Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman

by Alexander Walker

The size and prominence of the ear, which characterize several nomadic tribes, are contrary to beauty, not merely because they alter the regularity of the oval of the head, and surcharge its outline with prominences, but because they are in themselves ugly, indicating rather the coarse strength common to inferior animals than the delicacy to be found in man.

In woman, the ear is also more delicate, more sensible, but more feeble, than in man. Strong sounds, loud noises, which may be agreeable to the ear of man, are offensive to her. She prefers soft and tender, gay, or pathetic music, to every other; and whatever may be the perfection of her musical education, she also prefers sweet and tender melody to the most complicated Sclavonic harmony.

Such are the organs of sense or those of impression, which form the first and most important portion of the face of woman.—The organs of expression, the MUSCLES of the face, on the contrary, are feeble in her; and correspondingly feeble and rounded are the bony points to which they are attached.

Woman presents very little prominence of the frontal sinuses; the cheek-bones display beautiful curves; the edges of the alveoli containing the teeth are much more elliptical than in man; and the chin is softly rounded. Of the chin, it should be observed that it is a distinctive character of the human species, and is not found in any other animal. When well formed, it is full, united, and generally without a dimple; and it passes gently and almost insensibly into the neighboring parts. In woman especially, the chin ought to be finely rounded; for when projecting, it expresses, owing to its connexion with muscular action and power, a firmness and a determination which we do not wish to discover in her character. “The apparent convexity of the cheeks,” says Winckelmann, “which in many heads appears greater than natural, contributes to this rotundity: it is not, however, ideal, but taken from natural beauty.”

The muscles of the face express all the shades of emotion and passion, not because such expression is the primary, or the proper object of their motion, but because their various motions adapt the organs to the farther purposes required of them in consequence of preceding impressions; and these motions become expressive to us only because we are thus enabled to infer the feeling and purpose of the person in whom they occur. This is a fundamental principle of physiognomy; and its not being understood has led to many of our errors in that science.

In woman, the countenance is more rounded, as well as more abundantly furnished with that cellular and, fatty tissue which fills all the chasms, effaces, all the angles, and unites all the parts by the gentlest transitions. At the same time, the muscles are feebler, more mobile, resigned for a shorter time to the same contraction, and as inconstant as the emotions and passions which their rapid play expresses.

The result of all this is, that the muscles do not profoundly modify the face, which consequently has not so much of permanent character as that of a man, and which permits us more difficultly to discover, through the rounded, short, and shifting parts, the nature of her various feelings. As, however, the abundance of the cellular tissue diminishes with age, and as the sentiments become at the same time less ephemeral, the physiognomical character and expression of woman become more decided.

As to COLOR of the face, it may be observed that the forehead, the temples, the eyelids, the nose, the upper part of the superior lip, and the lower part of the inferior lip, ought in woman to be of a beautiful and rather opaque white. The approach to the cheeks and the middle of the chin ought to have a slight teint of rose-color, and the middle of the cheeks ought to be altogether rosy, but of a delicate hue.—Cheeks of an animated white are preferable to those of a red color, although less beautiful than those of rosy hue.

With regard to the HAIR, it may be observed, that sometimes, rising from its bulbs, it turns in irregular rings, and, by displaying a forehead rather large, confers a certain sanguine, as well as open air upon the physiognomy. This, however, is most frequently seen in men, and chiefly in men of exuberant vitality, rather than intellectuality: it indeed depends entirely on the former.

In other men, and almost always in women, the hair generally divides in a line extending from the crown to the forehead, and falls over the temples. The line thus formed, uniting with the median line, of the face in general, and that of the nose in particular, gives to the whole of the features a peculiar symmetry and beauty.