FEMININE BEAUTY

Burke, in his chapter on “Gradual Variation” as a characteristic of Beauty, begs us to “observe that part of a beautiful woman where she is perhaps the most beautiful, about the neck and breasts; the smoothness, the softness, the easy and insensible swell; the variety of the surface, which is never for the smallest space the same; the deceitful maze through which the unsteady eye slides giddily, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried. Is not this a demonstration of that change of surface, continual, and yet hardly perceptible at any point, which forms one of the greatest constituents of beauty?”

There is reason to believe that the beautifully-rounded form of the female bosom is a result of Æsthetico-sexual selection; for primitive human tribes resemble in this respect the lower animals. Says the famous anatomist Hyrtl: “It is only among the white and yellow races that the breasts, in their compact virginal condition, have a hemispheric form, while those of negresses of a corresponding age and physique are more elongated, pointed, turned outwards and downwards; in a word, more like the teats of animals.” Even the Arabian poets sing of the charms of a goatlike breast. In the Soudan older women, when at work, sometimes throw their breasts over the shoulder to prevent them from being in the way; and “the women of the Basutos, a Kaffir tribe, carry their children on the back, and pass the breast to them under the arm.”arm.”

It is a very interesting and important fact that not only do we find more beauty among the higher than among the lower races of mankind, but the superior beauty of civilised races is also of a more permanent kind. This truth is admirably illustrated in the following remarks by Dr. Peschuel Loeschke: The breasts of the Loango negress, he says, “approach the conic rather than the hemispheric form; they often have a too small and insufficiently gradated basis, and in rare extreme cases have almost the appearance of teats, besides being unequally developed. Breasts of such a shape are naturally much more easily affected by the law of gravitation, and soon become changed into the pendent bags which we find so ugly, especially among Africans, although they also occur among other tribes, and are not unknown among civilised peoples. The superior form, with a broad basis, is naturally the more enduring, and remains in many cases an ornament of women of a more advanced age.”

Savages and Orientals, being deficient in Æsthetic taste, admire an excessively-developed bust. Europeans, on the other hand, long ago recognised the connection between such a bust and clumsy, unhealthy corpulence, suggesting advanced age. The same appears to have been true of the most refined nations of antiquity. Says Professor Kollmann: “The ancient as well as the modern inhabitants of the Nile region appear, in the majority of cases, like those of India, to possess hemispheric breasts, for neither in the sphinxes or other superhuman beings, nor in the images of human beauties, do we come across pointed breasts.... The Romans did not consider large bosoms a mark of beauty. Among European women the Portuguese are said to have the largest busts, the Castilians the smallest. To judge by Rubens’s nude figures, the Netherland women appear to rival the Portuguese in exuberant bosoms.”

In Greek works of art, says Winckelmann, “the breast or bosom of female figures is never exuberant.” “Among ideal figures, the Amazons alone have large and fully-developed breasts.” “The form of the breasts in the figures of divinities is virginal in the extreme, since their beauty was made to consist in the moderateness of their size. A stone, found in the Island of Naxos, was smoothly polished and placed upon them for the purpose of repressing an undue development.”

Modern Fashion, for a wonder, endorses the Greek standard of beauty as regards a moderately-developed bust. But it was not always thus. It is Fashion that induces some savages whose breasts are naturally long and hanging to use bandages which make them still more hanging and elongated in form. In Spain, during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and in other parts of Europe, on the contrary, Fashion prescribed flat chests. Plates of lead were tied on the breasts of young girls with such force that sometimes the natural form was replaced by an actual depression where “love’s pillows” should have been. In some parts of South Germany and the Tyrol a similar fashion prevails to the present day among the lower classes, the result being not only a sacrifice of beauty, but a great mortality among the children, that have to be reared artificially in consequence of it.

But if modern Fashion has a correct standard of taste in this matter, it nevertheless encourages practices which lead to as disastrous results as the Spanish fashions of three centuries ago. “The horrible custom of wearing pads,” says the author of the Ugly Girl Papers “is the ruin of natural figures, by heating and pressing down the bosom.... A low, deep bosom, rather than a bold one, is a sign of grace in a full-grown woman, and a full bust is hardly admirable in an unmarried girl. Her figure should be all curves, but slender, promising a fuller beauty when maturity is reached. One is not fond of over-ripe years.... Due attention to the general laws of health always has its effect in restoring the bust to its roundness.... Weakness of any kind affects the contour of the figure, and it is useless to try to improve it in any other way than by restoring the strength where it is wanting.”

