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
Color and form are only beautiful, because they are expressive of health,
delicacy, and softness, in the female sex. It has been remarked, that
expression has greater power than either beauty or form, as it is only the
expression of the tender and kind passions that gives beauty; that all the
cruel and unkind ones add to deformity, and that, on their account,
good-nature may very properly be said to be the best feature, even in the
finest face. Modesty, sensibility, and sweetness, blended together, so as
either to enliven or correct each other, give almost as much attraction as
the passions are capable of adding to a very pretty face. It is owing to
this force of pleasingness, which attends all the kinder passions, that
lovers not only seem, but really are, more beautiful to each other than to
the rest of the world; and in their mutual presence and intercourse, says
a French writer, there is a soul upon their countenances, which does not
appear when they are absent from each other or even in company that lays a
restraint upon their features. Indeed, it will appear that all the
ingredients of beauty terminate in expression, and this may be, either
perfection of the body, or the qualities of the mind. Dr. Reid indeed goes
so far as to say, that beauty originally dwells in the moral and
intellectual perfections of mind, and in its active powers. Thus beauty
may be ascribed to all those qualities which are the natural objects of
love and kind affections, as the moral virtues, innocence, gentleness,
condescension, humanity, natural affections, and the whole train of soft
and gentle virtues--qualities amiable in their nature, and on account of
their moral worth. So also do intellectual talents excite our love and
esteem of those who possess them; these are knowledge, good sense, wit,
humor, cheerfulness, good taste, excellence in any of the fine arts--as
music, painting, sculpture, embroidery, &c. Thus, for example, the beauty
of good breeding is not originally in the external behavior in which it
consists, but is derived from the qualities of mind which it expresses;
for it has been well observed, that though there may be good breeding
without the amiable qualities of mind, its beauty is still derived from
what it naturally expresses.
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