Romantic Love and Personal Beauty / Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiarities

by Henry T. Finck

A GRACEFUL GAIT

So long as the foot remains entirely covered, its beauty is, on the whole, of less importance than the grace of its movements. Grace, under all circumstances, is as potent a love-charm as Beauty itself—of which, in fact, it is only a phase; and if young men and women could be made to realise how much they could add to their fascinations by cultivating a graceful gait and attitudes, hygienic shoemakers, dancing-masters, and gymnasiums would enjoy as great and sudden a popularity as skating-rinks, and a much more permanent popularity too.

It is the laws of Grace that chiefly determine the most admirable characteristics of the foot. The arched instep is beautiful because of its curved outlines; but its greatest value lies in the superior elasticity and grace it imparts to the gait. The habitual carrying of heavy loads tends to make the feet flat and to ruin Grace; hence the clumsy gait of most working people, and, on the other hand, the graceful walk of the “aristocratic” classes.

The proper size of the foot, again, is most easily determined with reference to the principles of Grace. Motion is graceful when it does not involve any waste of energy, and when it is in accordance with the lines of Beauty. There must be no disproportion between the machinery and the work done—no locomotive to pull a baby-carriage. Too large feet are ugly because they appear to have been made for carrying a giant; too small ones are ugly because seemingly belonging to a dwarf. What are the exact proportions lying between “too large” and “too small” can only be determined by those who have educated their taste by the study of the laws of Beauty and Grace throughout Nature.

From this point of view Grace is synonymous with functional fitness. A monkey’s foot is less beautiful than a man’s, but in climbing it is more graceful; whereas in walking man’s is infinitely more graceful. Apes rarely assume an erect position, and when they do so they never walk on the flat sole. “When the orang-outang takes to the ground,” says Mr. E. B. Tylor, “he shambles clumsily along, generally putting down the outer edge of the foot and the bent knuckles of the hand.”

I have italicised the word “clumsily” because it touches the vital point of the question. Man owes his intellectual superiority largely to the fact that he does not need his hands for walking or climbing, but uses them as organs of delicate touch and as tools. To acquire this independence of the hands he needed feet, which enabled him to stand erect and walk along, not “clumsily,” but firmly, naturally, and therefore gracefully. Hence in course of time, through the effects of constant use, there was developed the callous cushion of the heel and toes; while, through discontinuance of the habit of climbing, the toes became reduced in size. In the ape’s foot, it is well known, the toes are almost as long as the fingers of the hand: a fact which led Blumenbach and Cuvier to classify apes as quadrumana or four-handed animals. But Professor Huxley showed that this classification was based on erroneous reasoning. The resemblance between the hands and feet of apes is merely physiological or functional—because hands and feet are used alike for climbing. But anatomically, in its bones and muscles, etc., the monkey’s apparent hind “hand” is a true foot no less than man’s. If the physiological function, i.e. the opposability of the thumb to the other fingers, were taken as a ground of classification, then birds, who have such toes, would have no feet at all but only wings and hands.

There is a limit, however, beyond which the size of man’s toe’s cannot be reduced without injuring the foot’s usefulness and the grace of gait. The front part of the foot is distinguished for its yielding or elastic character. Hence, says Professor Humphrey, “in descending from a height, as from a chair or in walking downstairs, we alight upon the balls of the toes. If we alight upon the heels—for instance, if we walk downstairs on the heels—we find it an uncomfortable and rather jarring procedure. In walking and jumping, it is true, the heels come first in contact with the ground, but the weight then falls obliquely upon them, and is not fully borne by the foot till the toes also are upon the ground.”

One of the reasons why Grace is more rare even than Beauty on this planet is that the toes are cramped or even turned out of their natural position by tight, pointed, fashionable shoes, and are thus prevented from giving elasticity to the step. Instances are not rare (and by no means only in China) where the great toe is almost at right angles to the length of the foot. In walking, says Professor Flower, “the heel is first lifted from the ground, and the weight of the body gradually transferred through the middle to the anterior end of the foot, and the final push or impulse given with the great toe. It is necessary then that all these parts should be in a straight line with one another.”

It is a mooted question whether the toes should be slightly turned outward, as dancing-masters insist, or placed in straight parallel lines, as some physiologists hold. For the reason indicated in the last paragraph, physiologists are clearly right. With parallel or almost parallel great toes, a graceful walk is more easily attained than by turning out the toes. Even in standing, Dr. T. S. Ellis argues, the parallel position is preferable: “When a body stands on four points I know of no reason why it should stand more firmly if those points be unequally disposed. The tendency to fall forwards would seem to be even increased by widening the distance between the points in front, and it is in this direction that falls most commonly occur.”