OF FEMININE NOSES.
The subject of Nasology would not be complete without some observations
on the Feminine Nose, because sex modifies the indications, some of
which, though disagreeable and repulsive in a man, are rather pleasing,
fascinating, and bewitching in a woman, and _vice versâ_.
It is the fashion for women to aspire to equality with the other sex,
and as long as they will be content with an equality, in a different
orbit, they are undoubtedly entitled to it. It should, however, be the
equality of planets—each perfect and beautiful, each useful and
beneficial in its sphere; but pregnant with disorder and confusion when
Venus would invade the orbit of Jupiter, or intrude within the circuit
of Mars.
No intelligent man denies to woman such an equality; but as certainly as
a good housewife would pin a dish-cloth to the coat-tail of a husband
prying into the mysteries of the kitchen and claiming equality with his
wife in the household sphere, so surely will men cry out against and
turn with disgust from women who invade their province of warriors,
statesmen, merchants, &c.
Nevertheless, let us not be misunderstood, or be accused of including in
a sweeping clause those cases which are, of right, exceptions. A woman
may be placed in such a position that active life is her legitimate
sphere, and that if she neglects or devolves its cares upon others she
is culpable. We all feel an enthusiastic respect for the noble Boadicea,
arousing her pusillanimous countrymen against the cruel ravages of the
Romans, and dwell with admiration on Elizabeth haranguing her army at
Tilbury and personally engaging in affairs of State, because they were
occupied in duties which became a monarch; yet if a woman, who has no
call to any higher duties than those of domestic life, were to leave
them to engage in the contests of warriors or the turmoil of politics,
we should regard her as an unfeminine virago. Notwithstanding, though
the woman may in some cases be needfully sunk in the station, those
duties which become the former will still engage more of our love and
regard than those which belong to the latter; and our own graceful Queen
has secured, by her happy union of the duties of both, more of the love
and respect of her people than any of her predecessors on the throne of
these realms.
The energies and tastes of women are generally less intense than those
of men; hence their characters appear less developed and exhibit greater
uniformity. That their passions are stronger is undeniable, but these do
not constitute character, nor are exhibited in the Nose. Their indexes
are the eyes and mouth, and therefore their consideration forms no part
of the present subject. This uniformity of character is noticed by Pope
in a line which at first sight reads libellous, either because it
appears to refer to moral conduct—which it does not—or because it is too
sweeping and exaggerated. He asserts roundly,
“Most women have no characters at all.”
No characters at all, is obviously false; but, as compared to men, as
near the truth as most general epigrammatic rules are. It is in the
latter sense that Pope used it to illustrate the difficulty of
discussing “The characteristics of Women” after a dissertation on those
of men. The line, however, was truer in his time than it is now, when
more general and more liberal education has tended very much to break up
the uniformity of character which existed among the inane ladies of
Pope’s era.
Nevertheless, whether repressed by Art or curtailed by Nature, women’s
characters certainly _appear_ less developed than those of men. If by
Nature, it is a blessed provision—as all nature’s providings are. It is
the woman’s place to be in rational subjection to the man; and though
the sweet saints would sooner tear out the eyes of St. Paul[43] (we
wonder he is such a favourite with them) than confess his precepts in
terms, yet they do not fear to acknowledge that they have no respect for
the man who succumbs to his wife, or admiration for the woman who
aspires to denude her husband of his appropriate symbols of masterdom.
If this happy inferiority—an inferiority which places them far above men
in practical wisdom, inasmuch as it consists in shrewd, practical common
sense, against a man’s intellectual blundering—if this happy inferiority
is the result of Art, they exhibit in its adoption much sound wisdom.
Man is an insolent, domineering, self-sufficient animal—let him _say_
what he will about the elevation of the female mind, we believe no man
ever fell in love with the woman whom he felt to be wiser than himself.
He could not endure for a partner for life, such a perpetual
looking-glass and reminder of his own infirmities; he could not bear the
constant attestation of his own weakness. He could regard patiently the
vaunted accomplishments of another man, but he could not submit that his
wife should be his acknowledged superior, and to be her foil—perhaps
fool.
