University of Virginia Library

OF THE HUMAN FIGURE.

All the harmonic expressions are combined in the human figure. Observe the form of the head of man, which approaches to the spherical, the form, by way of excellence. I do not believe this configuration is common to it with that of any animal whatever. On its anterior part is traced the oval of the face, terminated by the triangle of the nose, and encompassed by the radiations of the hair. The head is supported by a neck of considerably less diameter than itself, which detaches it from the body by a concave part.

This slight sketch presents, at the first glance, the five harmonic terms of the elementary generation of forms. The hair exhibits lines; the nose the triangle; the head the sphere; the face the oval; and the void under the chin the parabola. The neck, which, like a column, sustains the head, exhibits, likewise, the very agreeable harmonic form of the cylinder, composed of the circular and quadrilateral.

These forms, however, are not traced in a stiff and geometrical manner, but imperceptibly run into each other, and mutually blend, as parts of the same whole. The hair does not fall in straight lines, but flowing ringlets, and harmonizes with the oval of the face; the triangle of the nose is neither acute, nor a right angle; but, by the undulatory swelling of the nostrils, presents a harmony with the heart form of the mouth, and, sloping towards the forehead, melts away into the cavities of the eyes. The spheroid of the head also amalgamates with the oval of the face. The same thing holds with respect to the other parts, as Nature employs, in their general combination, the roundings of the forehead, cheeks, chin, and neck, that is, portions of the most beautiful of the harmonic expressions, namely, the sphere.

There are, farther, proportions which form, with each other, pleasing harmonies and contrasts: as that of the forehead, which presents a quadrilateral form, in opposition to the triangle, composed of the eyes and mouth; and that of the ears, formed of very ingenious acoustic curves, not to be met with in the auditory organ of animals, because, in mere animals, the ear collects not, like that of man, all the modulations of speech.

But I must expatiate more at large on the charming forms assigned by Nature to the eyes and mouth, placed in the full blaze of evidence, as the two active organs of the soul. The mouth consists of two lips, the upper moulded into the shape of a heart, that form so lovely as to have become proverbial for its beauty; and the under rounded into a demi-cylindric segment. In the opening between the lips, we have a glimpse of the quadrilateral figure of the teeth, whose perpendicular and parallel lines contrast most agreeably with the round forms adjoining, and so much the more, as we have seen, that the first generative term being brought into union with the supremely excellent harmonic term, that is, the straight lines with the spherical form, the most harmonic of all contrasts results from it.

The same relations are to be found in the eyes, the forms of which combine still more the harmonic elementary expressions; as it was fit the chief of all the organs should do. They are two globes, fringed on the lids with eyelashes, radiating with divergent pencil strokes, which form with them a most delightful contrast, and present a striking consonance with the sun, after which they seem to have been modelled, having, like that orb, a spherical figure, encircled with divergent rays in the eyelashes; having a movement of self-rotation, and possessing the power, like him, of unveiling themselves in clouds by means of their lids.

The same elementary harmonies may be traced in the colours of the head, and in its forms; in the face we have the pure white exhibited in the teeth and eyes; then the shades of yellow, which dissolve into its carnation, as painters well know; after that the red, the eminently excellent colour, which glows on the lips and cheeks. You farther remark the blue of the veins, and sometimes that of the eyeballs; and finally, the black of the hair, which, by its opposition, gives relief to the colours of the face, as the vacuum of the neck detaches the forms of the head.

Observe, that Nature employs not, in decorating the human face, colours harshly opposed; but blends them, as she does the forms, softly and insensibly into each other. Thus, the white melts here into yellow, there into red. The blue of the veins has a greenish cast. The hair is rarely of a jet black; but brown, chestnut, flaxen, and in general of a colour into which a slight tint of the carnation enters, to prevent a

violently harsh opposition. She also employs spherical segments in forming the muscles which unite the organs, and particularly to distinguish these organs she makes use of red. She has accordingly extended a slight shade of it to the forehead, which is strengthened upon the cheeks, and applied pure and unmixed to the mouth, that organ of the heart, where it forms a most agreeable contrast with the whiteness of the teeth. The union of this colour with that harmonic form, is the most powerful consonance of beauty; and it is worthy of remark, that wherever the spherical forms swell, there the colour strengthens, except in the eyes.

