BLONDE VERSUS BRUNETTE

Becker tells us that among the ancient Greeks “black was probably the prevailing colour of the hair, though blond is frequently mentioned”; and he adds that both men and women used dyes, and “the blond or yellow hair was much admired.” Mr. Gladstone, in his work on Homer, remarks that “dark hair is a note of the foreigner and of Southern extraction.... I have been assured that, in the Greece of to-day, light hair is still held as indicating the purest Hellenic blood.” According to Winckelmann, “Homer does not even once mention hair of a black colour”; and again: "Flaxen, ?a??? hair has always been considered the most beautiful; and hair of this colour has been attributed to the most beautiful of the gods, as Apollo and Bacchus, not less than to the heroes; even Alexander had flaxen hair."

That the Romans agreed with the Greeks in giving the preference to light hair seems probable from the extensive importations of yellow German hair for the Roman ladies, as also from the fact that “Lucretius, when speaking of the false flatteries addressed to women, quotes one in illustration, namely, that a maiden with black hair is e??????? (honey-coloured)—thus ascribing to her a beauty which she does not possess.”

When the fair-haired Teuton overran the South a new motive for preferring blond hair arose, as a writer in the London Standard remarks: “Whatever the feeling of the men, we may be sure that the dark beauties of those climes felt a natural inclination to resemble the wives and daughters of the conqueror, and when we perceive their likenesses again, at the revival of art in Italy, not a black tress is to be seen. Is there a single Madonna not blond?—or ten portraits of women by the great masters? In all the gallery of Titian, we think only of a figure, naked to the waist, in the Uffizi, described as one of his mistresses.... But we know that the blond tint was artificial in a majority of cases—the deep black of eye and brow would show it if no evidence were forthcoming. But evidence turns up at every side ... a hundred recipes are found in memoirs, correspondence, and treatises of the time.”

Hear another witness: “Southern Europe,” says Mr. R. G. White, “is peopled with dark-skinned, dark-haired races, and the superior beauty of the blond type was recognised by the painters, who always, from the earliest days, represented angels as of that type. The Devil was painted black so much as a matter of course that his pictured appearance gave rise to a well-known proverb; ordinary mortals were represented as more or less dark; celestial people were white and golden-haired: whence the epithet ‘divinely fair.’”

And the poets were quite as partial as the artists to the light type. Petrarch’s sonnets are addressed to a blue-eyed Laura. Krimhild of the Nibelungenlied is blue-eyed, like Fricka, the Northern Juno, and Ingeborg of the Frithjof’s Saga, and the Danish princess Iolanthe, as Dr. Magnus points out; and in the French folk-songs “the girls are almost as invariably blond as in the songs of Heine,” as a writer in the Saturday Review (1878) remarks, adding that “there is even such an expression as aller en blonde, ‘to go a-wooing,’ which proves the universality of the belief in fair beauties.”

Concerning England, a writer in the Quarterly Review declares that Shakspere mentions black hair only twice throughout his plays; and that in the National Gallery of that date (1853) there was not a single female head with black hair.

BRUNETTE VERSUS BLONDE

Thus we have evidence showing that during the epoch preceding the general prevalence of Romantic Love, the blond type was considered the ideal of beauty throughout Europe—in Greece and Italy as well as in Germany, Scandinavia, France, and England. And where the hair was not naturally blond, artificial means were used to make it so.

But as soon as Love appears on the scene and sharpens the Æsthetic sense, we find a reaction in favour of brunettes. There can be no doubt of this, for it is attested not only by personal opinions and observations, but by accurate statistics. The Quarterly Review just referred to believed that blondes were gradually decreasing in England, and the Saturday Review asserts that “some years ago Mr. Gladstone, whom nothing escapes, declared that light-haired people were far less numerous than in his youth. Many middle-aged persons will probably agree with him.” “The time was,” the writer adds, “when the black-haired, black-eyed girl of fiction was as dark of soul as of tresses, while the blue-eyed maiden’s character was of ‘heaven’s own colour.’ Thackeray damaged this tradition by invariably making his dark heroines nice, his fair heroines treacherous sirens.” Byron, we may add, also showed a passionate preference for brunettes; and does not another great love-poet, Moore, speak of “eyes of unholy blue”?

Speaking of the Germans, the anthropologist Waitz remarks that “the blond and red hair, the blue eyes and light complexion, which most of them had at the period of the Roman wars, have not disappeared, it is true, but certainly diminished greatly in frequency. In Jarrold we find the analogous statement that as late as the time of Henry VIII. red hair predominated in England, and that at the beginning of the fifteenth century gray eyes were more common, dark eyes and dark hair less common, than now.” As this change is correlated in both these countries with a gradual refinement of the features, does it not indicate that modern Æsthetico-amorous selection favours the brunette type?

