Beauty Culture (Browning)/Chapter 2

The culture of beauty in the abstract is a great aim, and the culture of personal beauty is a duty that we owe not only to ourselves but also to our neighbours. We have no right to inflict anything that transgresses against the canons of beauty upon those around us, for the intrinsic value of beauty, natural or personal, lies in the pleasure it produces to the world in general. Most of us love beauty of some kind, yearning for it instinctively, and often even unconsciously.

​Physical beauty seems to have been almost universal in ancient Greece, where such great attention was paid to physical culture. It meant so much to them that a Greek mother always prayed the gods to bestow physical perfection upon her children whatever else might be denied them. Beautiful statues and sweet flowers always decorated the rooms of a Greek wife, so that she might live in an atmosphere of beauty, the influence of which would be felt by her unborn child. Indeed, it was a religious duty in those days to foster beauty, for the popular phrase—καλὸγ καὶ αγαθόν—signifies that the good and the beautiful were embodied in one and the same idea.

Not the most refined and spirituelle amongst us can get away from our bodies, or do without them. They may be only "the envelope of the soul," but is that any reason why we should permit that envelope to be of inferior quality? Is it not, on the contrary, the most potent reason why we should perfect it as much as lies in our power, externally and internally too?

What is beauty? I hear someone exclaim. This is a difficult question to answer. It is such ​a comprehensive term; it means so much, or—so little. One woman's face and figure may be fashioned according to all the canons of beauty, and yet she may not be beautiful; whilst another, whose features are positively plain, may yet be enveloped constantly in "an atmosphere of beauty," emanating from no visible source. Some people will tell you that beauty, like morality, is all a mere question of geography; and, to a certain extent, this opinion holds good. In the "Descent of Man" Darwin tells us: "Beauty seems to some people a very pronounced form of whatever type of feature or hue we are most accustomed to; in short, the exaggeration of characteristic peculiarities." The inhabitants of Cochin-China consider us frankly hideous with our front teeth unextracted and white "like a dog's," our unslit lips, and our "rosy colour like that of potato-flowers." In the northern parts of the Chinese empire the ideal of every woman is to possess "a flat face, high cheek-bones, a very broad nose, and enormous ears." Hearne, who lived a long time amongst the American Indians, tells us: "Ask a Northern Indian what is beauty, and he will ​answer—a broad flat face, small eyes, high cheekbones, a low forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook nose, a tawny hide, and breasts hanging down to the belt." The Siamese, on the contrary, admire "small noses with divergent nostrils, big mouths with thick lips, high, broad cheek-bones," and what we may perhaps call a "generally moon-faced" style. Making due allowance, however, for difference of taste, amongst the civilised nations of the world, the highest ideal of physical beauty, broadly speaking, may, however, be said to lie in a combination of due proportion, symmetry, colour, and expression. Want of beauty always "handicaps" a woman, whatever her vocation in life may be, therefore it is a mistake to look upon the possession of it as "a snare and a delusion." The more we cultivate the graces of the person, as well as the graces of the mind, the more likelihood there is of our getting what we desire in life and—keeping it, too. Knowledge is power undoubtedly; but knowledge alone is a very one-sided sort of power. If we are to be all-powerful, we must combine personal attractiveness with culture of mind and ​largeness of soul; consequently, it behoves us to go in just as strongly for physical culture as for mental and æsthetic development. We cannot all be "beauties," but we can all possess beauty in some of its forms. Beauty means so many things, and there are so many adventitious aids to it, that no woman living need be deficient, if she has even a small modicum of commonsense. I should like to see a period of universal beauty reigning supreme throughout the world, and this is why it seems to me to be every woman's bounden duty to do all she can, individually, to smooth over and eradicate as far as possible her own natural deficiencies, and procure for herself, by ordinary care, a proportion of that inestimable quality, which has been struggled for and died for from time immemorial, and will go on being struggled for and died for to the end of time.

A man who is held to be an authority on the subject of feminine beauty writes, in a recent number of a magazine: "In feminine charm, more than in anything else perhaps, we must not raise the question of taste, and—Heaven defend that writer who would dare to say that any one woman ​was the most beautiful of her sisters, or who would dare to attempt to analyse or defend his position in comparing these beauties." This is exactly what I contend. There are so many phases of beauty that it is useless trying to enumerate or describe wherein exactly beauty lies:

If we analyse very closely, however, we shall find that a woman's greatest attraction lies in her femininity. Far above symmetry of form or the most perfect features must certainly be placed that wonderful and mysterious psycho-physical quality of personal magnetism, which, for lack of a better definition, we will designate as soul-beauty. This atmosphere of fascination often emanates from women who are totally devoid of exterior attractions; still, the possession of this quality alone renders them so intangibly beautiful that they are well-nigh irresistible. It is this sort of woman who enthralls every man who falls under her spell. You may seek in vain to portray her charm. The beauty is indescribable, but it is nevertheless there in its most potent form.