As the eyes are the principal organs of the soul, they are destined to express all its emotions, which could not have been done with the harmonic red tint, for this would have given but one single expression. Nature, in order there to express the contrary passions, has united in the eye the most opposite of colours, the white of the orbit and the black of the iris, and sometimes of the ball, which form a very harsh opposition, when the globes of the eye are displayed in the full extent of their diameter; but by means of the eyelids, which man can contract or dilate at pleasure, he is enabled to give them the expression of all the passions, from love to fury.

Those eyes whose balls are blue are naturally the softest, because the opposition is then less harsh with the adjacent white; but they are terrible when animated with rage, from a moral contrast, which constrains us to consider those as the most formidable of all objects, that menace evil, after having encouraged us to expect good. Persons, therefore, thus distinguished, ought to be carefully on their guard against treachery to that character of benevolence bestowed on them by Nature; for blue eyes express, by their colour, something enchantingly celestial.

The movements of the muscles of the face would be difficult to describe, though it might be possible to explain their laws. They must of necessity be referred to the moral affections. Those of joy are horizontal, as if the soul, in the enjoyment of felicity, had a disposition to extend itself. Those of chagrin are perpendicular, as if, under the pressure of calamity, the mind was looking toward Heaven for refuge, or seeking it in the bosom of the earth. In the alterations of colours, and contractions of forms, we shall discover the

truth of the principle we have laid down, that the expression of pleasure is in the harmony of contraries, blending with each other in colours, forms, and motions; and that the expression of pain consists in the violence of their oppositions. The eyes alone have motions ineffable; under the influence of strong emotions, they are suffused with tears, and thus seem to have a farther analogy with the orb of day, who, in the season of tempests, shrouds himself in rainy distillations.

The principal organs of sense, four of which are placed in the head, have particular contrasts, which detach their spherical by means of radiated forms, and their shining colours by dusky tints. Thus the bright organ of vision is contrasted by the eyebrows; those of smell and taste by the mustaches; the organ of hearing, by that part of the hair called the favourite lock, which separates the ear from the face; and the face itself is distinguished from the rest of the head by the beard and hair.

The human body alone unites in itself the modulations and concerts, inexpressibly agreeable, of the five elementary forms, and the five primordial colours, without exhibiting anything of the harsh and rude oppositions perceptible in the brute creation; of it alone the first touch is perceptible, and may be seen completely; other animals being disguised under hair, feathers, or scales, which conceal their limbs, shape, and skin. Farther, it is the only form which, in its perpendicular attitude, displays all its positions and directions at once; for you can hardly perceive more of a quadruped, bird, or fish, than one half, in the horizontal position proper to them, because the upper part of their body conceals the under.

Man's progressive motion is subject to neither the shocks nor the tardiness of movements of most quadrupeds, nor to the rapidity of that of birds; but is the result of movements the most harmonic, as his figure is of forms and colours the most delightful.

The more that the consonances of the human figure are agreeable, the more disgusting are its dissonances. Hence, on the face of the earth, nothing is so beautiful as a handsome man, nothing so shocking as a very ugly one.

This farther suggests a reason why it will be for ever impossible for art to produce a perfect imitation of the human figure, from the difficulty of uniting in it all the harmonies; and from the still greater difficulty of effecting a complete

combination of those of a different nature. The exertions of painters and sculptors in general do them much honour; but they demonstrate the weakness of Art, which falls below Nature just in proportion as it aims at uniting more of her harmonies. Instead of blending them, as Nature herself does, Art can only place them in opposition. This proves that harmony results from the union of two contraries, and discord from their collision: and the more agreeable the harmonies of an object are, the more disgusting are its discordances. Hence the real origin of pleasure and dislike, in physics as in morals, and the reason why the same object so frequently excites affection and aversion.