Hence it is that wise men, so frequently that it is become proverbial,
marry silly women. However much a learned man may admire female
accomplishments, he detests a woman who strives to rival him in his own
sphere, who is talking philosophy when he would be whispering “soft
nothings,” and who freezes his ardent admiration with a dissertation on
mathematics, or a moral discourse on self-control. He can bend, like any
other man, with intense joy, over the blushing girl who tremblingly
believes that her eyes are brighter and more lovely than the stars over
her head; but would fling from him with disgust the woman who would
repress his harmless and true—because soul-felt—flattery, with a
philosophical disquisition on the nature, distances, and offices of the
aforesaid stars. And it is because learned women too often strive by
this injudicious ill-timed wisdom, to catch learned men for husbands,
(and there are no more determined husband-hunters than blue-stocking
women, because they are always within a year or two of being shelved),
that the latter are necessarily flung into the arms of women who they
know _can’t_ bore them with an eternal round of sense, from which every
one is glad occasionally to escape, and never more so than when he is in
love.
Hence it is that blue-stocking women are proverbially avoided by men;
not because men despise or dislike their learning, but because they make
such ill-timed use of it. They may be admired, but they are never loved;
they may talk as learnedly as is in their power, but learning never won
a lover, much less a husband. _Ver. sap._ my dear lady reader, and if
you don’t understand the abbreviate, ask—ask—anybody, but your husband.
“Yes, Love, indeed, is light from heaven,
A spark of that immortal fire,
By angels shared, to mortals given,
To lift from earth our low desire.”
And shall heaven-born love bow to mortal wisdom? Shall the God whom Jove
himself obeys, become the slave of Minerva? No! let Love wear the cap
and bells of Folly, but shroud him not in the cold cerements of the
Goddess of Wisdom! Be assured, the doves of Venus will never nestle
under the dusky wings of the sage owl of _innupta_ Minerva, who,
herself, could never win a husband, or a lover, from the whole host of
Olympus.
Whatever the cause, it is almost indisputable that women’s characters
are generally less developed than those of men; and this fact accurately
accords with the usual development of their Noses. But for a small
_hiatus_ in the prosody, Pope’s line would read equally well thus:—
“Most women have no Noses at all.”
Not, of course, that the nasal appendage is wanting, any more than Pope
intended by the original line that women’s characteristics were wholly
negative; but that, like their characters, their Noses are, for the most
part, cast in a smaller and less developed mould than the Nose
masculine.
In judging of the Nose feminine, therefore, comparison must not be made
with the masculine, but with other feminine Noses. All the rules and
classifications apply to the one as well as the other, but allowance is
to be made for _sex_.
The Roman Nose largely developed in a woman mars beauty, and imparts a
hardness and masculine energy to the face which is unpleasing, because
opposed to our ideas of woman’s softness and gentle temperament. In a
man we admire stern energy and bold independence, and can even forgive,
for their sakes, somewhat of coarseness; but in a woman the former are,
at the least, unprepossessing and unfeminine, and the latter is utterly
intolerable. Woman’s best sustainer is a pure mind; man’s a bold heart.
Moreover, the exhibition of character in women should be different from
that in men. From the masculine Roman Nose we may justly look for energy
in the active departments of life, but in a woman its indications are
appropriately exhibited in firmness and regularity in those duties which
legitimately fall to her lot. We do not desire to see a woman so
endowed, launch out, uncalled for, into the bustle and turmoil of the
world, or endeavour to take the reins of government from her husband,
though she may be equally well fitted for the task: but we are content
to see her govern her household with energy, and train up her children
in a systematic and uniform manner.
She will form her plans of household management with promptitude, and
carry them out with undeviating firmness and decision; and her husband
will act wisely, for his own sake, not to interfere with her, so long as
her energy does not carry her into his department.
But if woman’s circumstances place her in a more extended sphere, her
career will afford an example to illustrate our hypothesis as well as
that of a man. Of this we have an example in the illustrious Roman Lady,
LIVIA, the wife of Augustus.