The same author, whose book is brimful of useful advice, not only to “ugly girls,” but to those who have beauty and wish to preserve it, also recommends battledore, swinging the skipping-rope over the shoulder, swinging by the hand from a rope, as well as playing ball, “bean bags,” pillow fights, and especially daily vocal exercises with corset off and lungs deeply inflated—as excellent means of improving the bust.

If women could be made to realise how rarely they succeed, even with the aid of the cleverest milliner, in counterfeiting a properly developed chest, they would, perhaps, be more willing to submit to the exercise or regimen requisite for the acquirement and preservation of Personal Beauty. Flat chests are a consequence of insufficient muscular exercise, insufficient fresh air, and insufficient food. The main reason why the majority of girls in the world are over-delicate and fragile is because they do not get enough properly-cooked food in which fat is introduced in such a way as to be palatable and digestible. The adipose layer between the skin and the muscles contributes so much to the undulating roundness of contour peculiar to feminine beauty, that Kollmann places it among the differentiating sexual characteristics.

Too exuberant busts, on the other hand, are the result of too much indulgence in fattening food, combined with lack of exercise in the open air, which would consume the fat. Maternity, with proper hygienic precautions, is never fatal to a fine bust.

That savages, like their civilised brethren and sisters, owe their deformed chests entirely to their indolence and neglect of the laws of health, is shown by the fact that there are notable exceptions—energetic tribes living healthy lives, and therefore blessed with beautiful figures. Thus Mr. A. R. Wallace tells us regarding some of the Amazon valley Indians that “their figures are generally superb; and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue as at these living illustrations of the beauty of the human form. The development of the bust is such as I believe never exists in the best-formed European, exhibiting a splendid series of convex undulations, without a hollow in any part of it.” And what he says in another place regarding a neighbouring tribe explains the secret of this Beauty: “Though some of them were too fat, most of them had splendid figures, and many of them were very pretty. Before daylight in the morning all were astir and came to the river to wash. It is the chilliest hour of the twenty-four, and when we were wrapping our sheet or blanket more closely around us, we could hear the plunges and splashings of these early bathers. Rain or wind is all alike to them: their morning bath is never dispensed with.”

MASCULINE BEAUTY

Wincklemann remarks that, among the ancient Greeks, “a proudly-arched chest was regarded as a universal attribute of beauty in male figures. The father of the poets describes Neptune with such a chest, and Agamemnon as resembling him; and such a one Anakreon desired to see in the image of the youth whom he loved.”

“A prominent, arched chest,” says Professor Kollmann, “is an infallible sign of a vigorous, healthy skeleton; whereas a narrow, flat, and, still more, a bent thorax is a physical index of bodily weakness and inherited decrepitude. An arched chest imparts to a man’s whole figure an aspect of physical perfection, not to say sublimity, as may be seen in the ancient statues of gods, in which the chest is intentionally made more prominent than it ever can be in a man, presumably in order to weaken the impression of the chest’s more animal neighbour, the abdomen. There is a deep meaning in our phraseology which localises courage, boldness, martial valour, in a man’s vigorous breast.”

I have italicised several words in this quotation, because they tersely show how writers on art are guided both by the positive and negative tests of Beauty formulated in another part of this volume.

MAGIC EFFECT OF DEEP BREATHING

Indolence is the mother of ugliness. No one who realises the absolute necessity to Health of a sufficient supply of fresh air can wonder at the rarity of Beauty in the world, if he considers that nineteen people out of every twenty are too lazy to breathe properly.

It is estimated that there are from 75 to 100 cubic inches of air which always remain in a man’s lungs. About an equal amount of “supplemental” air remains after an ordinary expiration; and only 20 to 30 inches of what Professor Huxley calls “tidal air” passes in and out. But this “tidal air” can be largely increased in amount by the habit of breathing deeply and slowly, whereby an additional supply of oxygen is supplied to the lungs, which is a thousand times better for the health than quinine, iron pills, or any other tonic. There are few persons whose health and personal appearance would not be improved vastly if they would take several daily meals of fresh air—consisting of 20-50 deep inspirations in a park or some other place where the air is pure and bracing. Slowly inhale as much air as you can get into the lungs without discomfort (avoiding a strain), and then exhale again just as slowly. After a while the habit will be formed of constantly breathing more deeply than formerly, both awake and asleep; thus bringing into regular use a larger part of the lungs’ surface. It is the slight sense of fatigue at first accompanying deep breathing which prevents most people from enjoying its benefits; but when once this natural indolence is overcome the reward of deep breathing is analogous to the delicious exhilaration which follows a brisk walk or a cold bath.

It is important to note that all breathing, whether deep or ordinary, should be done through the nose, as thus the air is warmed before it reaches the delicate lungs, and the mucous membranes remain moist, thus preventing those disagreeable enemies of refreshing sleep—a dry mouth and snoring.

