Part 45

Savages and Orientals, being deficient in æsthetic taste, admire an excessively-developed bust. Europeans, on the other hand, long ago recognised the connection between such a bust and clumsy, unhealthy corpulence, suggesting advanced age. The same appears to have been true of the most refined nations of antiquity. Says Professor Kollmann: “The ancient as well as the modern inhabitants of the Nile region appear, in the majority of cases, like those of India, to possess hemispheric breasts, for neither in the sphinxes or other superhuman beings, nor in the images of human beauties, do we come across pointed breasts.... The Romans did not consider large bosoms a mark of beauty. Among European women the Portuguese are said to have the largest busts, the Castilians the smallest. To judge by Rubens’s nude figures, the Netherland women appear to rival the Portuguese in exuberant bosoms.”

In Greek works of art, says Winckelmann, “the breast or bosom of female figures is never exuberant.” “Among ideal figures, the Amazons alone have large and fully-developed breasts.” “The form of the breasts in the figures of divinities is virginal in the extreme, since their beauty was made to consist in the moderateness of their size. A stone, found in the Island of Naxos, was smoothly polished and placed upon them for the purpose of repressing an undue development.”

Modern Fashion, for a wonder, endorses the Greek standard of beauty as regards a moderately-developed bust. But it was not always thus. It is Fashion that induces some savages whose breasts are naturally long and hanging to use bandages which make them still more hanging and elongated in form. In Spain, during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and in other parts of Europe, on the contrary, Fashion prescribed flat chests. Plates of lead were tied on the breasts of young girls with such force that sometimes the natural form was replaced by an actual depression where “love’s pillows” should have been. In some parts of South Germany and the Tyrol a similar fashion prevails to the present day among the lower classes, the result being not only a sacrifice of beauty, but a great mortality among the children, that have to be reared artificially in consequence of it.

But if modern Fashion has a correct standard of taste in this matter, it nevertheless encourages practices which lead to as disastrous results as the Spanish fashions of three centuries ago. “The horrible custom of wearing pads,” says the author of the _Ugly Girl Papers_ “is the ruin of natural figures, by heating and pressing down the bosom.... A low, deep bosom, rather than a bold one, is a sign of grace in a full-grown woman, and a full bust is hardly admirable in an unmarried girl. Her figure should be all curves, but slender, promising a fuller beauty when maturity is reached. One is not fond of over-ripe years.... Due attention to the general laws of health always has its effect in restoring the bust to its roundness.... Weakness of any kind affects the contour of the figure, and it is useless to try to improve it in any other way than by restoring the strength where it is wanting.”

The same author, whose book is brimful of useful advice, not only to “ugly girls,” but to those who have beauty and wish to preserve it, also recommends battledore, swinging the skipping-rope over the shoulder, swinging by the hand from a rope, as well as playing ball, “bean bags,” pillow fights, and especially daily vocal exercises with corset off and lungs deeply inflated—as excellent means of improving the bust.

If women could be made to realise how rarely they succeed, even with the aid of the cleverest milliner, in counterfeiting a properly developed chest, they would, perhaps, be more willing to submit to the exercise or regimen requisite for the acquirement and preservation of Personal Beauty. Flat chests are a consequence of insufficient muscular exercise, insufficient fresh air, and insufficient food. The main reason why the majority of girls in the world are over-delicate and fragile is because they do not get enough properly-cooked food in which _fat is introduced in such a way as to be palatable and digestible_. The adipose layer between the skin and the muscles contributes so much to the undulating roundness of contour peculiar to feminine beauty, that Kollmann places it among the differentiating sexual characteristics.

Too exuberant busts, on the other hand, are the result of too much indulgence in fattening food, combined with lack of exercise in the open air, which would consume the fat. Maternity, with proper hygienic precautions, is never fatal to a fine bust.

