AMERICAN BEAUTY
England and America—which of these two countries has the most beautiful women, and which the largest number of them? Few questions of international diplomacy have been more frequently discussed than these problems in comparative æsthetics. But as in most cases patriotism has taken the place of æsthetic judgment in forming a verdict, few tangible results have been reached. There is too much exaggeration. Many English tourists have denied that there is any remarkable Beauty at all in the United States, and Americans have said the same of England.
If these sceptical Englishmen had only spent an hour on either side of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge at 6 P.M., they would have seen Beauty enough to bewilder all their senses; and if the American sceptics, next time they go to London, will spend a shilling in buying penny stamps at a dozen of those small post-offices so profusely scattered all over the city, they will see enough feminine Beauty in an hour to make them wish to stay in London the rest of their life,—especially if they remember that an advertisement for eleven girls to fill these postal clerkships has been answered by as many as 2000,—the majority of whom, presumably, were as good-looking as those who got the places, since postal clerks are not selected for their Beauty, but for their intelligence and efficiency.
A few specimens of the sweeping generalisations of tourists may here be cited. According to Richard Grant White, “The belief, formerly prevalent, that ‘American’ women had in their youth pretty doll faces, but at no period of life womanly beauty of figure, is passing away before a knowledge of the truth, and I have heard it scouted here by Englishmen, who, pointing to the charming evidence to the contrary before their eyes, have expressed surprise that the travelling bookwriters ... could have so misrepresented the truth.” Yet the same author indulges in the following absurdly extravagant statement: “Beauty is very much commoner among women of the English race than among those of any other with which I am acquainted; and among that race it is commoner in America than in England. I saw more beauty of face and figure at the first two receptions which I attended after my return than I had found among the hundreds of thousands of women whom I had seen in England.”
The late Dr. G. M. Beard, though an acute observer, allowed his patriotism a still more ludicrous sway over his imagination: “It is not possible,” he says, “to go to an opera in any of our large cities without seeing more of the representatives of the highest type of female beauty than can be found in months of travel in any part of Europe!”
Possibly Sir Lepel Griffin had read these lines when he was moved to pen the following counter-extravagances: “More pretty faces are to be seen in a day in London than in a month in the States. The average of beauty is far higher in Canada, and the American town in which most pretty women are noticeable is Detroit, on the Canadian border, and containing many Canadian residents. In the Western States beauty is conspicuous by its absence, and in the Eastern towns, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, it is to be chiefly found. In New York, in August, I hardly saw a face which could be called pretty.... In November New York presented a different appearance, and many pretty women were to be seen, although the number was comparatively small; and at the Metropolitan Opera House even American friends were unable to point out any lady whom they could call beautiful. A distinguished artist told me that when he first visited America he scarcely saw in the streets of New York a single face which he could select as a model, though he could find twenty such in the London street in which his studio was situated.”
Volumes might be filled with similar unscientific generalisations, but it would be a waste of space. My own general impression is that there are more pretty girls In America, and more beautiful women in England; that the average Englishwoman has a finer, healthier figure and colour, the American greater mobility and finer chiselling of the features. If English hands and feet are often somewhat large, American hands are just as often too small,—the greater blemish of the two, because it usually goes with too thin limbs. Irish girls of the best classes appear to be intermediate. Some of the finest figures and faces in the world belong to them; an Andalusian could hardly be more plump and graceful than many Irish and Irish-American girls. The Scotch, in the opinion of Hawthorne, “are a better-looking people than the English (and this is true of all classes), more intelligent of aspect, with more regular features. I looked for the high cheek-bones, which have been attributed, as a characteristic feature, to the Scotch, but could not find them. What most distinguishes them from the English is the regularity of the nose, which is straight, and sometimes a little curved inward; whereas the English nose has no law whatever, but disports itself in all manner of irregularity. I very soon learned to recognise the Scotch face, and when not too Scotch, it is a handsome one.”
Comparative Æsthetics is still in its infancy, and many years will doubtless elapse before it will become an exact science, in place of a collection of individual opinions based on vague impressions. The statistics which have lately been collected regarding the proportion of Blondes and Brunettes in various countries, may be regarded as the beginning of such a science. The next step should be the collection of a series of national composite portraits after the manner in which Mr. Galton has formed typical faces of criminals, etc. If in each country a number of individuals of pronounced national aspect were photographed on the same plate, the result would be a picture which would emphasise the typical national traits, and enable one to judge how far they deviate in each case from regular Beauty.
In most European countries it would be comparatively easy to obtain characteristic composite portraits of this kind. But in America the difficulties would perhaps be insurmountable. For there the mixture of nationalities is too great and too recent to have produced any national type. The women of Baltimore, New York, Boston, and San Francisco—what have they in common with one another any more than with their cousins in London? Almost one-third of the inhabitants of New York are foreign-born, including about half a million Irish and Germans. A fusion of these has been going on for generations, while others have retained their national traits; and to look, therefore, for a special type of New York Beauty would be absurd. Thanks to this large number of foreigners—not always of the most desirable classes—there is less Beauty in New York in proportion to the number of inhabitants than in most other cities of the United States. When people imagine they can tell from what American city a given woman comes, they are hardly ever influenced in their judgment by physiognomy or figure, but by peculiarities of dress, speech, or manner.
Dr. Weir Mitchell says that in America you may see “many very charming faces, the like of which the world cannot match—figures somewhat too spare of flesh, and, especially south of Rhode Island, a marvellous littleness of hand and foot. But look farther, and especially among New England young girls; you will be struck with a certain hardness of line in form and feature, which should not be seen between thirteen and eighteen at least. And if you have an eye which rejoices in the tints of health, you will miss them on a multitude of the cheeks which we are now so daringly criticising.” The notion that there is too much angularity of outline in New England faces and forms is a wide-spread one, and to some extent founded on truth; yet many of the plumpest, rosiest, and most charming American women come from Boston—as if to make amends for their antipodes, whom Mr. R. G. White describes as “certain women, too common in America, who seem to be composed in equal parts of mind and leather, the elements of body and soul being left out, so far as is compatible with existence in human form.”