Her Nose presents a combination of the Roman and the Greek, and contains
as much of the former class as is compatible with female beauty. The
accounts which are handed down concerning her are very contradictory:
some describe her as chaste as the icicle that hangs on Dian’s temple,
and qualified to lead a chorus of vestals, while others accuse her of
licentiousness and criminal amours. It is, however, undeniable that she
was a woman of considerable power of mind, which she exercised
energetically and shrewdly in procuring the aggrandizement of her son
Tiberius, on whose head she finally succeeded in placing the imperial
tiara. Her Roman energy was nevertheless refined by an infusion of Greek
elegance, and she was a liberal patroness of arts and literature. Her
career likewise illustrates another maxim; that what woman’s character
wants in development, is often compensated by superior passion. Livia
was sustained more by the strength of her affections than by personal
ambition. It was her son’s and not her own aggrandizement that she
sedulously pursued; and if the lives of the majority of ambitious women
were examined, it would be found that they more frequently sought to
exalt some object of their affections—a husband or a child—than
themselves.
[Illustration:
LIVIA.
(_From a coin in the Museum of Florence._)
]
This, however, was not the case with the purely Roman-Nosed ELIZABETH.
She had no affection for any one but herself; and the energy and
determination, combined with the coarseness of her character, correspond
accurately with the indications of her Nose.
The most beautiful form of Nose in woman is the Greek. It is essentially
a feminine Nose, and it is in its higher indications that women
generally excel.
This Nose will not carry them out of their natural sphere, and it is for
this reason that it is so beautiful. Congruity is harmony; and harmony
is essential to the beautiful. A woman gifted with the feelings of a
poet, need not fear to give them full sway. In some of the most
beautiful and touching departments of poetic talent women equal—perhaps
excel—men. Scarcely half a century has elapsed since women were
permitted to cultivate unreservedly the fields of literature, but that
brief period has incontrovertibly proved the ability of women to
pourtray with superior truth and pathos all that relates to the
affections, the sentiments, and the moral and religious duties of
mankind.
The names of Hannah More, Barbauld, Edgeworth, Tighe, Hemans, De Staël,
and other lamented writers, together with those of several who still
survive, place this assertion beyond the pale of controversy. The Noses
of the above-named gifted women were Greco-Cogitative.
[Illustration:
MRS. HEMANS.
]
But the power of expression, though essential to a poet, is not
necessary to a poetic mind. It may exist as strongly in one who has no
words of fire to give its creations utterance as in one who pours forth
in lavish self-abandonment the riches of his soul.
“Oh many are the Poets that are sown
By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine,
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.”
WORDSWORTH.
Neither is the Greek Nose a necessary index of a poetic faculty. That
form may adorn the face, but no rapturous fervour exalt the mind;
although it will frequently accompany a poetic temperament, because it
indicates refinement and purity of taste. These are its invariable
indications, and in these every woman so gifted will excel; for to excel
in these is almost her peculiar province.
In the minor and domestic departments of life, where woman’s influence
is so peculiarly blessed, the refinement of the Greek Nose will appear
in those household arrangements which make home the happiest and most
beloved spot on earth. It will exhibit itself in her needlework by an
artistic arrangement of colours and a poetic choice of subjects; in a
neat and elegant attire, in the decoration of her drawing-room, or in
the paraphernalia of her boudoir. Nor need it be confined to those
elegancies which seem to belong exclusively to the higher classes—a cup
of flowers in a cottage window, the well-selected trimmings of a Sunday
cap, or a pretty ornament on the mantel-shelf will equally be an
evidence of a refined taste, and found to accompany the Greek Nose.
The Cogitative Nose does not so frequently appear among women as among
men. Women rather _feel_ than think. Their perceptions are instinctive,
intuitive; men’s cogitative. They are shrewder and more instantaneous in
estimating character, or in deciding an action, than men. Men must
think, and fume, and fret, before they can decide; must, in common
parlance, set the head (reason) against the heart (instinct); while
women rely more on the latter, and are consequently, in judging of
character, or in deciding on a course of moral conduct, more frequently
right than men.
Our advice to a man would be this: if you are at a loss, after long
cogitation—as ten to one you will be—to know whether an intended act is
morally right, ask a sensible woman, and she will guide you with perfect
wisdom in a minute. So, again, if you would know any one’s moral
character, let a sensible woman converse with him for five minutes, and
she will tell you without fail whether he may be trusted. Only be
careful to accept her first dictum; don’t argue the point with her, nor
give her time to _think_; have her instinctive decision. If she thinks,
she will be ten times more at fault than a man; and, if you argue the
matter with her, she will lead you a dance through as fine a quagmire of
absurdities as can be conceived, and there leave you, up to your neck in
the slough, without the power—if not without the will—to help you out.
