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
It often, however, occurs, that two, or even the whole of these species of
beauty, are blended in considerable perfection. In those females in which
it is found, the locomotive system is well developed in the length and
elegance of the limbs; the vital or nutritive system everywhere presents
soft forms, and rounds both body and limbs; and the mental or thinking
system displays a capability of grace in action, notwithstanding the
constrained attitude assumed to conceal the face.
Although there can indeed be no great degree of beauty in which this
combination is not more or less the case, yet a union of all the three
species of beauty, in the greatest compatible degree, is to be found only
in some of those immortal images of ideal beauty, which were created by
the genius and the chisel of the Greeks.
Having briefly spoken of these combinations, I may notice also those
_combinations which similarly occur among the temperaments_, which, as
already said, constitute partial views of the varieties I have been
describing.
In relation to a combination of the _phlegmatic_ and _nervous_
temperament, I may refer to Richerand, who says, that, "among the moderns,
the easy Michael Montaigne, all of whose passions were so moderate, who
reasoned on everything, even on feeling, was truly pituitous. But in him
the predominance of the lymphatic system was not carried so far, but that
he joined to it a good deal of nervous susceptibility."
Of women, more especially, it is observed, that they rarely present
examples of the lymphatic temperament, unmodified by nervous mobility;
whence come extreme vivacity in the sensations with great feebleness,
determinations equally precipitate and unsteady, excited imagination and
ephemeral tastes, absolute will, &c.
The _sanguine_ temperament is similarly combined with the _nervous_ one.
Hence, the physiologist above quoted says, that "to the extreme love of
pleasure, sanguine men join, when circumstances require it [he should have
said, in some cases], great elevation of thought and character, and can
bring into action the highest talents in every department: the history of
Henry IV., of Mirabeau, and others, proves that."
The ancients gave the name of _bilious_, to a temperament in which the
sanguineous system is energetic, the pulse strong, hard, and frequent, the
subcutaneous veins prominent, the development of the liver excessive, the
superabundance of bile remarkable, the sensibility easily excited, yet
capable of dwelling upon one object, the passions violent, the movements
abrupt and impetuous, and the character inflexible. This is evidently a
very compound temperament, and should never have been classed, any more
than the two preceding, with the simple temperaments, the athletic or
muscular, the phlegmatic or lymphatic, the sanguine, and the nervous,
which I have noticed under the heads to which they belong.
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