HAT constitutes a handsome man? Well—there must be enough of him; or, failing in that, but, come to think of it, he mustn't fail in that, because there can be no beauty without health, or at least, according to my way of thinking. In the second place, he must have a beard; whiskers—as the gods please, but a beard I insist upon, else one might as well look at a girl. Let his voice have a dash of Niagara, with the music of a baby's laugh in it. Let his smile be like the breaking forth of the sunshine on a spring morning. As to his figure, it should be strong enough to contend with a man, and slight enough to tremble in the presence of the woman he loves. Of course, if he is a well made man, it follows that he must be graceful, on the principle that perfect machinery always moves harmoniously; therefore you and himself and the milk pitcher, are safe elbow neighbors at the tea-table. This style of handsome man would no more think of carrying a cane, than he would use a parasol to keep the sun out of his eyes. He can wear gloves, or warm his hands in his breast pockets, as he pleases. He can even commit the suicidal-beauty-act of turning his outside coat-collar up over his ears of a stormy day, with perfect impunity;—the tailor didn't make him, and as to his hatter, if he depended on this handsome man's patronage of the "latest spring style," I fear he would die of hope deferred; and yet—by Apollo! what a bow he makes, and what an expressive adieu he can wave with his head! For all this he is not conceited—for he hath brains.
But your conventional "handsome man," of the barber's-window-wax-figure-head-pattern; with a pet lock in the middle of his forehead, an apple-sized head, and a raspberry moustache with six hairs in it; a pink spot in its cheek, and a little dot of a "goatee" on its cunning little chin; with pretty blinking little studs in its shirt bosom, and a neck-tie that looks as if he would faint were it tumbled, I'd as lief look at a poodle. I always feel a desire to nip it up with a pair of sugar-tongs, drop it gently into a bowl of cream, and strew pink rose-leaves over its little remains.
After all, when soul magnetizes soul, the question of beauty is a dead letter. Whom one loves is always handsome, the world's arbitrary rules notwithstanding; therefore when you say "what can the handsome Mr. Smith see to admire in that stick of a Miss Jones?" or, "what can the pretty Miss T. see to like in that homely Mr. Johns?" you simply talk nonsense—as you generally do, on such subjects. Still the parson gets his fees, and the census goes on all the same.
I wonder why people decry a masculine blush: I don't know. I immediately love the man who blushes. I am sure that he is unhackneyed; that he has not a set of meaningless, cut and dried compliments on hand, for every woman he meets; that he has not learned to sniff at sacred things, or prate transcendentally about "affinities" or any other corruption under a new-fangled name. I know that his love will be worth a pure woman's having; that he will not be ashamed of liking home, or his baby, or laughed out of staying in it in preference to any other place. I know that when he stops at a hotel, his first business will not be to hold a private conference with the cook, to tell him how he likes an omelette made. I know that in his conversation he will not pride himself upon the small fopperies of talk, in the way of pronunciation and newly coined words, to show how well he is posted up in dictionary matters. I know that he will not be closeted two thirds of his time with his tailor; or think it fine to be continually quoting some dead-and-gone book, known only to some resurrectionist of scarce authors. I know he will not sit in grimstarched statuesqueness in a car, when a woman old enough to be his mother, is standing wearily in front of him, swaying to and fro with the motion of the vehicle. In short, I know that he is not a petrifaction; that there's human nature in him, and plenty of it; that he is not like an animal under an exhausted receiver, having form only—in whom there is no spring, nor elasticity, nor breath of life.
A fool, hey? No, sir—not necessarily a fool neither. The fool is he who, not yet at life's meridian, has exhausted it and himself; who thinks every man "green" who has not taken his diploma in wickedness. For whom existence is as weary as a thrice-told tale. Who has crowded four-score years into twenty, or less; and has nothing left for it but to sneer at the healthy, simple, pure, fresh joys which may never come again to his vitiated palate.
Very likely you have met him: this blasé man, who, though yet at life's meridian, has squeezed life as dry as an orange. Who has seen everything, heard everything, ate everything, drank everything, traveled everywhere, but into his own heart, to see its utter selfishness. Who is willing, upon the whole, to tolerate his fellow-creatures, provided they don't speak to him when he wants to be silent, or annoy him by peculiarities of dress, manner and conversation. Who remains immovably grave when everybody else laughs, and smiles when everybody else looks grave; who lifts his eyebrows and shrugs his shoulders dissentingly, when people who have not like him "been abroad," applaud. Who talks knowingly and mystically of "art," and thinks it fine to showerbath everybody's enthusiasm with "to-l-e-r-a-b-l-e." Who goes to church occasionally, but owing to the prevalence of badly-fitting coats and vests in the assembly, is unable to attend to the service; who don't care much what a man's creed is, provided he only takes it mild. He likes to see a woman plump and well-made, but abhors the idea of her eating; likes to see her rosy, but can't abide an india-rubber on her foot, even in the most consumptive-breeding weather; thinks it would be well were she domestic when he considers his tea and coffee, but don't believe in aprons and calico. Thinks she should be religious, because it would be a check-rein upon her tongue when his liver is out of order; and keep her true to him when he leaves her with all her yearning affections, to take care of herself.
And so our blasé man yawns away existence, everything outward and inward tending only to the great central I, when life might be so glorious, so bright, would he only recognize the existence of others. For how much is that education valuable, the result of which is only this? For how much that refinement which lifts a man so high in the clouds, that no cry of humanity, be it ever so sharp and piercing, can reach him? I turn away from his face, on which ennui and selfishness have ploughed such furrows of discontent, to the laborer in his red flannel shirt-sleeves, who, returning at sunset, dinner-pail in hand, has well earned the right to clasp in his arms the little child who runs to meet him. He may be illiterate, he may be uneducated, but he is a man; and by that beautiful retributive law of our being, by which the most useful and unselfish shall be the healthiest, and happiest, he has his reward.