​And this is just the species of beauty that every woman may possess and retain to the last day of her life—if she chooses, because it is the outcome of a perfect nervous organisation. Only a foolish woman will consent to alter the colour of her hair and smother her delicate skin in powder and paint. It is better to be a "naked truth" than an "artful lie," more especially if we are striving to be women instead of dolls or slaves. Besides, it is neither necessary nor artistic. There is absolutely no reason why we should go down to our graves, "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything," with "wrinkled brow, bald pate, and rheumy eyes of age, peaked chin and parchment chap," providing that we will only pay attention to our own physical condition. A sound mind in a sound body is the great secret of perpetual youth. There is nothing that robs us of our youthfulness. like ill-health, and there is no species of ill-health that turns our hair grey or ploughs deeper furrows in our brows than that tragic list of functional derangements and nervous ailments set down in medical text-books under the comprehensive heading of: Women's Diseases.

​Severe moralists tell us that beauty is only skin-deep, but—is this really so? Personally, I am strongly tempted to doubt the veracity of this hoary aphorism, both from the physiological and the ethical points of view.

Think for a moment what has been the effect of feminine beauty on the history of the world, its importance in everyday life, and its all-essential value in the realms of art! No, no; beauty is not "only skin-deep," although there is undoubtedly much beauty in a beautiful skin; and, fortunately for us, the skin is just one of those portions of the human body that we can do much to beautify by judicious treatment. Abundant vitality and warmth of blood will impart a richness of colouring and a fineness of texture that no "make-up," however artistic, can emulate. Not that I resent "make-up" from puritanical prejudices. On the contrary, I consider that vanity is a virtue every woman ought to cultivate—up to a certain point. It is our duty to make the best of ourselves physically as well as mentally and morally; but, the most skilful "make-up" is only effective at a distance, or under a veil. It is not only bad taste, ​but it defeats its own object by being unbeautiful.

General attractiveness is far more desirable in woman for ordinary everyday purposes than supreme beauty; moreover, this God-given gift is so rarely bestowed upon any of us that we do not need to write for those favoured few; but even the beauty of the most classic features is enhanced by vivacity of movement and expression. A marble statue is often superb in its every line, but marble does not satisfy the heart of any man. What we need, to regenerate the human race, is a vast army of flesh and blood women possessing perfect health of body and mind. Women, large-hearted and whole-souled, of fascinating personality and strong individualities; women who are willing and able to take upon themselves the responsibilities of motherhood, and people the world anew with sons and daughters buoyantly youthful from their birth, instead of the "muling, puking" infants of to-day, dowered with the heritage of "born-tiredness," who struggle up to maturity and flood the world with morbidness. How many a one is doomed to suicide, a ​drunkard's grave, or a convict's cell from the moment of conception! Is this common justice? Has anybody the right to people the world with maniacs and murderers, drunkards and drivellers, convicts and courtesans, pillagers and pessimists ? I cannot think so. We are for ever cavilling at the "injustice of the Almighty," at the "cynicism of the higher powers," at "life's little ironies," but do we ever realise that humanity itself is the prime factor in the matter? It is our forefathers who have been unjust to us in past generations, and it is we who are being unjust to our own children in this generation. I firmly believe that the time is not far distant when our prisons will be turned into hospitals. A time when crime will be treated as a disease, and disease will be accounted a crime; a thing to be ashamed of because it is preventible, and because it is transgressing every principle of the science of personal beauty.

