Part 14 (2/2)

The lastmentioned cla.s.s of women most frequently become meager, and lose their freshness during the continuance of these states.

If, however, during these states, suitable precautions and preservative cares be not employed, it is the first cla.s.s who most suffer from traces of maternity.

Conception, pregnancy, delivery, and suckling, being renewed more or less frequently during the second age, hasten debility in feeble and ill-const.i.tuted women; especially if misery or an improper mode of life increase the influence of these causes.

In the third age of woman, extending generally from forty to sixty, the physical form does not suddenly deteriorate; and, as has often been observed, ”when premature infirmities or misfortunes, the exercise of an unfavorable profession, or a wrong employment of life, have not hastened old age, women during the third age preserve many of the charms of the preceding one.”

At this period, in well-const.i.tuted women, the fat, being absorbed with less activity, is acc.u.mulated in the cellular tissue under the skin and elsewhere; and this effaces any wrinkles which might have begun to furrow the skin, rounds the outlines anew, and again restores an air of youth and freshness. Hence, this period is called ”the age of return.”

This plumpness, though juvenile lightness and freshness be wanting, sustains the forms, and sometimes confers a majestic air, which, in women otherwise favorably organized, still interests for a number of years.

The shape certainly is no longer so elegant; the articulations have less elasticity; the muscles are more feeble; the movements are less light; and in plump women we observe those broken motions, and in meager ones that stiffness, which mark the walk or the dance at that age.

At this period occurs a remarkable alteration in the organs of voice.

Women, therefore, to whom singing is a profession, ought to limit its exercise.

When women pa.s.s happily from the third to the fourth age, their const.i.tution, as every one must have observed, changes entirely; it becomes stronger: and nature abandons to individual life all the rest of existence.

Beauty, however, is no more; form and shape have disappeared; the plumpness which supported the reliefs has abandoned them; the sinkings and wrinkles are multiplied; the skin has lost its polish; color and freshness have fled for ever.

These injuries of time, it has been observed, commonly begin by the abdomen, which loses its polish and its firmness; the hemispheres of the bosom no longer sustain themselves; the clavicles project; the neck becomes meager; all the reliefs are effaced; all the forms are altered from roundness and softness to angularity and hardness.

That which, amid these ruins, still survives for a long time, is the entireness of the hair, the placidity or the fineness of the look, the air of sentiment, the amiable expression of the countenance, and, in women of elegant mind and great accomplishments, caressing manners and charming graces, which almost make us forget youth and beauty.

Finally, and especially in muscular or nervous women, the temperament changes, and the const.i.tution of woman approaches to that of man; the organs become rigid; and, in some unhappy cases, a beard protrudes.

Old age and decrepitude finally succeed.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE CAUSES OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN.

The crossing of races is often spoken of as a means of perfecting the form of man, and of developing beauty; and we are told that it is in this manner that the Persians have become a beautiful people, and that many tribes of Tartar origin have been improved, especially the Turks, who now present to us scarcely anything of the Mongol.

In these general and vague statements, however, the mere crossing of different races is always deemed sufficient; whereas, every improvement depends on the circ.u.mstance that the organization of the races subjected to this operation is duly suited to each other. It is in that way only, that we can explain the following facts stated by Moreau:--

In one of the great towns of the north of France, the women, half a century ago, were rather ugly than pretty; but a detachment of the guards being quartered there, and remaining during several years, the population changed in appearance, and, favored by this circ.u.mstance, the town is now indebted to strangers for the beauty of the most interesting portion of its inhabitants.

The monks of Citeaux exercised an influence no less remarkable upon the beauty of the inhabitants of the country around their monastery; and it may be stated, as the result of actual observation, that the young female-peasants of their neighborhood were much more beautiful than those of other cantons. And, adds this writer, ”there can be no doubt that the same effect occurred in the different places whither religious houses attracted foreign inmates, whom love and pleasure speedily united with the indigenous inhabitants!”

The other circ.u.mstances which contribute to female beauty, are, a mild climate, a fertile soil, a generous but temperate diet, a regular mode of life, favorable education, the guidance and suppression of pa.s.sions, easy manners, good moral, social, and political inst.i.tutions, and occupations which do not injure the beautiful proportions of the body.

Beauty, accordingly, is more especially to be found in certain countries.

Thus, as has often been observed, the sanguine temperament is that of the nations of the north; the phlegmatic is that of cold and moist countries; and the bilious is that of the greater part of the inhabitants of southern regions. Each of these has its degree and modification of beauty.

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