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
As to voice, which depends on the muscles of respiration, and more
immediately on those of the mouth and throat, as general strength does on
the muscles of the whole body, both merely affording expressions of the
mind, the influence of the sexual union upon it is prodigious. How
entirely it is altered by the removal of the testes in eunuchs is known to
every one: in corresponding proportion, is it altered by every act of the
generative organs, but especially by sexual indulgence during puberty. The
horrible voice of early libertines and prostitutes presents an alarming
example of this. To those who value voice in conversation, in the
delightful and humanizing exercise of music, or in the grander efforts of
public speaking, nothing more need be said.
As to health, the less we are prodigal of life, the longer we preserve it.
Every one capable of observing may see that the stag loses his horns and
his hair after procreation; that birds fall into moulting and sadness; and
that male insects even perish after this effort, as if they yielded their
individual life to their progeny. Indeed, everything perishes so much the
more readily, as it has thus transmitted life to its descendants, or has
cast it away in vain pleasures.
In mankind, as in other animals, to procreate is in effect to die to one's
self, and to leave one's life to posterity; especially, if this takes
place in early life. It is then that man becomes bald and bent; and that
the charms of woman fade. Even in advanced age, epicures are so well aware
of this, that they are known to abstain from amorous excess, as the
acknowledged cause of premature death.
In relation to mind--as the generative power is the source of several
characteristics of genius, the exhaustion of that power at an early age
must take away these characteristics. Genius as surely languishes and is
extinguished amid early sexual indulgence, as do the faculties of voice
and locomotion, which are merely its signs and expressions.
It is thus with all our faculties, locomotive, vital, mental, at an early
age. They are strengthened by all that they do not dissipate; and that
which their organs too abundantly dispense is not only taken immediately
from their own power, and mediately from that of the other organs, but it
ensures the permanent debility of the whole.
It is true that the strong passions which are modified or characterized by
the sexual impulse, excite the imagination and impel the mind to sublime
exertions; but the sole means of either obtaining or preserving such
impulsion is, to shun the indulgence of pleasure in early life, and its
waste at later periods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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