Not long ago a well-known socialist leader is reported to have said in one of her speeches: "It requires at least three generations of selfish women to put the world right." At first sight that sounds very "advanced" and fin-de-siècle; but if ​you take the word "selfish" in its literal sense, i.e., attention to self, there is a good deal of sound sense in the remark. The majority of our sex neglect physical culture entirely. Because they know nothing of their own physiology, they are totally unable to comprehend its importance. They do not understand that the surest method of beautifying themselves is to develope each organ, and thus bring it into the best possible state for performing its part in the intricate mechanism of the human body, by feeding it properly and regularly with the right sort of food in the right quantities. It is useless trying to feed our lungs on carbon, or our brains on nitrogen, or our muscles on phosphorus. If we do not live in well-aired rooms and sleep in properly ventilated bedchambers we are partially starving the lungs and weakening the heart by depriving them of oxygen, the only food they can thrive upon, and our complexions will give the first indication of this condition of semi-starvation. A brisk constitutional daily, or a moderate "spin" on a bicycle, will do more for most complexions than any cosmetic or facial massage can possibly effect. ​The danger lies in overdoing these things. Each different set of muscles requires exercise, but you should always be careful to measure the amount of your exercise by the meed of your muscular power, since you cannot force either your brain or your muscles to work beyond their strength for any length of time without injurious effects to the whole system, nor yet without detracting from your own personal beauty. The more fresh air we are able to breathe, the less likely we are to suffer from anæmia, dyspepsia, or hysteria, three of the greatest foes to health and beauty; though all of them may be considered effects rather than causes, for they are generally due to an impaired circulation, either of the blood or of the nervous current, induced by various causes.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and many people ruin their own beauty by failing to realise this fact. There is a right way to walk and a wrong way to walk; a right way to stand and a wrong way to stand; a right way to sit and a wrong way to sit; a right way to eat and a wrong way to eat; a right way to breathe and a wrong way to breathe. Now, many ​women and girls suffer from anæmia simply because they do not know how to breathe. They are merely the victims of deficient breathing. Instead of throwing back their shoulders they droop them, which causes the chest to fall in and prevents the proper expansion of the lungs. Then the lower lobes degenerate because they are never used, the blood does not get its normal supply of oxygen, the action of the heart becomes weakened, and the nervous system loses tone in consequence. The uterine organs being kept in a state of semi-starvation, suffer too. Sometimes deficient breathing is due to tight corsets; but, what neither doctors nor divines have been able to accomplish, cycling has done—it has put tightlacing out of fashion. The age of pinched-in waists is over! Properly-made corsets that clasp, but do not coerce, the figure cannot be considered harmful, and there is certainly neither health nor beauty in "floppiness" of figure or attire. But if even the most favoured amongst us desire to be really beautiful, we must not omit to feed our nervous system adequately. "Nerves" are such terribly destructive articles. Complexion, hair, ​figure, amiability, and every other feminine charm soon feel their ravages. Whatever we may do, or not do, let us always take good care of our nerves; they are far too precious to be trifled with, I can assure you. Moreover, they are so "uppish"—always striving for the mastery over us. You must master them, or they will master you, and then—good-bye to beauty.

Healthy restful slumber is one of Nature's greatest beautifiers. Nerves and brain must have their due rest. Tired lines and weary shadows mar the most lovely face.

It is an excellent plan to devote ten or fifteen minutes daily to physical exercises. Five minutes' "breathing-drill," followed by ten minutes' arm and leg gymnastics, do wonders for health and beauty.

Breathing-drill should be made part of every child's education. It is quite simple. Stand upright with the arms bent, the hands clenched, and the shoulders thrown well back; then open the lips, take a deep breath, so as to expand the lungs fully to their extremities, and hold your breath in that position whilst you mentally count five; then ​close your lips, and allow it to escape gradually through the nostrils. Repeat this as long as you like and as often as you can; you will find the girth of your chest will increase considerably in the course of a few months, and the chances of your suffering from asthma or bronchitis will also be greatly minimised. You will get into the habit of breathing properly by degrees, and your general health will be improved by this. It is just as easy to form good habits as bad habits, and I quite agree with a well-known playwright who makes one of his characters say on the stage: "Beauty becomes a habit with a woman after she is thirty." Bring a girl up to be a beauty and she will be one. Start her in the race of life with perfect health, and in nine cases out of ten she will never find herself "handicapped" by her womanhood, for Nature never intended that our sex should handicap any of us; and nowadays particularly, when circumstances force so many women, married as well as single, out into the arena of the world, we need all the health, all the strength, all the beauty, all the purity of heart and sanity of mind that it is anyway possible to obtain. Failing these, we shall ​be ignominiously worsted in the fray; possessing these, we can carry all before us, so that the destiny of the world for good or ill lies truly in the dimpled, delicate hands of its womenkind, whether we are the "weaker sex" or not. Why should we take the trouble to quibble over a couple of adjectives? Adam was verily pronounced the lord of all created things, but we ought to bear in mind that this "lordship" was bestowed upon him before Eve had come into being, as the last and most perfect specimen of the Creator's handiwork. Of course, the story told in the Book of Genesis may be nothing more than a myth; we are willing to grant that, in these days of biblical research and scientific discovery; still, every myth and every legend in every country and under every clime must have some grain of truth from which to take its birth. Amongst the principal items appertaining to personal beauty are a pair of beautiful eyes. Most of us are able to do much execution (conscious and unconscious) with the eye. But before going further let us pause a moment and inquire wherein the beauty of the eye consists. Size, shape, colour, position, ​all contribute largely to its loveliness, but if the eye is to be lastingly beautiful it must also reflect an individual soul that is neither narrow, lifeless, nor apathetic; it must possess the frank, direct look that is neither afraid to exhibit the thoughts and emotions of its own soul nor to read and understand those of others. It is wonderful how much we are able to read from the eyes of another, and equally wonderful how much we are able to impart through our own eyes without a word being spoken on either side. But, although the great beauty of the eyes lies in their expression, they nevertheless need a certain amount of practical hygienic care since they are greatly influenced in colour, brilliancy, and expression by the physical condition of the rest of the body.

