Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman

I. To begin as nature does, then, we find the trunks and stems of plants, which are near the ground, resembling most in character the inanimate bodies from among which they spring. They assume the simplest and most universal form in nature, the round one; but as growth is their great function, they extend in height and become cylindrical.

Even the branches, the twigs, and the tendrils, continue this elementary character; but it is in them, or in the stem when, like them, it is tender, that such elementary characters give way to the purposes of life, namely, growth and reproduction, and that we discover the new and additional characters of beauty which this class presents to us.

II. To render this matter plain, I must observe that the formation of rings, which unite in tubes, appears to be almost universally the material condition of growth and reproduction. Every new portion of these tubes, moreover, and every superadded ring, is less than that which preceded it.

It is from this that results the first characteristic of this second kind of beauty, namely, fineness or delicacy. Hence, Burke made the possession of a delicate frame, without any remarkable appearance of strength, his fifth condition in beauty; and he here erred only from that want of discrimination which led him to confound together all the conditions of beauty, and prevented his seeing that they belonged to different genera.

Now, as fine and delicate bodies, which are growing, will shoot in that direction where space, air, and light, can best be had, and as this, amid other twigs and tendrils, will greatly vary, so will their productions rarely continue long in the same straight line, but will, on the contrary, bend. Hence, the curved or bending form is the second characteristic of this kind of beauty.

It is worthy of remark, that, as the trunks, stems, twigs, and tendrils, of plants assume the simplest and most universal form in nature, the round one, so their more delicate parts have again the tendency to bend into a similar form.

In the young and feeble branches of plants, it is observed by Alison, that the bending form is “beautiful, when we perceive that it is the consequence of the delicacy of their texture, and of their being overpowered by the weight of the flower.... In the smaller and feebler tribe of flowers, as in the violet, the daisy, or the lily of the valley, the bending of the stem constitutes a very beautiful form, because we immediately perceive that it is the consequence of the weakness and delicacy of the flower.”

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1

Utopia, Book II., chap. viii.

2

I do not wish to be forced into any discussion of this last point. But, if necessary, I shall not decline it.

3

We fear that Mr. Walker’s analogical reasoning here is not very conclusive. To reason from a living to a dead subject may be very logical but it is not altogether satisfactory.

4

“The Magazine of The Fine Arts,” No. VI, for October 1833.

5

I am not here called upon to vindicate the errors and absurdities which poets and others introduced into mythology.

6

George IV., though the “first gentleman” in England, was guilty of cheating at a horserace.—Ed.

7

The above remark is true of the same class of females in this country.—Ed.

8

Appendix B.

9

Appendix C.

10

To the reader unaccustomed to inquiries of this kind, it may save trouble to peruse first the brief Summary of the contents of this important chapter, beginning in page 120.

11

Regularity expresses the similarity of parts considered as constituting a whole; and uniformity, the similarity of parts considered separately.

12

Regularity expresses the similarity of parts considered as constituting a whole; and uniformity, the similarity of parts considered separately.

13

Appendix D