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
Our vague perceptions, however, and our vague expressions respecting
beauty, will be found to be, in a great measure, owing to the inaccuracy
of our mode of examining it, and, in some measure, to the imperfect
nomenclature which we possess for describing it.
Beauty, and even true taste, respecting it, are always the same; but, in
the first place, we observe beauty partially and imperfectly; and in the
second place, our actual preferences are dependant on our particular
wants, and will be found to differ only because these wants differ in
every individual, and even in the same individual at different periods of
life.
The laws regulating beauty in woman, and taste respecting it in man, have
not been attempted to be explained, except in the worthless work alluded
to in the advertisement. Yet nothing perhaps is more universally
interesting.
As, in this view, the kinds of beauty demand the first and chief
attention, the following illustrations are necessary:--
We observe a woman possessing one species of beauty:--Her face is
generally oblong; her neck is rather long and tapering: her shoulders,
without being angular, are sufficiently broad and definite; her bosom is
of moderate dimensions; her waist, remarkable for fine proportion,
resembles in some respects an inverted cone; her haunches are moderately
expanded; her thighs, proportional; her arms, as well as her limbs, are
rather long and tapering; her hands and feet are moderately small; her
complexion is often rather dark; and her hair is frequently abundant,
dark, and strong.--The whole figure is precise, striking, and brilliant.
Yet, has she few or none of the qualities of the succeeding species.
We observe, next, another species of beauty:--Her face is generally round;
her eyes are generally of the softest azure; her neck is often rather
short; her shoulders are softly rounded, and owe any breadth they may
possess rather to the expanded chest, than to the size of the shoulders
themselves; her bosom, in its luxuriance, seems laterally to protrude on
the space occupied by the arms; her waist, though sufficiently marked, is,
as it were, encroached on by the enbonpoint of all the contiguous parts;
her haunches are greatly expanded; her thighs are large in proportion; but
her limbs and arms, tapering and becoming delicate, terminate in feet and
hands which, compared with the ample trunk, are peculiarly small; her
complexion has the rose and lily so exquisitely blended, that we are
surprised it should defy the usual operation of the elements; and she
boasts a luxuriant profusion of soft and fine flaxen or auburn hair.--The
whole figure is soft and voluptuous in the extreme. Yet has she not the
almost measured proportions and the brilliant air of the preceding
species; nor has she the qualities of the succeeding one.
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