The theory that "beauty lies in the eye of the beholder" has in it, happily for most of us, a good deal of truth. We are all apt to idealise those whom we love, and to feel that they are beautiful, whether the lines of their faces and figures follow or contradict the curves of abstract beauty. There is, however, a good deal of the old Puritan prejudice still extant in England, against any "woman ​of character" trying to improve her looks by the aid of art. Now, this is a "crying pity," even though the pre-Raphaelite school of painters have taught us the invaluable lesson that ugliness does not exist, either in the world of art, or in the realms of nature. They have demonstrated to us, also, that a plain face may (and often does) possess "lines where beauty lingers," and where it lingers, too, far longer than in a pretty face, because those lines are the visible tokens of character, rather than the mere fleeting loveliness, which is always, more or less, dependent on youth and circumstances.

Harmony of motion is one of the great principles underlying the science of universal beauty; but this harmony can never be acquired by any woman who does not understand how to balance her body properly. By this, I do not mean to imply that we should be perpetually posing. Far from it. The most important lessons for every student in the art of gracefulness to learn, are an entire absence of self-consciousness, and a perfect self-possession. To be shy, or to be always conscious of one's own beauty, or one's own plainness, or one's own clothes ​is the most ungraceful, and the most ill-bred thing in the world.

To preserve the proper balance of the body, you must keep your shoulders well back, your head well up, and tread firmly, but lightly, on the ball of the foot. Grace of motion and elasticity of gait and carriage are greatly the result of a perfect nervous organisation.

The most valuable, adventitious aid to beauty, next to good health and a proper hygienic care of the skin, is dress, and it is on this point that so many women fail. Some fail from ignorance of form and colour, others from indifference.

Dress ought to fulfil three purposes. It ought to protect, conceal, and display our persons; unfortunately, however, it often deforms or conceals our best points.

It is every woman's duty, in my opinion, to be as beautiful as she can, for as long as she can, though some people fancy when an old lady takes a pride in her appearance, that she must be a sort of modern Jezebel. Is she not rather a woman of taste and tact to do so?

​The Marquise de Blocquville, a beauty, a literary woman, and a grande dame, says, very truly: "The coquetry of age is a sacred coquetry; it commands us to take more pains with ourselves not to displease, than we took in our youth to please."

Speaking of youth and age, it is a curious fact, that none of the women who have fascinated men most powerfully, and influenced the destinies of nations, were actually young. In fact, they were all, more or less, on the threshold of middle-age. Cleopatra is said to have been nearly fifty when she enthralled Antony; Emma, Lady Hamilton, was some years past forty, when she made Nelson "run mad" after her; Diane de Poictiers was forty-three when she tamed her royal lover; Madame de Maintenant was forty-five and plain, but she ousted a woman who was. her junior by a long way, and beautiful to boot. It would be easy to go on multiplying these examples, but it is scarcely necessary to do so. The fact proclaims itself aloud, that a healthy, well-preserved woman of mature years, is likely to have a firmer hold on a man's heart than a raw girl, because years and ​experience have developed her, physically and mentally. She understands human nature in a way that no "bread and butter miss" could possibly do. We find, also, that these women all possessed two things which go far towards making anybody irresistibly fascinating; they had perfect physical health, and that quick, bright, natural intelligence, which learns unconscious lessons from everything it sees, hears, reads, or feels. They each had cultivated the invaluable qualities of observation, comprehension, and sympathy, which, added to courage and a certain amount of self-control, will make any woman, plain or pretty, almost omnipotent. Intuitive perception, and magnetic generalisation, give us the power of mentally photographing everything that comes within the range of our moral, mental, or physical vision, and though we may scarcely be aware of the fact at the time, these photographs leave their impression upon the brain, the mind, and the soul, thus providing us with stores of knowledge, which stand us in good stead at a later period of our lives.

