Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-12-05

and men only said so out of natural gallan
try. The Philadelphia Record says
Humboldt was right on a great many
points concerning which his views were
secuted by the wise men of his day, and
perhaps he was equally correct in thus at
tribating superior physical beauty to men.
But since his time nobody has ventured to
urge or defend his theory, and it has natu-
rally fallen into disrepute. Besides, the
modern world really has no use for pretty
men,. as such. They may be counter
jumpers, and animated tailors' blocks, and
| infest the public promenades and places of
general resort but the present masculine
fashion favors the strong, square-built,
quick-witted and agile fellow who never
thinks for an instant whether he conforms
to the model of the Apollo Belvidere or
not.
With the softer sex the question of form
is quite another affair. The possibilities
OF dress have been developed to such an
extent that, within reasonable limitations
woman may take on pretty much what
ever outward shape seems best and most
becoming to her. While the creations of
the modlste have stimulated taste for the
beautiful, they have ministered also to the
love OF admiration and harmless instructive
vanity appertaining TO every feminine ma
ture. They have also created ideals of con-
tour that are decidedly at variance with
classical ideas of perfection and these de-
partures from the antique standard have
been TO many theorists and a few otherwise
sensible women source of profound dis
quiet. There has been, it is affirmed, de-
parture from the classic figure" that is as
disfiguring as it is repreheDsible; and in
many quarters are heard pleadings, more or
less cogent, for return to the lines of
beauty wrought by Phidias and Cleomenes
long before physical distortion became a
fashionable art.
| American maids and matrons have thus
been led to study the requirements and
measurements of the perfect female figure,
with results, if current draperies correctly
indicate, altogether distasteful to the elias
sicists who point with pride to the master
works of ancient sculptors as embodying
the beautiful in feminine contour 4
living counterpart of the Venus de
Medici would be less than 5 feet
in hight while wearing a No. %
corset and No. shoe. The Popular Sci
ence Monthly, in recent issue, descends
10 particulars, and affirms that to meet the
requirements of classic figure the proper
dimensions should be: Hight, feet Al
inches bust, 81 inches waist, "a inches
further improved upon by giving the
proportions of "queeDly" figure,
thus Hight, feet 5 inches; bust, 81
inches waist, 26l inches: over the hips IS
inches. These figures are interesting only
as they illustrate the vagaries and contor-
tons of the purely scientific mind when
laundering through the realm of taste 1t
will be difficult to persuade ladies of an in
quiring turn that the scientific constructor
of these assicproportions has not been en-
deavoring to perpetrate solemn joke upon
the select circle of literary females whom
he addresses. The "queenliness" of a tall
woman with hollow chest and an ex-
ceedingly thick waist is an attribute likely
to be discovered only by an observer whose
head is perpetually among the stars.
Many correspondents have of late been
requesting the Record to state what the
proportions of the perfect figure really
are. We do not know and if we did
the knowledge should remain CON
cealed, lest some of our readers, whose
dimensions may be beyond the cos.
tuners art, should suffer an inward pang
of regret and disappointment. Let it
be sufficient that for a true man the perfect
figure is that of the woman who loves him
best and in whose smile he finds perpetual
delight. There is no better criterion, after
all, whatever the classicists and pragmatic
model-makerS may say.