Many interesting reflections remain to be made on the human figure, especially by connecting with it the moral sensations, which alone give expression to the features. The physical beauty of man is so striking, in the eyes even of the animal creation, that to it principally must be ascribed the empire he everywhere exercises over them. The feeble seek refuge under his protection; the most powerful tremble at sight of him. The lark will save herself amidst troops of men, when she perceives the bird of prey hovering over her; the stag, when run down by the hounds, appeals with sobs for relief, to the compassion of persons accidentally passing that way; the India-hens, under the impulse of love, throw themselves chuckling at the feet of the country people; and it is well known with what familiarity monkeys and fowls of all kinds approach travellers in the forests of India. But dangerous animals are seized with terror at the sight of man, unless driven from their natural bias by some pressing necessity. An elephant is led about in Asia by a little child; the African lion retires growling from the cabin of the Hottentot, and seeks for himself a kingdom untrodden by the foot of man; and the immense whale, amidst his native element, trembles and flees away before the puny bark of the Laplander. Thus is executed that all-potent law, which secured empire to man, though sunk in guilt and wretchedness: 'And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air; upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.' Gen. ix. 2.

It is remarkable, that through all Nature, there is no animal, plant, fossil, nor even globe, but what has its consonance

and contrast out of itself, man alone excepted. No one visible being enters into society with him but as his servant or slave.

We must, undoubtedly, reckon among the human proportions, that law so universal, so wonderful, which produces males and females in equal numbers. Did chance preside over the generations of the human race, as over our alliances, we should one year have an unmixed crop of male children, and another, a race entirely female. Some nations would consist wholly of men, others of women; but all over the globe, the two sexes are born, within the same space of time, equal in number. A consonance so regular demonstrates that a Providence watches over the affairs of mankind, notwithstanding the absurdity and disorder of human institutions. This is a standing testimony to the truth of our religion, which limits man to one woman in marriage, and by this conformity to natural laws, peculiar to itself, seems alone to have emanated from the AUTHOR of Nature. A religion therefore which permits or connives at a plurality of wives, must be erroneous.

Ah!how little acquainted are they with the laws of Nature, who, in the union of the two sexes, look for nothing farther than the pleasures of sense! They are only culling the flowers of life, without once tasting its fruit. The fair sex! this is the phrase of our men of pleasure; women are known to them under no other idea. But the sex is fair only to persons who have no other faculty but eyesight. It is, besides, to those who have a heart, the creative sex, which, at the peril of life, carries man for nine months in the womb; the cherishing sex, which suckles and tends him in infancy. It is the pious sex, which conducts him to the altar while yet a child, and teaches him to draw in, with the milk of the maternal breast, the love of a religion which the cruel policy of men would frequently render odious to him. It is the pacific sex, which sheds not the blood of a fellow creature; the sympathizing sex, which ministers to the sick, and handles without hurting them.

To no purpose does man pretend to boast of his power and strength; if his robust hands are able to subdue iron and brass, those of the woman, more dexterous and usefully employed, can spin into threads the flax and the fleeces of the sheep. The one encounters gloomy care with the maxims

of philosophy, the other banishes it by sportiveness and gayety. The one opposes to external evils the force of his reason; the other, far happier, eludes them by the mobility of hers. If the man sometimes considers it as his glory to bid defiance to danger in the field of battle, the woman triumphs, in calmly meeting dangers more inevitable, and frequently more cruel, on her bed, and under the banners of pleasure. Thus they have been created to support together the ills of life, and to form by their union the most powerful of consonances, and the sweetest of contrasts.

I am obliged by the plan of my work to refrain from pursuing my reflections on subjects so interesting as the marriage and beauty of man and woman. I must, however, hazard some farther observations, to induce others to dive into this rich mine.