That savages, like their civilised brethren and sisters, owe their deformed chests entirely to their indolence and neglect of the laws of health, is shown by the fact that there are notable exceptions—energetic tribes living healthy lives, and therefore blessed with beautiful figures. Thus Mr. A. R. Wallace tells us regarding some of the Amazon valley Indians that “their figures are generally superb; and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue as at these living illustrations of the beauty of the human form. The development of the bust is such as I believe never exists in the best-formed European, exhibiting _a splendid series of convex undulations, without a hollow in any part of it_.” And what he says in another place regarding a neighbouring tribe explains the secret of this Beauty: “Though some of them were too fat, most of them had splendid figures, and many of them were very pretty. Before daylight in the morning all were astir and came to the river to wash. It is the chilliest hour of the twenty-four, and when we were wrapping our sheet or blanket more closely around us, we could hear the plunges and splashings of these early bathers. Rain or wind is all alike to them: their morning bath is never dispensed with.”

MASCULINE BEAUTY

Wincklemann remarks that, among the ancient Greeks, “a proudly-arched chest was regarded as a universal attribute of beauty in male figures. The father of the poets describes Neptune with such a chest, and Agamemnon as resembling him; and such a one Anakreon desired to see in the image of the youth whom he loved.”

“A prominent, _arched_ chest,” says Professor Kollmann, “is an infallible sign of a vigorous, _healthy_ skeleton; whereas a narrow, _flat_, and, still more, a bent thorax is a physical index of bodily weakness and inherited _decrepitude_. An arched chest imparts to a man’s whole figure an aspect of physical perfection, not to say sublimity, as may be seen in the ancient statues of gods, in which the chest is intentionally made more prominent than it ever can be in a man, presumably in order to weaken the impression of the chest’s more _animal_ neighbour, the abdomen. There is a deep meaning in our phraseology which localises courage, boldness, martial valour, in a man’s vigorous breast.”

I have italicised several words in this quotation, because they tersely show how writers on art are guided both by the positive and negative tests of Beauty formulated in another part of this volume.

MAGIC EFFECT OF DEEP BREATHING

Indolence is the mother of ugliness. No one who realises the absolute necessity to Health of a sufficient supply of fresh air can wonder at the rarity of Beauty in the world, if he considers that nineteen people out of every twenty are _too lazy to breathe properly_.

It is estimated that there are from 75 to 100 cubic inches of air which always remain in a man’s lungs. About an equal amount of “supplemental” air remains after an _ordinary_ expiration; and only 20 to 30 inches of what Professor Huxley calls “tidal air” passes in and out. But this “tidal air” can be largely increased in amount by the habit of breathing deeply and _slowly_, whereby an additional supply of oxygen is supplied to the lungs, which is a thousand times better for the health than quinine, iron pills, or any other tonic. There are few persons whose health and personal appearance would not be improved vastly if they would take _several daily meals_ of fresh air—consisting of 20-50 deep inspirations in a park or some other place where the air is pure and bracing. Slowly inhale as much air as you can get into the lungs without discomfort (avoiding a strain), and then exhale again just as slowly. After a while the habit will be formed of _constantly_ breathing more deeply than formerly, both awake and asleep; thus bringing into regular use a larger part of the lungs’ surface. It is the slight sense of fatigue at first accompanying deep breathing which prevents most people from enjoying its benefits; but when once this natural indolence is overcome the reward of deep breathing is analogous to the delicious exhilaration which follows a brisk walk or a cold bath.

It is important to note that all breathing, whether deep or ordinary, should be done through the nose, as thus the air is warmed before it reaches the delicate lungs, and the mucous membranes remain moist, thus preventing those disagreeable enemies of refreshing sleep—a dry mouth and snoring.

