But it is among Spanish maidens that perhaps the most inviting, full-blooded yet delicate, soft, and refined lips are to be sought. True, the Spanish maiden seems to lack refined feelings when she goes, as commonly supposed, to be thrilled by a bull fight. Yet it is well known that the upper classes of women in Spain do not commonly attend these spectacles; and if they did, would they be more cruel than our fashionable women? Which is the more glaring evidence of callous emotions, to voluntarily witness the slaughter of an infuriated, dangerous beast, or to wear on one’s hat the painted corpses of innocent song-birds?
The following passage in one of Washington Irving’s works shows that the Spanish have genuine æsthetic feeling and taste:—
“‘How near the Sierra looks this evening!’ said Mateo; ‘it seems as if you could touch it with your hand, and yet it is many leagues off.’ While he was speaking a star appeared over the snowy summit of the mountain, the only one yet visible in the heavens, and so pure, so large, so bright and beautiful as to call forth ejaculations of delight from honest Mateo.
”‘Que lucero hermoso!—que clara y limpio es!—no pueda ser lucero mas brillante.’ (What a beautiful star! how clear and lucid!—no star could be more brilliant!)
“I have often remarked this sensibility of the common people of Spain to the charms of natural objects. The lustre of a star—the beauty or fragrance of a flower—the crystal purity of a fountain, will inspire them with a kind of poetical delight—and then what euphonious words their magnificent language affords with which to give utterance to their transports!”
Possibly the constant pronouncing of these “euphonious words” is one of the causes of the beauty of Spanish lips. But one need not go into such subtle details for an explanation of the phenomenon. Sexual Selection accounts for it sufficiently. The admiration of Beauty is the strongest factor in Romantic Love. The Spaniard’s sense of Beauty is refined through his love of Beauty in natural objects. Hence in Sexual Selection he is guided by a taste which abhors equally the coarse, protuberant lips suggestive of mere animality, and the leathery, lifeless lips indicating neglect of the laws of health and a lack of lusty vitality. For true labial refinement consists not in ascetic elimination of sensuous fulness, but in æsthetic harmony between sense and intellect. The lips, like all other parts of the body, are naturally plump and full-blooded in Southern nations, saturated with sunshine and fresh air; and when this plumpness is checked by mental refinement and the exigencies of varied expression, then it is that lips become ideally beautiful.
It is with the lips as with Love, of which they are the perch. Neither Zola nor Dante are the true painters of the romantic passion, but Shakspere, who pays respect to flesh and blood as well as to emotion and intellect.
COSMETIC HINTS
Although the size and shape of the lips afford an index of coarse or refined ancestry, the mouth is commonly the most self-made feature in the countenance, because it is such an important seat of individual expression. Herein lies a soothing balm to those who, owing to the stupidly irregular and incalculable laws of heredity, have inherited an ugly mouth from a grandfather or a more remote ancestor.
A pleasing impression, oft repeated, leaves its traces on the facial muscles. Kant gives this advice to parents: “Children, especially girls, must be accustomed early to smile in a frank, unconstrained manner; for the cheerfulness and animation of the features gradually leave an impression on the mind itself, and thus create a disposition towards gaiety, amiableness, and sociability, which lay an early foundation for the virtue of benevolence.”