their sex with the greatest
unity, we distinguish, especially during youth and adult age, the traits
of the sanguine temperament, which may be regarded as the most suitable to
the organization of woman.