Habitual deep breathing adds to Personal Beauty not only by exercising the muscles of the chest, which thus becomes more arched and prominent relatively to the abdomen, but also by throwing back the neck and head and compelling the whole body to assume a straight, military attitude. We are all taught as children, says Professor Kollmann, to hold ourselves straight; but rarely is the information added that the best way to secure an erect, manly bearing and a dignified gait is by cultivating the habit of deep breathing. “It is worthy of notice that forcible breathing, such as results from a correct bearing, from prolonged sojourn and exercise in the open air, in hunting, gymnastic exercises, riding, etc., not only increases the chest for the moment, but permanently.... There are proofs in abundance that even with young persons of eighteen to twenty years, the whole circumference of the chest is capable of considerable widening under such circumstances.”

A medical writer, referring to the fact that children frequently become round-shouldered from sitting for hours and bending over a desk, makes these very sensible suggestions:—

“In the first place, the lungs should be fully expanded by drawing in all the air that is possible; this process will be aided by throwing the shoulders well back, and you should encourage your children to do this frequently in the open air when going to and coming from school. Children are easily bribed, and we would suggest to school teachers a simple and effective way of accomplishing this desirable end. This forcible expansion of the lungs will enlarge the chest and increase its circumference. Then let the teacher, at the beginning of the session, measure each child’s chest and record the circumference, then explain and demonstrate to them how to forcibly fill the lungs, and offer a premium at the end of the session to the child who shall have most increased the circumference of his chest; make it worth their while to expand their lungs, as much so as we now do for them to expand their minds, and the result will be wonderful.”

A MORAL QUESTION

An eminent authority on the physiology of the vocal organs, Dr. Lennox Browne, remarks (in _Voice, Song, and Speech_), that “respiratory exercises, and subsequently lessons in reading, reciting, and singing, are oftentimes of the greatest use in strengthening a weak chest; and, indeed, it is not too much to say, _in arresting consumption_.” Another excellent authority, Mr. A. B. Bach, points out (in his _Musical Education and Vocal Culture_, which should be consulted by all who wish to learn the art of Deep Breathing) that “very few vocalists die of consumption,” owing to the fact that they properly exercise their lungs and chests.

This brings us face to face with a moral question of enormous importance, to which writers on ethics have by no means as yet given the attention it loudly clamours for. Consumption, we read, “is a disease of great frequency and severity, which, in the civilised nations of Europe, produces from _one-sixth to one-tenth of the total mortality_, in ordinary times.” Now if, as we have just seen, consumption can be arrested and cured by proper exercise of the lungs and chest in pure air, does it not follow that the neglect of such exercises makes certain parties criminally responsible for the greater number of deaths from consumption? It is “proved by careful inquiries that the workshops of tailors, printers, and other businesses carried on in close, ill-ventilated apartments, by large numbers of workmen, are, in a very aggravated sense, _nurseries of consumption_. Cotton and linen factories have also been shown, when ill-regulated, to be largely responsible for the death of their inmates from this disease.”

Why should not the owners of factories who refuse to ventilate their buildings be held responsible for the ill-health, the early decrepitude and death of many of the workers, and the workers’ weakly, consumptive children who die young? As England alone has over three hundred thousand women engaged in cotton manufacture, the amount of ill-health, early senility, ugliness, consumption, etc., bred by criminal neglect of hygienic precautions, is appalling to the imagination. A case was mentioned in the American papers a few years ago, where the windows in a factory were _nailed fast_ to prevent the poor, suffocating girls from opening them. And, strange to say, the owner of that factory was not immediately lynched. Surely, if ever a monster deserved to be hanged to the nearest tree, it was the man who ordered those windows to be nailed down.

But factory owners are by no means the only persons who are thus responsible for indirect manslaughter by foul-air poisoning. Thousands of loving mothers and fathers blaspheme their Creator in attributing the early death of their children to a “dispensation of Providence,” when the plain truth, brutally expressed, is that they killed them with the poisoned air, indigestible food, and insufficient exercise that brought on the fatal consumption. To say that the disease was hereditary is only to shift the hygienic crime on the shoulders of the grand-parents.