Waitz’s assertion regarding the gradual decrease in the number of blondes in Germany is strikingly confirmed by the results of a series of statistical investigations undertaken under the supervision of Professor Virchow. Almost eleven million school children were examined in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium, and the results showed that Switzerland has only 11·10, Austria 19·79, and Germany 31·80 per cent of pure blondes. Thus the very country which, since the days of ancient Rome has been proverbially known as the home of yellow hair and blue eyes, has to-day only 32 pure blondes in a hundred; while the average of pure brunettes is already 14·05 per cent (and in some regions as high as 25 per cent). The 53·15 per cent of the mixed type are evidently being slowly transformed into pure brunettes, thanks to intermarriages with the neighbours who are of the dark variety east and west, as well as south of Germany.

In England Dr. Beddoe has collected a number of statistics which also bear out the theory that brunettes are gaining on blondes. Among 726 women examined he found 369 brunettes and 357 blondes. Of the brunettes he found that 78·5 per cent were married, while of the blondes only 68 per cent were married. Thus it would seem that a brunette has ten chances of getting married in England to a blonde’s nine. Hence Dr. Beddoe reasons that the English are becoming darker because the men persist in selecting the darker-haired women as wives.

In France a similar view has been put forth by M. Adolphe de Candolle in the Archives des Sciences. He found that when both parents have eyes of the same colour 88·4 per cent inherit this colour. "But the curious fact comes out that more females than males have black or brown eyes, in the proportion, say, of 49 to 45 or of 41 to 39. Next, it appears that with different coloured eyes in the two parents, 53·09 per cent of the progeny followed the fathers in being dark-eyed, and 55·09 per cent followed their mothers in being dark-eyed. An increase of 5 per cent of dark-eyed in each generation of discolorous unions must tell heavily in the course of time. It would seem," adds Science, to which I owe this summary of De Candolle’s views, “that, unless specially bred by concolorous marriages, blue-eyed belles will be scarce in the millennium.”

WHY CUPID FAVOURS BRUNETTES

How are we to account for this undeniable change in favour of brunettes? Is it merely a matter of Taste and Fashion? Are we simply going through a period of brunette-worship which in turn will be followed by a century or two of blonde-worship, and so on ad infinitum? or are there reasons for believing that Cupid will abide by his present decision, and continue to eliminate blondes? There are several such reasons, which may best be discussed separately, under the heads of Complexion, Hair, and Eyes.

(1) Complexion.—The dark skin is more soft and velvety than the light skin, and therefore more agreeable to the touch; hence, as Winckelmann remarks, “he who prefers dark to fair beauty is not on that account to be censured; indeed, one might approve his choice, if he is attracted less by sight than by the touch.” But the eye, too, is likely to be more pleased by a brunette than a pure blond complexion. In the dark skin the pigmentary matter tones down the too vivid red of the translucent blood, wherefore the brunette complexion appears more mellow and delicate in its tints than the Scandinavian blonde, in which a blush suggests a hectic flush, and its normal whiteness the pallor of ill-health or a lack of invigorating and beautifying sunshine.

The brunette complexion, in a word, suggests to the mind the idea of stored-up sunshine, i.e. Health; and as Health is what primarily attracts Cupid, this, combined with his taste for delicate tints and veiled blushes, partly accounts for his preference of the dark type. Youthful freshness is another bait which tempts Cupid; and it is well known that the dark complexion does not, as a rule, fade so soon as the blond.

That the brownish skin is commonly healthier than the white is also shown by its being less subject to the irregularity in the secretion of pigmentary matter which causes freckles. These blemishes, like smallpox marks, are much rarer among the dark than among blond races and individuals.

The skin of blondes who are exposed to a hot sun and raw weather becomes red, inflamed, and decidedly unbeautiful, while a brunette’s complexion only becomes a shade darker, and possibly all the more attractive. This suggests another reason why the brunettes have an advantage over blondes in the country, where love-making is chiefly carried on in summer. Yet it will not do for the blondes to avoid the sunshine on this account, for that will make them anÆmic and prematurely old.

There is a class of extreme blondes to whom sunlight is not only irritating, but positively painful. They are called albinos, because there is no brown pigment whatever in any part of their body—skin, hair, or iris. The Dutch call them Kakerlaken or cockroaches, because, like these animals, they avoid the light. Such anomalous individuals occur also among animals; and Darwin has noted regarding birds that albinos do not pair, apparently because they are rejected by their normally-coloured comrades. This fact has a remote bearing on our argument, for blondes are intermediate between albinos and brunettes.

