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
This conformation will be especially apparent--in the arm, at the
wrist--and, in the leg, at the ankle. Its effect will be proportionally
handsome.
_Third Variety or Modification of this Species of Beauty._
The muscles of women are more slender and feeble than those of man; their
bundles are rounder; their fibres are finer, more humid, soft, and
delicate, and less compact; their central parts or bellies are less
prominent; their reliefs do not appear in any strength at the surface of
the body; but being, on the contrary, surrounded on all sides by a loose
cellular tissue, they only render that surface beautifully rounded.
Although, however, the muscular system of woman is weaker, and the muscles
proportionally smaller, yet, as already said, in some parts the muscular
system is more developed than in man. This, owing to the magnitude of the
pelvis, is most remarkable about the thighs. The muscles of these parts
having larger origins from the pelvis, and being less compressed by
reciprocal contact, have more liberty to extend themselves. It is from
this, that results much of the delicacy of the female form, as well as the
ease, suppleness, and capability of grace in its movements.
It is otherwise in all parts remote from the pelvis. Women, accordingly,
can less be said to have calves, than legs which, like their arms and
fingers, gently taper.
The THIRD MODIFICATION, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in
which the development of the muscles is proportionally large around the
pelvis, and delicate elsewhere.
This conformation being concealed by the drapery, may nevertheless be
conjectured from the imperfect view of the hip, or of the calf of the leg,
or more accurately by means of the external indications of forms which are
given in a subsequent chapter. Its effect will be proportionally elegant.
Woman's power of muscular motion being thus limited to the vicinity of the
pelvis, that of her extremities is generally feeble.
Other causes contribute to this. Thus, with regard to the upper
extremities, it has been observed, that the collar-bone, not separating so
much the arm from the axis of the body, the extent of its movements is
limited; and this circumstance explains why women, who wish to overcome
great resistances with the superior members, experience difficulty in
doing so--why, for example, when they wish to throw a stone, they are
obliged to turn the body on the foot opposite to the arm with which they
throw.
Thus also the largeness of the pelvis, and the approximation of the knees,
influence the gait of woman, and render it vacillating and unsteady.
Conscious of this, women, in countries where the nutritive system in
general and the pelvis in particular are large, affect a greater degree of
this vacillation and unsteadiness. An example of this is seen in the
lateral and rotary motion which is given to the pelvis in walking, by
certain classes of the women of London.
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