New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1879-04-30
Standard 81 Beauty.

ES Il
In spite Of al the arbitrary laws Of
beauty, formed on fixed equations, in
every quarter Of the globe and in every
phase OF history there seems to be 8
different ideal Of beauty. The Circas-
sian races, who take the Greek type as
their model, with its slow and delicate
curves, ito 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 till they cover the coun-
tenance with their bone and golden
ornaments.
While the Greeks preferred the
straight line for the nose, broken only
by the swell Of the nostril. the Persian
noee like hawks bill, and the African
and Polynesian preferred one slit down
its whole length and perforated with
trinkets. Sir Joshua Reynolds de-
clared that the line Of the nose to be
beautiful must be straight, and Sir
Charles Bell that the nostrils are vehi-
cles of emotional expression; but other
authorities differ, and while the French
poets of to-day find nothing more
charming than the neg vetrousse, King
Solomon long ago expressed his idea Of
what fine nose should be in compar-
ing it to the .st0wer Of Lebanon which
loOketh toward Damascus"
The ancient Scythians thought mo-
bility and honor lay in q high conical
head; the Germans, on the contrary,
in short one; while various Western
Indians think nothing but q fiat head.
produced by distortion in infancy,
worthy of notice. Yet science and
sense have both pronounced, inde-
pendently of any opinion as to appear
ance, that as the forehead recedes and
the jaws advance, SO does the intellect
recede, and that the balance of men.
tai power is found in those individuals
the upper and lower parts of the out
lines of whose face correspond with
some approach to equality, too much
recedure of the chin bringing one as
near idiocy as too much recedure Of
the forehead.
There is as much diversity, again,
about the ears, the Hindoos thinking
that true beauty can only be attained
by boring the cartilage and Embedding
in it ring, every little while replaced
by larger ring, until the size of the
stretched and mutilated member be-
comes something enormous; while the
Arab holds precisely the opposite view
that q small ear is as infallible q
mark Of good blood and birth as the
arch of the instep un Ter which water
flows without wetting the foot; and
everyone knows how Pauline Bona
parties large ears gave her more tor.
ment than her beauty did pleasure
The Turkish lady stains her teeth
black; the Frank regards it as one of
the last woes that can befall her when
time and decay do as much for hers.
Certain of the African savages either
file theirs closely down, or else into
horrible and fantastic shapes. just as
much difference, too, exists in relation
to the accepted beauty of figure, for
while the Frank may lace to the last
catching Of the breath if inclined to too
much embonpoint, or such is her idea
of grace and loneliness, the lady who
aspires to high place in the Turkish
seraglio stuffs herself till she is rolling
IN 1OluS Ol 1at, anu Wler0 Tile Euro
peans admire the straight and superb
posture of the Apollo, certain sayages
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 of geo.
metrical theorem the perfection of the
Greek idea, the barbarian could neither
understand the demonstration nor ac-
cept 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
any thing accepted only by a lower or
der of beings. Harper's Bazar.