It would appear, indeed, as if not only the complexion but the general constitution of the dark type were superior to that of the blond type. In the chapter on the Complexion it was stated that a dark hue is regarded in Australia and elsewhere as evidence of superior strength. The ancient Greeks, Winckelmann tells us, although they called the young with fair complexions “children of the gods,” looked upon a brown complexion in boys as an indication of courage. Professor Topinard states that “the fair races are especially adapted to temperate and cool regions, and the South is looked upon as almost forbidden ground. The brown races, on the contrary, have a remarkable power of becoming acclimatised.” Several writers have even endeavoured to account for the gradual increase in the proportion of brunettes by connecting it with the modern tendency towards centralisation of the population in large cities, where the blondes, being unable to resist their unsanitary surroundings, are eliminated, while the more vigorous and fertile brunettes survive and multiply.

One reason why tourists are more impressed by the prevalence of beauty in southern than in northern regions, is because the working classes are more beautiful in the South than in the North; and the working classes, of course, constitute the vast majority of the population everywhere. “In northern countries,” says Mr. Lecky, “the prevailing cast of beauty depends rather on colour than on form. It consists chiefly of a freshness and delicacy of complexion which severe labour and constant exposure necessarily destroy, and which is therefore rarely found in the highest perfection among the very poor. But the southern type is essentially democratic. The fierce rays of the sun only mellow and mature its charms. Its most perfect examples may be found in the hovel as in the palace, and the effects of this diffusion of beauty may be traced both in the manners and the morals of the people.”

Another advantage to the study and development of Personal Beauty lies in the fact, noted by Ruskin, “that in climates where the body can be more openly and frequently visited by sun and weather, the nude both comes to be regarded in a way more grand and pure, as not of necessity awakening ideas of base kind (as pre-eminently with the Greeks), and also from that exposure receives a firmness and sunny elasticity very different from the silky softness of the clothed nations of the North.”

(2) Hair.—"That noble beauty," says Winckelmann, “which consists not merely in a soft skin, a brilliant complexion, wanton or languishing eyes, but in the shape or form, is found more frequently in countries which enjoy a uniform mildness of climate.” “This difference shows itself even in the hair of the head and of the beard, and both in warm climates have a more beautiful growth even from childhood, so that the greater number of children in Italy are born with fine curling hair, which loses none of its beauty with increasing years. All the beards, also, are curly, ample, and finely shaped; whereas those of the pilgrims who come to Rome from the other side of the Alps are generally, like the hair of their heads, stiff, bristly, straight, and pointed.”

Nevertheless, the hair is the blonde’s one feature in which, so far as the head itself is concerned, she may dispute the supremacy with the brunette. Light hair is finer than dark hair, and there is more of it to the square inch; and as for the colour, who will say that a girl with “golden locks which make such wanton gambols” is inferior in beauty to one who is “robed in the long night of her deep hair”?

But if the positive tests of Beauty—Colour, Lustre, Smoothness, Delicacy, etc.—do not permit us to give the preference to dark hair, it is otherwise when we come to the negative tests. A fine head of blond hair may be as beautiful as a head of brown hair, but it is not so apt to be beautiful; it has a tendency to become “stiff, bristly, straight, and pointed.” There are various reasons for believing that light hair as a rule is not so healthy, not so well-nourished, as dark hair. Every reader must have noticed among his friends that the blondes are much more likely than the brunettes to complain of dry and refractory hairs, and difficulty in keeping them in shape.

“The end of long hair is usually lighter in colour than its beginning,” as Professor Kollmann remarks: “at a distance from the skin the hairs lose their natural oil as well as the nourishing sap which comes from their roots.” This implies that the colour of the hair becomes darker with increasing vigour and vitality. We have seen that the same is true of the colour of animals in general, the healthiest being the most vividly coloured, and the males commonly darker than the less vigorous females; and as for plants, who has not noticed how easy it is to trace the course of an invisible brooklet in a meadow, not only by the greater luxuriance, but the much darker colour of the grass which lines its banks?

Once more, we know that old age, great sorrow, terror, headaches, or insanity, diminish the pigmentary matter in the hair and make it lighter—gray or white; and that by frequently brushing blond hair we not only make it more glossy and shapely, but at the same time darker.