And this needfully so. Instinct must ever be a better guide than Reason;
for
“In this (Instinct) ’tis GOD that acts, in that (Reason) ’tis man.”
“The perception of a woman,” says Sherlock, “is as quick as lightning.
Her penetration is intuition, almost instinct. By a glance she will draw
a quick and just conclusion. Ask her how she formed it, and she cannot
answer the question. While she trusts her instinct she is scarcely ever
deceived, but she is generally lost when she begins to reason.” A more
accurate picture of the female mind was never drawn; yet some modern
writers have fiercely controverted it. Under a mistaken notion of
equalizing women with men, they seek to destroy the individualism of
their character. One witty popular writer has even ventured to assert,
that if half-a-dozen boys were brought up as girls, and half-a-dozen
girls as boys, the latter would be to all intents psychologically men,
and the former psychologically women. Surely a more preposterous
absurdity never won the assent of the unthinking part of the community;
nevertheless, it has been warmly applauded and often repeated, as if it
were an ascertained fact instead of a ridiculous fancy.
The Jewish Nose is not very frequent among women. Neither are its
indications material to the perfection of the female character. It is
the duty of men to relieve women from the cares of commercial life, and
to stand between them and those who would impose upon their credulity.
Moreover, woman’s natural penetration supplies the want of the
thoughtful sagacity which protects men in inter-commercial relations.
The remarks which we made on the Snub Nose and the Celestial Nose in
men, require to be considerably modified when we treat of those classes
in women.
The Celestial Nose feminine is that which has won so much admiration and
celebrity among French writers under the designation of “_le nez
retroussé_.” They almost universally acknowledge its irresistible
piquancy and animation. According to Marmontel, “un petit nez retroussé
renvers les lois d’un empire;” a dictum which we are not disposed to
dispute.
We confess a lurking _penchant_, a sort of sneaking affection which we
cannot resist, for the latter of these in a woman. It does not command
our admiration and respect like the Greek, to which we could bow down as
to a goddess, but it makes sad work with our affections. The former,
too, is not so unbearable as in a man. It is a great marrer of beauty,
undoubtedly; but merely regarded as an index of weakness, it claims our
kindly consideration. Weakness in a woman—which is gentleness,
feminacy—is excusable and rather loveable; while in a man it is
detestable. It is woman’s place to be supported, not to support. Hence
the classical emblem of the Vine and the Elm is felt to be beautiful and
true, because it pourtrays accurately the natural mutual position of
husband and wife. A woman, moreover, has generally tact sufficient to
conceal (often to their entire annihilation) those unprepossessing
characteristics of the Snub and the Celestial, which in a weak man
become every day more and more strongly marked. A woman’s weakness, too,
is rather flattering, as it attests our supremacy; a thing which we like
to be constantly reminded of, and of which we are very jealous, as it
stands on rather ticklish and much disputed ground.
The impudence, too, which is utterly unendurable in a male Celestial,
and which seems to court contact with the toe of one’s boot, is in a
woman rather piquant and interesting. A Celestial Nose in a woman is
frequently an index of wit. Wit is a talent not emanating from wisdom;
quite the reverse. The wisest men are ofttimes the slowest. Wisdom comes
after thought, wit before it. A Celestial-nosed woman is only more witty
than a similarly gifted man, because the impudence which it invariably
indicates is backed by woman’s ever-ready tact and quickness.
The indications are not varied; but the exhibitions are. Even if a man
were gifted with the power of uttering the severe witticisms and cutting
repartees which are nectar and ambrosia from the lips of a pretty woman,
he dare not; for he would be inevitably kicked down stairs—if the fellow
were worth the exertion.
In a witty woman who can skirmish with unflinching quickness and
dexterity, we can even forgive a slight moral delinquency. A little
white-lie simpered out with arch assurance by a pair of demure lips,
“Like leaves of crimson tulips met,”
by no means offends us as it would in a man; in whom we should attribute
it to low cunning or mean cowardice. Indeed, the exquisite look of arch
impudence with which a delicately chiselled marble-ine Celestial tells
you a most palpable falsehood is maddening, perfectly beautiful, almost
sublime. The cool assurance and sharp raillery with which she persists
after detection! the assumption of injured innocence! the impudent look
of defiance! By Jove! truly
“The dear creatures lie with such a grace,
There’s nothing so becoming to the face.”
