“Whispering, with white lips, ‘The foe! They come! They come!’”—BYRON.
That sound teeth, though they should never be seen except in glimpses, are an extremely important element in facial beauty, may be seen by the fact that the loss of a few front teeth makes a person look ten years older at once. The art of dentistry has reached such marvellous perfection that there is no excuse for having unsightly teeth. They may be easily preserved to a good age, if properly exercised on solid food—bread crusts, etc. Very hot and very cold food and drink is injurious, especially if cold and hot things are taken in immediate succession. The teeth should be cleaned twice a day, on rising and before retiring. The brush should not be too hard, and a harmless powder, wash, or soap should be obtained of a trustworthy chemist for the threefold purpose of whitening the teeth by removing tartar, of killing the numerous microbes in the mouth, and purifying the breath. An offensive breath is shockingly common, probably owing to the fact that many brush only the outside surface of their teeth. They should be brushed inside as well, and on the top, and the tooth wash or soap should be brought into contact with every corner and crevasse of the mouth and teeth. An offensive breath ought to be good cause for divorce, and certainly it is a deadly enemy of Romantic Love.
THE CHEEKS
HIGH CHEEK-BONES
When we look at a Mongolian, the flat nose and oblique eyes at once attract our attention, but hardly to such a degree as his high and prominent cheek-bones. The North American Indians, who are probably the descendants of Mongolians, resemble them in their prominent cheek-bones; and the Esquimaux likewise possess these in a most exaggerated form. “The Siamese,” says Darwin, “have small noses with divergent nostrils, a wide mouth, rather thick lips, a remarkably large face, with very high and broad cheek-bones. It is therefore not wonderful that ‘beauty, according to our notion, is a stranger to them. Yet they consider their own females to be much more beautiful than those of Europe.’”
Here is another “matter of taste,” which is decided in our favour by the general laws of Beauty, positive and negative.
High, prominent cheek-bones are ugly, in the first place, because they interfere with the regularly gradated oval of the face. Secondly, because, like projecting bones and angles in any other part of the body, they interrupt the regular curve of Beauty. Thirdly, because they are coarse and inelegant, offending the sense of delicacy and grace, like big, clumsy ankles and wrists. Fourthly, because they suggest the decrepitude of old age and disease. In the healthy cheek of youth and beauty there is a large amount of adipose tissue, both under the skin and between the subjacent muscles. When age or disease makes fatal inroads on the body, this fat disappears and leaves the impression of starvation. “Famine is in thy cheeks,” exclaims Shakspere; and again—
“Meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.”
When the malar bones are too high, the fleshy cheeks, instead of including them in a plump curve, are made by contrast to appear hollow, thus simulating and suggesting the appearance of disease to those whose imagination is sufficiently awake to notice such suggestions. And besides emaciation, hollow cheeks suggest another sign of age and decrepitude—the loss of the teeth, which on the sides of the jaws help to give youthful cheeks their plump outlines.