Habitual deep breathing adds to Personal Beauty not only by exercising the muscles of the chest, which thus becomes more arched and prominent relatively to the abdomen, but also by throwing back the neck and head and compelling the whole body to assume a straight, military attitude. We are all taught as children, says Professor Kollmann, to hold ourselves straight; but rarely is the information added that the best way to secure an erect, manly bearing and a dignified gait is by cultivating the habit of deep breathing. “It is worthy of notice that forcible breathing, such as results from a correct bearing, from prolonged sojourn and exercise in the open air, in hunting, gymnastic exercises, riding, etc., not only increases the chest for the moment, but permanently.... There are proofs in abundance that even with young persons of eighteen to twenty years, the whole circumference of the chest is capable of considerable widening under such circumstances.”

A medical writer, referring to the fact that children frequently become round-shouldered from sitting for hours and bending over a desk, makes these very sensible suggestions:—

“In the first place, the lungs should be fully expanded by drawing in all the air that is possible; this process will be aided by throwing the shoulders well back, and you should encourage your children to do this frequently in the open air when going to and coming from school. Children are easily bribed, and we would suggest to school teachers a simple and effective way of accomplishing this desirable end. This forcible expansion of the lungs will enlarge the chest and increase its circumference. Then let the teacher, at the beginning of the session, measure each child’s chest and record the circumference, then explain and demonstrate to them how to forcibly fill the lungs, and offer a premium at the end of the session to the child who shall have most increased the circumference of his chest; make it worth their while to expand their lungs, as much so as we now do for them to expand their minds, and the result will be wonderful.”

A MORAL QUESTION

An eminent authority on the physiology of the vocal organs, Dr. Lennox Browne, remarks (in Voice, Song, and Speech), that “respiratory exercises, and subsequently lessons in reading, reciting, and singing, are oftentimes of the greatest use in strengthening a weak chest; and, indeed, it is not too much to say, in arresting consumption.” Another excellent authority, Mr. A. B. Bach, points out (in his Musical Education and Vocal Culture, which should be consulted by all who wish to learn the art of Deep Breathing) that “very few vocalists die of consumption,” owing to the fact that they properly exercise their lungs and chests.

This brings us face to face with a moral question of enormous importance, to which writers on ethics have by no means as yet given the attention it loudly clamours for. Consumption, we read, “is a disease of great frequency and severity, which, in the civilised nations of Europe, produces from one-sixth to one-tenth of the total mortality, in ordinary times.” Now if, as we have just seen, consumption can be arrested and cured by proper exercise of the lungs and chest in pure air, does it not follow that the neglect of such exercises makes certain parties criminally responsible for the greater number of deaths from consumption? It is “proved by careful inquiries that the workshops of tailors, printers, and other businesses carried on in close, ill-ventilated apartments, by large numbers of workmen, are, in a very aggravated sense, nurseries of consumption. Cotton and linen factories have also been shown, when ill-regulated, to be largely responsible for the death of their inmates from this disease.”

Why should not the owners of factories who refuse to ventilate their buildings be held responsible for the ill-health, the early decrepitude and death of many of the workers, and the workers’ weakly, consumptive children who die young? As England alone has over three hundred thousand women engaged in cotton manufacture, the amount of ill-health, early senility, ugliness, consumption, etc., bred by criminal neglect of hygienic precautions, is appalling to the imagination. A case was mentioned in the American papers a few years ago, where the windows in a factory were nailed fast to prevent the poor, suffocating girls from opening them. And, strange to say, the owner of that factory was not immediately lynched. Surely, if ever a monster deserved to be hanged to the nearest tree, it was the man who ordered those windows to be nailed down.

But factory owners are by no means the only persons who are thus responsible for indirect manslaughter by foul-air poisoning. Thousands of loving mothers and fathers blaspheme their Creator in attributing the early death of their children to a “dispensation of Providence,” when the plain truth, brutally expressed, is that they killed them with the poisoned air, indigestible food, and insufficient exercise that brought on the fatal consumption. To say that the disease was hereditary is only to shift the hygienic crime on the shoulders of the grand-parents.

In human courts of justice ignorance of the law is not considered an excuse for the commission of crime. If the same principle holds true in some future world where human actions will be judged, what terrible indictments will be brought against some parents for crimes committed against the health and life of their children and grandchildren, for neglecting to learn the laws of health, as laid down in physiological and hygienic textbooks!

Inasmuch as Personal Beauty is the flower and symbol of perfect Health, it might be shown, by following out this argument, that ugliness is a sin, and man’s first duty the cultivation of Beauty.