Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in WomanWalker, Alexander
Philosophy
Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman
Walker, Alexander
Beauty, Personal; Women
There is another thought in connexion with this element of Beauty in
Woman, which certainly deserves consideration. We believe the philosophy
which it intimates is founded in very good sense, and withal, in
propriety. Insensibility to the power, we have observed, is no index of
anything virtuous or elevated. It is rather, in all cases, a bad omen. Men
look upon it--and that very rationally--as indicative of something
unhealthy in the moral system. It seems to tell of a hardness--bad
propensities--a crustaceous nature. In short, man regards his fellow, who
is dead to this influence, as rather to be suspected at all times, than to
be trusted at any. But this is not his saddest trial--or what should be
regarded as such, if he can sign himself a man, with any conscience
whatever. His estimation by woman is unqualified and unquestioned. He is
set down by her as a creature as unworthy of regard by the sisterhood, as
he is devoid of warmth or wit in anything that has to do with the social
relations, and, above all, with the mysteries of the passions and
affections. He is marked by them with a timble brand. He is set apart as
a poor thing, who knows nothing of what he was made for, and whose ideas
of the graceful and lovely in life are about as defined and worthy as
those of the brutes that perish. He is run upon and laughed at by the
playful, and satirised and scathed by the witty. In the circle he is
treated--not pitied--as a piece of circulating insensibility; in the
street he is pointed at as one who might be well set up as a mark at its
corners. And this is right. It is well he should be visited by rebuke from
her who presents so continually around him the elements of that power he
is foolish to resist, and unable, after all, to depreciate. Woman's
opinion, here, is a part of the great system which the influence she
defends is meant to support--and we truly hope that she will maintain it
aloud as long as she can utter it. Of the power of Beauty, both the world
of fact, and the world of fancy, are abounding in instances. The records
of ancient story present us with their Helens and their Cleopatras, who
wrought upon nations by the magic of their faces. Later times show us the
wonder of the power in Mary of Scotland, and many a page might be adverted
to, full of the adventures which marked the love passages of kings as well
as clowns, originating in this mysterious influence, as developed in the
graces and glories of woman.
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