In human courts of justice ignorance of the law is not considered an excuse for the commission of crime. If the same principle holds true in some future world where human actions will be judged, what terrible indictments will be brought against some parents for crimes committed against the health and life of their children and grandchildren, for neglecting to learn the laws of health, as laid down in physiological and hygienic textbooks!

Inasmuch as Personal Beauty is the flower and symbol of perfect Health, it might be shown, by following out this argument, that _ugliness is a sin, and man’s first duty the cultivation of Beauty_.

NECK AND SHOULDER

Nowhere are the æsthetic laws of Gradation and gentle Curvature more beautifully illustrated than in the neck—the column of the head. Note how a lovely woman’s neck repeats on a small scale the delicate contours of the trunk—widened at the base and at the top, with a subtle inward slope towards the middle. Note, also, how imperceptibly it passes into the shoulders, which continue the gentle curve in a downward slope, unless prevented by the deforming corset.

Man’s neck is less cylindrical than woman’s, and presents four slightly flattened surfaces; while his shoulders are not sloping, but square. We not only pardon, but even admire and demand this conformation in man; because in judging masculine beauty we are guided by dynamic as much as by æsthetic considerations, while the fair sex is judged by the laws of beauty alone. A masculine neck is in good form if it shows traces of the sinews and muscles which give it strength; but in a woman’s neck the feminine adipose layer under the skin must obliterate all such traces of masculinity,—especially the bones at the junction of neck and breast, the prominence of which suggests emaciation and disease.

In the face of such considerations, how can any one maintain that man is more beautiful than woman? He may show more character, more individuality, more originality than a fine woman, but more beauty _never_. And the fact that in Sexual Selection women have always been chiefly guided by dynamic considerations—_i.e._ vigour, boldness, “manliness”—whereas men have been fascinated by beauty alone, explains why, as Schopenhauer asserts, women are the “unæsthetic sex,” and why their taste for Personal Beauty, not being exercised, like that of man, in the selection of a mate, is so lamentably callous to the deformities resulting from corsets and other instruments of torture.

The neck being the pivot on which the head executes its movements, it is evident that it requires attention from the point of view of Grace as well as of Beauty. To how many women has it ever occurred that as the feet are taught to dance lithely, the arms to execute eloquent gestures, so the neck should be trained to naturally assume graceful attitudes? Great paintings and famous actresses should be studied from this point of view. Always bear in mind that grace of movement often excels beauty of form in the power of inspiring Romantic Love. And remember that any pains you take to acquire grace will not only multiply your own charms, but will establish a habit of graceful movement in your muscles which will be inherited by your children. It is owing to this circumstance that the children of truly refined families are born with an ease, grace, and dignity of movement and mien which it is impossible for “self-made” persons to acquire in a lifetime, because they are not born with an inherited _talent_ for graceful movement.

ARM AND HAND

EVOLUTION AND SEXUAL DIFFERENCES

One of the redeeming features of what is ironically called “full-dress” is the opportunity it gives of admiring a woman’s shapely neck, shoulders, and arms—if she has such. No healthy woman of the well-to-do classes need have an ill-favoured arm if she has a sensible mother, who compels her from her childhood to exercise her muscles. The great preponderance of leathery, angular, bony arms at ballrooms shows, therefore, how shamefully the hygienic arts of personal adornment are neglected in our best society. The stifling heat which commonly prevails at social gatherings suggests the thought that many ladies are indifferent to the display of their bony arms on the grounds given in Sydney Smith’s exclamation: “Heat, ma’am! it was so dreadful here that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.”

A meagre, skinny arm is objectionable not only because it offends against all the conditions of Beauty—plump roundness, softness, fresh colour, smoothness, gradual tapering to the wrist—but because it is associated with the aspect of old age and disease; and again, because it suggests man’s lowly origin by its approximation to the appearance of the arms in our simian country cousins.