Red hair is probably an abnormal variety of blond hair, since it does not occur among the darker races. It is disliked not only because it is so often associated with freckles, but because it is commonly dry, coarse, and bristly. The Brahmins were forbidden to marry a red-haired woman; and the populace of most countries, confounding moral with Æsthetic impressions, accuses red-haired people of various shortcomings. “Sandy hair, when well brushed and kept glossy with the natural oil of the scalp, changes to a warm golden tinge. I have seen,” says the author of the Ugly Girl Papers, “a most obnoxious head of colour so changed by a few years’ care that it became the admiration of the owner’s friends, and could hardly be recognised as the withered, fiery locks once worn.”

An American newspaper paragraph, for the truthfulness of which I cannot vouch, recently stated that twenty-one men in Cincinnati, who had married red-haired women, were found to be colour-blind. A person who is colour-blind mistakes red for black.

(3) Eyes.—But it is when we leave the scalp that the superiority of dark over light hair becomes most manifest. That black eyelashes and eyebrows are infinitely more beautiful than light-coloured ones, is admitted without a dissentient voice; and it is needless to add that brunettes, whether gray or black-eyed, are almost certain to have dark eyelashes, while blondes are almost certain not to have them. Hence the painting of light eyelashes has been a common artifice among all nations and at all times; and Mrs. Haweis goes so far as to sanction the use of nasty gray hair powder because it “makes the eyebrows and eyelashes appear much darker than they really are.” I have, however, seen black eyelashes on several young ladies who could hardly be classed as brunettes, and who assured me on their conscience that they had not dyed them. Can it be possible that Sexual Selection (i.e. the Æsthetic overtone in Romantic Love) is endeavouring to evolve a type of Beauty in which golden locks will be allowed to remain, while the eyelashes will be changed to black? The only objection to this surmise is that the hair in other parts of the face (chin and upper lip), though rarely of the same colour as that on the scalp, is almost always lighter in hue. But, whether or not Love can accomplish the miracle of making black lashes universal, the fact remains that they are in all cases a thousand times more charming than yellow or red lashes, and also more apt to be long and delicately curved, coyly veiling the mysterious lustre and fire of the iris.

Concerning the iris, in turn, it cannot be denied that it is most beautiful when black (dark brown), or so deeply blue or violet as to be easily taken for black. This superiority of the dark hue is due partly to the fact that a brown eye is commonly more lustrous than a light eye, and partly to the law of contrast; for a light-coloured iris obviously does not present such a vivid contrast to the white of the eye as a brown iris, and is therefore apt to seem vague, watery, and superficial in expression. The light blue or gray eye appears shallow. All its beauty seems to be on the surface, whereas the “soul-deep eyes of darkest night” appear unfathomable through their bewitching glamour.

What is the etymology of the word bella donna? Was it given to the plant on account of the beauty of its cherry-like berries? or was it not rather chosen by some poet who noted the wondrous effect of these poisonous berries in changing all eyes into black eyes by enlarging the pupils, thus making every donna a bella donna, or “beautiful lady”? Great, indeed, must be the fascination of a large pupil, since so many women have braved the danger to health, and the certainty of impairment of vision, which follow the use of this poison as a cosmetic.

It was noted in an earlier part of this volume that young men are led to propose chiefly in the evening, because the twilight enlarges the pupil, thus not only beautifying her eyes, but enabling him to see his own divine image reflected in them, proving his Monopoly of her soul. A brunette’s dark eyes on such an occasion appear to be all pupil: how, then, can you wonder that brunettes are gaining on blondes?

However, let not the blondes despair. As they become scarcer they will for that very reason be valued the more as curiosities, and the last of them, should she fail to find a husband, will be able to command a handsome salary in a museum or as a comic opera singer.

Moreover, there is no reason why physiologists should not ere long discover the secret of changing the tint of the skin, hair, and iris to suit one’s taste. All children are born with light eyes, but a great many exchange them for dark eyes as soon as they realise their mistake. We also know that ill-health temporarily changes the colour of the hair. According to the Popular Science Monthly, “Prentiss records a case of a patient to whom muriate of pilocarpine was administered hypodermically, and whose hair was changed from light blond to nearly jet black, and his eyes from light blue to dark blue.” The eating of sorghum is also said to favour the evolution of a brunette colour. But it is to the electricians that we must look for a harmless and efficient method of stimulating the secretion of pigmentary matter in the iris, skin, and hair. The man who first discovers how to change blondes to brunettes will acquire a fame as great as Newton’s or Shakspere’s, and when he dies Cupid will appoint him his private secretary.

“John,” we can hear a woman say to her husband twenty years hence—"John, Laura is now five years old. Don’t you think it is time to send her over to Dr. Electrode? I don’t object to her yellow hair, but I do think her complexion, iris, and eyelashes should be made several shades darker. She will then stand a better chance in the marriage-market when she gets older."