All philosophers who have studied man are agreed, and with good reason, that he is the most wretched of all animals. Most of them have been sensible that an associate was necessary to him to relieve his burdens, and they have made his happiness in part to consist in friendship. This is an evident demonstration of human weakness and misery; for were man naturally strong, he would stand in no need of either associate or assistance.

When the ancients represented perfect friendship, it was always restricted to two; for man is frequently reduced to the necessity of deriving his felicity from the concurring interposition of many beings similar to himself. The principal reason for this restriction is deducible from the nature of the human heart, which from its very weakness is capable of attaching itself only to one object at once; and being compounded of opposite passions that maintain a perpetual counterpoise, is, in some sense, active and passive, and stands in need of loving and being beloved, of comforting and being comforted, of honouring and being honoured, and so on. These singular affections have ever been associated with virtuous and heroic actions; but when the union comprehended more persons than two, it was speedily dissolved by discord, or if permitted to subsist for any length of time, became famous only for the mischief which it brought on mankind.

If the heart of man admits of but a single object, what judgment shall we form of our modern friendships, embracing as they do, a multiplicity? Undoubtedly if a man has thirty

friends, he can bestow on each of them only the thirtieth part of his affection, and can receive in return no greater proportion of theirs. He must of necessity, therefore, deceive them, for no one is disposed to be a friend by fractions. But, if the truth may be told, such friendships are merely confederacies of ambition; relations interested and purely political, employed in practising mutual illusion, in the view of aggrandizing themselves at the expense of society, which would be productive of unspeakable mischief, were they more closely united and not counterbalanced by opposite confederacies. Almost all our general associations accordingly issue in intestine wars.

The AUTHOR of Nature has given to each of us, in our species, a natural friend, completely adapted to all the demands of human life, capable of supplying all the affections of the heart, and all the restlessness of temperament. He says, from the beginning of the world: 'It is not good that man should be alone: I will make him a help meet for him; —and the LORD GOD made woman, and brought her unto the man.' Woman pleases all our senses by her form and graces. She has in her Character every thing than can interest the heart of man at every stage of life. She merits, by the long and painful solicitudes she exercises over our infancy, our respect as a mother, and our gratitude as a nurse; afterward, as man advances to youth, she attracts all his love as a mistress; and in the maturity of manhood, all his tenderness as a wife, his confidence as a faithful steward, his protection, as being feeble; and even in old age she merits our highest consideration, as the source of posterity, and our intimacy, as a friend who has been our companion through life. Her gayety, nay, her very caprices, balance at all seasons the gravity and over-reflective constancy of man, and acquire reciprocally a preponderancy over him.

Thus the defects of one sex, and the excess of the other, are an exact mutual compensation. They are formed, if I may use the expression, to be grooved into each other, like the corresponding pieces of carpenter's-work, the prominent and retreating parts of which constitute a vessel fit to launch on the stormy ocean of life, and to attain additional strength from the very buffetings of the tempest. Had we not been

informed by a sacred tradition, that woman was extracted from the side of man; and though this great truth were not every day manifested, in the wonderful birth of the children of the two sexes in equal numbers, we should be speedily instructed in it by our wants. Man without the woman, and woman without the man, are imperfect beings in the order of Nature. But the greater the contrast in their characters, the more complete union there is in their harmonies. It is from their opposition in talents, tastes, and fortunes, that the most intense, the most durable affection is produced. Marriage is therefore the friendship of Nature, and the only real union which is not exposed, like those among men, to estrangement, rivalship, jealousies, and the changes time is effecting in our inclinations.

But wherefore are there so few happy marriages among us? I answer, because with us the sexes have divested themselves each of its proper nature, and assumed the other; because the women with us adopt the manners of men from education, and men the manners of women from habit. The women have been despoiled of the graces and talents peculiar to their sex, by the masters, sciences, customs, and occupations of men. There is no way left to bring both back to Nature, but to inspire them with a taste for religion. By religion I do not mean attachment to ceremonies of systems of theology, but the religion of the heart, pure, simple, unostentatious; such as it is so beautifully depicted in the Gospel.

