DELICACY.
An air of robustness and strength is very prejudicial to beauty. An
appearance of _delicacy_, and even of fragility, is almost essential to
it. Whoever examines the vegetable or animal creation will find this
observation to be founded in nature. It is not the oak, the ash, or the
elm, or any of the robust trees of the forest which we consider as
beautiful; they are awful and majestic, they inspire a sort of
reverence. It is the delicate myrtle, it is the orange, it is the
almond, it is the jasmine, it is the vine which we look on as vegetable
beauties. It is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and
momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and
elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the
mastiff, and the delicacy of a jennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is
much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war
or carriage. I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the
point will be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is considerably
owing to their weakness or delicacy, and is even enhanced by their
timidity, a quality of mind analogous to it. I would not here be
understood to say, that weakness betraying very bad health has any share
in beauty; but the ill effect of this is not because it is weakness, but
because the ill state of health, which produces such weakness, alters
the other conditions of beauty; the parts in such a case collapse, the
bright color, the _lumen purpureum juventæ_ is gone, and the fine
variation is lost in wrinkles, sudden breaks, and right lines.