[175] In this connection the exceptional case of Tennyson is of interest. He was born and bred in the very fairest part of England (Lincolnshire), but he himself and the stock from which he sprang were dark to a very remarkable degree. In his work, although it reveals traces of the conventional admiration for the fair, there is a marked and unusual admiration for distinctly dark women, the women resembling the stock to which he himself belonged. See Havelock Ellis, "The Color Sense in Literature," _Contemporary Review_, May, 1896. [176] It is noteworthy that in the _Round-About_, already referred to, although no man expresses a desire to meet a short woman, when he refers to announcements by women as being such as would be likely to suit him, the persons thus pointed out are in a notable proportion short. [177] It has been discussed by F.J. Debret, _La Selection Naturelle dans l'espèce humaine_ (Thèse de Paris), 1901. Debret regards it as due to natural selection. [178] "Hérédité de la Couleur des Yeux dans l'espèce humaine," _Archives des Sciences physiques et naturelles_, sér. iii, vol. xii, 1884, p. 109. [179] _Revue Scientifique_, Jan., 1891. [180] F. Galton, _Natural Inheritance_, p. 85. It may be remarked that while Galton's tables on page 206 show a slight excess of disparity as regards sexual selection in stature, in regard to eye color they anticipate Karl Pearson's more extensive data and in marriages of disparity show a decided deficiency of observed over chance results. In _English Men of Science_ (pp. 28-33), also, Galton found that among the parents parity decidedly prevailed over disparity (78 to 31) alike as regards temperament, hair color, and eye color. [181] Karl Pearson, _Phil. Trans. Royal Society_, vol. clxxxvii, p. 273, and vol. cxcv, p. 113; _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. lxvi, p. 28; _Grammar of Science_, second edition, 1900, pp. 425 _et seq._; _Biometrika_, November, 1903. The last-named periodical also contains a study on "Assortative Mating in Man," bringing forward evidence to show that, apart from environmental influence, "length of life is a character which is subject to selection;" that is to say, the long-lived tend to marry the long-lived, and the short-lived to marry the short-lived. [182] For a summary of the evidence on this point see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, 1904, pp. 256-264. [183] "The Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," _Monthly Review_, August, 1901. [184] The fact that even in Europe the abhorrence to incest is not always strongly felt is brought out by Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 263 et seq. [185] Westermarck, _History of Marriage_, Chapters XIV and XV. [186] Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 446) has pointed out that it is not legitimate to assume the possibility of an "instinct" of this character; instinct has "nothing in its character but a response of function to environment."