PERSONAL BEAUTY
Fanny Brawne having complained to Keats that he seemed to ignore all her other qualities and have eyes for her beauty alone, Keats thus justified himself: “Why may I not speak of your beauty, since without that I could never have loved you? I cannot conceive any beginning of such love as I have for you but beauty. There may be a sort of love for which, without the least sneer at it, I have the highest respect, and can admire it in others: but it has not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after my own heart.”
Fanny Brawne is not the only girl who has thus complained to her lover about his exclusive emphasising of her Personal Beauty. But all such complaints are useless. In Modern Love the Admiration of Personal Beauty is by far the strongest of all ingredients, and is becoming more so every year: fortunately, for thereby Romantic Love is becoming more and more idealised and converted into a pure æsthetic sentiment. Goldsmith, indeed, laid stress on the virtue of choosing a wife on the same principle that guided her in choosing a wedding-ring—for qualities that will wear. But Personal Beauty does wear, with proper hygienic care.
Feminine Beauty in Masculine Eyes.—In masculine Love, regard for youthful feminine Beauty has always played a rôle more or less important. But the effects of this kind of sexual selection in the lower races in increasing the amount of physical beauty in the world, have been commonly neutralised by the crude æsthetic notions prevailing among men as to what constituted feminine beauty. The weakness of the æsthetic overtone in Love, moreover, has hitherto prevented it from competing successfully with other marriage-motives. On the continent of Europe, to this day, the ugliest girl with a dowry of a few thousands is sure to find a husband and transmit her bodily and his mental ugliness to her offspring; while girls who could transmit a considerable amount of beauty, physical and mental, to their children, are left to fade away as old maids, because they have no money.
In this respect America sets a noble example to most parts of Europe. Thousands of young Americans marry penniless beauties every year, although they might have rich ugly girls for the asking. This is one of the things Frenchmen and Germans cannot understand, and class as “Americanisms.” And then they wonder why it is that there are so many pretty girls in Canada and the United States. Another “Americanism,” gentlemen. These pretty girls are the issue of Love-matches. Their mothers were selected for their Beauty, not for money or rank.
Not but that there are numerous exceptions to this golden rule of Love. Were there not, ugly women would be scarcer than they are, even in America.
Masculine Beauty in Feminine Eyes.—In woman’s Love the admiration of Personal Beauty has played a much less significant rôle than in man’s Love. If, nevertheless, the average man in most countries is perhaps a better specimen of masculine Beauty than the average woman of feminine Beauty, this is owing to the facts that sons as well as daughters may inherit their mother’s beauty, and that men, leading a more active and athletic life, are more beautiful than women in proportion as they are more healthy.
In the past barbarous times the constant wars and the unsettled state of social affairs made it important for women to select men not for their beauty, but for their energy,[energy,] courage, and manly prowess. Desdemona falls in Love with the Moor despite his colour and ugliness; and why? Othello himself tells us—
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.”
And it is on beholding Orlando vanquishing the Duke’s wrestler that Rosalind falls in Love with him. As Celia remarks: “Young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler’s heels and your heart, both in an instant.”
Women are conservative; and in the ludicrous feminine eagerness to make immortal heroes of the ephemeral victors in a boat-race or baseball match, we see an echo, in these peaceful days, of a feminine trait imprinted on them in warlike times.
Intellectual supereminence, in the meantime, was ignored by women. Petrarch’s verses made no impression on Laura, and Dante could not even win Beatrice with such poetic beauties as these lines—
“Whatever her sweet eyes are turned upon,
Spirits of Love do issue thence in flame,
Which through their eyes who then may look on them
Pierce to the heart’s deep chamber every one.
And in her smile Love’s image you may see
Whence none can gaze upon her steadfastly.”
There is, however, already a large class of superior women who have discovered that brains have displaced muscle in the successful struggle for existence, and that strong nerves are the true storage-batteries of courage and vigour in modern life. Hence the homage paid to men of genius.
In regard to masculine Beauty a change likewise has come over the feminine mind. Fashionable young ladies appear, indeed, to be as exacting in the matter of what they consider Personal Beauty as their beaux are. A barber’s pet is their pet, even as the fashionable man’s ideal of femininity is a milliner’s model. There can be hardly any doubt that this is an improvement on the taste of those savages who prefer their women black, with thick lips, flat noses, and tattooed, or smeared with a half-inch coat of paint.
Says a writer in the London Magazine (1823): “The pale poet, whose works enchant us all, is nobody in the park: with his shrunk cheeks and spindle legs, he sneaks along as little noticed as a fly; while a thousand fond eyes are fixed on the gay and handsome apprentice there, with just enough intellect to make the clothes which make him.”
Serves the pale poet quite right. His genius does not give him any right to neglect his health, or to allow the tailor’s apprentice to surpass him in attention to his personal appearance. Génie oblige. And whether geniuses or not, men should pay just as much attention to their dress and personal attractiveness as women.
A convincing illustration of my thesis that Personal Beauty is to-day a more important factor in woman’s Love than formerly, is afforded by the circumstance that formerly Love had the effect of making a man neglect his beard, and hands, and clothes, and indulge in general slovenliness, as we see in Rosalind’s summary of the symptoms of masculine Love, as well as in various passages in Cervantes and other authors; whereas to-day it is just the reverse, as noted under the head of Gallantry. It is most amusing to watch a man smitten with sudden passion: how carefully he adjusts his cravat, curls his moustache, brushes his hat and boots, polishes his finger-nails, removes spots from his coat, regards himself in the mirror, and—wishes he were a millionaire.
So much for the general relations between Love and Beauty. It now remains to consider in detail what peculiarities of personal appearance are and have been specially favoured by Love. This involves an æsthetico-anatomical analysis of every part of the human body from toe to top. To this analysis almost one half of this work will be devoted—showing the preponderating importance of Personal Beauty over the other factors in Modern Love. But before proceeding to this pleasant task it will be well, for the sake of continuity, to discuss the remaining aspects of Modern Love: how it differs from conjugal affection; how men of genius behave when in Love; what are the peculiarities of the physical expression of Love in features and actions; how Love maybe won and cured; and how the leading modern nations differ in their amorous peculiarities. A consideration of Schopenhauer’s theory of Love will then naturally lead us to the second part of this treatise, in which Personal Beauty alone will form our theme.