Years and years ago, long before the era of ladies' clubs and Ibsenism, Wordsworth, probably ​painting psychologically from the devoted sister, who did so much to make him what he was, quotes amongst the many qualities of his "perfect woman,"

five qualities seldom to be found in any but the matured, because they can only be developed by the discipline of life. "The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving," since we must all "move on."

Now, girls, as a rule, are so wastefully prodigal of their youthfulness, both of mind and body, that they are often passée long before they reach the meridian of life, and give up all attempts at personal attractiveness years before they have any right to do so. Every married woman owes it to her husband to preserve and foster her beauty and her powers of attraction; every unmarried woman owes it to herself, and those around her, to do the same.

The great secret of keeping fresh and young is to be cheerful, and always to look on the bright ​side of things. A sense of humour is a gift to be grateful for, since laughter and light-heartedness are beauty-philtres of the most potent description, and they are the natural and spontaneous outcome of a sound mind in a sound body. A soul in harmony with all that is true, all that is beautiful, all that is worth striving for in life, will necessarily reflect these feelings on the features in radiant lines that are unmistakably "lines of beauty," whatever the contours of those features may be.

sang Coleridge. What was an "open truth" in his day is still an "open truth" even at this end-of-a-century; yet, how few of us seem to grasp this fact. Still fewer seem to realise another fact, equally pertinent and equally important for our own happiness, viz.—

A charming woman is continually generating "fresh beauty" in herself. Gloom, sour looks, discontent, peevishness, wrinkles, do not generate ​"beauty." Wrinkles are the result of pouting, frowning, making a martyr of oneself, meeting troubles half-way, and looking on the blackest side of things. Those of us who are "foolishly optimistic" may meet with disappointments and a certain amount of disillusion in life, because this is not an ideal world. If we have courage, however, to meet our troubles, difficulties, dangers, and temptations, with cheerfulness and a brave faith in the future, things are much more likely to right themselves, and we shall keep the sunshine in our eyes and the dimples in our cheeks long, long after our gloomy pessimistic contemporaries have sunk into miserable faded old women, without a single spark of feminine charm left in them. By activity of mind and body, hygienic care of the skin, and a determination to make the best of life, we may retain our youthful feelings and our youthful looks to the end of the chapter. One of the gifts which we can cultivate (and keep, with care) is a low sweet voice; but fretfulness or discontent destroys the silvery tone even of the loveliest voice. A sweet musical voice generally goes with a sweet temper, a lovable disposition, and often ​that merry brightness which is a most charming trait in either sex. It gets one comfortably over so many rough places! But there is no natural grace more bewitching than a sweet laugh; a laugh that seems to leap straight from the heart like the sound of a rippling flute on the water, or a sparkling, rilling streamlet, tumbling on its liquid way. It is the spontaneity of a silvery laugh that seems to have the power of turning the prosy prose of life into the rhythm of lyric poesy, and to fling showers of sunlight over the shimmering shadows of the darkest wood. It is indeed a charm which every girl ought to cultivate. There is no great actress but learns to laugh, note by note; why, then, should not girls at school be taught how to speak and how to laugh, just as they are taught how to dance and how to walk? To a musical ear, a harsh discordant laugh, a cackle, or a yell are equally painful, whilst a delicious silvery ripple is full of melody.

Five or six months ago, I happened to come across the following epitaphs; they struck me as "hitting off" rather well two types of the present day; neither of which is, however, my ideal woman. ​The one is too busy, and the other is too unhealthy; and they are both transatlantic, as you may easily see:

A well-known authority on all matters connected with physical training says that a woman who wishes to keep herself "in condition" should sleep for nine hours out of the twenty-four, bathe in cold water every morning, exercise five minutes ​daily with light dumb-bells, drink a cup of hot liquid before breakfast, spend at least half an hour every day in outdoor exercise, make the best of bad bargains, and never lose her temper under any circumstances whatsoever.

Is it not most excellent advice? I wonder how many of us follow the last clause strictly and to the letter!