Nature says Winckelmann, is sparing of this beauty both in burning climates and in frozen regions.[42]
The same writer says: “The flat compressed nose of the Kalmucs, Chinese, and other distant nations, is also a defect, because it destroys the harmony of forms, according to which all the other parts are constructed: nor is there any reason why nature should compress and hollow it, instead of continuing the straight line begun in the forehead.” The fact is true; the reasoning false, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter, to which this point properly belongs.
Under the influence of passion, the nostrils expand and are drawn upward; and these two motions are the only ones of which the lower and moveable part of the nose is capable.
The sense of smell, like that of taste, is more delicate and more exquisite in woman than in man. Woman accordingly enjoys more, and suffers more, by that sense than man does; and its influence is said to dispose her more than man to those pleasures which have remarkable relations to that sense.
To beauty of the EYE, magnitude and elongated form contribute more perhaps than color: if its form be bad, no color will render it beautiful. In woman, however, the most beautiful eyes, in relation to color, are those which appear to be blue, hazel, or black. But no color of the eye is beautiful without clearness in every part.
“The more obliquely, and at an angle to each other,” says Winckelmann, “that the eyes are placed, as in cats, the more their position is removed from the base, or from the fundamental lines of the human face, which form a cross that divides it into four parts, the nose dividing it perpendicularly into two equal parts, and the eyes dividing it horizontally. When the eyes are placed obliquely, they form an angle with a line parallel to that which we suppose to pass through their centre. And this indeed is doubtless the reason why it displeases us to see a mouth which goes awry, because it generally offends the eye to see two lines diverging from each other without any reason. Thus eyes placed obliquely, as may be seen sometimes among ourselves, and commonly among the Chinese, Japanese, and in Egyptian heads, are an irregularity and a deformity.”
Here, again, Winckelmann’s fact is true, and his reasoning false, or rather, perhaps, superficial. The real cause of the deformity of obliquely-placed eyes is, that the vital parts of the head preponderate. The cavities of the upper jaw, which open into the internal nose, are, in the Mongelic races, so large, that they raise the cheek-bones, throw the orbit upward at its lateral part, and encroach apparently upon the space which should contain a nobler organ, the brain. The causes assigned by Winckelmann are but consequences of this.
The eyelids in woman, when well formed, present the gentlest inflexions. The eyelashes, when long and silky, form a sign of gentleness, and sometimes of softness. The eyebrows ought to be furnished with fine hairs, arched, and separated: if they are too thin, they do not sufficiently protect the organ of sight: if they unite, they render the physiognomy sombre; their too-marked approximation, and their extreme separation, are real deformities.
The sense of sight in woman is rapid and active; yet, in her, the slow and languid motion of the eye is generally employed, and is more beautiful than a brisk one. Woman requires a mild light, and colors of moderate vividness, rather than otherwise.
The beauty of the EAR is too little regarded. To an experienced eye it presents great beauties, and great deformities, in form, magnitude, and projection.