And then when they are beaten from their last defence, and can resist no
longer, when they are compelled to surrender and beg pardon, they do it
as if _they_ were forgiving _you_; and make you feel almost as if you
were being forgiven, as if you, not she, had all the while been erring:
at all events you feel very like a fool, though very happy; and so a few
tears, and a few (or not a _few_) kisses set all to rights,
“And so we make it up;
And then—and then—and then—sit down and sup.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” roars Mr. A. flinging down the book—which he has been
reading aloud to his wife—in a paroxysm of laughter.
“It’s abominable!” exclaims Mrs. A., in high indignation, “and I wonder,
Mr. A. you ain’t ashamed to read it.”
Mr. A. resumes the book, and his lady continues to listen with great
interest, though apparently wholly absorbed by her crochet-work.
All things considered therefore, and inasmuch as we prefer the
naturalness of a witty woman to the artificialness of a learned woman,
we confess to a liking for the Celestial Nose feminine, while we abhor
the masculine. It is not, however, every female Celestial Nose that we
admire (Heaven, for our peace’s sake forbid—they are so numerous). It
must be of the purest and most delicate chiselling; have no tendency to
cogitativeness, lest it should look as if its owner thought; and its hue
must be of the palest and most evanescent flesh-tint. These are
essential to indicate that delicacy of mind which alone makes wit in a
woman fascinating and which pardons breaches of strict morality
committed from the purest and most benevolent intentions.
This sounds rather paradoxical, but an old Jacobite song will illustrate
our meaning. The story goes that a gudewife concealed a north country
cousin, one of the adherents of Charlie, in the house, unknown to the
gudeman; and her ingenuity is sorely puzzled to account for certain
suspicious phenomena which strike him on his coming home:—
“Hame came our gudeman at e’en,
And hame came he,
And there he saw a pair o’ boots,
Where nae the boots should be.
“‘And how came these boots here,
And whase can they be?
And how came thæ boots here
Without the leave of me?’
‘Boots!’ quo’ she; (_with amazement_)
‘Aye, boots!’ quo’ he.
“‘Ye auld blind dotard carle,
And blinder mat ye be! (_indignantly_)
It’s but a pair o’ water-stoups,
My minnie sent to me.’
‘Water-stoups?’ quo’ he,
‘Aye, water-stoups;’ quo’ she.” (_with impudent determination_).
And so in like manner she unblushingly persists, in order to preserve
her guest’s life, that a saddle-horse is a milking cow, and a man’s coat
a pair of blankets. Now we are sure this dear woman had a Celestial
Nose; nothing else would have had the ready wit and impudent assurance
to attempt so to befool her gudeman, and to persist, with the addition
of no slight abuse of his dotard blindness, in her palpable falsehoods;
yet we defy any one not to love the good woman, and excuse her breaches
of morality for the sake of her hospitable benevolence.
Whenever two persons, the one having a large Nose and the other a small
one, come into collision, the latter must inevitably yield, unless it is
feminine, and takes a Celestial turn. It may then conquer, not by its
wisdom or the force of argument, but by its persevering impudence, and
harassing petty skirmishing. A wise man may, for the sake of peace and
quiet, ostensibly yield to a noisy woman; though there is no real
conquest, for he remains unconvinced.
But a Snub-nosed man must succumb, body and soul, to a Roman-nosed wife;
she will assume the masterdom; she will endue the breeches; he cannot
help himself; under her his nature is subdued, as Marc Antony’s was by
Cæsar.
Take warning, therefore, ye Snub Noses; and if ye would be masters at
home, marry your likes. Aspire not to wed feminine beauty; it is not for
such as you. Marry Snubs; beget Snubs, till the race is extinct.
We are conscious that in discussing female Noses, we are treading on
delicate ground. It is a difficult and nervous subject. We have
endeavoured, however, to say nothing but what appeared to us to be plain
truth. Nevertheless we would apologize if we have given offence to any
one, were it not that we forcibly feel the truth of the homely adage,
“the least said the soonest mended,” and therefore hasten to close a
chapter which has given us more trouble and anxiety than all the rest
together.