Religion will restore to the two sexes not only their moral character, but physical beauty. It is not climate, aliment, bodily exercise, nor all these together, which form human beauty; it is the moral sentiment of virtue, which cannot subsist independently of religion. Aliment and exercise, no doubt, contribute greatly to the magnitude and the expansion of the body, but they have no influence on the beauty of the face, the true physiognomy of the soul. It is not uncommon to see persons tall and robust disgustingly ugly; with the stature of a giant, and the face of a monkey.

Beauty of face is to such a degree the expression of the harmonies of the soul, that, in every country, those classes of citizens who are obliged to live with others in a state of constraint, are sensibly the homeliest of society. The truth of this observation may be ascertained, particularly among the noblesse of many of our provinces, who live with each

other in the perpetual jealousy of rank, and with their neighbours of an inferior order in a state of unremitting hostility, for the maintenance of their prerogatives. The same thing does not hold good respecting the noblesse of some other of our provincial districts, and the nobility of other parts of Europe. These, living in good understanding among themselves and with their compatriots, are in general the handsomest men of their nation, because their social and benevolent spirit is not in a state of incessant constraint and anxiety.

To the same moral causes may be referred the beauty of the features of the Greek and Roman physiognomies, where we generally meet with models so exquisite in their statues and medallions. They were beautiful, because happy; they lived in cordial union with their equals, and in favour with the citizens at large. The descendants of those nations are far from exhibiting a resemblance to their ancestors, though the climate of their country is not in the smallest degree changed.

To render children beautiful, they must be made physically, but, above all, morally happy. You must prevent every possible occasion of vexation, not by kindling in their breasts dangerous and headstrong passions, but by teaching them to curb such as they have from Nature; and especially, by guarding against the communication of every thing unnatural, such as useless and irksome tasks, emulations, rivalships, and the like.

The ugliness of a child may be imputed to his nurse or preceptor. I have sometimes observed families singularly beautiful. On inquiring into the cause of this, I have found that they were happy; that the mothers had suckled their own children; that these had learned their occupations under the paternal roof, and been treated with tenderness; that their parents were fondly attached to each other; that they all lived together in a state of liberty and cordiality, which rendered them good, happy, and satisfied.

I have thence deduced, that we frequently make a false estimate of the happiness of human life. On seeing here a gardener with the port of a Roman emperor, and there a great lord with the mask of a slave, I imagined at first Nature had committed a mistake. But experience demonstrates, that the great lord in question, from his birth to his death, is placed in a series of positions, which permit him not to gratify his

own inclinations three times a year. He must do the will, first of his preceptors and masters; in more advanced life, that of his prince, of ministers of state, of his rivals, nay, frequently that of his enemies: thus he finds fetters innumerable in his very dignities. Our gardener passes his life without the slightest contradiction. Like the centurion in the gospel, he says to his servant, Come, and he cometh; and to another, Do this, and he doeth it. This demonstrates that Providence has assigned to our very passions a part widely different from that which society presents to them; for, in cases innumerable, the most unrelenting slavery is imposed with an accumulation of honours; and in the meanest of human conditions we frequently find the possession of the most unbounded empire.

Besides, persons disfigured by the corruptive impression of vicious education and habits, have it in their power to reform their looks; and to acquire a beauty altogether irresistible, by being internally good, gentle, compassionate, sensible, beneficent, and devout. These affections of a virtuous soul will impress on their features celestial characters, beautiful even in old age.

But to no purpose will a man attempt to decorate his countenance with the indications of good qualities to which his heart is a stranger. This false beauty produces an effect still more disgusting than the most decided ugliness: for when, attracted by an apparent goodness, we actually find dishonesty and perfidy, we are seized with horror, as when we find a serpent lurking on a bed of flowers. We are bound to aspire then after moral beauty, that its divine irradiations may be diffused over our features and actions. Though a prince himself may boast of birth, riches, credit, wit, the people to know him must look him in the face. They form their judgment entirely from the physiognomy: it is in every country the first, and frequently the last letter of recommendation.