The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1879-02-20
STANDARDS OF BEAUTY.
The Various ideals Held by Dtmersas
Peoples.

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Peoples.
Harper Bazaar.
In spite of sill the arbitrary laws OF
beauty, formed on fixed equations, in
cry quarter of the globe and in every
phase OF history there seems to be dif-
ferent ideal of beauty. The Circsssian
races, who take the Greek type as their
model, with its slow and delicate curves,
its perfect lines and slender elegance,
have certainly something in their eye
very different from the African races,
who want bullying and bountiful flesh,
and mouths enlarged and enriched until
thev cover the countensnce with their
bone and golden ornaments.
While the Greeks preferred the
straight line fer the nose, broken only by
the swell of the;nostril, the Persisns
thought there was no beauty without
nose like hawks bill, and the African
and Polynesisn preferred one slit down
its whole length and perforated with
trinkets. Sir Joshua Reynolds declared
that the line of the nose to be beautiful
must be straight, and Sir Charles Bell
that the nostrils are vehicles of emo
tionsl expression but other authorities
differ, and while the French poets of to-
day find nothing more charming than
the nez retrousse, King Solomon long
ago expressed his idea of what a fine nose
should be in comparing it to the "tOwer
of Lebanon which looketh toward Da-
mascus."
The ancient Scythisns thought nobil-
ity and honor lay in high conical head;
the Germans, on the contrary, in a short
one; while various western Indians
think nothing but fat head, produced
by distortion in infancy, worthy OF no
tice. Yet science and sense have both
pronounced, independently of any opinion
as to appearances, that as the forehead
recedes anu the jaws advance, 80 does
the intellect recede, and that the balance
of mental power is found in those indis
viduals the upper and lower parts of the
outlines of whose face correspond with
some approach to equality, too much re-
cedure OF the chin bringing one as near
idiocy as TOO much recedure OF the fore
head.
There is IS much diversity, again,
about the ears, the Hindoos thinking that
true beauty can only be attained by Dor
ing the cartilage and imbedding in it
ring, every little while replaced by a
larger ring, until the size of the stretched
and mutilated member becomes some>
thing enormous while the Arab holds
precisely the opposite view-that
small ear is as infallible a mark of good
blood and birth as the arch of the instep
under which water flows without wetting
the foot; and every one knows how
Pauline Bonaparte's large ears gave her
more torment than her beauty did
pleasure.
The Turkish lady stains her teeth
black; the Frank re CARDS it as one of the
last woe that can befall her when time
and decay DO as much Tor hers. Certain
of the African savsges either file theirs
closely down or else into horrible and
fantastic shsues. Just as much differ
MOO. too. exA..s il relation 10 tha sccept-
Ell beauty of figure, for while the Frank
may lace 20 the isst catching ofthe breath
if incliaed to too much embOnpoint, or
such is her idea of grace and lOvenncss,
the lady who sspires to nigh plSce In
the Turkish sersglio stuffs herself till she
Is rolling in folds OF tat; and where the
Europeans admire the straight and SUI
perb posture OF the Apollo, certain savages
bend the limbs of their babies to make
them bandy-legged.
In fact, it would be hard to establish
any standard of beauty for the whole
world and call it fixed. For although
we can prove as satisfactorily to our
selves as the demonstration o, a geomet-
rical theorem the perfection of the Greek
idea, the barbarian could neither IN
derstand the demonstration nor accept
the theorem. Yet it remains that what
is held to be beauty by the most refined
and intellectual of the world must be
nearer the real article than anything
accepted by lower order Of beings.