Beauty, then, of the nutritive system in woman, depends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus distinguish her from man.
In the woman possessing THIS SPECIES of beauty, therefore, the face is generally rounded, to give greater room to the cavities connected with nutrition;—the eyes are generally of the softest azure, which is similarly associated;—the neck is often rather short, in order intimately to connect the head with the nutritive organs in the trunk;—the shoulders are softly rounded, and owe any breadth they may possess rather to the expanded chest, containing these organs, than to any bony or muscular size of the shoulders themselves;—the bosom, a vital organ, in its luxuriance seems laterally to protrude on the space occupied by the arms;—the waist, though sufficiently marked, is, as it were, encroached on by that plumpness of all the contiguous parts, which the powerful nutritive system affords;—the haunches are greatly expanded for the vital purposes of gestation and parturition;—the thighs are large in proportion;—but the locomotive organs, the limbs and arms, tapering and becoming delicate, terminate in feet and hands which, compared with the ample trunk, are peculiarly small;—the complexion, dependant upon nutrition, has the rose and lily so exquisitely blended, that we are surprised it should defy the usual operation of the elements;—and there is a luxuriant profusion of soft and fine flaxen or auburn hair.—The whole figure is soft and voluptuous in the extreme.
To this class belong all the more feminine, soft, and exquisitely-graceful women.
The kind of beauty thus characterized is seen chiefly in the Saxon races of our eastern coast; and it is certainly more frequent in women of short stature.
The vital system is peculiarly the system of woman; and so truly is this the case, that any great employment, either of the locomotive or mental organs, deranges the peculiar functions of woman, and destroys the characteristics of her sex.
Women who greatly occupy the locomotive organs, acquire a coarse and masculine appearance; and so well is this incompatibility of power, in the use of locomotive organs with the exercise of vital ones, known to the best female dancers, that, during the time of their engagements, they generally live apart from their husbands.
As to intellectual ladies, they either seldom become mothers, or they become intellectual when they cease to be mothers.
These few facts are worth a thousand hypotheses and dreams, however amiable they may be.
The vital system is relatively largest in little women, especially after they have been mothers. The shorter stature of woman ensures, indeed, in almost all, a relative excess of the vital system after, if not before, they become mothers; for, whatever the stature, the mammæ, abdomen, &c., necessarily expand. In those of short stature, these parts, of course, become nearly as large as in the tall; and this circumstance causes them to touch on the limits of each other in little women.
As, in pregnancy and suckling, the abdomen and mammæ necessarily expand, and as they would afterward collapse and become wrinkled, were not a certain degree of plumpness acquired, that acquisition is essential to beauty in mothers. Meagerness in them, accordingly, becomes deformity.