Romantic Love and Personal Beauty: Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiaritiesFinck, Henry T.
Science
Romantic Love and Personal Beauty: Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiarities
Finck, Henry T.
Beauty, Personal; Love
Says a writer in the _London Magazine_ (1823): “The pale poet, whose
works enchant us all, is nobody in the park: with his shrunk cheeks and
spindle legs, he sneaks along as little noticed as a fly; while a
thousand fond eyes are fixed on the gay and handsome apprentice there,
with just enough intellect to make the clothes which make him.”
Serves the pale poet quite right. His genius does not give him any right
to neglect his health, or to allow the tailor’s apprentice to surpass
him in attention to his personal appearance. _Génie oblige._ And whether
geniuses or not, men should pay just as much attention to their dress
and personal attractiveness as women.
A convincing illustration of my thesis that Personal Beauty is to-day a
more important factor in woman’s Love than formerly, is afforded by the
circumstance that formerly Love had the effect of making a man neglect
his beard, and hands, and clothes, and indulge in general slovenliness,
as we see in Rosalind’s summary of the symptoms of masculine Love, as
well as in various passages in Cervantes and other authors; whereas
to-day it is just the reverse, as noted under the head of Gallantry. It
is most amusing to watch a man smitten with sudden passion: how
carefully he adjusts his cravat, curls his moustache, brushes his hat
and boots, polishes his finger-nails, removes spots from his coat,
regards himself in the mirror, and—wishes he were a millionaire.
So much for the general relations between Love and Beauty. It now
remains to consider in detail what peculiarities of personal appearance
are and have been specially favoured by Love. This involves an
æsthetico-anatomical analysis of every part of the human body from toe
to top. To this analysis almost one half of this work will be
devoted—showing the preponderating importance of Personal Beauty over
the other factors in Modern Love. But before proceeding to this pleasant
task it will be well, for the sake of continuity, to discuss the
remaining aspects of Modern Love: how it differs from conjugal
affection; how men of genius behave when in Love; what are the
peculiarities of the physical expression of Love in features and
actions; how Love maybe won and cured; and how the leading modern
nations differ in their amorous peculiarities. A consideration of
Schopenhauer’s theory of Love will then naturally lead us to the second
part of this treatise, in which Personal Beauty alone will form our
theme.
CONJUGAL AFFECTION AND ROMANTIC LOVE
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