_Types.--Manly Beauty.--The Indian Type.--Second Beauty in the
Women of the New World.--Something Wanting in the Beauty of
Most American Women._
The American men are generally thin. Their faces glow with intelligence
and energy, and in this mainly consists their handsomeness. I do not
think it can be possible to see anywhere a finer assemblage of men than
that which meets at the Century Club of New York every first Saturday of
the month. It is not male beauty such as the Greeks portrayed it, but a
manly beauty in all its intellectual force. The hair, often abundant, is
_neglige_, sometimes even almost disordered-looking; the dress displays
taste and care without aiming at elegance; the face is pale and serious,
but lights up with an amiable smile: you divine that resolution and
gentleness live in harmony in the American character.
The features are bony, the forehead straight, the nose sharp and often
pinched-looking in its thinness. One seems at times to recognise in the
faces something of the Indian type: the temples indented, the
cheek-bones prominent, the eyes small, keen, and deepset.
The well-bred American is, to my mind, a happy combination of the
Frenchman and the Englishman, having less stiffness than the latter,
and more simplicity than the former.
As for the women, I do not hesitate to say that in the east, in New York
especially, they might be taken for Frenchwomen. It is the same type,
the same gait, the same vivacity, the same petulance, the same amplitude
of proportions.
The beauty of the American women, like that of the men, is due much more
to the animation of the face than to form or colouring. The average of
good looks is very high, indeed. I do not remember to have seen one
hopelessly plain woman during my six months' ramble in the States.
American women generally enjoy that second youth which Nature bestows
also on numbers of Frenchwomen. At forty, they bloom out into a more
majestic beauty. The eyes retain their fire and lustre, the skin does
not wrinkle, the hands, neck, and arms remain firm and white. It is true
that, in America, hair turns grey early; but, so far from detracting
from the American woman's charms, it gives her an air of distinction,
and is often positively an attraction.
If the Americans descend from the English, their women have not
inherited from their grandmothers either their teeth, their hands, or
their feet. I have seen, in America, the daintiest little hands and feet
in the world (this is not an Americanism).
The New Yorkers and Bostonians will have it to be that Chicago women
have enormous feet and hands. I was willing to believe this, up to the
day I went to Chicago. I found the Chicago women, and those of the west
generally, pretty, with more colour than their eastern sisters; only, as
a rule, quite slight, not to say thin.
That which is lacking in the pretty American faces of the east is colour
and freshness. The complexion is pale; and it is only their plumpness,
which comes to their rescue after thirty, and prevents them from looking
faded. Those who remain thin, generally fade quickly; the complexion
becomes the colour of whity-brown paper, and wrinkles freely.
If American women went in for more outdoor exercise; if they let the
outer air penetrate constantly into their rooms; if they gave up living
in hothouses, they would have some colour, and their beauty need,
perhaps, fear no competition in Europe.