It is certainly not improbable that we may attribute the absence of this beauty, in some measure, to a custom which, in many cases, medicine may approve, but which is unfavorable to the arm, that of wearing long sleeves; but want of exercise is its great cause.
The form of the hand often announces the occupation of the person to whom it belongs, and sometimes even her particular capabilities. There certainly are hands that we may call intellectual; and there are others that we may call foolish or stupid. Of the hand, Lavater says, that, whether in movement or in repose, its expression cannot be mistaken: its most tranquil position indicates our natural dispositions; its flexions, our actions and our passions.
The ancients, it has been observed, attached much importance to the form of the feet: the philosophers did not neglect it in the general view of the physiognomy; and the historians as well as the poets made mention of their beauty, in speaking of Polyxene, Aspasia, and others; as they did of their deformities in speaking of the emperor Domitian.
Perfection or deformity of the feet is no doubt in general hereditary; but good management will preserve the former of these, and repair the latter. We commonly deform these parts by means of our shoes: the second toe, observes a writer on this subject, which naturally projects most, as we see from the antique, is arrested in its development, and the foot, which ought, in the outline of its extremity, to approach to the elegant form of the ellipsis, is rounded without beauty, and is disfigured by our ridiculous compressions.[33]
Second Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
The joints generally are small in woman, and especially so in the extremities. The elbow joint is softly rounded; and the various joints of the fingers are marked chiefly by little reliefs and faint shadows. The articulation of the knee is feebly indicated; the ankles are disposed in such a manner as to offer only agreeable outlines; and there are dimples over the first joints of the toes, with exceedingly gentle indications of the other joints.
The SECOND MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the development of the ligaments and the articulations they form, is proportionally small.
This conformation will be especially apparent—in the arm, at the wrist—and, in the leg, at the ankle. Its effect will be proportionally handsome.
Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty.
The muscles of women are more slender and feeble than those of man; their bundles are rounder; their fibres are finer, more humid, soft, and delicate, and less compact; their central parts or bellies are less prominent; their reliefs do not appear in any strength at the surface of the body; but being, on the contrary, surrounded on all sides by a loose cellular tissue, they only render that surface beautifully rounded.