Eyes, it is true, can be as wanton and as voluptuous as a plump
figure. Powers notes (20) that some California Indian girls are pretty
and have "large, voluptuous eyes." Such eyes are common among the
lower races and Orientals; but they are not the eyes which inspire
romantic love. Lips, too, it might be said, invite kisses; but a lover
would consider it sacrilege to touch his idol's lips unchastely.
Savages are strangers to kissing for the exactly opposite reason--that
it is too refined a detail of sensuality to appeal to their coarse
nerves. How far they are from being able to appreciate lips
esthetically appears from the way in which they so often deform them.
The mouth is peculiarly the index of mental and moral refinement, and
a refined pair of lips can inspire as pure a love as the celestial
beauty of innocent eyes. As for the other features, what is there to
suggest lascivious thoughts in a clear complexion, an oval chin, ivory
teeth, rosy cheeks, or in curved eyebrows, long, dark lashes, or
flowing tresses? Our admiration of these, and of a graceful gait, is
as pure and esthetic--as purely esthetic--as our admiration of a
sunset, a flower, a humming-bird, a lovely child. It has been truly
said that a girl's marriage chances have been made or marred by the
size or shape of her nose. What has the size or shape of a girl's nose
to do with the "endearing embrace?" This question alone reduces the
concupiscence theory _ad absurdum_.
UTILITY IS NOT BEAUTY
Almost as repulsive as the view which identifies the sense of personal
beauty with concupiscence is that which would reduce it to a matter of
coarse utility. Thus Eckstein, misled by Schopenhauer, holds that
healthy teeth are beautiful for the reason that they guarantee the
proper mastication of the food; while small breasts are ugly because
they do not promise sufficient nourishment to the child that is to be
born.
This argument is refuted by the simple statement that our teeth, if
they looked like rusty nails, might be even more useful than now, but
could no longer be beautiful. As for women's breasts, if utility were
the criterion, the most beautiful would be those of the African
mothers who can throw them over their shoulders to suckle the infants
on their backs without impeding their work. As a matter of fact, the
loveliest breast is the virginal, which serves no use while it remains
so. A dray horse is infinitely more useful to us than an Arab racer,
but is he as beautiful? Tigers and snakes are anything but useful to
the human race, but we consider their skins beautiful.
A NEW SENSE EASILY LOST AGAIN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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