A MUSICAL VOICE
It is self-evident that indifference to ear-splitting noises implies a lack of appreciation for the exquisite clang-tints of music; for whenever the acoustic nerve is sufficiently refined to appreciate such subtle tints, it is affected as painfully by harsh sounds as the artistic eye is by glaring colours and flickering light. And an ear which is indifferent to the sweetness of musical sounds is of course indifferent also to the musical charm of the speaking voice. But a sweetly modulated voice is one of the most conspicuous attributes of Personal Beauty—for Beauty refers to sounds as well as to sights—
“Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.”—Shakspere.
There is as much variety in voices as in faces; and in estimating a person’s general refinement, the voice is perhaps a safer guide than the face; because the quality of the voice is largely a matter of individual training, whereas in reading faces the judgment is warped by the presence of inherited features speaking of traits which have not been modified by individual effort and culture.
Many young men and women live in absolute indifference to the quality of their speaking voice, till one day Cupid arouses them from their unæsthetic slumber with his golden arrows, and makes them eager not only to brush up their hats and improve their personal appearance, but also to modulate their voices into sweet, expressive accents. But the vocal cords, like a violin, can only be made to yield mellow sounds after long practice; hence the usual result of a sudden effort to speak in love’s sweet accents is a ridiculous lover’s falsetto.
THE NOSE
SHAPE AND SIZE
“The fate of innumerable girls has been decided by a slight upward or downward curvature of the nose,” says Schopenhauer; and Pascal points out that if Cleopatra’s nose had been but a trifle larger, the whole political geography of this planet might have been different. Owing to the fact that the nose occupies the most prominent part of the face, Professor Kollmann remarks that “the partial or complete loss of the nose causes a greater disfigurement than a much greater fault of conformation in any other part of the face.” And Winckelmann thus bears witness to the importance of the nose as an element of Personal Beauty: “The proof, easy to be understood, of the superiority of shape of the Greeks and the present inhabitants of the Levant lies in the fact that we find among them no flattened noses, which are the greatest disfigurement of the face.”
Yet here again we find that “tastes differ.” Thus we read in Darwin “that the ancient Huns during the age of Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with bandages, ‘for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation’” [note the stamp of Fashion]; that, “with the Tahitians, to be called long-nose is considered as an insult, and they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of beauty;” and that “the same holds true with the Malays of Sumatra, the Hottentots, certain Negroes, and the natives of Brazil.” But the ne-plus-ultra of nasal ugliness is found among the Tartars and Esquimaux. “European travellers in Tartary in the Middle Ages,” says Tylor, “described its flat-nosed inhabitants as having no noses at all, but breathing through holes in the face.” And among the Esquimaux, as Mantegazza remarks, a rule can be placed on both the cheeks at once without touching the nose. Flat noses, says Topinard, “are either depressed as a whole, as among Chinese, or only in the lower half, as among Malays. Negroes have both forms.”