Man’s arm has become differentiated from the ape’s not only in the matter of greater muscular rotundity and smoothness, _i.e._ loss of hair, but also in regard to length. An ape’s arms are much longer than a white man’s, the negro’s being intermediate. Says Mr. Tylor: “In an upright position and reaching down with the middle finger, the gibbon can touch its foot, the orang its ankle, the chimpanzee its knee, while man only reaches partly down his thigh.... Negro soldiers standing at drill bring the middle finger-tip an inch or two nearer the knee than white men can do, and some have been even known to touch the knee-pan.” Taking this in connection with the fact that the arms of sailors, who use them constantly in climbing, are longer than those of soldiers, we may safely infer that man’s arms have gradually become shorter because he has ceased to climb trees; while the greater muscular rotundity, especially of the forearm, has been acquired through the varied activity and movements of the hand and fingers: a circumstance almost self-evident on physiological principles, and furthermore corroborated by the fact that negroes, unskilled in trades which call for manipulation of the separate fingers, again occupy an intermediate position. “Even in muscular negroes the arms are less rotund,” says Professor Carl Vogt; and, according to Van der Hœven, the skin between the fingers reaches up higher in the negro, which must impede activity.

The peculiar arrangement of the hair on man’s arm has been referred to by Wallace and Darwin as one of the countless signs arguing our descent from apelike ancestors. On the arm of man, as of most anthropoid apes, the hair “tends to converge from above and below to a point at the elbow.” Now it is known that the gorilla, as well as the orang, “sits in pelting rain with his hands over his head”; and Mr. Wallace, therefore, suggests that the present inclination of the hair on man’s arms is simply a survival of the time when his arboreal ancestors used to sit in that fashion, the hair having gradually assumed the direction which would most easily allow the rain to run off.

The evolution theory that the hair on the arm, as on the body in general, was lost through Sexual Selection, is corroborated by the fact that woman’s arm has made more progress toward complete smoothness than man’s, owing to the circumstance that man is in Sexual Selection more guided by æsthetic, woman by dynamic, considerations. Yet there can be no doubt that a hairy arm and hand are always ugly, in man as in woman, not only on account of their simian suggestiveness, but because they cover the smooth skin and its delicate tints, and, moreover, especially if black, are very apt to make the arm and hand look as if they needed a good scrubbing. Hair on the hand may sometimes be permanently removed by passing the hand quickly and repeatedly through a large flame—a much less painful process than the use of pincers.

The _muscular_ deviations from the lines of beauty are much more pardonable in a man’s arm than the hair, although it is evident that a professional athlete’s excessively muscular arm is æsthetically objectionable, however much it may be admired on other grounds. To feminine beauty, and the chances of inspiring Love, an arm which is so muscular as to obliterate the lines of beauty is absolutely fatal. Among the labouring classes there are many women whose arms are so hard and sinewy that the very bones to which they are attached have become heavy and masculine, so that it becomes difficult to tell a woman’s from a man’s skeleton, which ordinarily is very easy.

CALISTHENICS AND MASSAGE

It is, however, hardly necessary to refer to these facts as a warning to girls not to use their arms too much. The danger almost always lies the other way, and what girls need is a set of intelligent directions for securing a shapely arm. If the arm is too plump the method discussed in preceding pages for the general reduction of corpulence will also affect the arm. If too thin, which is much more frequently the case in young women, don’t be afraid that exercise will make them thinner—on the ground that hard labourers are commonly meagre. It is only _excessive_ exercise that produces leanness, by burning away all the fat. Moderate exercise develops the muscles—the plastic material of beauty—and stimulates the appetite, so that the fat-cushion under the skin also increases in depth, covering up the angular outlines of bones, muscles, and sinews.

It is a suggestive fact that the word calisthenics—"the art of promoting the health of the body by exercise"—comes from two Greek words meaning “beautiful” and “strength.”