E.
STANDARD OF BEAUTY.
To show that the sentiments of mankind with regard to female beauty, have been very various in different ages and nations, and that it is not possible to establish a standard which shall comprehend all, without discriminations, a few facts may be mentioned. Among the ancients, a small forehead and joined eyebrows were much admired in a female countenance; and in Persia, large joined eyebrows are still highly esteemed. In some parts of Asia, black teeth and white hair, are essential ingredients in the character of a beauty; and in the Marian Islands, it is customary among the ladies to blacken their teeth with herbs, and to black their hair with certain liquors. Beauty, in China and Japan, is composed of a large countenance, small, and half-concealed eyes, a broad nose, little and useless feet, and a prominent belly. The Flat-head Indians compress the heads of their children between two boards, with a view to enlarge and beautify the face; some tribes compress the head laterally; others depress the crown, and others make the head as round as possible. “The Moors of Africa,” says Park, “have singular ideas of female perfection; the gracefulness of figure and motion, and a countenance enlivened by expression, are by no means operative points in their standard; with them corpulency and beauty are terms nearly synonymous. Or women of even moderate pretensions, must be one who cannot walk without a slave under each arm to support her, and a perfect beauty is a load for a camel. In consequence of this prevalent taste for unwieldiness of bulk, the Moorish ladies take great pains to acquire it early in life, and for this purpose many of the young girls are compelled by their mothers to swallow a great quantity of kouskous, and drink a large bowl of camel’s milk every morning. It is of no importance whether the girl has an appetite or not, the kouskous and milk must be swallowed, and obedience is frequently enforced by blows. I have seen a poor girl sit crying with the bowl at her lips for more than an hour, and her mother with a stick in her hand watching her all the while, and using the stick without mercy whenever she observed that her daughter was not swallowing. This singular practice, instead of producing indigestion and disease, soon covers the young lady with that degree of plumpness, which in the eye of a Moor, is perfection itself.” These facts show that every nation almost has ideas of beauty peculiar to itself; and it is no less evident that nearly every individual has his own notions and taste concerning it. “The empire of beauty, however,” says a writer already quoted, “amid these discordant ideas, with respect to the qualities in which it consists, has been very generally acknowledged, and particularly in all civilized countries; and when it is united with other accomplishments that tend to render females amiable, it contributes in no small degree, to give them importance and influence, to polish the manners of society, and to contribute to its order and happiness.”